CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!!!
 

I'm a chocoholic.
Doesn't mean I eat it all the time.
Rather, it's like I have long moments where I don't touch the stuff and then, suddenly, get the craving for world-class chocolate. I'm in that phase right now and I ordered some stuff online.

So I want to share with you my favorite brands and get your input, too.

If you haven't tried any of the ones mentioned please beg, borrow or steal to try them - they are worlds apart from most other chocolates ...

Simple chocolate quality - Galler, hands down the best!
They make the chocolate for the royalty of Belgium! Just try a simple milk chocolate bar and you'll understand.
http://www.chocosphere.com/images/ga...ich-milk-2.jpghttp://www.chocosphere.com/images/ga...-noir-70-2.jpg
they have other varieties. White chocolate with pistachios, etc. But it's their basic quality that stands out. Galler leaves Lindt and others in the dust ....

Anthon Berg - delightful liqueur filled chocolate. Who could resist this?
http://www.typetive.com/blogimages/a...dials04-lg.jpg

http://www.anthonberg.com/images/AB_...00x280_pix.jpg

http://www.chocolat.com/ProductImage...5Apricot_X.jpghttp://www.chocolat.com/ProductImage...rawberry_X.jpg

I'm enjoying a small chocolate Cointreau bottle as we speak ... I just want to share my indulgence and hopefully provoke the same in someone else.... mmmmm.

You know, everyone at work (they're all women and chocoholics) think that I am insane because I really and truly do not like Dove chocolates. They're all obsessed. My favorite chocolate indulgence is the simple little Ghiradelli squares. Any flavor, and just one or two at a time. And I love Hershey's Special Dark and kisses. Apparently I'm not only uncouth, but "ghetto." Some of the more refined chocolates actually remind me of those godawful coins and chocolate bunnies from Easters past. Even the stuff I got in Sweden seemed too grainy to me. Maybe I have simple tastes. :D

Ghirardelli is my favorite brand of chocolate by far. I very rarely indulge, but when I do I drive to San Francisco to Ghirardelli Square and get a sunday. La Maison du Chocolat and Dagoba are good, if expensive, but for my money it's simply Ghirardelli.

For some reason, I knew I'd be craving chocolate after reading this thread. I am a chocoholic too. I am partial to dark chocolate. I have never had the ones you mentioned, but will start looking for them now.

I almost forgot.

Here's a chocolate I discovered when I was in Italy - "Pocket Coffee" Each one is a small chocolate piece filled with espresso. It is said that one chocolate is 1/3 of an espresso. I just think they taste gooooood!

http://www.capriflavors.com/images/f...pc_t32_pre.jpg http://www.capriflavors.com/images/f...pc_t18_pre.jpg

If you were only here I'd convert you in an instant.
Galler is the smoooooooooothest milk chocolate you'll ever find.

I forgot to describe these:
This is Anthon Berg's Apricot with brandy:
http://www.chocolat.com/ProductImage...5Apricot_X.jpg

This is Strawberries with champagne:
http://www.chocolat.com/ProductImage...rawberry_X.jpg

I'll have to try the ones you recommend - I *looove* chocolate too. I like Valrhona a bit.

By the by, I also like Ghirardelli, though when I went looking for chocolate reviews to decide what to try next, I've seen a lot of 'bad' reviews of it. Is it just because it's not 'gourmet' enough??

I personally don't like it as much as Valhrona or some others, but it's really very good, I think.

I don't like Dove much either - it tastes too 'waxy' to me. It does taste 'smooth', I guess, but...bleh.

Godiva truffles...mercy!
Any chocolate will do. Hell, I've eaten spoonfuls of Hershey syrup when desperate!
A local winery sold these little squares of raspberry chocolate and they were like buttah! I believe the name was Rothschild's, but can't be certain...
Rothschild's also makes this chocolate 'dip' for pretzels, etc. It's got the consistency of canned icing, but a million times better tasting(altho I will eat canned frosting til I'm sick!)

