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.

Mast Brothers bar with nibs

Here is a beautiful photo of one of NYC's most well respected chocolate bars.

The quality of the photo roughly matches my indifference towards the bar.  We've talked about Mast before.  There's nothing wrong with the quality, but they go for a fruity profile that I'm just not that into.  The nibs definitely help, though, and this is my favorite Mast bar.

Bottom Line: If you like nibs and fruity bars, and want to support the local bean-to-bar scene, go for it. But you can definitely do more chocolatey for cheaper. 

Bedford Cheese Shop: Middlebury Chocolates 75% Dominican, Dick Taylor 70% Ecuador, Ritual Chocolate 75% Balao (Ecuador), Twenty-Four Blackbirds 68% Dominican, and Zoe's Chocolate Co. Raw Bar with Nibs

This was a surprise.  I got tipped off by a friend of a friend that Bedford Cheese Shop on Irving Place had a great chocolate selection.  And they did!

I had not tried any of these before, and I really stocked up.  With all the fancy, single-origin chocolates, my favorite was actually Zoe Chocolate Co.'s "The Raw Bar" with nibs.  Because it was the chocolatiest.  Obviously.

But the Dick Taylor bar was great too.  The consensus was that the Ecuadorian origins had a leg up on the Dominican origins.  We had lots of complicated things to say about these bars, but honestly, who really cares?  They were all delicious.

There was a split over whether the Ritual bar (above) was better than the Dick Taylor bar.  I had a mild preference for the Dick Taylor, but they were both excellent.

The Middlebury bar (above), had SO MUCH WRAPPING that it made the chocolate look tiny, even though it was a totally respectable quantity of chocolate.  It was good, but not quite as rich as the others.

The Twenty-Four Blackbirds bar (above, smaller than it looks) suffered from some bloom (as you can see).  As a result, it was probably the weakest of the four.  In other chocolate-offs, though, it could easily have been the best -- it was up against stiff competition and not in top form.

I did not get to try the Poco Dolce toffee, because it had dairy in it, but it seemed to go over pretty well.

Bottom Line: A great haul from a surprisingly great chocolate shop.  Or cheese shop.  Details.

Food Emporium 64% and Scharfen Berger 62% "Nibby"

Sometimes you just need an emergency fix.  I stopped by Food Emporium and could not decide between the store brand, plain 64% bar or the Scharfen Berger "Nibby" 62% bar.  So obviously I bought both.

Typically, I'm not the biggest fan of Scharfen Berger, because they intentionally make a fruity blend.  People who like that love Scharfen Berger, but it's not my thing.  That said, as has been the case previously, I find the presence of nibs really cuts the problems of a fruity bar, and so I love Scharfen Berger's "nibby" bar.  But the Food Emporium bar is just... super chocolatey.  I mean, it's nothing special.  It's the most generic "real" chocolate you can get.  In many ways, it is very similar to the CIBO Express bar I got at Laguardia.  But I never was snobby about this stuff.  This is chocolate.  It tastes like chocolate.  And that's a great thing.  Nothing fancy.  Next to that, the "nibby" just seemed to be trying to hard.

Bottom Line: I am a big fan of the "Nibby" bar, but sometimes you just want some plain ol' chocolate.

Food Emporium Chocolate Shop: featuring Niederegger Marzipan"Classic" bar, Amedei 70% Venezuela, and Christpher Michael 61% Cacao Nib Bar

Food emporium has a chocolate shop.  It's sort of built into the store on 69th and 3rd.  It used to be more standalone, and the selection was deeper then.  But it's still there, and there are still interesting options.  Observe:

None of these three bars totally blew me away.  The Christopher Michael and Amedei were totally adequate.  Remember that the Venezuela origin was my favorite of the Amedei Cru chocolates, but nonetheless, there are better options.  It's got the flavor notes you'd expect, but they're not as powerful as in some other bars, nor is it as chocolatey.  The same can be said for the Christopher Michael, which -- despite being lower percentage (61% to 70%), I slightly preferred.  The nibs helped.  The nibs always help.

