Dandelion Chocolate Factory and Cafe

Dandelion Chocolate has finally moved into its new building at 740 Valencia Street. Right now there's a limited retail section, but there will be a Cafe soon! Tea Time is looking forward to spending many happy hours slurping hot chocolate and eating pastries in this beautiful, new, convenient location. The factory is on the premises, so you can see chocolate bars being made and there won't be any delivery problems.

UPDATE:  The cafe is now open, serving several choices of hot chocolate, a shake made from the pulp of the cacao pod and scrumptious desserts made by their in-house pastry chef. Plus you can watch Dandelion  chocolate bars being made while lingering over your dessert. All the hot chocolate drinks are served with a mini-madeleine and the housemade marshmallows are self-service, next to the sugar cubes.

 

Don't ya'll worry, they've still got the coffee too.

Picture from the first visit, when it was quiet.

Angela's choice of  European Drinking Chocolate.

We couldn't resist this little brownie, topped with sweet, crispy rice to go with our chocolate drinks. We asked the proprietor if they'll be serving more hearty fare, but he said that since they are surrounded by amazing savory places (like Craftsman and Wolves, or Mission Cheese) up and down Valencia, that Dandelion will continue to excel in its niche of specialty chocolates. So it seems likely that the dessert menu will expand and/or change over time, and you'll know that if you just want to slip in to get a chocolate fix the best time to avoid a line is noontime. Angela can't wait to go and try their citrus-y 'green' cocoa drink. It's made from the unroasted cacao beans. She's tasted them once before, straight from the tree, at the Original Hawaiiian Chocolate Factory. So different from the roasted beans!

Brownie, ready for its close-up.

Self-serve marshmallows--they disappear quickly!

J.K.'s American hot chocolate

Angela bought a bag of roasted cocoa beans to take home

Display wall offering tastes of the three regional chocolates

Close-up of cacao pods on display and for sale!

Beans being sorted, bags and bags of beans behind them.

The whole chocolate making operation is visible.

Pastries are in a case next to the cashier, making them hard to resist

Chinese New Year Banquet at Great Eastern

I've been volunteering for the San Francisco Writers Conference since its inception in 2004. After the conference ended on February 17, Board Member Harvey Pawl took all the volunteers out for a magnificent Chinese New Year Banquet at Great Eastern restaurant on Jackson Street in Chinatown. 

When we arrived, the table was set up for everything. After we were seated, the soup bowls and rice bowls were removed, as we weren't having either of those. No egg rolls or other tourist food, either!

View from my place setting.

The dishes arrived one or two at a time, so our food didn't get cold before we could get to it.

Fried starchy appetizer with cabbage "salad" and plum sauce

Vegetable Chow Mein

Honey Walnut Shrimp and
Tofu With Mushrooms and Baby Bok Choy

Chow Fun With Vegetables

Spinach Sauteed With Garlic

And a whole fish for good luck in the coming year.
Our waiter de-boned it for us.

Chicken buried under multi-colored shrimp chips

Dessert was orange slices and fortune cookies. I didn't take pictures--you know what those look like.

Gung Hey Fat Choy!

Crown and Crumpet Cafe at the New People Center

Welcome back Crown and Crumpet! Tea Time has been waiting to add this notch to their blogging belt for a while now. For those in the know, Crown and Crumpet is remembered as a modern English tearoom that used to be located over in Ghirardelli Square (with bathrooms around the corner and down the alley). When that location closed they announced a move to Union Square. While that store is still in the works, for the meantime, you can take an Afternoon Tea Cafe break over in the Upper Fillmore/Japantown district! Their cafe is in the New People building on Post Street. There are loos both upstairs and downstairs from the cafe and they have some very interesting features. We're not going to get graphic here (except about the food) but be sure to check them out even if you don't need to use the facilities.

What more is there to say?

"Bottomless" teapot. Just ask for more water.

An inviting table waiting for YOU!

Water cooler with cucumbers, tea cozies below.

Little touches make afternoon tea an Adventure.

After your tea stop, take a look around the New People!

