Cafe Fleuri-The chocolate buffet - A Little Bit About a Lot of Things A Little Bit About a Lot of Things

April 11, 2011 Cafe Fleuri-The chocolate buffet

Our friends, Phil and Sara have birthdays about a week apart. We decided that this year we would take them to the chocolate buffet at the Langham hotel since they are both wild about chocolate. Not until we met them that morning did we find out that they had already been there this year-regardless, they were excited to go again.

The Langham hotel is located near Government Center-nestled in Post Office Square. The Cafe Fleuri offers its chocolate buffet on Saturdays from 11am-3pm from September to June. It was pretty crowded when we arrived just before noon. There is a main dining area (pictured above) -it was hard to take a photo because the other room is so bright-as well as seating near the actual buffet and seating across the escalator, where we sat.

The decor of the room is a little dated-which doesn’t match with the modern vibe they had going with the dj (DJ Kupah) in the corner-he was awesome by the way. For $40 per person, you can eat all the chocolate your heart desires. Every year they have a different theme, this year was chocolate through the senses, so sweet, salty, bitter etc. Above is the guy who was making hand made truffles. I asked him if he wanted to move into my place and hand make truffles for me every day.

There were so many people here-lots of parties (bridal showers and birthday parties), lots of children (those aged 5-12 are $28) and tons of tourists. So the question is, how do you prepare for the chocolate bar? Do you starve yourself the day before? or do you do what one of my other friends did-eat like mad to ‘expand your stomach’ so there is enough room for all that chocolate! We went with option #1.

There were trays of cakes and brownies, mousse cups and pies, a chocolate fountain and a crepe station.

They have nut free options as well as things that aren’t strictly chocolate-see the cannoli and the cheesecake above.

The truffles were my favorite-the fruit tart was a close second.

We had no idea what this one was….

You had a choice of a vanilla or chocolate crepe filled with fresh fruit or bananas foster.

Another excellent choice was the raspberry doughnut-not shown, we might still be craving them.

They also had an ice cream bar-chocolate or vanilla ice cream with a number of mix ins done a la cold stone-on a marble slab by hand. I had the vanilla ice cream with oreos and fresh whipped cream. YUM!!

And let’s not forget drinks-here is our dark chocolate martini (for an additional $9) or you could try a flight of all three drinks. I had a sip of Sara’s martini and it knocks your socks off-there was so much vodka in it!!

The service was ok-we had a minor incident-that has yet to be resolved or responded to. The waiter was ok-he was around clearing our plates but our water glasses spent too much time being empty. The kitchen was constantly sending out new platters of desserts-so nothing ever looked sparse at the buffet. The quality was good-everything was fresh and lines moved pretty quickly for those things that required preparation (crepes, ice cream, truffles).

Overall a good brunch-we had a really nice time. Happy Birthday Phil and Sara!!