Moonstruck Chocolate
526 NW 23rd, 542-3400
When I was 19, six friends and I crammed into my five-seat 1983 Toyota Corolla and drove from Portland to San Francisco in one day. Being the shortest one in the group, I got relegated to the hatchback, where I lay smashed between backpacks and Graphix bongs for about 15 hours.
It was fucking hot, I was carsick, and someone in the front smelled really bad. So you can imagine my relief when we pulled into a tiny town, albeit it full of hippies, outside of Mendicino County. We headed for the only deli in town, where we ordered blended, malted drinks: cold, creamy, iced. Mine was pumpkin. Nothing–not even a margarita–could ever hit the spot like that icy, smushy smoothie did.
The drinks at Moonstruck Chocolatier, however, run a close second. The chocolatiers have one store downtown, and opened one on NW 23rd a couple months ago. Their main focus includes French-looking pastries and valentine-type chocolates, but I recommend going directly for the list marked “flips, fizzes, and freezes.” All are variations on the standard milkshake, but far better because they blend in flavored Italian syrups, ice, soda water, milk, and ice cream. They’re super yummy due to the creative mix of flavors, but light, so you won’t leave feeling like you just ate a pound of butter.
The Brown Cow, for example, is blended vanilla ice cream, ice, and root beer, and it tastes a lot like those frozen root beer bars, except the root beer is way less fake-tasting and the ice cream a sweet, subtle complement. All the drinks which include chocolate are smashingly luscious because they use high-quality ganache which defines the drink; the cocoa makes it almost bitter instead of too sweet with corn syrup. The fizz, for example (my personal favorite), is made with blended ice cream, chocolate, ice, and Calistoga water, and tastes like a tartly-carbonated, creamy chocolate soda. These drinks taste simply divine–even when you haven’t been riding in the trunk of a car.