Sweet Masterpieces Coffee and Chocolate Bar

• Sweet Masterpieces website

• Location: Pearl district

• Price for beverage and snack for two: $8-$18

My friend Barbara and I helped out at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts exhibit, and decided to find a place to sip and talk afterwards. Sweet Masterpieces was just up the street, and we stopped in for a brownie, creme brulee and beverages. Half the shop is devoted to chocolatier-ey stuff–which we didn’t get around to–and the other half is a coffee bar.

I had a lime Italian soda, no cream, which was pretty good, along with creme brulee. Barbara had a brownie that she said was excellent, and a latte, which sounded like Portland-standard OK, nothing incredibly special. The creme brulee with cranberries was nice and crusty, looked great, but where I’d been expecting the tartness of cranberry it was instead very sweet, just a tad too sweet for my taste. Worth eating, though.

Whole thing cost about $8, so it’s a nice value, and the shop is one of those “settle in and chat” kinda places. I’ll definitely put it on my hangout list.

Update 4/18/08: Robyn and I went there for an after-dinner beverage last night, and this time investigated the chocolate side of the house. The chocoholic behind the counter was about as earnestly obsessed with the cacao bean as anyone I’ve ever met, and treated us to an oral dissertation on bean roasting levels (apparently they roast their own).

We tasted their chocolate–very dark, very fruity and not at all sweet–and reviewed the contents of a large display case. There were chocolates with a mango filling, cinnamon caramels, gogi-berry topped cocoa tartlets and gazillions of truffles.

I gotta admit my chocotaste pretty much culminates in a Cadbury milk with hazelnuts, which likely makes me a peasant in a real chocolate shop. And since I’m already obsessed with computers, Web, glass, sculpture, photography, neurophysiology, etymology and god knows what else, I don’t really need yet another expensive obsession. So I let Robyn do the chocolate buying. Hopefully I’ll get a report on her picks.