I also got a Niederegger marzipan bar.  Leila loves Niederegger, and I like it too, but I honestly prefer the Rittersport version of this bar.  I think maybe the marzipan is fresher in the Rittersport bars?  They are both German companies, so I'm not sure why that would be.  But it's how it tastes to me.  I also prefer the chocolate in the Rittersport bar.  The only advantage to the Niederegger is the chocolate-to-marzipan ratio is slightly higher.

Bottom Line: While this may not have been the best haul, the Food Emporium chocolate shop has a big enough selection to give you a diverse, new experience each time.  Definitely recommended, and possibly the best bet for a broad pick of bars on the Upper East Side.

Treehaus again: Fine & Raw 83% with nibs, Nibmor "Daily Dose" 72% mint + nibs

Treehaus continues to be my primary provider of chocolate bars, given its selection and proximity to my office.  On a recent trip I picked up a Fine & Raw 83% & nibs bar:

Leila recently reviewed the Blueberry bar and really liked it.  I had a similarly good experience with the 83% & nibs.  I tend not to prefer raw, but this was really excellent.  Also pretty:

I have reviewed NibMor twice before, to good and bad results.  The NibMor 72% & nibs was also really good:

It might not be the #1 mint bar around, but especially as a nice $1 bite, it really hits the spot for getting that chocolate & mint flavor without being overwhelmed.

Bottom Line: Two more successes with two brands we already liked.

Treehaus: Featuring Nunu, Mast Brothers, and Tumbador (among others)

Manhattan Espresso Cafe was around the corner from my previous job, and they sold all sorts of secondary market deliciousnesses.  My current go-to is Treehaus.  Aside from baked goods and other great things, they sell chocolates by Nunu, Mast, and Tumbador:

I bought some Nunu chocolate-covered graham crackers.  They were good.  As described.  They didn't blow me away.

From Mast, I bought a black truffle sea salt bar.  Like with Nunu, I thought it was very good, but I didn't really get the hype.  Everyone with whom I shared it, though, did get the hype.  It was a bit salty and fruity for me.

Surprisingly, the winner for me was the Tumbador Mint Crunch, with nibs.  This is obvious, because I ate it too quickly to get a picture of the bar itself.  Readers will know Leila and my fondness for mint and nibs, so this might not be surprising.  It might not be the best mint bar in NYC, but it's yet another darn good version.

Bottom Line: This isn't even scratching the surface of Treehaus' sweet offerings, to say nothing of their savories.

The Offerings in Nairobi

I lived in Nairobi for the month of January, and the chocolate pickings were slim.  So slim that my friend Annie imported this Frango stuff:

 

And actually devoured it:

It wasn't bad, but certainly not import-worthy.  But in comparison to what was available locally, Guylian-aside, I can't say I really blamed her.

In addition to Guylian were Guylian knock-offs, branded "Beglian."

They actually weren't terrible.  I mean, they were chocolate.  They had vanillin, but they were relatively legit.  Can't say I would pick one up if I had other options.

There were these Beacon-branded mint things.  Er... "thins":

 

Also edible, but they were no Thin Mints.  Heck, they were no peppermint patties.

Also these "bon bon chocolates":

I still don't know what it was, but it was awful.

One time, there was one of these bars at Nakumatt:

Not only was it fancy looking, but it had arrived in Nairobi within 3 years of its production, which honestly impressed me.  That said, the bar didn't.  It was too fruity.  Sorry "Chocolat Stella, original Swiss chocolate."

Bottom Line:  It's not like you're going to Nairobi for the chocolate, so come prepared with your own stash.

Hot Chocolate Month at City Bakery Recap

So it's no secret that Leila and I (David) love City Bakery hot chocolate. It's no secret that we were excited by their Hot Chocolate Month. So it should not surprise you that we made multiple visits over the course of February. Here are some things that happened:

February 14: I was stuck at work all day. On Valentine's Day. The worst! Fortunately, I have the best friends. Danielle happened to be in the Union Square area and heard of my plight, and she made a special delivery of the special Love Potion hot chocolate.  It's City Bakery's regular hot chocolate with a layer of fudge on top. No joke. I think this is the only hot chocolate I've ever had that's better than the regular City Bakery hot chocolate.

