I should not be allowed on the internet.

So I tried to buy chocolate on the internet a while ago, and this happened:

WorldWideChocolate.com is a terrifying place.  In a good way.

Slitti GranCacao 90% bar.  UliMana truffles (peppermint, nib, and dark).  Lake Champlain bars (80% and peppermint crunch).  Artisan du Chocolat Java 72% bar.  Domori Arriba 70% bar.  El Rey Gran Saman 70% bar.  Chocolat Bonnat Trinite 75% bar.  Patric In-NIB-itable bar.

The Lake Champlain bars were the least fancy, which actually made me like them a lot.  Chocolat Bonnat was unsurprisingly excellent.  They are often found in very large sizes with price tags outsized even for their weight.  It's worth it.  Everything was good, though.  Except my wallet and waistline.

Bottom Line: Be careful when making internet purchases.  It's not safe out there.

Lindt 90%, Theo 85%, Chocolove 77%, and Green and Black 70%

So I ate some chocolate bars and didn't take pictures.  Here are some quick thought:

Theo's 85% bar is disappointing.  I often find 85% bars disappointing, and I'm not sure why.  I think maybe they are just sweet enough that you don't get the Pure Chocolate Feeling of 90% but still bitter enough that the sweet taste feels a bit fruity?  Or in this case raisin-y?  Or maybe I just call everything I don't like either "fruity" or "raisiny" as a post-hoc explanation?  I'm not sure.  I think I'm still bitter that they discontinued their 91% special edition Venezuelan-origin bar, which was maybe the best bar I've ever had.  That said, I usually like Theo, so maybe just avoid this bar.

Green and Black's 70% was much better.  There was really nothing special about it, but it tasted like 70% chocolate, which, when you think about it, is something really damned special about it.  I'll eat that stuff all day.

I also had Lindt's 90% (for the 100th time since I reviewed it) and Chocolove's 77% (for the first time since I reviewed it), and my opinions were unchanged.

This is also a good time to talk a little bit about tempering and chocolate storage.  All these bars were purchased at bodegas.  Bodegas increasingly have a good selection of chocolate, but they do not do a good job of storing them.  As a result, they freeze or melt (as the season demands) and then reform "good as new."  But it's not good as new, and you can tell.  They lose their shine and their snap, and there is often white bloom all over them.  But worse is the texture problem.  You bite in, and they crumble in your mouth.  Or they are waxy.  In fact, the reason I went so long without eating a Green and Black bar was because I used to buy them in bodegas, and they were super waxy and gross.  This bodega had done a better job of storage, and the bar was leagues better.  In contrast, the Lindt bar's texture was all wrong -- Duane Reade's perfect air conditioning generally keeps the bars in much better shape than whichever bodega served me the bar more recently.

Bottom Line: Where you buy the bar of chocolate can be almost as important as which bar you buy.  Unfortunately, there's no good way to find out a shop's ability to store chocolate until you open the bar.  But once you do, it's important to keep track.

The Meadow Round 3: Claudio Corallo 100%, Slitti "GranCacao" 90%, French Broad 81%, Cacao "Love Bar Patanemo Straight Up" 75%

I went to the Meadow and purchased a lot of chocolate for Leila's birthday a while back, and I gave it to her.  Then I ate it.  Anyways, I'll let her tell you about that.

Between the time I gave it to her and the time I ate it, I was feeling pretty jealous, so I went right back to the Meadow and bought some chocolate for myself:

The Claudio Corallo 100% was nice.  It fit in with my not minding Peruvian fruitiness on 100% bars, because it masks the bitterness.  It didn't stand out too much, but I enjoyed it.

Similarly, the Slitti 90% had a good, chocolatey taste, but it didn't jump out at me among other 90% bars.  I think I prefer Lindt's 90% bar, which is cheaper and more readily available.  I still thoroughly enjoyed it.

The French Broad 81% was a real winner, though.  It used raw sugar thick-grained enough to make the whole bar taste stone ground.  Nice!  I'm definitely interested in trying a broader selection of their products.

I think the best of the bunch, though, might have been the "Love Bar Patanemo Straight Up," whatever that could possibly mean, by Atlanta-based chocolatier Cacao.  It was just one of those instant, perfectly chocolatey moments.  Then, like all good things, it was gone.

Bottom Line: The Meadow's still got it, and here are four good examples.

Rabot Estate 90%

Seriously, I do have the best friends:

Ok, so I am gonna be honest GBP 4 for a bar of chocolate is not shocking to me, even at only 35g.  Also, on some research, I think Rabot Estate is somehow related to British chocolatier Hotel Chocolat, but I don't really understand how.

Especially given how pretty it looked.  Here is what was in the package:

Sure, it looks beautiful, but how does it taste?

Let Rabot Estate answer that: "[m]ultilayered flavours soon reveal themselves -- dried fruits, roasted nuts and a hint of jasmine."

Let me answer that better:  It tastes delicious.  It has interesting flavor notes, but it is rich and chocolatey.  It makes you think without being overpoweringly fruity or citrusy.  It's not sharp.  It's complex and great.  And the flavor notes, I think, would make it palatable to someone who normally is more comfortable with something closer to 85% than to 90%.

Bottom Line: Thank you, Annie, for getting interesting, new chocolate from England, to Nairobi, to Chicago, to New York.

Dagoba Mint, Lindt 90%, and Vosges Bacon

So here is a pretty normal evening for me.  Go see a friend play some music, hang out afterwards, buy three bars of chocolate, go somewhere with some people, and finish the chocolate in like five minutes.  So recently I did that with these three bars:

So here is some useful advice for the serious chocolate lover in a bind.  My favorite chocolate bar that you can purchase at Duane Reade is the Lindt 90% bar.  

It's super high percentage but not bitter.  I'm sure they do something super unnatural to make it so mild, but I'm not complaining.  Whatever they do really brings out the chocolate flavor.

The other bar I found -- not at Duane Reade -- was the Dagoba Mint bar.  It was not bad, but we have reviewed so many excellent mint bars that it is hard to recommend this too strongly.  But if you are out of mint options and have a craving, you will not be disappointed.

I don't eat bacon, but my friends do.  I love Vosges, so I picked up their bacon bar for everyone else.  It was a pretty big hit

Bottom Line: I continue to survive in the face of adversity.

The Meadow Tasting #2: Dolceria Bonajuto 90%

The first two things to know about this bar are that it is 90% chocolate and that it is stone ground.  Right away, that makes the bar unique, to my knowledge.  The 90% content removes sweetness, and the stone grinding provides an unmistakable, powerful gritty texture.

The second thing to know is that this might be the best 90% bar currently on the market.  I (David) had been a huge fan of Theo's Venezuelan origin 91% bar, but they unfortunately discontinued it after its limited run.  It was replaced by an excellent but comparatively disappointing Colombian origin 91% bar, which itself seems to have been discontinued.  I have been somewhat despondent ever since, wandering the planet in search of replacement bar, and I think I found it here.

As Leila accurately points out, the bar is somewhat bitter on first bite.  I liked that more than she did.  But we both quite enjoyed how quickly you get used to it.  The gritty texture helped.  While the bar never got quite sweet enough (or should I say non-bitter enough) for Leila, it certainly became quite easily edible for a bar of such high percentage.  It had the perfect rich, chocolatey flavor without the sweetness that I find more distracting than Leila does.

Bottom Line: This may be my favorite chocolate bar on the market right now.  If you like high percentage and stone ground bars, do not hesitate in spending 100% of your money stocking up on these.