Holidazzle dining: Bright lights, great eats

When it comes to snacking during this year's installment of the Target Holidazzle parade in downtown Minneapolis. I have two words for you: Chef Shack.

Co-owners Lisa Carlson and Carrie Summer are parking their restaurant-on-wheels at 5th St. and Nicollet Mall (in front of Neiman Marcus, a fitting location for the Neiman Marcus of street food) every Thursday through Sunday evening now through Dec. 20th. Frankly, once I started wolfing down one of the Shack's $3 turkey tacos -- a flour tortilla buried under juicy roast turkey and a vibrant habernaro-cabbage-onion-carrot slaw -- I completely forgot about the parade.

Thank goodness Summer was out on the sidewalk, woo-hoo-ing the folks marching by in their costumes, to bring me back to the present. She was carrying a cup of the Shack's hot chocolate, and while the frigid, blustery air was turning my bare hands into raw, insensate claws, each restorative sip of that cardamom- and nutmeg-infused elixer was doing its best to warm me up from the inside out. Who needs Thinsulate?

Chef Shack co-owner Carrie Summer, wearing the evening's second-best hat and holding a cup of the parade's best hot chocolate.

It's a seriously amazing hot chocolate. The top-flight Valrhona cocoa gives off an intense, seductive chocolate aura, and a dash of sea salt keeps the sweetness levels -- which all too often put a damper on the hot-chocolate experience -- to a minimum. No wonder they've moved as much as 20 gallons of the stuff within a half-hour period. It's that good.

Warmth in a cup: the Chef Shack's unbeatable hot chocolate.

Another reason to love: All that spicy, chocolate-ey goodness isn't overpowered by a dollop of whipped cream. I like a big-old dose of dairy along with the next Midwesterner, but sometimes it gets in the way of the chocolate. Oh, it's a great price too, just $2.

Chef Shack helper Katie Osborn, outfitted in the night's most eye-catching -- and most practical -- hat.

On the sweet side, Summer was doing warm brownie sundaes ($5), the brownies made with Valrhona's wickedly intense 70 percent cacoa and paired up with vanilla ice cream. The whole shebang finished with a glossy ganache also boasting that same superior French-made chocolate. A sundae, in 15-degree weather? Why not?

Naturally, Summer was doing her glorious mini-doughnuts, a paper bag stuffed with a dozen or so piping-hot lovelies glistening with sugar and scented with cardamom. They have a tender exterior crispness that gives way to a light, steamy cake interior, and they put other, far more ordinary mini-doughnuts (and there are several vendors down the street, one at 8th Street in front of the IDS Tower, the other at 11th Street at Peavey Plaza) to shame.

Chef Shack mini doughnuts, reason enough to take in the Target Holidazzle parade. Tonight.

The Shack isn't the only game braving the weather on the mall. On the other end of the Nicollet (at 11th St.), chef Vincent Francoual has set up a stand outside his eponymous restaurant, selling made-to-order crepes and hot dogs. The crepes -- ham and cheese, mushroom and spinach, Nutella, plain sugar, $4 and $5 -- are fine, but it's the hot dogs ($5) that really captured my attention.

Note the baguette, toasting away to the left of the hot dogs.

They're prepared in a cool contraption that Francoual imported from France. While the hot dogs (all-beef Hebrew Nationals, and so tasty) steam away inside a basket, baguettes (from the New French Bakery) are pierced on metal rods and are toasted from the inside out. The dog gets a swipe of spicy mustard, gets stuffed inside a hunk of that first-rate baguette and voila, perfect portable street food.

"We're calling them 'Frog Dogs,' said Vincent staffer Mark Beckwith with a laugh. So far, they're a huge hit. "We sold out on Saturday night," he said. I can see why. When I carried mine into the neighboring Caribou Coffee outlet, all three staffers working behind the counter asked, wide-eyed, where I had found such an entrancing dinner.

Caribou Coffee's fancy new hot chocolate.

I ducked inside to check out the chain's new hot chocolate drinks. They're a treat. Rather than resorting to a chocolate syrup sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, Caribou is making their hot chocolate the old-fashioned way, by stirring melted dark or milk chocolate (Guittard, which is pretty decent) into steamed milk. A thick crown of real whipped cream and a handful of tasty Guittard mini chocolate chips later, and you've got a fine, old-school example of the genre. Prices run $2.69 to $4.49 (with a thoughful kid's version for just $1.79). Another nice touch: the condiments table boasts shakers of round cinnamon, ground nutmeg and cocoa, perfect for a have-it-your-way flourish.

The scene outside La Belle Crepe.

I have to admit that I wasn't wild about the hot chocolate ($2) being hawked outside La Belle Crepe, between 8th St. and 9th St. in the Medical Arts Building. It was made with Swiss Miss, the powdered, made-with-water mix, a formula that yields a thin, weak-willed fake chocolate flavor. This version was slightly better, as owner Alain Lenne wisely doctors the concoction with cocoa and cream before cranking out the dreaded Reddi-wip.

But what do I know? The kids I saw slurping it down were loving it. This adult highly recommends a stand-up dinner in Lenne's tiny shop, where he turns out a half-dozen sweet and another half-dozen savory crepes (from orange marmalade-creme fraiche to smoked salmon with chevre and fennel, $2.50 to $6.99). Watching Lenne at work in the window of his shop, deftly cranking out crepes at two irons, is the mall's best street theater (well, next to the parade). The best news? Lenne has added a few indoor tables, inside the Medical Arts Building's stately lobby.