Cocoa Flora
6110 Alameda Blvd NE Albuquerque, NM 87113
505-317-7249
Hours:
Monday – Sunday 11:00 am – 8:00 pm
Website: www.cocoafloranm.com
Tin Can Alley is a new location that has a food hall feel with local businesses and even Santa Fe Brewing Co. has a spot here. It’s an interesting concept that is right off the highway and was brand new, opening it’s doors May 2020. There businesses are housed in a building that has multiple roof top patios, windows everywhere, and 2 stories with the majority of the restaurants on the first floor set up like a food court. Upstairs was what we came for, well it’s what I came for. Cocoa Flora. I was sold with the meat and cheese plates, but they had so much more.
The cute little shop offered service at the bar, or you could go out to one of the rooftop patios, or even some of the open seating on the second level. It was super cute and had a lot to offer. We walked around and noticed the walls had framed contributors on the wall. We learned the owner traveled around and found different small business that she would feature their chocolates, jellies, meats, marshmallows, and so much more with their large menu of small bites. It’s set up so you can create a meal of small plates, which is something I absolutely love.
The menu was very unique. It had so many options. It truly was a build your own meal or a chance to have a snack. I’m not going to go into all of the options, because truly, there was so many. But what we chose to do was a Cheese and Salumi Platter and the Someone S’mores Party, with the table-top fire add on.
For the Cheese and Salumi Platter, you choose 2 jams, 3 cheeses, and 2 meats. They were out of quite a bit of their choices, but we selected the new banana jam that’s not listed, and the cherry chai. The cheese they selected for us was a hard cheese, a softer cheese, and a brie. We selected the classic with ginger and garlic and the mole with cocoa for our Salumi. Salumi, from what our waitress told us, was vegan fed pigs. The plate also came with olives, mustard, crackers, and sourdough bread.
Those jams. They were amazing. The mole Salumi was unlike any other cured meat I’ve had before, absolutely worth a try. That mustard though… I need to go back and pick some of that up and those jams for home. Overall, it was a unique and delicious meat and cheese plate. Absolutely worth a try.
Up next was the s’mores party.
We received a choice of marshmallows and we chose original and espresso flavored. The espresso was subtle, but was brought out more once you roasted it over the table top fire. The platter also came with a drinking chocolate. I am a HUGE fan of drinking chocolates. This one was very rich and had a bit of spice that hung in the back of the throat. We added on a salted caramel spread to put onto our s’mores. The graham cracker wasn’t sweet but more of a traditional graham cracker. There wasn’t any actual chocolate on the s’mores, which to me was greatly missed. Next time we may need to add something else from the additives to get the s’mores to be more complete. It was very fun and very messy. We had people who were checking out the stores and we were asked several times about taking a picture of the s’mores party. It was quite unique and you don’t see that kind of a set up every day.
Overall, this new shop was super cute and had so much to offer. We’ll definitely be back to try out their chocolates and other customizable flights and platters. This could take several trips to experience the entire menu, but so far it has made an impression.