Ahhh, Belgian chocolate. The best I've ever tasted. Last time I came back from Belgium, one of my suitcases was as stuffed with chocolate as I could fit. Please don't report me to customs. I did have a small carry-on bag of chocolates that I did report and ate on the way home. As far as the brands, without searching back I don't even recall the names; I just asked the Belgian folks I was working with (...are they all "Flemish"?) to take me to a good chocolate shop in Brussels and help me choose some good ones.

One of our California customers sends us a large box of Ghirardelli chocolates each year for the Thanksgiving holiday. It is a highlight of our Thanksgiving week in work. Hey, that's coming up soon, I can hardly wait!

I love chocolate - any kind at all. Hershey Kisses to high end. Milk chocolate or dark chocolate. Makes no difference. Its all good.

One brand that shocked me was Nestle Quality Street (also not always easy to find in the US).
The gaudy packaging makes it look like cheap, crappy hard-candy but it is actually delightfully good chocolate!


http://us.st11.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.c..._1954_14489815

You got me from Hello...I am also a chocoholic, but i have to say i really don't like American chocolate...too bitter for me, i prefer the UK chocolate thats very sweet!

Yes.
I lived in the Westmidlands for a year during my medical training (I'm a doc).
There I discovered all the wonderful Cadbury candy bars we don't have in the US.
*sigh*
Picnichttp://www.ukgoods.com/images/cadbury-picnic.jpg

Flake (dipped in ice cream)http://www.ukgoods.com/images/cadbury-flake.jpg

Double Deckerhttp://www.ukgoods.com/images/cadbur...-decker-lg.jpg ....

I also loved the Yorkie bars (made for Men)http://static.flickr.com/103/272725606_2594d674fb.jpg

ghirardelli dark is one of my faves of all time, partially bc it is not 'too' expensive, but it also has a very smooth texture, tons of nuances and just goes well with whatever i'm doing. I usually have it with coffee for dessert.

godiva is ok, but it lost its appeal for some reason. I think it's when they dropped from being the 'exclusive' place to 'the place where yuppies go who don't know any better'

there is some type of something sold in target stores that is really good..i forgot the name, though, but it's organic dark.

dove is smooth..but waxy and misses a few of the bass notes that make dark chocolate a joy for me.

the anthony berger and galler look really good, so i'll have to try them out asap.

I'm extremely Partial to Cote de Or, and Kraft is held in so much more regard in Europe - the standards are higher! The pic shows a praline and a caramel box, but I love the dark 73% cocao dark chocolate from them.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2.../chocolate.jpg

You can get almost all of the Cadbury bars at World Market here. Including Picnic and Flake. Don't like 'em, but they're almost always sold out.

I found sources for these bars in the US and they weren't as good as I recall - still, I think they're better than the general US chocolate bars.

I don't recall the exact name, but about a week ago as I was checking out of the local supermarket, I grabbed a small tin of carmel filled chocolates under the Hersey name but with a "high end" qualifier in the name, I just don't recall the name. But I thought they were the best Hersey's chocolates I've ever had.

One of my favourite chocolates, is from an italian chocolate brand called Leone. They also make sweets.

If you love hazelnut, this is the chocolate for you:

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y70...pler/Leone.jpg

check out their site if you're interested:

http://www.pastiglieleone.it/index.aspx

longbough, I don't believe you. You'll have to convince me personally!

I'll be up next weekend. :D

It certainly tastes nice... but all the stuff Ive seen recently about the whole industry exploiting and supporting child slavery in Africa kind of puts me off.

Still... all money is shit I suppose, so if you go deep enough into any commodity, you get to the same thing in the end.

ummm... my favourite type of chocolate bar is a Topic, just to not go too off topic from this thread.

Bwahuh??!!

The vast majority of cacao, which is the main ingredient in chocolate, is grown in and comes from Central and South America. I don't know where you get the African children thrown into slavery thing, but mayhap you're confusing the diamond industry with the chocolate industry.