We each got an order of afternoon tea, but decided to share a large pot of Marie Antoinette, a delightfully light black tea with rose. Our 3 tier tray arrived laden with comestibles and we were hungry (of course) so we dug right in to our tea/lunch. Angela grabbed onto the sandwiches, which breaks our Tea Time tradition of scones first, but hey why not shake it up now and then? We'll break the tea tray down for ya the same way, bottom to top. First, sandwiches. The Crown and Crumpet afternoon tea gives you four sandwiches and this day they chose to serve a more traditional array of Chicken Salad, Ham and Cheese, Cucumber with cream cheese and mint, and an egg salad that J.K. liked in spite of her mayo aversion. The cucumber sammie was also a stand out with a very good ratio of cucumber to thick cream cheese. The middle plate features scones (one blueberry, one red berry) and warm crumpets with butter shimmering on them. We overheard that this is a new scone recipe and we give it thumbs up, a great choice with your own personal devon cream and/or red berry jam. The top tier is a plethora of desserts. Lemon bar, raspberry bar, white chocolate mini pie thing, plus mini cheesecake cups (one each of caramel and coffee/chocolate flavor). We could have spread the lemon bar on our scones instead of lemon curd, they were so full of tart sunshine. Of course we documented the whole she-bang, so take a peek at what we got to eat!

Traditional 3-tier tea tray

Four sandwiches each, with salad

L to R, Chicken Salad, Ham and cheese, cucumber, egg salad

Scones and crumpets, with jam and clotted cream

Scone sharing, it takes practice.

Desserts for two.

 JK took home desserts,  & Angela was gifted with the rest of the tea in a to-go cup.

If you got the chance to enjoy afternoon tea at C&C over in the square, you'll find the ambiance recreated here in Japantown at the Cafe Stop. Even though we said we wouldn't "get graphic" Tea Time can't resist tipping you off to the special features awaiting you after you've had your four pots of tea. So if you're ready to immerse yourself in culture, venture over to Crown and Crumpet in Japantown to dine in fine British style and then view some art in the New People galleries.

Update: Sparkling Party 4/2013

Tea Time is back again. Ready to enjoy C&C with a Sparkling Wine party. The corkage fee here is very reasonable, so we brought along two bottles of a red sparkling from the Chocolate Shop. (A light flavorful red with a chocolate nose and hit of cocoa at the end!) We do love a Tipsy Tea! This get together was a lot of fun. Mel reserved the table and the six of us had a merry time. Most of the food and desserts were different from our first visit, so it looks like Crown and Crumpet will have an evolving menu. They also have gluten free tea now! So ask, if you have dietary restrictions, when you make your reservation.

Yay, Tipsy Afternoon Tea!

J.K. got a berry blend for her tea. We tried quite a few flavors, but didn't photo them all. You can check out Mel's here.

We were almost hidden by the TOWERS of food.

The sandwiches and pastries of the day, the salmon disk was particularly tasty.

Berry Scone and buttery crumpet.

Desserts! Cheesecakes and more.

Wine and tipsy fun.

P.S.
About the potty...

Can you guess the special feature?

Death by Caramel Brownies

JK spotted this recipe a while back and it went in the "to do" file. Then we finally found an occasion to make them! Death by Caramel bars are mostly sugar. A lot of sugar! Stay away if you're worried about sugar, but if you have an event and want to impress your friends/co-workers/strangers bake these and take them. Tea Time took them along to lunch with the Bay Area Food Bloggers Meetup group, and they were a great success. We made a few minor substitutions/additions, so be assured you can use (or alter) the original recipe as well.

Start by lining your pan with aluminum foil. Grease the foil.

Chop your candy bars and gather your ingredients.

Measure your other ingredients so everything is at hand, then melt the butter and beat the eggs*

Mix the wet ingredients separately, then combine and stir until incorporated.

Add your chopped candy bars and chocolate chips <==Tea Time Addition

Spread the batter in the prepared pan

Pour the caramel (or Dulce de Leche) on top of the batter...

Swirl it through the batter.

Wanna know what we did differently? Well, Tea Time didn't get the chance to acquire/make the Dulche de Leche the recipe requires, so we grabbed some Chocolate Caramel for one batch of brownies and Sea Salted Caramel for the other. JK and Angela agree that it is imperative to keep the caramel away from the sides of the pan where it can burn. Yuck. So make sure to pool your caramel in the middle, in addition to choosing/making a Thick caramel that won't run to the bottom of your brownies. We also picked up a different candy bar, Milky Way Dark instead of a candy bar with nuts. For the next batch Angela will chop and then Freeze the candy bar before adding it to the mixture, in hopes of keeping more nougat in play as they will cook more slowly from frozen. We also added half a bag of chocolate chips, of course. Tea Time can't get enough Chocolate! This recipe was simple to put together and worth the effort. So grab a glass of milk and get baking. Plan to share these brownies and you'll get rave reviews as well as baked goods as your reward!

Whoa. Danger!! Wait until they're cool and then...

Turn them out,

Remove the foil,

Cut!

EAT!!

*If you're wondering about the "POM" in this picture, it's actually the container used by JK to hold her homemade Vanilla Extract.