February 21: Darkest Dark Chocolate Hot Chocolate. Obviously I was going to go for this. I snuck out of work and delivered some to a couple of my co-workers.

It was excellent. I mean, by hot chocolate standards. But somehow it was unsatisfying as compared with their regular hot chocolate. Certainly it was less sweet, but that is not a negative in my mind. The problem was it just didn't taste as rich. I also purchased the Melted Chocolate Cookie. Now that DT Works is gone, I'd say it competes with Levain for the chocolatiest (and therefore best) cookie in the city. A true work of art.

February 28: Two of my colleagues and I made a field trip for the Festival Finale. What that means, apparently, is that they have a different flavor from the festival every hour. The flavor offered when we arrived was some fruity, terrible-sounding concoction.

So instead ducked in the Chocolate Room room and picked out some other assorted chocolate goods. I got some chocolate-covered nibs by Nunu. I told myself that I could taste the confectioner's glaze on them. Could I? Who knows. They were delicious, though, if you can tell from the empty container.

I also got some non-chocolate-covered nibs from Askinosie, and those were truly excellent. I have the Planete Chocolat beans, Theo nibs, and Askinosie nibs on my desk. While the beans go fastest, that's due to my preference for the whole bean, including husk. In terms of pure taste, Askinosie wins hands down, though it should be noted that there is a distinct coffee-like taste to them.

Finally, I got a 66% Fruition-brand bar. I had heard tons of good things about Fruition, but I was honestly disappointed. It was not rich enough for me, too fruity, and vaguely unsatisfying. (I still finished it that day.)

Okay, over to Leila for her Hot Chocolate Month report:

February 1: I was so excited for Hot Chocolate Month that I went to City Bakery on the very first day. I didn't actually want lemon-flavored hot chocolate. I just wanted to commune with City Bakery employees about how exciting it was that February had finally arrived. I tried a sample of the lemon hot chocolate, and it was surprisingly good, considering that you wouldn't expect lemon and chocolate to be complementary flavors.

February 6: Ginger hot chocolate! This was awesome. As you know, I like chocolate with a little bit of a kick, and this was just the right amount of spice.

February 13: I got confused and thought there would be cinnamon hot chocolate on the 13th. I'd been mistaken; it was actually "Happy Hot Chocolate" day. I usually avoid City Bakery when their hot chocolate flavors have names that I do understand (like "Happy" or "Moulin Rouge"), because I don't want to encounter a nasty surprise.

Indeed, that was what happened on the 13th, as Happy Hot Chocolate turned out to mean a hot vanilla-infused milk chocolate. You know I'm not a milk chocolate girl. But I had come all the way to Union Square already, so I couldn't leave empty-handed. So I got a normal hot chocolate. That may not have been necessary, Leila.

February 22: Black rum and cinnamon hot chocolate. This was really good! It didn't taste like rum. It just tasted interesting. And the chocolate still took center stage, which I always appreciate.

BOTTOM LINE: Over the course of February 2013, we hit six out of the nineteen available City Bakery Hot Chocolate Month flavors. Sometimes, we even impress ourselves.

Belgium #2

Ok, where was I?  Oh, right, Europe.

Pierre Marcolini:

So I stopped by the home base of Pierre Marcolini.  Instead of getting a bar, I got macarons and bonbons.

The grand cru macaron was excellent -- rich and chocolatey -- but slightly too crusty texture-wise.  The regular chocolate macaron tasted a little like candy in comparison.  It had too high of an outside-of-the-macaron-to-inside-of-the-macaron ratio.  This is a common problem for macarons, for me, because the inside is inevitably richer.  Anyways.  It was still really good.  If you offered me one, I would eat it.

