Baci Perugina Double Layer Candy Bar

You probably know Perugina from their famous Baci chocolate hazelnut-filled "kisses":



But they now have a NEW product, called a Baci double layer candy bar, and they sent us a few bars to try because they are awesome. So this package showed up in the mail:



What is inside the package? These things!



And what is inside that wrapping? This!



As you may have predicted from the name "double layer candy bar," these bars have, ahem, two layers. In the dark chocolate bars, one layer is dark chocolate, the other is hazelnut chocolate, and in the middle are actual hazelnuts. The milk chocolate bars are the same, only with a milk chocolate layer in place of the hazelnut layer.



The hazelnuts added a great textural element, making this extremely edible. I went through a bar much faster than I'd anticipated. It is very much for candy lovers: the chocolate is sweet and straightforward. Even the dark chocolate bars are only 51%, and they're counterbalanced by the gianduia layer, making this a bar that's much better for the milk chocolate fan than for someone looking for an intense dark chocolate flavor. I could see this going over big with the Toblerone crowd.

BOTTOM LINE: A classy candy bar perfect for fans of sweet chocolate, and of chocolate with pieces of hazelnut in it.

Grand Hyatt New York chocolates

Last week Grand Hyatt New York launched their own artisanal chocolate line, and we were lucky enough to get invited to the launch party! Their executive pastry chef Gonzalo Jimenez is the chocolatier, and he's making all the chocolates by hand, in small batches, using his one tempering machine.

Here's the chef himself:

Let's get a close-up on that sculpture next to him. What is that thing?

Oh, of course, it's a sculpture made entirely of chocolate. This is actually Gonzalo Jimenez's thing, and he has even competed in chocolate sculpture competitions. We asked him if it was stressful to carry those things around. He emphatically said yes. We asked if he'd ever dropped one. He even more emphatically said yes. This is one reason why I am not a chocolate sculptor.

This was a lovely event and we got to meet many like-minded chocolate fans. The Hyatt kindly also had a table that served non-chocolate foods, like in case someone somehow got tired of eating the amazing chocolates. Here is what that area of the room looked like:

Please compare that view with this hubbub of action near the chocolate table:

Okay, enough with the people-watching. Let's look at the rest of the collection.

There was delicious bark and bars in dark, milk, and white chocolate, all of which are made out of Valrhona. But the star of the line is clearly the bon bons.

The bon bons come in five flavors: passion fruit, citrus, nutella and truffle, coffee, and dulce de leche. I probably ate two of each one. My favorite to eat was the nutella and truffle; I loved how the filling came oozing out. I don't know which flavor is the most pleasing to the eye, though.

For now the bars and bon bons are sold only at the Grand Hyatt New York's Market, since this is just a one-man operation. Incidentally, in looking up the link for the Market, I learned that it's open 24 hours a day.

BOTTOM LINE: When delicious, handcrafted bon bons are available 24 hours a day, you have no excuse not to eat them.

2 Beans again: featuring Pacari 85%, Aeschbach "Special" 80%, SPAGnVOLA 70%, Aesbach "Amer" 60%, Venchi 56%, Domori Javagrey milk chocolate, and Aeschbach Hazelnut

It was a friend's birthday, which seemed like a good excuse to go nuts at 2 Beans.  Hint: Anything is a good excuse to go nuts at 2 Beans.

So this is a lot of chocolate, and all of it was good.  I didn't try the Domori Javagrey milk bar or the Aeschbach hazelnut bar, but they were probably great, because those companies are great.

Of the other five bars, the lowest percentage was actually my favorite.  But that's not really fair -- the Vench 56% has long been my favorite low-percentage (under 60%) dark chocolate bar on the market.

Other than the Venchi, the two Aeschbach bars were expectedly amazing.  I especially liked the less fancy, 80% bar, though I am not sure if it is due to the less-fanciness or due to the higher percentage.

The SPAGnVOLA bar, though, was surprisingly excellent.  I had never heard of the company before, and they stacked up well with Aeschbach, which were one of my favorite companies from Zurich.  Pacari was bringing up the rear this time, likely because it was slightly fruitier than the others, but all four bars come recommended.

Bottom Line: Sometimes you hit the jackpot.  Most of those times are at 2 Beans.

