As a sedate parent living in the suburbs, I tend to be ready for bedtime by 9:30 and my favourite nightspot is always my own place. Therefore, when my old mates Helen and Sigrid dragged me out on the town far later than that, I was afraid I’d be spending it in a pub paying through the nose for bad wine and surrounded by young funksters I’d be tempted to mock for their ridiculous fashion choices.
Instead they took me – and Julie and Tom – to the Chocolate Bean Café in Union Street, Adelaide. It has been in existence earlier than the Bracegirdle and Cocolat shops and has maintained a faithful adherence to quality chocolate, hand-made with pride.
The chocolates on display were impossible to resist, and I selected the passion fruit, chai & hazelnut, orange, lavender and cherry truffles. Sigrid went for their dark Belgian chocolate mousse, Helen and Julie also selected some truffles including rose, grasshopper (white chocolate and mint) and mocha and Tom was at the counter ordering the ‘Death by Chocolate’ cake before we’d even found a table.
The truffles put those made by Cocolat to shame. In fact, they kicked culinary arse. The passion fruit was creamy, light and tangy and the dark chocolate lavender truffle tasted sublime. The orange – one of my favourite partners for dark chocolate – was truly excellent, as was the rose (on a par with Haigh’s crème flavour-wise) and the girls loved their hazelnut, mocha and grasshopper flavours. For my money, the cherry truffle reigned supreme as seriously good quality dark chocolate with a buttery centre superbly flavoured with a kirsch liqueur. Absolutely top notch.
Throwing caution – and calorie counts – to the winds, we also ordered a plate of their milk chocolate shards. Even after gorging on truffles galore, the chocolate still stood out as being of exceptional quality, with a creamy texture that made me long for more. Sigrid’s mousse reminded me of how good this classic dessert can be when made with real care and the best ingredients. It wasn’t too heavy or too bland, but just right.
It was Tom who was to be the revelation of the evening. He politely let us try his ‘Death by Chocolate’ cake which was surrounded by melted chocolate and was mostly a generous slab of dark ganache on top of a meringue crust. I’d definitely struggle to eat even half of one slice, but not our Tom. A keen bike rider with not an ounce of fat on him, he managed to tuck away two slices of the incredibly rich cake, plus sample a bit of every truffle, finish off Sigrid’s mousse, try a few chunks of the milk chocolate we bought AND then slurp down a honeycomb milkshake! Afterwards, he sat back, smiled and said, “Now I can tell the guys tomorrow that I was with four women and had several orgasms.” Quite a recommendation!
I am, it seems, officially stupid. Either that or blind.
There I was, standing at the bus stop 100 yards from my front door. Out of chocolate and needed to go and find some review material. I idly stared into the window of the South African butchers shop next to the bus stop. My eyes flicked across all the weird and wonderful meats hanging up, and there it was. The South African butchers shop has a South African chocolate shelf!
Needless to say, I immediately went in and bought everything they had.
So what is Dairy Milk Top Deck? Simple. It’s a bar of Dairy Milk with the top half of each “chunk” (or ‘Sticky Uppy Bit’ to give it its technical name) made out of white chocolate.
It looks a bit odd, and frankly it is a bit odd. I’m not sure who came up with this idea, but I can imagine a board meeting where some bright spark suggested “Let’s make Dairy Milk even sweeter!”. Because that’s pretty much all the white chocolate ads.
The interesting thing for me is that when eaten separately, the white chocolate isn’t as creamy as Cadbury Dream – Cabdury’s British white chocolate offering. And the Dairy Milk has a distinctive but subtle cocoa flavour which I don’t get from the UK version. I wouldn’t say it’s better or worse than the Cadbury chocolate I’m used to – just noticeably different.
So while this is an interesting novelty for a Brit, it’s not something I’d want to buy regularly. I’m sure there are kids who would love it, but it’s just too sweet for my taste. And at £2.25 for this imported 100g bar, I don’t think I’ll be buying more in a hurry.
If there’s one thing I’ve discovered since I began writing for Chocablog, it’s that modern chocolatiers love to experiment with texture and flavour. Alas, it’s still the case that continental chocolate makers seem to have the upper hand when it comes to variety and, well, oddity.
Take this for example. There I was, strolling through Athens on my way to get the plane home, when I espied this sitting in a rank in one of the shops. French organic chocolate with seaweed in a Greek airport – you couldn’t make it up. Of course I had to buy it. Chocolate and seaweed? Who wouldn’t? Besides, I’m quite partial to a bit of seaweed anyway.
Now I’m assuming that because it’s organic (well, everything but the seaweed is) the manufacturers decided to go for the ‘recycled brown card’ look for the packaging. Unfortunately the result of this was that my immaculate bar of rich dark, posh chocolate was a little scuffed and broken by the time I slid it out of the sleeve at home. Still, it never affects the flavour, does it?
As you can see, the chocolate itself is a lovely piece of work. Dark, glossy, and embossed with the maker’s mark – somewhat reminiscent of the J. D. Gross bars I reviewed a while back (of which more to come). Flip the bar over and that’s where you see the seaweed element.
The underside of the bar has been dusted with tiny flakes of dried seaweed. (Brittany seaweed, to be precise).
The chocolate itself is fantastic. Rich, dark, smooth and tangy, with elements of citrus, spice, woody notes and a soft, lush mouthfeel. The seaweed flavour is there, but very subtle. If anything combining it with the chocolate serves to bring out the slightly sweeter tastes it possesses, and at no time do the two tastes do battle on your palate. In short, delicious, if a little left field. But since when was that an issue?
This is my first Bovetti bar, but having browsed the internet (their website is unfortunately broken for English speakers) I have a feeling I’ll be keeping my eyes open for some of their other products, which include chocolate coated mustard seeds, rosemary leaves, coriander seed (already a winner with me anyway) and pimento pepper. It would seem that Bovetti are definitely ‘out there’, experimenting with spices and herbs in a way that few others have tried.
I’d recommend this to any chocolate lover just based on the quality of the chocolate alone, but I genuinely enjoyed having those flakes of seaweed tickling my tastebuds as well. Great work, and I hope to find more very soon (although Athens is a bit of a slog).
This is the last of the Heavens Above bars I bought from John Lewis a few weeks ago. I would have reviewed it sooner, but quite frankly, I’ve been putting it off. The other two bars were so disappointing and I feel bad when Chocablog is full of negative reviews.
As you can see, this bar shares the same “tongue in cheek” design as the rest of the Heavens Above range. Looking at the back of the box, I can see that it contains 30% cocoa solids, that the main ingredient is sugar and that it cost £3.50. But it does also apparently contain real orange oil.
Biting into the bar and you can tell why sugar is listed as the main ingredient. It’s pretty sweet, although it’s also quite creamy. The orange flavour is quite pleasant, and the overall effect is… well… acceptable.
But it doesn’t taste like a premium chocolate in any way. And that’s a major issue for a bar that retails at £3.50 for 70g. While the chocolate itself is not offensive in any way, it’s simply not worth anything like £3.50.
If you like cheap, orangey chocolate, then I’d recommend picking up a Terry’s Chocolate Orange instead. And the fact that I’m recommending a Chocolate Orange over this should tell you everything you need to know.
