Toronto Travel: Record-Breaking Twenty Bars!

Chocolate on top of chocolate: taking a hot cocoa break at Soma Chocolatier, Toronto.

And you thought starting this blog with 19 chocolate bars from New York City was a little absurd. I brought home 20 bars from Toronto.

Talk about leaving no bean behind.

We did a lot of walking in our week away. Between the poutine, the peameal bacon (neither of which I was overly fond of), the pastries (which were excellent, thanks to the many small French bakeries) and the food of a dozen ethnic neighborhoods, we had no choice. Toronto boasts a considerable immigrant population, with more than half its residents born outside of Canada, and 20 percent of all of Canada’s immigrants residing here. Over 140 different languages are spoken in Toronto, and the city’s varied cuisines reflect the newcomers’ tastes. Luckily for the chocophile, this means never having trouble finding a new or favorite dessert, bar or beverage. I found new-to-me brands in upscale markets, in grocery and drug stores and in specialty shops such as bookstores and the outrageous Soma Chocolatier, a spot that came highly recommended, and turned out to be a high point of the trip. I’ll be reviewing them over the next few months, starting with two bars:

Valrhona Abinao Puissant & Tannique ((Powerful and Tannic) 85%: The box is dark. The wrapper inside the box is dark. The second you open the box, you smell the darkness. Powerful, indeed. And you are drawn to this bar, done as well as everything Valrhona does. It’s rich, strong, not as bitter as you would think 85% would be. Fruity and woody with a perfect balance of cacao and sugar.

Camino Fair Trade Organic 55%: This ought to be better, given that it’s from Switzerland and despite the fact that it’s organic. It’s got a nice, chewy texture, but the smell and the taste are just plain “off.” The odor and flavor are reminiscent of raw citrus and metal; that classic conundrum I’ve run into so often, even with the well-known organic/fair trade bars. The idea is good but the execution, not so much.

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The Chocolate Bar That Became A Doughnut

Donut, chocolate glazed (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

I’m no doughnut diva, and I’ll be the first to admit it. Those puffy (or cakey) rings of righteous goodness are all the rage, but my digestion won’t go there.

 

However, the better half loves them. So once a week, he gets his fix, courtesy of the local mom-and-pop-and daughter shop. They do great work, but I wondered: could a great chocolate bar mate with perfect (at least by local standards) doughnuts, and produce something interesting?

 

I approached the shop owners and offered to buy them a few bars to melt down and use as topping. My choice: Madécasse 44% with Arabica Coffee Nibs. Chocolate, coffee and a doughnut; I thought it could work, and the owners were game. Two weeks later, I saw the final creation: a chocolate cake doughnut, with a nice, shiny glaze of Madécasse. OK, make that chocolate, chocolate, coffee and doughnut. The result was not bad; the coffee flavor was not intense enough, but all that chocolate actually balanced quite well. I’d certainly invest in a few bars of something else with another flavoring (an intense berry, or perhaps a higher percentage cacao) and try again. After all, if it’s truly awful, I don’t get to eat them.

 

As for this bar and another from the same company:

 

• The Madécasse Arabica bar on its own does have a distinct salty opening note, followed by chocolate and then the slight crunch of the coffee nibs. It’s a fun bar with a lot going on, including good shine and nice snap.
• Madécasse 70% Cacao has more of the berry bang right off the bat. Very fruity, shiny and good snap, this is a bar that might be better suited for the doughnuts, due to the stronger flavor and higher cacao content.

 

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Castronovo Chocolate: Round 2

They are closing in on the May 1 opening date for the Stuart store, but Denise and Jim Castronovo still found time to introduce me to two more chocolates in their line: the 71% Criollo Cacao Peru, which I admit I’ve had stashed in the chocolate fridge, saving for the right tasting time, and their latest creation, the 72% Wild Amazon Cacao from Venezuela. When I stopped at their booth at the Palm Beach Gardens greenmarket last week to pick up the Venezuelan, I had the opportunity to talk the ears off of two very nice ladies who were looking over the Castronovo’s bars, trying to decide if they were worth a try.

I told them about my previous experiences with organic chocolate and explained why it was important to support a local artisan making quality product. They did buy, hopefully because they wanted to and not to make me shut up. No doubt they thought I was a company “plant” disguised as an ordinary citizen who just happened to wander into the market.

No shill here; just a happy consumer who’s pleased to find local organic chocolate that tastes like no other organic chocolate out there. You can find out more about the company at https://www.facebook.com/CastronovoChocolate.

As for the two new bars:

• The Venezuela bar is sweet on the nose, but bitter on the bite. It’s got a nice snap, good shine and the cacao flavor is very pure, with a classic bittersweet “tang” on the end. You can easily enjoy the entire 1.25 ounce bar.
  The Peru bar has less tang, more mildness and a mouthful of fruit flavor, with strawberries very pronounced; so much so, you’re almost looking for seeds between your teeth. But no dental floss needed here. This is a great way to enjoy the best of both worlds.

