rev:text
| - Went for a Chocolate Snobbery 101 event last night, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
The Info:
The snobbery bit is not ironic: this man is incredibly passionate about the cocoa bean. You have to be a little nuts, and I'm guessing an insomniac, in order to McGyver enough equipment to make small batch chocolate (NOT just flavour it, like Callebaut does). There's a reason only a handful of people do it. Go to this class and you'll learn WAY more about chocolate than you'd ever be able to read up on, and have a real appreciation for the origin of your cocoa beans (like people do for coffee nowadays), i.e. you'll probably end up a snob too! The wine pairings worked out well also.
The Chocolate:
The first thing that strikes you is that 70% dark chocolate does not have to be bitter, or leave a chalky residue. The second thing is that the flavour profile can be very different between pure chocolates, based solely on the variety (he has all 3), and the region of origin (he has 4, buying directly from growers). This means that, like red wine, you may not like them all, but you can probably find a 48% (milk), 70%, or 80% to strike your fancy. On top of this, you can combine various centres, chocolate coatings, and dustings to your liking with the truffles-to-order service. They have various baked goods and confections, but I can't comment on those yet.
The Shop:
If you're the kind of person who ONLY ever gets coffee as a double-double at Tim's, you'll find this place overpriced, and the chocolate middling. If you're the type of person who ONLY shops at Holt Renfrew, you'll find the shop a bit pedestrian, and the chocolate great because someone told you it was. For the rest of us, I think this is an earnest business focused on providing Calgarians a special chocolate experience. Now I just need to learn to eat chocolate slooooower. :-)
P.S. in response to an earlier review, I can confirm that they have a standard Point-Of-Sale PIN Pad now for credit cards.
|