Then I got 7 grand cru, single-origin bonbons.  Like you do.  (You do do that, right?  Good.)  Anyways, I started with the Pierre Marcolini Grand Cru Bonbon, which tasted a lot like the Venezuela Grand Cru Bonbon, which tasted exactly like you'd expect a Venezuela Grand Cru Bonbon to taste -- delicious.  The Ecuador was fruitier than expected, with a coffee finish.  That is what my notes say, at least, but that sounds pretentious even for me.  I called the Madagascar one "raison-y," but that's just because that's probably what I expected it to taste like.  The Brazil was fruitier than the Ecuador bonbon, and then one of the two unmarked bonbons was fruitier still.  The last bonbon, unmarked, was relatively nondescript.  

I didn't get pictures of any of the Marcolini stuff I got in Belgium, but here's a picture of the bar I got in Paris but forgot to upload with that post:

In summary: a decent use of my stomach space.  Marcolini obviously has his reputation for a reason -- his chocolates are high quality, complex, and varied.  The bonbons really did taste notably different.  That said, while I enjoyed it all, he was far from my favorite chocolatier in Brussels.

Planete Chocolat:

Next stop was Planete Chocolat.  The Chocolate Planet.  To answer question, yes, they do make you wear a space suit for the duration of your visit.

No they don't.

I lied to you.

I apologize.

Why would I even do that?

So here are the things I bought (minus a dark chocolate bonbon):

The bonbon was excellent and rich, surpassing probably all of Marcolini's offerings.  

I purchased two chocolate bars: a 100% bar and a speculoos bar.  For those of you who don't know speculoos... you've got problems.  I'm not even going to tell you, because you might buy the last jar at Trader Joe's, and then they'll be sold out for a month again.  Anyways, the speculoos bar was amazing.  Obviously.  It was probably the best flavored bar I had all trip.  The 100% bar... wasn't.  By that I mean it wasn't 100%, despite being clearly marked "100%."  It was probably something like 85%?  It wasn't sweet, but it was definitely not 100%.  Perfectly good, though.

I got a box of hazelnut shells, because I secretly love Guylian-brand chocolate seashells more than anything, and these looked similar.  And, to my complete lack of surprise, they were!  In fact, they were near-identical.  On the one hand, that speaks very well of these, because I totally love Guylian.  On the other hand, it speaks very well of Guylian, because they are mass producing world-famous-artisanal-chocolate-hazelnut-shells-quality chocolate-hazelnut-shells.

And then I got that bag of cocoa beans.  Now here's the thing.  The first few times I ate them, it sort of triggered a gag reflex.  But it was still delicious.  I don't know how that's possible.  In any case, I got over that, and now they are regular delicious, and they are sitting on my desk at work.  Since writing this, I've reached over about 5 time to eat one, but then I realized it was Ta'anit Ester.  I'm breaking the fast this year with City Bakery's Darkest Dark Chocolate Hot Chocolate.  Last time I tried to get it, it was sold out, and I almost broke down in public.  Wish me luck!  (Ok, this took a little longer than I expected to post.  End result: success.)

Tourist Shop:

My next stop... was a tourist shop. 

I walked past about one hundred tourist shops selling chocolate, but this one sold Dolfin-brand chocolate, and that is important.  I tried Dolfin's 88% bar when I was in Boston with Kasey a year or two ago, and I thought it was the bee's knees.  Actually, the bees' knees.  The knees of every bee.  There was no bee knee that it wasn't.

Anyways.

I wound up going overboard:

They gave me a speculoos-almond-chocolate mini-pile to taste.  It was surprisingly excellent.

I then bought a bunch of bars from Dolfin, from Zaabar (a Brussels-based chocolatier that I did not have time to visit directly), and from the store itself.  

The store's bar was actually quite good.  It was straight up decent milk chocolate.

The Zaabar mint bar and Dolfin mint bar were reviewed as part of Leila and my tasting on my return -- so you will see the results shortly.  

