Well I mentioned Belgian and of course there is Swiss and other great European varieties, but hey don't diss U.S. domestic chocolates ...it's not like the method is rocket science or some huge secret. In many major cities, like here in Philadelphia, there are chocolate artisans making world class chocolates and selling them in there little confectionary shops. Look around and you're likely to find them.

I want to try habanero choco sticks! I love habanero - where can I get them?

I agree 100%, I generally do not like chocolate candies all too much, but these are delicious and have very fond Christmas memories attached to them.

Come to our next bbq event ;) Well we don't sell them but we made a few batches and gave them out at bbq competitions/shows. One of the smoker gadgets we make can be used to make jerky, or for smoking anything you put inside, like habanero peppers. After a couple tries we got the smoke/dry process right, then ground up the smoked peppers ( :eek: don't inhale or breath this stuff!) and added them to chocolate. We didn't even get into making our own chocolate yet, though we now have an engineering project to design a "chocolate fountain" ...why? because we can. Anyway, since we had a 5 lb slab of Ghirardelli's that is shipped to us every year for our U.S. Thanksgiving holiday by our California distributor, we mixed the peppers into that melted chocolate; eventually we ended up adding some powdered confectionary sugar to the peppers first and then heating/carmelizing it before adding to the chocolate since that let us cut the heat to our preference. I'm not trying to squeeze in a cheap plug, but if you go to our website there are some interesting bbq related recipes, though not habanero chocolate ...one I like that hits my sweet tooth is "Smokey Mesquite Chipotle Glazed Pecans" which as you might expect, are excellent when mixed into melted chocolate and allowed to reharden; here's the link to our recipe page where you'll see that about 2/3 page down http://www.thebbqguru.com/bbqDisplay...=BBQ%20Recipes

ps: one of our bbq gurus just advised me that you can get habanero chocolates from places such as http://www.fiery-foods.com/dave/chilechoc.asp and http://www.katoproductions.com/

http://www.fiery-foods.com/images/ed...late/katos.jpg
http://www.fiery-foods.com/images/ed...e/choc_hab.jpg

I found out today that the mini-mart in the student union sells a variety of foreign chocolate bars, including Ritter, Cadbury's Flake bar, and Aero bars.

I bought two Cadbury Flake bars. I don't recommend eating the Flake while at a computer. I lost some little bits of chocolate to my keyboard. Probably not a good thing. But it was delicious.

I'll probably go back next week.

Well, here are some favorites, and some I'd like to try, have not been able to, but thought I'd share anyhow.

First of all, I LOVE Lindt chocolates. They have some of the most delicious dark chocolate I've sampled. I'm also a fan of Godiva, despite the yuppy-boutique nature they've really gone towards. They still have some great creative collections and awesome truffles. Also, Ghirardeli(sp?) are good for reasonably priced chocolate.

Now for some tasty looking suggestions:

http://www.aussiefavourites.com.au/c...jamaica250.jpg

This is the ducks guts. I love it.

My favorite would have to be the Kinder chocolate eggs purely for nostalgic purposes...they have little toys inside of them which are so exciting.

Also, ones that have already been mentioned: Milka and Aero bars. Both are amazing.

I just made some dark chocolate mousse... it was mind blowing.

I used some very good French dark chocolate. The French are big on their dark chocolate.

I'd like to see Ghirardelli commemorate San Francisco by coming out with different chocolates representing the different neighborhoods. Presidio, Market, Pacific Heights, Haight, Noe, Castro, Russian Hill, Sunset, etc. It does feel like Ghirardelli is the only decent American chocolate, so why not celebrate it's roots the way that people name chocolates in French, Italian, and Dutch? It's nice to applaud good American cuisine.

My daughter reminded me that some might prefer gourmet vegan chocolate. Is anyone familiar with these products?: http://www.chocolatedecadence.com/


my opinion/taste: sorry will, since you seem to be a fan of theirs, mentioning it a few times, but I think Ghirardelli is over-rated, it's not bad but far from "world class" when comparing to the world's best; I'd like to encourage them to try harder since they are USDM; there have been many times when I've tasted a little piece of their chocolate and didn't even go back for more.

I never considered myself much of a chocoholic growing up, tending more towards hard candies and pastries, but as I've gotten older I've definitely found some that I can't get enough of!

For "high end" stuff, I LOVE Dagoba, Sweetriot (actual cacoa nibs), and Holl's (locally made in West Virginia with AMAZING fillings). Super good stuff.

That being said, I have a serious weakness from time to time for a Snicker's ice cream bar, Twix (caramel or peanut butter) or some form of Reese's Cup!

I could go for some good chocolate right about now....yum

-Will

Rogers' Chocolate from Victoria BC is really good, I had a chance to try it out in Seattle. I looove dark chocolate and Ritter Sport's/Hershey's with Almonds can content me for life.

Anyone try Godiva chocolates ,they are the best thing to come out of Belgium.

I was at the local Rite Aide store a couple days ago and suddenly found myself walking down the chocolate candy isle; luckily I also just picked up a new pair of reading glasses so I could read the fine print on the labels. And there it was, something I never noticed before but recalled reading about recently ...Ritter Sports chocolates. I suddenly recalled this thread and bought two bars to test. They were very good ...would buy again. Aren't they from Germany?

This guy has made a definitive study of unflavored chocolate (the stuff without jellies, creams nuts, fruit or anything else in it), just dark and milk chocolate.

I've tried his favorite and it is mindblowingly good.

Check out hie web pages here.

http://www.hhhh.org/cloister/chocolate/reviews/