Chicago Chocolate Tour

Hey Gang!! I'm in Chicago - the weather is to die for, the architecture is fantastic, and the chocolate is plentiful. I think I want to move here. Or at least spend the next four days here.



The flights were easy, but the traffic from the airport was a bitch. However, our van driver was festive and some businessman gave me his card and told me to call him if I wanted to have drinks. (Um - no. But flattering nonetheless.)



I dumped my bags and hit the streets - I decided to walk the 17 blocks to make plenty of room for all the chocolate I was about to eat (a decision that seemed brilliant at the time.) My hotel is across from Millennium Park, which is gorgeous. Here are a couple of pics from my walk:






Can you tell how gorgeous the day is? And do you like the way I have juxtaposed the natural beauty of the tulips with the man made beauty of the sculpture? Hey - I didn't get that undergraduate degree in art history for nuthin'!


Well, you just gotta shoot the lions in front of the Art Institute:





And check these out! Notice the human at the base - they are gigantic!! American Gothic in front of the Chicago Tribune building. How cool is Chi Town?

As I was walking toward Bloomingdale's (which was the meeting place for the tour) - http://www.chicagochocolatetours.com/ I saw a woman in a lively yellow jacket with a purple purse. I think - "Look at her - she is so petite and looks so great in those bright colors." Then I notice she is carrying a chocolate tours sign! I kid you not - I say' "Valerie?" And she turns around - it's Valerie Beck from the website! She is very nice and gracious, loves both Chicago and chocolate. And she walked with me about 9 more blocks to the tour site.

My tour guide was actually Heidi Holladay (Valerie was leading another tour at the same time), a pastry chef and tour guide extraordinaire. She did a great job - taking us to six different sites and giving us loads of information about chocolate and Chicago along the way. The tour was supposed to last two hours, but ours lasted about three. No one complained - it was a fantastic time. But if any of you decide to go, budget extra time. You'll want it anyway - you might want to go back to some of the sites or stay longer at the last one.

Because I was carrying large bags of chocolate and a twelve pack of Diet Sierra Mist for my 17 block return trip, I am tired, so I'm only going to review the first two stops tonight. Now you might be thinking - why did Denise carry so much soda? I am addicted to diet soda and would rather get a lot at a drug store than try to find some at outrageous hotel rates. You might also be thinking - why did she not call a cab if she was carrying all this? IBecause I am stubborn (I really felt I should do some exercise after all this decadent eating) and I am essentially cheap. Why pay cab fare if you can manage to hobble 17 blocks with your arthritic hips carrying 20 pounds of chocolate and soda?



Remember, I have never claimed to be either sane or issue free.



I did have several interesting conversations with the homeless as I struggled along.



But I digress.



The first stop was teuscher Chocolates of Switzerland. I have written of teuscher before.

My friend Katie and I stopped in a teuscher store in New York when I was there for the Chocolate Show. I wasn't impressed then and I'm not impressed now. The prices are insanely high in my book and the decor says funeral parlor more than chocolate shop. I can't help it - it just creeps me out. They gave us a sample which was fine, but nothing that made me go crazy and buy a bunch of stuff. In both locations I found the staff snooty. Please - it's chocolate. Get over it. And you're in a mall. If you work in a mall, you really need to get over it.

Next stop was More Cupcakes (http://www.morecupcakes.com/). Now this was something - look at how this place is designed:

It's like a cupcake gallery or museum - gorgeous! And they have some amazing and creative flavors. They have more flavors in the shop than are listed on the website. We got to taste two mini cupcakes - the first was chocolate with chocolate icing; the second was chocolate with a vanilla icing. After the first sample (I didn't know there was going to be a second sample), I was so smitten I bought a full size cupcake - salted caramel. A yellow cake with caramel in the center and a light caramel frosting. And they pack it up in a great, sturdy box with a cool More Cupcakes sticker- very nice packaging. Woowee!

The small cupcakes were the perfect size - you could pop one in your mouth. They were fresh and delicious and the frosting was amazingly light.

