Mmmmm… Chocolate….

Thanks so much for all of the great birthday greetings, everybody!

Tim and I got to go out for a wonderful dinner with our friends Chris and Dana, thanks to the mad baby sitting skilz of our other friends Tim and Brooke (and 2 year-old Beck). Thanks, guys!

Anyway, we went to Pho Grand, which is a really good Vietnamese restaurant that is mind-bogglingly cheap. Bad wine. Good food. Excellent soup.

But I have to tell you about where we went after the restaurant. It’s this place in Lafayette Square called The Chocolate Bar. Now, I may just be out of touch with the “tragically hip” (as Tim calls them), but The Chocolate Bar instantly brought to mind a swanky watering hole that serves chocolate martinis and the like. Amazingly enough, it was a dessert and coffee place. The Chocolate Bar! Oh, I get it!

Then, like a total squib, I ordered a slice of apple crisp cheesecake. I know! What was I thinking?? At any other location, sure, but The Chocolate Bar? Luckily, Tim had hold of his senses and called for a slice of the “Ultimate Chocolate Torte.”

My only excuse is that I was temporarily insane.

As soon as you walk in the door, you are instantly enveloped by the smell of chocolate. Plus, it’s all warm and cozy inside, kind of like Grandma’s house when she’s cooking up chocolate fudge for the holidays (although my Grandma has never done this to my knowledge — stick with me here). My mind was boggled.

Not that the cheesecake was bad, or anything. It’s just that the torte was so good. It almost had the equivalent of a bar of chocolate on the top that I had to break through. When I took a bite, a veritable tidal wave of chocolate washed over me, soaking into every pore of my being.

It was transcendent.

It was one of those things that you wish you didn’t know existed –like hour-long massages, white russians, cashmere bathrobes and lop-eared bunny rabbits. Things that you know that you will never be able to enjoy as often as you would like because it’s too expensive/time-consuming/fattening/addictive/etc.

I felt like I was being really rude, because I could not pay attention to the conversation while I was eating this torte. But you know what? I didn’t care, because it was my birthday.

So there.

Man, it has been too long since I have had chocolate, huh?