HotelChatter

The Food
Chocolate goodies are all over the room when guests walk into the Rise Bar, and your job is to snatch a glass of champagne and then go at it. Simply grab whatever strikes your fancy from a slowly-rotating "chocolate" (wood) carousel, a fun roller coaster display and a ferris wheel loaded with desserts.

Our advice? Go slowly. Our favorite desserts of the night were the extra dark Black Forest griotine Cake (made with TONS of cherry liqueur), the Dark Chocolate Cognac Truffles, Chocolate Coconut Bonbons, the Buttery Chocolate Streusel Napoleon and the warm, made-on-the-spot chocolate waffles (though you can skip the banana ice cream if you're not into that flavor). Our number one dessert of the evening was the "raider bar," which is like a giant Twix bar with three times the caramel and four times the flavor (it's chef Richard's fave too!)

The Cocktails
Three specialty dessert cocktails were being offered last night: a cotton candy martini, a caramel popcorn martini and chocolate martini. Natch, we tried a little bit of all three and all we have to say is this: beware of the cotton candy martini, people. The bartender makes a supersweet martini — and then dissolves a glass full of cotton candy right into it. Be careful.

Ten minutes later, we had to switch to vodka-soda to cut all the sweetness we were putting into our mouths all night.

Bottom Line
We loved the night to indulge, but to be honest, when it was all over, we just kind of wanted some salty bar food (and with any room in our tummies we would have found some). There are certainly other things you can spend $75.00 on, but for true, die-hard chocolate lovers, this may be a killer date night idea (or even a Valentine's Day surprise!) We recommend fasting all day to facilitate maximum consumption. For the super-curious, NewYorkology has the whole menu here

For $475 a night, you can even reserve the Chocolate Lovers Package, which comes complete with entry to the chocolate bar and a bed in which to pass out from your food coma.