But the Zaabar dark chocolate was quite good.  It was very rich, but very sweet and fairly candy-like.  I didn't like it as much as some of my friends, even ones who like high percentage chocolate.  If I had to give it flavor notes, I would say nutty and cinnamo-yn.  My friend Josh thought it tasted of spices.

The Dolfin dark chocolate bar, though, was spectacular.  It was just as good as I remembered it.  Not only did it blow me away (again), but it equally impressed a big group of people who are not high-percentage fans.

I also tried two different Dolfin milk chocolate bars.  Both were quite good -- similar, with different percentage cacao -- but neither stood out the way the 88% did.

Mary:

So the next stop was Mary.  I was really excited about Mary from my San Francisco stop.  After having been to most of the best chocolate shops in the world since, I wondered if my standards had changed any.  I had a feeling I wouldn't be when I realized they had 7 different pure chocolate bonbons, without even getting into origins.  I bought all 7.  Plus a dark chocolate truffle.  Plus a gianduja bonbon (because why not).  ... Plus a bar.

So four of the bonbons were called "Lady," and they had a Lady printed on them.  They were four different gradients of dark.  One of them was the one I had in SF.  The darkest one was immediately possibly the best bonbon I'd ever had.  It wasn't even sweet at all.  I'd never had a bonbon that wasn't sweet before.  Next was the dark chocolate bonbon, which I suspect is what I had in SF, because it was basically the platonic ideal of a dark chocolate bonbon.  The milk chocolate bonbon was unsurprisingly the platonic ideal of a milk chocolate bonbon.  The last one was of a certain, very creamy style that is not for me.  It is featured quite prominently in chocolate from Bruges -- as you will soon see.  But basically they upped the cream to chocolate ratio beyond my tolerance.  Still, it was better than any of the Bruges-based versions of this that I had.

I also bought two mousse bonbons -- a dark chocolate mousse coated in white chocolate.  Amazing.  Then an extra dark chocolate mousse coated in milk chocolate.  Even better!  I find mouse bonbons usually not to be as good as regular ganache bonbons, but these beat just about any ganache bonbon I'd ever had not from Mary.

Even the Gianduja bonbon and milk chocolate bonbon were amazing.

Finally, I had the dark chocolate truffle again, and I was again blown away.  I knew it was between that and Chapon for best on the trip.  Upon returning home with a larger supply and sampling more of each, I decided that Mary did indeed make my favorite truffle.  It was less the platonic ideal of a truffle -- the cocoa powder coating was less intense than Chapon's, and the inside was fudgier than it was creamy.  And it was definitely sweeter than Chapon's.  But it was just so intense and chocolatey that I was totally sold

That said, I purchased a bar (probably 70something percent), and while it was good, it did not stand out among the many amazing bars I purchased.  Accordingly, I will pronounce Mary my favorite in the world for bonbons, but perhaps the overall prize will rest with Passion or Chapon.

Francois Manon:

Manon was right next to Mary.  It had a very unpretentious vibe, which I really liked.  My expectations were somewhat low coming in, for some reason, but as soon as I started talking to them there, I realized it might be a sleeper.

The truffle was the low point, but only because it went for that creamy Bruges-style that I don't really like.

That said, the milk ganache bonbon was great.  The dark ganache bonbon was even better.  And the extradark palet d'or ganache bonbon was really wonderful.  At this point in my trip, I was not about to have this kind of reaction to anything but the very best, and that bonbon was at that level.

Frederic Blondeel:

My last stop in Brussels was Frederic Blondeel.  I sat down to take a break and wayyyy over-ordered.  I started with a 100% dark chocolate hot chocolate, sweetened only with honey.  It was delicious, and its bitterness (and relative thinness) reminded me of Taralucci e Vino in NYC -- one of my very favorite hot chocolates in the city.

I moved on to the set of four bonbons I ordered, plus the two that came complementary with the hot chocolate.  The Sao Tome-origin bonbon was very good.  It was bright but not fruity, similar to Venezuelan origin chocolate, but I think I'm more used to Venezuelan brightness at this point.  I kept expecting to get hit by fruitness but didn't.  Good experience.  Kept me on my toes.  The Papua New Guinea-origin bonbon was not bad but not as good.  It had some hints of raisons.  The Venezuela-origin bonbon was sweetened with honey, which threatened to overpower the chocolatey taste, but the bonbon managed to hold it together and keep a solid B+.

