Hot Chocolate (Wicker Park)

Holy mother of the god of food. I have little words to express my new-found love/passion/obsession for Wicker Park's Hot Chocolate. What I felt when I ate food from there is more of a feeling; a state of mind, if you will. It's a place where milk never goes bad, where people call instead of text, where puppies never turn into adult dogs, and where wedgies don't exist.

Lamb and scalloped potate bake

The establishment has the yummy food category down pat with part restaurant, part dessert bar. You have to be seriously committed to serving up choice dessert if it's in your main title. I wish I would have had room for dessert, but alas, it must be reserved for another day.

I ordered the lamb and scalloped potato bake: Black Earth Farms' lamb sausage, scalloped potatoes, spring peas, fava beans with a poached farm egg. My first bite sent me into a euphoric world. I closed my eyes and forgot where I was for a second. I get kind of mad at food when it's so delicious. It's more of a disbelief that what I am eating has been created simply for us to enjoy. I could not waste any of it and devoured the dish, weird food noises and all.

1747 N. Damen Avenue

My brunch date got brioche french toast with sliced bananas, malted whipped cream, maple syrup, Three Sister's toasted pecans, and house-made sausage. I don't know what Three Sister's is, but I'm glad it was three instead of one. And, come on, malted whipped cream? How? How??? Incredible. It was stellar.

The only bad thing that came out of Hot Chocolate is that now brunch is ruined. Brunch is broken because nothing else has been able to compare to Hot Chocolate. I also got reamed out by my older brother for not getting any hot chocolate to drink. Even more reason for me to return.

Note: They are closed on Mondays.