Chocolate at the Pen

I have reservations to go to Chocolate at the Pen at the Peninsula Hotel on Saturday night, the all-you-can-eat chocolate feast.

Wondering if anyone else out there has been to it and what they thought of it.....Is it really worth the $22?

Thanks.

going with a party of 20 this Friday night, I'll let you know

It's a nice thing to do, a lovely place to spend time with one's significant other, and we liked the band playing the night we were there this past summer, but we didn't find the chocolate all that great -- what you might expect at the hotel's wedding buffets (in fact, I'd bet that some of it is left over from the last wedding.) A great deal of what is offered consists of the same chocolate mousse piped into different packages -- a little shell here, a demi-napolean there, etc. My husband is a big chocolate lover and he was pretty disappointed. As I'm less of a chocolate devotee than he is, I was happy enough with the tiny creme brulees. So whether it's worth it depends on what you're going for -- if you're going solely for the desserts, you might be a letdown. You'd be better off spending the money on a good chocolate treat from a favorite restaurant (or two or three of them, I guess.) But if the chocolate is just part of the nice evening experience, then I'd say it's a reasonable expense.

KevinT wrote:Wondering if anyone else out there has been to it and what they thought of it.....Is it really worth the $22?

NO for the chocolate alone but the experience is a fun elegant time.

if you do go, watch the glasses of champagne, $21 a pop.

I'll elaborate later, I'm out the door for all today.

I agree that its a lovely thing to do for a visiting relative or friend. Unlike, others, I think if compared to a movie with gross cold popcorn or a full-fledged dinner out, its a great bargain. But, you won't have anything really cutting edge there.

The Pen is well known for that $21 glass of champagne. They did the same to my mother and myself at the $90 Christmas Buffet a few years ago.

Fool me once, shame on you...

Sweet Willie wrote:I'll elaborate later, I'm out the door for all today.

Since I was with Willie, I'll try to elaborate. We had a party that ended up at about 27 people. I found the service to be, well, nonexistant at best. We were a big party, they seemed to be annoyed that we had no intention of leaving until about 11:30, they tried to give Willie crap about about five of the participants that were arriving by plane and were supposed to show up around 9pm instead of our 8pm reservation, but trickled in between 9 and 10 because of the inclement weather. They didn't bother telling us that we could order chocolate ice cream from the kitchen as part of the deal. That kind of stuff.

In short, if I was paying for everybody, I'd have been royally ticked - and the lack of service ruled out me taking 10 people from work there later this fall.

About the food: the only thing that knocked me off my feet was the caramel tart. I had two of those near the end, and it was what I would imagine a marathon runner feels when they hit the wall at mile 21.... They were so good that I just had to stop right there.

The rest of the chocolate was good, not great. A couple of interesting items, a few standards. I've had better (non-chocolate) sweets at many Greek baby christenings. The drink selection was good but expensive. One tip - the ports are not on the dessert buffet menu but on the regular restaurant menu, and they were only about $2/each more than I'd find - I had a Ramos something or other for $10 that was very tasty and went well with the denser chocolate items. My bill for one buffet, one port, tax and tip was $48.

But the place definitely has ambiance. As an upscale place to take a significant other (or a potential one), it's a winner. A pretty good jazz combo playing in the corner (I'd try to sit at the other end of the place so you could still talk), a nice atmosphere, etc.