Aside from the origins, I got a truffle, which had a slight coffee-ish taste (though it was not made with coffee), but despite that was still pretty good.  The hazelnut bonbon (complementary with the hot chocolate) was surprisingly great.  That said, the speculoos bonbon (camouflaged in a silver wrapper) was not so great.

I also got a brownie.  Texture-wise, it was fudgey -- just how I like it.  But it was somehow unsatisfying.  Perhaps it did not have a sufficiently rich and deep flavor.  It wasn't bad.  I couldn't really point to the problem.  Maybe the problem was that I was full.

Lastly, I purchased two chocolate bars.  A 75%, Venezuela origin, which was excellent, and very Venezuela-y, but not as good as the Idilio or the Richart.  Next was an 85%, Ghana origin, which was also very good, but did not really stand out amongst all the great chocolatiers in Brussels.  As a comparison, it was not as good as the Ghana-origin bar at Chapon.

As I was sitting there, I heard someone comment that it was time to "make like a tree and leave."  I hadn't heard that one since the 90's, but you know what?  That dude was totally right.  I hopped the next train to Antwerp.

Bottom Line:  Brussels legitimately rivals Paris for being the best chocolate city I've been to.  Its top tier was better than Paris', led by Passion, Mary, and Gerbaud, but Paris was just an unending assault of quality.

Belgium #1

From Stockholm, I flew into Brussels, to begin a two-day tour of Belgium.

BRUSSELS:

Brussels is the city with the world's coolest carousel:

But is its chocolate as good as its carousels?  Let's find out!

Corne:

I started Corné.  I like to start with places that i think will set a good bar.  While Corné perhaps set the bar lower than La Maison in Paris, it was almost (but not quite) as good as Sprungli in Zurich.  I got a truffle and a 77% dark chocolate bonbon, and both were very good.  It was my favorite of the mass-produced Belgian chocolates, at the end of the day, and the one I spent my last Euros on at the airport for gifts.

Galler:

Next stop was Galler, another internationally-distributed, mass-producing chocolatier that has a good reputation.  I got an Extreme Chocolate bonbon, and it was legitimately bad.  I avoided Galler the rest of the trip.

Neuhaus:

My next stop was Neuhaus.  I have always liked Neuhaus, certainly preferring it to Godiva at that price/availability point.  But compared to what I was eating on this trip, it didn't quite hold up.  The dark chocolate truffle was edible, but nothing special.  The marzipan/hazelnut bonbon was better, but not great.  And the speculoos truffle was not too good.  Overall, I think maybe their flavored bonbons are a bit better than their pure chocolate ones, which is why the place wasn't really meeting my purist needs.

Laurent Gerbaud:

Ok, having hit up the big, well respected mass producers (I skipped Leonidas and Godiva), I started on the artisanal chocolatiers.  Laurent Gerbaud is quite famous.  I think he has some connection to the even-more-famous Pierre Marcolini.  Not having had any exquisite chocolate all day, we went a bit all out.

The 75% bar was amazing:

It's definitely my favorite Madagascar bar I've ever had.  True, I am unnaturally adverse to the origin, but the nibs were the perfect counter to the somewhat citrusy bar.  The best comparison I can draw is Scharfen Berger -- most of their bars are too fruity for me, but their Nibby bar is actually quite excellent.  This is like that, but a step or two above.  A real gem.

I then went through five different single-origin bonbons, and all were excellent.  I could see why Gerbaud got his reputation.  Each bonbon was chocolatey while still being unique and interesting.

While the piece of dark chocolate they gave me was too fruity, the hot chocolate was great.  It was not sweet, and it had a great thickness to it -- thick for drinking chocolate, but not so thick as to be a heavy dessert.  That said, it developed the same pudding-film I observed at Angelina if I let it sit for too long.  I begin to suspect that this is a sign of an elite hot chocolate.

