Adventures in the Land of Chocolate

The video above (skip to the 40-second mark) pretty much describes our visit to the chocolate bar at the Langham Hotel in Boston. We had seen a Travel Channel clip about this all-you-can-eat chocolate buffet and had been itching to try it when we go up to Massachusetts to visit family.

We got our chance a few weeks ago when we went North for Thanksgiving. We made reservations for the chocolate bar for us and Courtney's family a couple months before the trip and were giddy about it in the days leading up to the main event.

The Langham Hotel was as swanky as you would imagine an upscale hotel in Boston to be. Upon entering the hotel, we were greeted by a member of the staff, who guided us to the elevator leading up to the restaurant. One look at the buffet spread had us salivating. There were about eight to ten tables covered with platters of mini chocolate desserts, a big chocolate fountain for dipping, a cotton-candy station, and a crepe station.

Before getting to the food, I should mention that the service at the restaurant was terrific. The waitstaff was attentive and spent quite a bit of time trying to entertain our 1-year-old nephew, Nicholas. Our waiter made him an origami X-wing fighter, and later Santa Claus, who was on hand to provide post-Thanksgiving merriment, asked us if we wanted to him to sneak up behind Nicholas and pose for some surprise pictures. Nicholas turned out to be unimpressed with St. Nick as he was preoccupied at the time with the paper cone from his cotton candy, but still, it was a nice gesture.

Anyway, back to the main event. Wary of stuffing ourselves with too much chocolate too quickly, Courtney and I devised a gameplan: On each trip to the buffet, we would fill our plates with different items and split each item so that we would be able to sample a greater variety of items. Even with that strategy, however, we were only able to each put down about three plates each before being overcome by the avalanche of sweets.

By my estimate, we probably only tried about one-third to one-half of the multitude of desserts. I was doing pretty well until I inadvertently ate one of the gluten-free desserts, which was so dense that it really messed me up. After that, my chocolate-consumption capacity diminished quickly, though I did manage to stave off chocolate overload long enough to make it over to the crepe station.

You can see some of the selections we sampled in the pictures below. My favorite was the mini-tarts with chocolate, banana, and bacon. I thought it was an odd combination at first, but after a couple bites, I could tell that the combination definitely works (it didn't hurt that even the bacon was sweet). The little cups with the mango cream filling were outstanding as well. The crepes were ok, though I think they would have been better if they used fruit compote instead of pieces of fresh fruit, as the crepe fell apart once you started eating it. Still, that was a minor complaint in this wonderful land of chocolate.

(download)