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If you have ever craved pork dumplings, a turkey Ruben, and peppermint hot chocolate…all at the same time, then Chocolatea café is the dining destination for you. Located off West University Parkway, across the street from Johns Hopkins’ Homewood Field, Chocolatea offers a unique combination of Asian and American cuisine, supplemented by an impressive catalog of Teas, Coffees, and any other type of hot (or cold) beverage you could potentially imagine.
The décor and atmosphere of the café is evocative of a quintessential college coffee shop. Unframed paintings line the walls of the dimly lit café, which are alternately painted indigo and gold. The seating options range from rusted Patio furniture (trendy due to the fact that it’s located inside) to more typical tables framed by funky purple and green cushioned benches. There is even a small, elevated area boasting coffee tables and couches, perfect for anyone who wants to sit with a latte and a laptop.
Everything about the place is casual. The customers seat themselves and place their orders at the register at their leisure. Depending on whether you order a drink or an appetizer, your food is brought to your table in stages. Oddly enough, the staff tends not to differentiate between dinner and dessert and will serve the peanut butter hot chocolate you’ve just ordered right alongside your Odon Noodle Bowl. In keeping with the casual attitude, there is no dinner menu, just breakfast and lunch offerings, despite the fact that the café stays open till 9 p.m. on Weekdays and 7 p.m. and 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays respectively. As you might expect, the cuisine is similarly casual, ranging from Teriyaki Rice and Noodle Bowls to Sandwiches and Wraps.
When they opened Chocolatea three years ago, co-owners Oscar Lee and Jonathan Vong knew they wanted to serve sandwiches and wraps, but needed a way to differentiate themselves from other restaurants that served similar cuisine. Drawing inspiration from their Malaysian heritage, the pair decided to focus on the flavors of Southeast Asia, incorporating Malaysian, Japanese, and Thai cuisine into their menu.
“That’s what we’re trying to aim for, something different, something fun, something that nobody else has,” Lee notes. “Why would you want to come to the café if we serve something you could get at Subway or somewhere else? That’s what makes us unique.”
While one may assume the chefs at Chocolatea favor one type of cuisine over the other, to the café’s credit, both the Asian and American fair seems to be equally delectable. For instance, a favorite far eastern dish of mine is the Teriyaki Rice Bowl. The dish is comprised of thin slices of grilled chicken atop an array of grilled vegetables, drizzled with a light teriyaki sauce and served with brown rice. While the dish seems simple, it is both delicious and filling and its simplicity helps make it a healthier menu option. Not that there are many unhealthy options on Chocolatea’s menu, for the most part the café strives to maintain nutrition and balance among all of their dishes. Take the quintessentially American, and classically indulgent, Ruben. By replacing the typical corn beef with grilled turkey and serving the sandwich with a side salad, the café manages to transform (without losing any of the flavor) a classically guilty pleasure into a dish you can feel, maybe not great, but certainly good about ordering.
As far as beverages go, there is such a large variety that it would be hard to generalize Chocolatea’s offerings as either healthy or unhealthy. On one side of the spectrum are the teas—green teas, black teas, white teas, herbal teas, and oolong teas—more than 40 different types of tea. Unfortunately, I tend to favor more indulgent fair, so the few types of teas I have tried either involved milk or chocolate (or both). To that extent, the café’s Chai tea is superb; while it is certainly more exotic than the Starbucks version most may be used to it, it is a delicious blend of steamed milk and black tea, with a heavy dose of Indian spices.
Similarly, the green tea I’ve tried is actually considered a “Coco-latte.” According to the café’s website a “Coco-latte is 100% real melted chocolate infused with milk” to which “fresh fruits or spice is added to create the perfect cup of hot chocolate.” According to Lee, these are the café’s most popular beverage items. And how could they not be with combinations like Strawberry Nutella (dark chocolate/hazelnut/banana puree), Banana Split (dark chocolate/banana puree), and Peanut Butter Cup (milk chocolate/creamy peanut butter/marshmallow)?
“Everyone has their own favorite,” Lee says.
And how exactly do Lee and Vong come up with such creative combinations?
“That was just experimental stuff, not gonna lie,” Lee says. “Jonathan and I were just sitting around one day and trying to brainstorm what we could do that was fun and different. So we just started playing around, kind of like a bartending type thing. We kind of tried to think of alcoholic drinks, but that didn’t have alcohol, they had chocolate and syrup instead.”
The Coco-latte I tried, dubbed a White Matcha, consisted of melted white chocolate mixed with green tea powder. While I commend the café’s creativity, this drink just didn’t work for me. The mixture of light, herbal tea and heavy, creamy cocoa was awkward and slightly nauseating. Despite the Matcha miss, most of the Coco-lattes are absolutely delectable. My personal favorite is the Peppermint Candy, which, as you could have guessed, is a mix of dark chocolate and peppermint. A more classic combination than Green Tea and White Chocolate, the peppermint mixes beautifully with the dark chocolate, adding a whimsical zest to the heavy, mouthwatering cocoa.
For the most part it seems Chocolatea has succeeded in their goal of offering customers cuisine that is both different and delicious.
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