There's something deliciously old-school about the way a thin, chocolate-covered mint ushers diners through the brief liminal space that exists between dinner and after-dinner. It begins after the check arrives and there's a gradual change in the rhythm established during the meal: stories that have unspooled over the evening reach their end, along with the wine, and the conversation start-stops a bit as people reach for their wallets and adjust their weight away from the table.
This is when a chocolate-covered mint is best enjoyed — amid the flurry of finding jackets and mittens and calculating the tip — the milky, slightly saccharine surface giving way to a tingling chill that coats your tongue and the inside of your cheeks, momentarily blending with and then masking any lingering traces of dinner.
