2058 Broadway (between 70th and 71st)
This new Upper West Side outpost of the shop previously named "The Best Chocolate Cake in the World", makes a new and much more demure promise of "Cake, Coffee and Conversation".
It's definitely a step in the right direction; the shop looks enticingly warm and elegant and the window display of cakes beckons you to step in for a comforting bite of chocolate-laden decadence.
Unable to resist the summoning of the pastries, I walked into Choco Bolo and proceeded to ask what every single pastry was, as there were no signs or descriptions. I settled on 2 of the pastel de nata (Portuguese egg custard pastry) and the house chocolate cake, which I believe was the self-proclaimed "Best Chocolate Cake in the World".
Being a new location with seemingly inexperienced staff, the woman who put together my order proceeded to drop my box of delicate pastries on the ground. She picked it up and triumphantly announced that it had fallen right side up, and handed it to me as I begrudgingly paid $11.66 for a box of damaged (albeit likely delicious) goods.
Notice in the picture above that the right side of the chocolate cake has a blurry chunk falling off the side. I felt as if I had captured that moment when an ice cap breaks off from its glacier and floats off to join its fellow broken pieces on the waves of the neglected sea. I was not particularly happy about my broken cake, as it actually had shattered from its impact with the ground because the cake is made not from your traditional spongy flour/butter/sugar/eggs combination but from light and crisp meringue, chocolate mousse and chocolate ganache. The cake is definitely a departure from your typical expectation of a "chocolate cake", which is why I believe there was such backlash on the previous name of the store. And I have to admit that I succumbed to the power of expectations, as my hope for warm, moist, soft chocolate cake was met with crunchy, achingly-sweet, chunks of chocolate meringue.
But, I will return to Choco Bolo without hesitation. Why? The pastéis de nata. Strikingly similar to Chinese egg custard tarts (蛋撻), pastéis de nata contain a dense, sweet egg custard surrounded by a light, flaky and distinctly European shell. I put them in my toaster at home for a few minutes, devoured every last crumb and did not enjoy sharing with my husband.
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