In Search of Treasure, I Found Milk

Imagine yourself at the end of a perilous and arduous treasure hunt. The sun is turning the already clammy air into a hellish breeze, and insects and clawing plants cling to you like a famished predator intent on your murder. You have not seen loved ones in months, but it is alright, you tell yourself, because you have read the writings about a prized and rare treasure at the end of your journey. Thus you press onwards and onwards in search of your eventual oasis of wealth. You at last arrive at the spot marked on the map, and, lo and behold, you find only a most disappointing melange of spare change and fool's gold. I would forgive the treasure hunter for whatever violence might ensue. Unfortunately, I cannot do such things when greeted by mediocre hot chocolate.

The map-marked cafe of disappointment is Melt Confectionary Chocolate and Ice Cream, and the drink was the classic dark hot chocolate. What was described to me by one Google review as "so rich and truly dark" turned out to be "so steamed-milk-centric and truly average". Now I must be fair in acknowledging that such a misstep is not rare. It is tragically common: perfectly good chocolate drowned in a sea of fluffed, hardly flavourful milk to unnecessarily achieve a twelve-ounce serving size. It is difficult to label this drink as hot chocolate when so little of the primary ingredient was detectable. I'd rather it be described as slightly flavoured dairy. 

The chocolate, when detected with excessive concentration and closed eyes, actually had quite a promising flavour: it was neither acidic nor bitter but rather possessed in its nature a gentle, round cocoa flavour that would make for a very good drink if its concentration were higher. For this reason, I send this drink to Purgatory. It is not yet perfected, but it is not yet damned. Fixing its faults is so easy and so worthwhile. However, as it stands, this chocolate was not so special. I regret not visiting during the Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival; if the public forum is to be believed (this House will be the judge of that), the seasonal selection was actually quite exemplary.

I do acknowledge that the primary business of Melt Confectionary is their ice cream, which, by all accounts, is one of the Vancouver's finest. Perhaps their ice cream recipe has been perfected; the same must now be done for the hot chocolate.