Pranzo

Pranzo is a restaurant with good table service in comfortable surroundings. There is choice of seating inside and outside the restaurant. Yahoo babelfish tells me that "Pranzo" is Italian for lunch.

The "mug" of hot chocolate is served in a bowl. The only other place your reviewer has found serving hot chocolate in a bowl is Blonde Coffee in Angaston. Pranzo is a bit closer for most people in Adelaide. The bowl has proper heat insulation for sensitive fingers and is a delightful way to drink hot chocolate.

The hot chocolate was presented well with a creamy froth and line of chocolate powder on top. The hot chocolate cost $3.70 and the taste was creamy and chocolaty.

Sidewalk Café

Castle Plaza is a suburban shopping centre in Edwardstown with a couple of good eating places. The Sidewalk Café is in the middle of the shopping centre and serves a range of cakes and coffees. The hot chocolate comes in an Aroma Fresh coffee cup and costs $3.50. It comes with two marshmallows. On this occasion the marshmallows were orange and yellow. Your reviewer has speculated on the flavour of the orange marshmallow previously. The yellow one was a banana flavour. The hot chocolate had a creamy froth and a liberal sprinkle of chocolate. The taste was reasonably rich but a bit artificial.

Café Piatto

Café Piatto is a casual Italian restaurant in Rundle Street serving pizza, pasta and a range of meals. For $3.80 you get a good hot chocolate with an interesting malt flavour to it.

It comes in a Vittoria coffee cup with a froth, a well executed semicircle of chocolate powder on top and one marshmallow.

Parisis

Parisis is a fine table service restaurant on King William Road, Hyde Park. Merkel and Myrtle attended there recently and had a look at the menu. Merkel was taken with a drink that was called the Allessandro. This was a hot chocolate with marshmallow flavoured froth and a semicircle of chocolate sprinkled on top. It was served with a piece of biscotti. The drink was fortified with Tia Maria. This was a creamy sweet drink. For a hot chocolate that cost $8.50 it came in a fairly unassuming glass. It was nice for a change but not as good as the Baileys hot chocolate at Spats.

Dolci, Iced Chocolate

Merkel returned to Dolci in the Mitcham shopping centre recently. This time he tried the Iced chocolate. The cost was $5.00 and it came topped with chocolate gelati and whipped cream. The gelati was very chocolaty. The drink was syrup and milk and it was a bit sweet and artificial, more like the taste of ice cream and topping than a serious iced chocolate.

Encounter in Caffe L'Incontro

L'Incontro takes up most of Gays Arcade which is a little offshoot of the Adelaide Arcade. It is a very Italian Café. It has a big fountain in the middle of it. It provides good table service and has plenty of seating in the shop itself and in the Arcade area.

The Café provided a standard hot chocolate and an Italian hot chocolate. Unfortunately Merkel did not check the menu before ordering, so settled for the standard one. The hot chocolate came in a Lavazza coffee cup with a delicious piece of biscotti. The hot chocolate had a creamy froth and a liberal sprinkling of chocolate powder on top. The drink was rich and flavoursome, possibly sweetened with vanilla. The standard hot chocolate was only $3.00 and the Italian hot chocolate was $3.70.

Merkel returned to try the Italian hot chocolate a couple of days later. It was on the menu as Cioccolata in Tazza which Yahoo Babelfish translates as "Chocolate in cup". It came unadorned with cream or froth. A piece of biscotti and a glass of water accompanied the drink. It was smooth and delicious and an excellent example of a thick Italian hot chocolate.

Ciao Coffee Bar

Adelaide Arcade is a picturesque shopping arcade between Rundle Mall and Grenfell Street. Ciao Cakes is shop 14 of the Arcade and Ciao Coffee Bar sits in the middle of the Arcade outside the cake shop. These shops seem unrelated to Ciao restaurant reviewed earlier. There is limited seating at the Coffee Bar and patrons have to be content to have shoppers rush by on either side.
The hot chocolate comes in a stylish tall glass with handle and costs $3.70. The drink is finished with plenty of froth and a liberal sprinkling of chocolate powder. There is plenty of chocolate flavour in the drink. I found the drink very hot and lacking in the creamy texture of a good hot chocolate.