2 Beans: featuring Domori 100% Criollo, Domori Biancomenta, Domoro Velvet Cremini, Mitzi Blue 80%+90%, and Konnerup & Co. 70% Peppermint

So after the Ghiradelli tasting, Leila and I had only one thing on our minds: more chocolate.  So we went to 2 Beans, where we purchased about 100 chocolate bars:

2 Beans is a phenomenal place, by the way. They have gelato and a coffee bar and just shelf after shelf of brand after brand of chocolate bars, including many of our favorites that are usually hard to find, and including some that we had never even heard of before. That is why we had to buy so many.

Take a look at what goes on inside this store:

I mean, SERIOUSLY:

We started with the Mitzi Blue bar.  It was a large disc of 80% chocolate with caramalized chili nibs, and with a smaller disc of 90% chocolate embedded:

It was good, but the smaller disc seemed a bit unnecessary.  Leila and I are also not the biggest fans of spice, but I guess this one was really on us, since we bought the bar with the chili nibs.

We also got some Domori "velvet cremini."  I am still not sure exactly what they are, but they are soft and chocolatey and creamy and sweet and delicious.

The above is white chocolate, somehow.  Mint white chocolate.  I actually liked it, but obviously Leila did not.  She has no patience for that.  But if you like white chocolate and mint, the Domori bar is highly recommended.

Similarly the Domori 100% bar was great for what it was.  It was bitter, even for 100% bars, so Leila was not down, but I gobbled it up.

I think our consensus favorite, aside from the Cremini, was the Konnerup & Co. peppermint bar.  It was chocolatey and refreshing, and can go along with the many, many other delicious peppermint-dark chocolate bars out there.

Bottom Line: The real bottom line here is that 2 Beans is incredible.  Aside from the Meadow, which is geographically very far away, it has the best chocolate selection in NYC.  Truly global in its reach, with excellent taste.

Physical Graffitea Florentine Iced Tea

I had this chocolate-hazelnut tea at Physical Graffitea on St. Mark's:

It may not have been quite chocolatey enough, but it was cool and delicious.  Definitely recommended.

Bottom Line: It is hot out, and this can help.

Epicerie Boulud Flourless Chocolate Cookies

Angel brought me some cookies from Epicerie Boulud, which is, as far as I can tell, not an epicerie at all, but rather a bakery.  That said, "flourless chocolate cookies" sounds up my alley.

The cookies, though, weren't for me.  They look fudgey, but they are actually too crispy, and they have bits of hazelnut in them.  The real problem is that Epicerie Boulud is so close to Levain that there is really no reason to go there for cookies.  There are plenty of reasons to go to Epicerie Boulud -- it's a very good bakery -- but if you are in a cookie mood, take the walk to Levain.

Bottom Line: Didn't get anything quite right with this item.

Baked Hazelnut Chocolate Pudding? at Cornelia Street Cafe

What the heck is this and why is it so unfairly delicious?????

Guylian

This blog has had a lot of discussion about our favorite candy.  Well, since childhood, this has been my pick:

It's surprising, because I'm normally a purist, but it's not TOO surprising, because it's extremely delicious.  And those Belgians really do know how to do hazelnut praline.

 

So I think over the years, Guylian has cut out the partially hydrogenated oils from this product.  I remember that being a leading ingredient when I was younger, but now the most unnatural thing seems to be vanillin.  Honestly, though, I don't even care what's in it, which is what makes it candy.  It is simply DELICIOUS.

 

 

I spent a month in Nairobi, and the pickings there were unsurprisingly slim.  But the Nakumatt -- think East African Walmart -- carried Guylian's, so I was safe.  They even had a decent dark chocolate bar -- unlike the sugarfree ones they offer in the US.  This is what I survived on when I was running out of my last fancy European bars and then a dog ate the remainder.

Bottom Line:  David's vote for best candy.

Trattoria L’Incontro's Pizza Cioccolato

My favorite Italian restaurant in NYC is probably Trattoria L'Incontro.  I don't go often, because it is all the way out in Astoria.  But since Jason is Greek, he lived there, so it made for a perfect field trip.  

As always, the food was delicious, but for the first time, I got dessert: Chocolate Pizza!

As you can see, it is pizza crust stuffed with gooey chocolate and maybe nutella, covered with hazelnut ice cream.  It was delicious.  That said, I shockingly would have subbed the hazelnut ice cream for something more of a dark chocolate.

Bottom Line: Go for the food, stay for the chocolate pizza.

Belgium #4

Alright, guys.  We're almost out of Europe.  I know, it's been an ordeal.  Who needs their socialist chocolate, anyways?