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Game-Changing Organic Chocolate

I almost decided to walk by the little booth at the local farmer’s market. The banner announcing their organic chocolate was the reason.

If you’ve read my reviews, you know how I feel about what I’ve tasted. It’s not good. Musty, metallic and just plain “off” flavor has meant tossing most of the bars I’ve tried after one bite or so.

Until now, when I tried my farmer’s market find: Castronovo Chocolate, Florida’s first bean-to-bar chocolatier. Their products are organic, single-origin, come in a range of cacao contents and they taste like chocolate you want to keep eating.

Chocolate maker Denise Castronovo used to work in the geographic information technology business, but she’s always been an artist, primarily working in pottery. When the geotech business slowed down, she turned to another hands-on art form: chocolate. She and her husband Jim, the man behind the counter at the farmer’s market, have been dedicating themselves to finding the best beans from Central and South America, roasting them, winnowing them, conching and tempering the ingredients (cocoa beans, cane juice rather than sugar and cocoa butter) until they end up with 1.25-ounce squares.

Are we talking about an organic chocolate that finally makes the premium grade? Indeed, we are. I’ve tried two of the three bars I purchased, the 70% Bolivia Trinitario Cacao and 70% Dominican Republic Trinitario Cacao. The Dominican had good shine and snap, and the citrus flavor was distinctive, yet light. I immediately thought of grapefruit when I tasted it, but it’s gently applied, not slathered on. The Bolivian also shines and snaps, and tastes like a thick, rich cup of chocolate with a layer of coffee on the bottom; a mix of dessert and beverage.Since I taste early in the morning, common sense prevented me from finishing either bar. Desire made me want to consume them as breakfast.

Jim and Denise have some additional suggestions in the form of adult beverages to enhance the chocolate experience. They recommend either coffee or a Cabernet Sauvignon for the Bolivian, dark rum for the Dominican and gin or a Shiraz (Syrah) for the 71% Criollo Cacao Peru, which is my third bar, and the one I have yet to taste. Rest assured, I am looking forward to it.

At the moment, you can contact Denise and Jim through their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/CastronovoChocolate) or if you come to South Florida on vacation, at either the Palm Beach Gardens greenmarket (http://www.pbgfl.com/content/76/144/default.aspx) or Fort Pierce greenmarket (http://www.fortpiercefarmersmarket.com/). A store is in the works, set to open May 1, at 555 Colorado Avenue, Stuart, FL. In the pursuit of high-quality chocolate, a store by the locals, for the locals (any anyone else who wants to visit or order) cannot come soon enough.

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Can Inexpensive Chocolate Be Good?

Moser Roth – chocolate from Aldi (Photo credit: lightsight)

I visited an Aldi store that opened recently near my office, and of course, I had to find out if there was any chocolate on the shelves.

If you know anything about the Germany-based Aldi chain, you know it’s a discount grocery store that carries very little in comparison to most American supermarkets. No floral, photo, pharmacy, fresh bakery, salad bar or deli counter. Just the basic, mostly private-label choices of produce, prepackaged breads, dairy, fresh meats, frozen seafood, paper products and health and beauty goods.

I’ve written about the chain for another online publication, but not about their chocolate. I found two bars to try, and decided for the price (less than $3 for each eight-ounce bar), it was worth the risk. If they were awful, it proves that money can and does buy the best. If they were at least acceptable, it proves that quality can come at a favorable price.

The two bars I tried, Choceur Dark 45% and Moser Roth 70% were tasted at the same time of day (7 a.m., which is my normal tasting time) on two different days.The Choceur Dark is from Austria, and the best thing I could say is that it was pleasantly OK. The bar had shine, but no snap. The flavor was a little tangy, not as sweet as you would expect this percentage, but there just wasn’t much to distinguish it from any drugstore bar.

The Moser Roth was closer to what you’d expect from a high-end bar. Bitter, with a decently deep chocolate flavor, but nothing that would make you buy more of it, even for the price. It’s not bad, just not very satisfying.

Both bars contain vanillin, the artificially synthesized vanilla flavor, which certainly didn’t help the flavor profile. If you’ve eaten the highest-quality chocolate for a while, even a small amount of the poor or middle-of-the-road stuff is unpleasant to the palate. I understand the need for products like these. It’s an opportunity for people of limited financial means or those with a genuine lack of chocolate knowledge to obtain the best. Both are a step up from the mass-produced morass. Not a very strong step, but a step nonetheless.

 

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Chocolate From The Land Of Fjords?

What’s the first thing you think of when someone mentions Iceland?

Ice, snow and cold? The reality: the climate is warmed by the Gulf Stream and is quite temperate. But it has it’s share of magnificent fjords, glaciers and permanently snow-capped mountains.

