Jacques Torres's Chocolate Haven

Yesterday I did some Valentine's Day shopping at Jacques Torres's Chocolate Haven—my go-to spot for special occasion treats—and picked up this extravagant 25-piece heart-shaped box for my beautiful, wonderful, smart and funny daughters. I'm giving it to them tomorrow so they can eat it over this weekend when they're with me, so I'm not too worried that this post will ruin the surprise....

But isn't it beautiful!? Aren't you soooooooooooo jealous!!??

I've written about Chocolate Haven before, and Torres's amazing ice cream sandwiches, but I was reminded again yesterday how great this place is, and how clever Torres gets on the holidays, and how most of these special creations are so reasonably priced. I forgot to take pictures, but the many appealing gift ideas—all for well under ten dollars—include lip-shaped chocolate boxes filled with chocolate hearts and kisses (I gave these out last year); solid bars of dark or milk chocolate "engraved" with a big I [heart] U; and these adorable wafer-thin dark-chocolate hearts with three filled chocolates embedded into the top, wrapped in cellophane with little red bow. As always, there are also small bags of Torres's chocolate-covered cheerios, as well as chocolate-covered corn flakes, cocoa-dusted almonds, champagne truffles, a huge variety of reliably scrumptious filled-chocolates from which to build your own box, etc. etc.. And the store has a hot chocolate bar with (delicious) cookies and pastries, if you want to sit and warm up a bit before moving on to your next adventure.

There a Chocolate Haven in Dumbo, but the one I always go to is on the corner of King and Hudson Streets, one block south of Houston (and one block east of the #1 train stop).