Passion:

I then walked into Passion Chocolate, still equipped with my Laurent Gerbaud bag.  They gave me a look.  I was sort of apologetic but explained my mission.  They just looked at me in that Belgian way and said, "Well... you'll see."

And I certainly did.  Passion was arguably the top chocolatier in all of Belgium, taking me by complete surprise.  The "Double Coeur Noir Bonbon" was exquisite, dark, and super chocolatey.  The milk truffle totally blew me away.  My notes say, "WOW."  It was dark for a milk truffle.  It was liquidier than it was creamy, which surprised me.  But it was definitely delicious.  Finally, the mousse bonbon was delicious, but included some crunchy-textured things that were not quite for me.

But I would be extremely remiss to ignore their 72% Carribean bar with nibs:  

When I ate it I basically started exclaiming profanities out loud, in my room alone, because it was so good.  This was easily one of the best chocolate bars of any percentage I've ever had.

So, okay.  Haughty Belgian chocolatier at Passion Chocolate: you were right.  I saw.  And I am impressed.

Wittamer:

Next stop was Wittamer.  If you ask someone in Brussels who makes the best chocolate, I feel like Wittamer is often the answer you get.  Wittamer is certainly more available than something like Gerbaud or Passion, but it's not like they were selling boxes of this stuff at the airport.

The summary is that Wittamer was better than something like Sprungli, for sure, and definitely better than Corne, but maybe not as good as something like La Maison.

The bar was excellent, but not too memorable:

The “Wittamer” 70% bonbon was totally excellent.  It was super chocolatey, and it could hold its own next to any bonbon at La Maison.  The Venazuela bonbon was also very good. It was more complex, but I preferred the Wittamer.

Bottom Line: There are still three more posts on Belgium.  We're only halfway done with BRUSSELS.  Be patient.

Paris Day 2

Puyricard:

At the recommendation of my friends who hosted me at the Cercle de l'Union, I checked out a lesser known chocolatier, Puyricard.  I bought a 100% dark chocolate bar, which was very bitter but very good.  It was, in fact, bitter even for a 100% bar, which is impressive.  I still enjoyed it quite a lot.  The truffle they gave me to taste was also good, but a bit too fruity.   Overall, well worth a try.

Jean-Charles Rochoux:

Rochoux definitely won for best packaging of the trip:

These pavés were good but very creamy.  A pavé is much like a truffle, but shaped like a cube, and probably made with like 4 times as much heavy cream:

I also ordered a dark chocolate bonbon, which, like the truffle at Puyricard, was a bit too fruity for me.

Christian Constant:

Next stop was Christian Constant.  I was worrying things were starting to blend together, but everything I ate here stood out as spectacular.  There was a delicious, unpretentious truffle.  There was a matching, super chocolatey dark chocolate bonbon.  And there were these thin dark chocolate square covered in cacao nibs that were delicious, chocolatey, and super snackable.

The theme that ran through Constant's work was that it felt like he wasn't trying to impress anyone.  He was making excellent chocolate that you can pop in your mouth, eat, and enjoy tremendously.  I constantly say that a lot of the pretentious subtleties of chocolate come at the expense of edibility and deliciousness, and that's something that Constant understands better than anyone.  Constant sort of flew under the radar as one of my favorites from the trip.

Chapon:

The reason Constant flew under the radar was that there were places like Chapon:

Chapon makes what is likely the best truffle in the world.  I might have had a mild preference for Mary's, due to its fudginess, but upon bringing the two back to the US, the clear favorite was Chapon.  It's everything a truffle should be, texture-wise and taste-wise.  It is devastatingly chocolatey, and it has a perfect dusting of cocoa powder.  As a comparison, here is what the Chapon truffle looks like next to Rochoux's and Chaudun's paves:

But Chapon did not stop with the truffle.  There was a fun, delicious dark chocolate bonbon.  And there was a wall of amazing-looking (and amazingly wrapped) single- and blended-origin bars.  Having overstocked on Venezuelan bars, I purchased a Ghana bar and a blend of Indonesia, Ghana, and Carribean bar.  The Ghanaian bar was incredible -- chocolatey and smokey.  The blend was almost as good.  It was less sweet and had more flavor notes, of fruit and spice.  I passed both around a big group of people, and everyone was floored by both, but the Ghana bar was ultimately everyone's pick.

