December 26, 2011

Hot Chocolate Wars: Good Karma and Ants Pants Cafe

You win some, you lose some, right? To me, hot chocolate either falls somewhere on the scale of good-to-great, or it is just really bad. I've written about a bunch of spots that I like around Philadelphia for this "Hot Chocolate Wars" series, but here are two places you are better off drinking something else.

Ants Pants hot chocolate

I am a big fan of Australian-themed Ants Pants Cafe at 22nd & South for its bacon, egg and cheese croissant sandwiches. The sweet potato fries - which come with sour cream and a sweet chili sauce for dipping - and the hand-cut potato chip fries are also awesome. But when I ordered a hot chocolate recently, I was quite disappointed. It was totally watered down and, even worse, served in a hard plastic water cup that retained absolutely zero heat. If you've had better there, let me know because hopefully my experience wasn't the norm. Otherwise, lesson learned. I'll stick to tea and OJ with my breakfast sammie.


Good Karma Cafe at 22nd & Pine is always packed with studious-looking twenty somethings and has a good reputation as an ecologically and socially responsible business. It's also dog friendly and has a handful of outside seats for nicer weather. Bradd says the coffee is fine and I have personally enjoyed the muffins. Unfortunately I've tried the hot chocolate a couple times and it just doesn't measure up. Also watered down, it's neither hot nor chocolaty. Mixing it doesn't help either. Bummer for non-coffee drinkers because the cafe is so convenient to anyone in the Fitler Square and Graduate Hospital area.



Bonus pics of the fries and bacon, egg and cheese croissant sandwich from Ants Pants Cafe...

Croissant breakfast sandwich
Hand-cut potato chip fries
Sweet potato fries

Up next: Capogiro Italian Hot Chocolate



3 comments:

A and J said...

Now every time I see a sign for hot chocolate I think of you! OCF (18th and South)'s specials included a Nutella Hot Chocolate yesterday.

Anonymous said...

You are drinking the wrong drink at Ants Pants. You need to go back and try their Australian Chocolate drink- Iced Chocolate. It's amazing.

Kristy said...

A and J - haha love it. We walked by OCF last week and saw the Nutella sign too. MUST try it :-)

Anon - thanks for the tip on the iced chocolate. Think its better for warm weather? I'm all about hot drinks for now.