But when I got back to my room and devoured - I mean daintily ate - the larger cupcake, I was disappointed. To be honest, it tasted a little stale. : (

I still think these were awesome cupcakes and this was most people's favorite stop on the tour. I would definitely give them another chance.

Okay - I'm smoked!! I'll give you more of my chocolate adventure tomorrow. Until then, sweet dreams!!!

Tutti Frutti, oh Rudy

Little Richard was born in the town I grew up in - Macon, Georgia.

Today we are going to talk about chocolate with fruit flavors.

That means we have a theme song - Tutti Frutti, oh Rudy! a wop bop-a-loo-bop a wop bam boom!


Let's start with orange:

We have already reviewed Terry's Orange (the best thing about it was its cool shape and that I had to beat it with a stapler to get it to break apart into slices). As a rule, I'm not thrilled about the chocolate/orange combo. I dunno - just seems like there are sooo many better choices (I mean why pick orange when you can have caramel, peanut butter, or nuts?)

The fluorescent nightmare on the right is a teuscher Mandarin Chocolate bar http://www.teuscherfifthavenue.com/index.php I got this in their Fifth Avenue store which is decorated like a bad cross between a funeral parlor and Hello Kitty. It's actually disturbing - like five year old beauty queens. The home page of the website gives for a feel for it. This is a Swiss chocolatier, but this bar is awful. I have several of their bars, so I'm hoping the others are better. Avoid this orange wrapper like you avoid orange traffic cones.

The Lindt bar really surprised me - it actually has pieces of orange and almond slivers. And I found the chocolate richer, smoother and creamier by far than the teuscher bar. This is the best orange/chocolate combo I've tried yet. If you like orange and chocolate - this is IT! Good Golly Miss Molly!

Chuao Chocolatier makes these ChocoPods:

Great packaging! Love the shiny, metallic pink wrapper and the cacao pod shape! These were Passion - Passion Fruit Caramel. Okay - I don't know if I got a bad batch, but these tasted terrible. Maybe the passion fruit is too weird, I don't know. I just thought they tasted, well, wrong. If I see a different flavor, I'll try these again, but they were really bad. Oh Rudy!

Another Lindt bar:

This one is a 70% dark bar (delish, smooth dark chocolate) with cherry filling and supposedly with "the lingering heat of chili." My verdict? zzzzzz Boring. Too subtle on the cherry and chili. If there's a whole lotta shakin' goin' on, it ain't going on here. Pass.

Now these kind of scare me, but I'm going in:

Let's start with Crave by NewTree http://www.newtree.com/chocolates.php The chocolate was good, but I'm not a big apricot fan and the apricot flavor is pretty strong. I did like the fact that in this box are three individually wrapped bars - very nice. Here's what I don't like - they have 11 flavors - crave is one - others include forgiveness, blush, cocoon, vigor - PLEASE! Forgiveness is not a flavor! Neither is cocoon! Everybody has to have an angle, but damn! There's a whole lotta BS goin' on! (I'll try more of these, though - the chocolate was nice and smooth.)

The other two are by Dolfin (they had a great chocolate bar that was weak on the almonds, reviewed in the Nuts post). In the tan wrapper is Summer Memories, Apple Crumble - it has apple, hazelnuts, and sugarcane. Eh. Didn't do much for me. Sounds more interesting than it is. Caramel and chocolate REAL apples are soooooo much better.

The screamin' green wrapper is Fruity Escapade (okay, that's just insane - it sounds like something the Fruit of the Loom guys would be involved in). The flavors here are apple, peach and apricot. What the hell was I thinking when I bought this?

Actually it's not bad - the chocolate has so much flavor and the fruit is very subtle, so the combo is very good. There are fruit pieces in the chocolate. I like the size of this bar too - it's a 1.058 oz bar (those large Lindt bars are 3.5 oz to give you a comparison).

So far, I really like fresh fruit with chocolate best - the giant apples at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory - oh, baby!! Those are awesome!! But of these bars, my very favorite was the Lindt Intense Orange. I highly recommend this one. A wop bop-a-loo-bop a wop bam boom!

Music is a great motivator - I think we all should have a theme song. Or at least a cool fruit costume.