Michel Chaudun:

Next stop was Michel Chaudun, where I bought some more pavés and a bar.  The pavés had a bit of a coffee taste.  I thought, at the time, that they were totally different than Rochoux's, and far less creamy.  So I mixed the two up and tried to perform a taste test.  I couldn't tell one from the other.  I realized I was facing a serious chocolate overload moment and saved the bar for later

When I did get to it, I really liked it.  It was very sweet, and it was something I could come back to after working my way through various fancier-feeling bars.  Often I would offer it to friends after forcing them to try various 100% bars, and they were universally appreciative.

Gerard Mulot:

Next, I headed to Mulot.  His shop was more of a patisserie than a chocolate shop, so I went with the flow and got a piece of cake.  It was good but towards the bottom of the cakes I had in Paris -- perhaps between the cake at Laduree and the one at Angelina.  It tasted a bit like coffee, and I was able to throw away a chunk of it without too many regrets.  I was very full.

I also got a milk and a dark chocolate truffle.  I tried the dark, expecting a lot, and I was disappointed.  I then tried the milk chocolate truffle, with low expectations, and it was excellent.  Far better than the dark.  Who would have thought?

Pierre Marcolini:

I was totally full, so when I passed by an outpost of Pierre Marcolini, a Belgian chocolatier, I obviously went in to try something.  I bought an 81% blended-origin bar.  It was very good, but not much of a standout.  It was sweet for 81%, but it was pretty much exactly what you want in a high-end, high percentage bar.  No complaints!

Patrick Roger and Jacques Genin:

At this point, my chocolate tasting muscles were pretty worn out, but I powered through.  I got a dark chocolate bonbon and a truffle from each of Patrick Roger and Jacques Genin.  Both are among the most respected chocolatiers in the world, and both stood their ground with everything else I had been eating, but I honestly was completely unable to distinguish them from most of the excellent chocolate.

La Bonbonniere:

But then I walked into La Bonbonniere.  Right away, I liked it.  First of all, unlike everywhere else that day, it wasn't pretentiously named after its lead chocolatier.  It looked similarly inconspicuous.  And the people there... were actually  nice.  For a second, I thought I was hallucinating on chocolate and that I must have left Paris.  I bought a truffle and a bar -- a 90% bar!  I had been scouring Europe for 90% bars (my favorite percentage), and I had been having almost no luck.  The truffle was exceptional -- probably the second best I had in Paris after Chapon.  And the bar was exquisite as well -- easily one of the best from the trip.  It was super chocolatey, and it was neither sweet nor bitter.  Exactly what you want in a 90% bar.  If I were returning to Paris and for some reason had to restrict myself to one chocolate shop, I would probably return to La Bonbonniere.

A L'Etoile D'Or:

My last stop was A l'Etoile d'Or.  A l'Etoile d'Or is an incredibly famous, old chocolate shop near my host's apartment.  I walked in, and it seemed almost like a candy store.  For example, it sold mostly non-proprietary chocolate.  But they had a display case of what seemed to me their own bonbons, so I purchased a truffle and a dark chocolate bonbon.

Wow!  Given the candy-store feel, I did not expect such high quality!  They definitely surpassed the vast majority of things I ate that day.  It was an amazing way to end my chocolate tour.

Sam, my host, recently sent me a photo of the shop on a walk past, and I was hit by a blast of nostalgia, only a month after I'd left:

Take me back to Paris!

Bottom Line: Paris is the place to be when it comes to chocolate.  Period.

Post script: a photo of all the chocolate bars I brought home, from Paris alone: