This might be the best excuse yet to eat chocolate first thing in the morning. When you get your coffee at Mink A Chocolate Cafe (made in a Clover machine that grinds and brews coffee on demand), they slip you a wrapped square of 73 per cent chocolate. What can you do but eat it?

And should that not be quite enough chocolate once you've whet your appetite, there are 33 gourmet chocolate bars with ganache centres with fun and flirty flavours like Open In Case of Emergency (mint and bourbon); Mermaid's Choice (burnt caramel with fleur de sel and a hint of rosemary); Peace in Provence (lavender, Grand Marnier); Pas de Deux (Amaretto and Okanagan Dried Cherries); and Hot Chocolate (chipotle pepper).

I like the idea of chocolate "bars" over bon bons because they're nice and portable and can stand up to being carried (for emergencies) in one's purse. The shop does, however, carry five flavours of bon bons.

Mink has more than a coffee and chocolates. You can also get Belgian waffles, yogurt and fruit parfait, chocolate fondu and S'mores, which you make over a hibachi at the table (you roast marshmallows, dip in fondu, squish between graham wafer crackers).

"We've been making parfaits like crazy today," says owner Marc Lieberman. "Fridays are big for fondu." One mid-afternoon, he's tending to a room with men in suits, tourists, "high-tech kids with laptops eating chocolate bars" and women friends catching up.

Lieberman previously started a burrito shop called Steamrollers, which he sold to indulge in the sweeter side of life.

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AT A GLANCE

Mink a Chocolate Cafe

863 West Hastings

604-633-2451

www.minkchocolates.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2008