(I do.)

ANTWERP:

  

Del Ray:

I got off the train from Bruges and landed back in Antwerp.  I was short on time, so I hightailed it to Del Ray, the top recommendation of basically everyone.

I got a chocolate cake thing.  It was incredible.  The second best of the trip, after Peclard's.  I got a chocolate macaron that was totally up to Parisian standards.  I got a good, but not great, truffle.  And I ordered a dark chocolate bonbon, but they gave me a hazelnut one, and it was still pretty good.

I also got a pack of five origin chocolate bars, which I ate with Leila upon my return:

That review is forthcoming.

Overall, Del Ray was probably my favorite in Antwerp, but as a patisserie more than as a chocolatier.

Burie:

I walked around for a bit, looking for Chocolatier Burie.  I found two stores right next to each other -- Chocolatier Burie and Confiserie Burie.  To this day I'm not sure whether this was a Dumon situation or whether the two were related.  If they were related, they were set up very differently.  The confiserie was basically a candy shop.  They sold lots of bars of Cafetasse-brand chocolate.  I bought some milk chocolate and dark chocolate hands.  The milk was better -- it reminded me of the European chocolate my family would bring back for me as a kid.  The dark chocolate was good too, but a bit brittle -- it reminded me of the chocolate at Stef's.  I also got a dark truffle, which was okay and a milk truffle, which was not great.

Chocolatier Burie looked like a much more serious... chocolatier.  I bought a 73% bonbon, and it was excellent.  The best bonbon I got in Antwerp, near the level of Dumon in Bruges.

I also bought a bar from each of the two places:

From L to R: Chocolatier Burie, Confiserie Burie, Chocolate Line (from Bruges)

I liked the bar from Chocolatier Burie better than the bar from Confiserie Burie, though this was far from consensus.  The Chocolatier bar was more serious, definitely legit, and way better than even the one from the Real Dumon.  The other was sweeter, which made it relatively popular.  It was definitely not bad.

Chateau Blanc:

I raced to make it to Chateau Blanc before it closed.  I did not succeed.  But they had a stall still open at a nearby market/carnival, so I went by and sampled some truffles.  The dark chocolate truffle was only okay, but the heavily-dusted Cacao Truffle was truly excellent.  The best I'd had since Brussels.

Paster Snack:

After doing the Antwerp Circuit, I met up with my cousins.  They, as I've mentioned, are chassidic, so we rolled into an extremely kosher pizza place and ordered chocolate cake and ice cream.  There was a lot of hubbub.  I am still not entirely sure what was going on.  About an hour and a half later, one of their employees comes in the door with a container of ice cream.  We think they ran out to the store to buy some?  Anyways, the ice cream was not important.  The cake was actually surprisingly good, given that I had just eaten twelve million pounds of chocolate, plus dinner.  It just confirms Our Favorite Commenter Veronica's point that it's the kosher parve stuff that's not so good -- when milk is allowed, kosher desserts are fine.

Cousins:

But my cousins were far-from-finished.  They loaded me up with kosher Belgian chocolate for the road.  Along with a seriously adorable note made by their children:

But if we ever wanted evidence of Veronica's point, this is it.  Actually, the best stuff they gave me here was the white chocolate -- and I have never said that before in my life.  Particularly the white chocolate with the milk chocolate/hazelnut filling.  That was just amazing.  But even the plain white bar was great.

The dark pieces were ok, but they had lost their tempter, were very sweet, were brittle and dry, and were not the highest quality.  Of course my friend Annie loved them.  Even the dark chocolate filled with dark chocolate/hazelnut filling was not so good... way worse than the white chocolate, and dry.  Parve strikes.

You may actually notice some milk chocolate there.  I don't know what it tasted like, because it got eaten along with the gelt.

I was also given some Mazel Tov-brand chocolate ruggelach, which was also parve and also not good.  Or chocolatey at all.  It tasted like regular bread.  Which I guess isn't so bad, now that I think about it, but it's not chocolate.

But I don't want to get down on the stuff I was given, because that is seriously some of the best white chocolate I've ever had.  A new discovery!

Bottom Line: Taking all the cities in Belgium together might not get you the sheer quantity of ridiculously high quality chocolate that you have in Paris alone, but it's Bruges and Antwerp that just really cannot begin to compare.  Brussels is actually pulling its weight nicely.  So, my review of Belgium: worth a trip, if you're already in Europe.