Large expanses of empty land? True to a great extent; 320,000 people living in 40,000 square miles make it the most sparsely populated country in Europe. And yes, Iceland is part of Europe, not the Arctic.

A tongue-twisting language with a lot of accents, umlauts and consonants? Well, Icelandic is a Germanic language, descended from Old Norse and Norwegian dialects.

But would you think about chocolate?

Nói Síríus thinks you should. The company (http://noi.is/English/About_Noi_Sirius), established in 1920, is the largest confectioner in Iceland, with 130 employees and a 30% total confectionery market share in that country. Most of their output involves sweets, such as the chocolate bars I found in one local shop (my Fresh Market store), chocolate-covered raisins, licorice, Easter eggs and jellied sweets, but they also import and distribute other products such as breakfast cereals.

If you’re concerned as I was about product quality, given the travel distance, don’t worry. I bought the four bars that were available: plain bars in the following percentages: 33%, 45%, 60% and 70%. The first surprise was opening the packages (For this tasting, I tried the 33% and 70%). Each package had two-150 gram (5.3 ounce) bars, which was a bonus for the price of $8 I paid for each package. Another bonus is the recipe printed on the outside of each package, in case you find you cannot simply eat all the contents.

The 33% should have been the lightest and creamiest, and indeed it was. Very smooth, slightly buttery and not very sweet, and sugar is listed as the first ingredient. It is a milk chocolate for adults, and it won’t send you running for a big glass of water afterwards. The 70% was slightly bitter with a slightly wood finish, but it’d definitely the kind of chocolate you’ll go back to.

The English-language version of the website is good when it comes to explaining what the company is about, but the product description is a little thin. There are online and brick-and-mortar sources, listed on the company’s website, where you can get Nói Síríus bars. Note that Whole Foods is listed as a source, but I have not encountered the product there. The Fresh Market (http://www.thefreshmarket.com/) is where I found my bars.And there is only one importer in the U.S., located in California (Nu-Breath Incorporated, 1-800-365-2177).

Sometimes, you get your chocolate wherever you can. Other times, you find it in the most unlikely places. Either way, it can be a good deal and great eating, along with some history. Pakka pér (thank you) Nói Síríus.

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  Nói Síríus (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Sweet (Local) Find At The Greenmarket

I enjoy tasting chocolate from all over the world and learning about the international artisans who work from bean to bar, but I admit the happiest find is often the one closest to home.

At the local greenmarket, amid the crowds, commerce and intoxicating smells, I spotted a small white tent, simply decorated with white plates, bow-tied white and unpainted wooden boxes and chocolates. The name on the tent, J. Williams Chocolate Company Palm Beach, was not one I knew. And no wonder; the company started only a few weeks ago, based in a small West Palm Beach office.

Chocolatier Holly McCloskey isn’t the J. Williams behind the company. That would be her father, for whom she named the company. McCloskey works out of an office on Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard, and creates in a commissary kitchen nearby. Her signature piece is the Monkey Bar, available in dark or milk chocolate. It has pretzel bits, caramel, peanut butter and a bit of Himalayan sea salt. The bar would topple into too-sweet if not for the salt, but it’s perfectly balanced with this addition.

J. Williams offers a small but focused list of chocolates, including truffles (hazelnut, mocha and Habanero); bonbons (cheesecake, dulce de leche); milk chocolate almond or cashew bark and chocolate-covered almonds. You can buy by the piece, the quarter, half or full pound, and have them packaged in white gift boxes or the sleek blond wood boxes, which can be custom-decorated. Prices range from $8 to $20 for a half-pound of chocolates and $20 to $36.50 for a pound. McCloskey can also take orders for custom chocolates and specialized packaging. She is still working on her website, but can be reached at (561) 379-9058 or toll-free at (888) 658-5488.

And a few more recent bar samples:

Francois Pralus 75% Cuba Trinitario: Stored for a year, it still has snap, though there was some bloom. But the taste still rings like a bell. It’s sharp and earthy  and woodsy in a way that makes me wish I had not left it as the last bar in the NYC stash, or at least bought more than one.

Sweet Riot 70%: The beans are Latin American, the company is based in New York, the bar is made in Italy, and each square has twenty-one calories. The label is descriptive, colorful and fun. The bar is Fair Trade and certified organic. Yes, I got sucked into another organic bar. Blame the lure of the pretty packaging. And while this bar has that metallic kick all the organic bars seem to have, at least this one isn’t too pronounced. It’s lighter in cocoa flavor and sweeter than I expect a 70% to be, but it’s not bad.

Neuhaus 70% Extra Dark: Is it wrong to call a Belgian chocolate just ordinary? This one is. It’s not dark, or extra or strong, unlike what the label says. It’s smooth, on the sweet side, with no grainy texture. It’s pleasant, but lacks much character.

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