Black and Tan Onion Rings at Toothsome Chocolate Emporium

I was over the moon excited to try onion rings in such a neat place as Toothsome Chocolate Emporium near Universal Studios in Orlando, FL.  I was so pumped up that I didn't mind that it took 45 minutes to get a table on a Tuesday night and it took more than 15 minutes after I ordered to get these as appetizers.  They come with a "cocoa ranch dipping sauce," after all!

But, when they came I was disappointed in soooo many ways.   Firstly, for $11.00 I was expecting more than a gnarled up handful of what I recognized as pre-packaged standard issue bulk restaurant supply beer-battered onion rings.  I ::think:: there were probably five onion rings, but they were a hot mess of damaged broken circles so I couldn't quite tell.  The onion rings were un-artfully drizzled in what was probably Hershey's syrup.  The cocoa ranch by itself was literally the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted.  Just mix cocoa in with some cheap hidden valley bottled ranch.  Seriously Toothsome?  Have you ever tasted your own dip?

So, I moved on to just eating the crispy onion rings alone. Toothsome Chocolate Emporium wins the prize for the WORST ONION RINGS I have ever tasted.  I don't have anything against beer-battered onion rings, but they are a bit of a science because they require an exact hard crispiness level.  I couldn't even force myself to eat more than one.  The onions inside were incredibly tough, a total onion ring no-no.  I think the fact that the onion rings were smashed before they were fried allowed a LOT of grease to go inside the batter and overcook the onions.  Plus, the grease just stayed behind when they were served.

Dear Toothsome Chocolate Emporium, you are a pretty cool (albeit overpriced) restaurant, but you have disgraceful onion rings.  Here are my suggestions to change your onion ring ways and stay within your theme:
First, use a sweet batter on your onion rings.  Use the type of batter they fry everything in at the fair.  It's like funnel cake batter.  Or something as sweet as Sonic's onion ring breading.  Next, simplify the ingredients in your dipping sauce.  Of course, it has to have chocolate in it.  But, mix it with a sweetened sour cream or watered down cream cheese.  Beer battered onion rings are just TOO bitter and not the right contrast to use with cocoa!

As for the rest of the menu, stick closely to the desserts... and if you get a main dish, share it.  I would suggest splitting the southern fried chicken BLT, something very hard for them to mess up the flavors on that one!  Some of the other savory things are pretty nasty-especially anything served with sauce or Lyonnaise potatoes.