Belgium #3

Ah, Bruges.  A beautiful, old city:

Dumon:

On the way to visit Chocolatier Stephan Dumon's flagship store -- probably the most famous chocolate shop in Bruges -- I found a small outpost and stopped in.  I asked for things with a pure chocolate ganache, and they told me no such thing existed.  Quite rudely.  I sorted it all out and ordered a "butter truffle," a dark chocolate bonbon, and a chocolate bar.  The butter truffle was way too creamy and a bit gross.  I could see why they wouldn't call it "pure chocolate."  Even the dark chocolate bonbon was way too creamy.  Liane liked it, but it tasted like candy even to her.  I was so disappointed!  "What a fraud!" I thought to myself.  And I continued on.

Depla Pol:

I stopped by Depla Pol, which was a fairly adorable shop.  I bought a chocolate bar, and from it you can see what I mean:

It was an excellent low-percentage bar, not trying too hard.  It tasted like high quality chocolate trying to imitate a candy bar.  And though Leila would never approve, I appreciated the little white chocolate footprints.  It made the bar look as playful as it tasted. 

The truffle was better than Dumon's, but still too creamy.  I just don't like Bruges' style, I guess.  But the Sao Tome bonbon was excellent and the Venezuela bonbon was even better.  It wasn't Bruges after all -- Dumon had been a real disaster, and Depla Pol was rescuing the town's reputation.

Dumon:

Then I got to the main square and Dumon's flagship.  I immediately realized the previous store had been a complete imposter.  The branding was totally different and a look at the chocolate immediately showed obvious differences.  All it took was one taste to verify.  I wound up purchasing a big box of bonbons, because I felt so guilty about my rash and unfounded original judgment.  They were all excellent.

I saved the bar I purchased for later, and I compared it with the imposter:

Just based on appearances, the real one actually looks less authentic than the fake

The "real thing" tasted much more serious than the fake.  It was very good, but it was not the best.  The other bar was actually not bad either.  It was sweeter and more candy-like, so I could tell the two apart just from taste, but some of those I shared the bars with preferred the fake.

I actually encountered a different fake Dumon later in the day.  I was not duped into buying anything, but I asked them for directions, and they were rude to me as well!  Plus they gave me bad directions!

Chocolate Line:

Next stop was The Chocolate Line.  The dark chocolate horse-shaped bonbon with ganache was ok.  I ordered a pumpkin bonbon, but they gave me the wrong thing.  It tasted peanut-y and not great.  Finally, the bar (80%, Uganda-origin) was good but not memorable.

Van Oost:

I was basically just machining through at this point.  I got to Van Oost basically just stuffing stuff down.  The truffle made me pause though.  It was just okay by other city's standards, but it was definitely the best among Bruges' creamy crop.  The bar was very good and chocolatey, but it was also very Bruges in that it was sweet and low percentage.  Another candy-like gem.

Stef's:

Next was Stef's.  There was a hazelnut-filled shell, which was candy-like in the best sort of way.  There was a chunk of dark chocolate that tasted Ghanaian, standard, and good.  There was a mousse bonbon which was basically what all the creamy truffles wished they were, and arguably the best mousse product of the trip.  The dark truffle was good, and the dark bonbon was great.  Overall, a nice performance.

Choco-Story Museum:

This is a choco-story about how chocolate was brought to your and my town.
It took about six-hundred-and-twenty years, in plenty of time for us, so have no fear.

In Central America, born-and-raised, with the chieftans is where it spent most of its days.
Heated up, packed in, mixed in with spices, and to add some sweetness, they had  no devices.

Then a couple of Spaniards, who were up to no good, started committing genocide in the neighborhood.
They took one little sip and *boom* went their brain, and they said, "You are coming with me right back to Spain." 

It hopped on some ships, and in no time flat, it was mixed up with sugar, and tasted so phat.
If anything, Europeans thought, "This is where it's at!" so it took centuries before they made it solid and flat.

It pulled up to the US around 1765, and it seemed to threaten, "DRINK ME OR DIE."
It moved to New York soon thereafter and sat on its throne as the dessert master.

Also, they gave us some chocolate here, and it was pretty good.

Bottom Line: Bruges' chocolate, like Bruges itself, is pretty much for tourists.  It's not bad, but it's very sweet.  Also, we've been in Belgium for three posts, and we still have a whole city left to go.