"This one is going in my repetoire. I followed the directions almost exactly - made two small changes. First, I only sliced half of the mushrooms and added them in the early step as the recipe called for, then when I added the pearl onions I added the rest of the mushrooms, quartered (we like mushrooms and wanted to know they were in there). The other change was that I forgot to put the parsley in at the end.
We didn't notice the cocoa at all, but the sauce was very rich and had depth of flavor - I imagine the cocoa contributed to that.
It's yummy - first class stew!