Chocolate Party!!

As many of you know, our first birthday party was last week.  It looked like this:

We had nine tasting tables set up, including percentages:

origins:

mint, milk:

baking supplies:

local chocolates:

chocolate-covered products:

bars with stuff-in-them:

and truffles and bonbons:

 There was even a raffle!:

People stocked up pretty nicely:

And subsequently made themselves a little sick, chocolate-drunk, or both.

Looking at the surveys, some of the most popular items were the Zoe barks and bonbons, the Li-Lac marzipan acorns and hazelnut truffles, all the Kopali chocolate-covered items, the Christopher Elbow Honey Spice bonbon (bought at 2Beans), the Beschle 88% dark chocolate bar (bought at 2Beans), the Fine & Raw Truffle Chunky bar, and the Equal Exchange Lemon Ginger Black Pepper bar.

The most controversial items (lots of lovers and skeptics), somewhat unsurprisingly, were the Pacari Raw 100% chocolate bar and the Al Nassma Camel's Milk bar (bought at 2Beans).

Alyssa Tanchajja took all these amazing photos for us, including this one of a great friend of the blog sampling the fan-favorite Li-Lac marzipan acorns:

We had a great time, and we hope you did too!

Thanks so much to our sponsors!

Bottom Line: Stick with us.

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.