Hong Kong Hot Chocolate

The great blizzard of 2010-2011 has missed us here in south China, but this is nonetheless the season for hot chocolate. The consensus, online and off, is that Sift in Hong Kong's Soho district is the best chocolate alchemist in the region. It took two treks up the slope leading from Queen's Road Central to the Peak on two separate trips to find my way inside (Sift is closed on Mondays), but I took a spot at the cosmopolitan dessert counter on Boxing Day, where I could watch the patissiers making sugary art while I browsed the dessert menu ("Sift Chocolate Cake: chocolate ganache, jivara, praline crunch, chocolate fudge cake," "Variation of Strawberries: strawberry eton mess, strawberry buttermilk shortcake, strawberry sorbet") and sipped my winter drink: Valrhona 72% chocolate (Araguani, I suppose), whole milk, homemade marshmallow charred around the edges with a kitchen blowtorch.