Au Chat Bleu

The Chocolate said MeowWhen I set out to find the Paris location of Au Chat Bleu, a chocolatier I had visited in Lille last month, I did so with intentions of acquiring material for a premium gastronomic blog post. However shortly after arriving at the (closed) chocolate shop, I realized that I could not just write about a chocolate. Not I. Just one little chocolate. Where is the story? The dramatics? The raison d'etre? How many words, how many stringing adjectives could your impoverished patience handle on the subject of a small chocolate shop? A challenge of brevity is in order here, and I guilelessly accept.

Au Chat Bleu, locations Lille 3 rue des Manneliers, and Paris 85 bd Haussmann. There is a third, but as I do not know where or what Quimper is, it interests me not. Why is this chocolatier more deserving of attention than the 300 other chocolatiers? I will enlighten you--logo: quite adorable, Jam in the window: a symbol of perspicacity, stripes: sailor is always a good look--if you are privy to my closet then you already know my sentiment on this issue, labels denoting chocolate's origin: a symbol of modesty and truth, syrups as well as the jam: an appreciation for the noble art of canning, blue: my eyes are blue. There you have the virtues of the Chocolatier Au Touquet--I will save you the Wikipedia visit and tell you Toquet is a hoity-toity beach town in the Nord Pas-de-Calais region, where, I beleive, the first Au Chat Bleu chocolatier appeared in 1912. Not a hershey bar, not a belgian bonbon in a box, but a chocolate and a blue cat. What, in all of humanity, could be more deserving of promising and deep heartfelt sensitive prose? If you even utter the beginning consonant of the word kabob I will mar you where you sleep.

Hand made, imported and labeled for their origins (primarily from Latin America and Africa)--the many truffles, clusters, and bars rape you at gruesomely bitter prices, but who could expect otherwise. Laundry or chocolate. Formulate a scheme. It is worth, always, to pay for quality, even if the quantity is the inverse of abundant. The one, dark swirling sample a 2.60euro proffered was unlike any cocoa eperience--the chocolate lady, I muse, oh how she would blissfully descend into one of her many erotic and exotic chocolate fantasies, with her Aztec stories of not-truths if only presented once, just once with a trifle of this caliber.

Chocolat. Chocolat. Chocolat. Perhaps with pineapple. Though if indeed with pineapple, then I insist it only be eaten on the roof and in the coming dusk. For now I can think of no other way. Now that is done. Finito. Go and get the cocoa bean my friend. Was that then brief?

A bientôt