If not, I'd really love to see a few legitimate cites for your claim.

maybe he was thinking of the Oompa Loompas..you know that could look like kids being short and all....

http://www.american.edu/ted/chocolate-slave.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6517695.stm
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12754

just a suggestion:
looking things up sometimes helps if you dont know what is being referred to.
the allegations of child labor/slave labor primarily concern the ivory coast, but also mention mali, ghana and burkina faso.
see for yourself.

as for chocolates. hm. i am addicted--entirely and without qualms--to lindt dark chocolate truffles and pistachio filled truffles.
but i really like dark chocolates with strange things added like chilis or blueberry.
you can find them in most co-ops. fine stuff.
chocolate ice cream too. especially mayan chocolate, which has a bit of cinnamon in it. other variants too, but those are the current favorites.

Thanks for those links. I had no idea that there was a chocolate trade in Africa at all. I guess that's probably why I prefer the european chocolate flavor?

I'm going to the Fancy Food Show at Jacob Javitz on Sunday, last show in San Francisco there was lots of chocolate representatives. I'll have to pay attention as to where the raw chocolate comes from. And yes, they had some interesting combinations from cranberries, blueberries, and other fruits with chocolate. I too like some of the spicy chocolate flavors, but they seem to be rare to comeby.

I like organic, fair-trade chocolate, especially the stuff made by Equal Exchange.

http://www.equalexchange.com/chocolate-bars

I get them at my local food co-op.

For cooking, I liked to use Scharffen-Berger, but I've become suspicious of their products since they were bought by Hershey. So now I use Ghiradelli. And Will, I am so with you on the Ghiradelli sundae...every time I get to Ghiradelli Square I have a hot fudge sundae.

My favorite European chocolate would have to be Droste, particularly the orange-flavored pastilles. My family's Christmas tradition was to get a Droste chocolate orange and a Droste chocolate alphabet letter (usually one of our initials) in our stocking. http://www.droste.nl/data/content/engels/index.php

An interesting twist for flavors in chocolates that I haven't see mentioned here yet, though roachboy touched on something similar, is combining hot spices with chocolate. Since part of the business I work for is involved with bbq stuff, naturally habenaro peppers play a role; so we roasted habenaro peppers, ground them up to a powder, added them to good molten chocolate, and made little habenaro choco sticks. I was kinda surprised how good they were ...if you like hot spicy.

Here is Seattle we have two (that I know of) chocolate stores that carry Belgium chocolate. Flown in weekly they say. And I love it. I ate too much cheap chocolate when I was young so now it gives me migraines when I eat it. However, lack of sleep can cause migraines as well with me.

If given a choice though, I will choose peanut butter and honey bars over chocolate chip cookies.

I do like Lindt chocolate when we were on our honeymoon in Germany. Not sure if the recipes are the same here or not. I guess not.

Lastly, I buy Dagoba Chocolate whenever I feel I am l late for a potluck. Such good varieties like Lavender and Lime is awesome and the mexican spice one is pretty great as well. *grin*

Jonathan

please check your PM

Those extra Cadbury's are readily available around here in NYC. I stumble upon them often enough to no longer horde them.

Of course the regular European Cadbury chocolate bars, are a bit harder to come by. I horde those when I find them.

Twix is all I need baby.

Milka for me--reminder of my trip to Bavaria. :)

'Tis a funny thing... I never really prefered or only liked chocolate at all. I had a tendency to enjoy more fufilling "fruit" candies and sweets... something that can get one's mouth watering. The only chocolate I ever cared for was those little menthes from Andes.

But, I do have to say now I am more partial to the chocolate side of life... it is a shame I have never tasted anything as rich and decadent as what ya'll care to describe.

I have only tried this, though can't say if it was good or not:
http://www.greatergourmet.com/candy/lindt_rasp.jpg


As of this moment, I think that other's love of Hershey's Reese's Cups has spread to me, 'cause that is all that is on my mind now.

Anybody have some? :D

maybe I'll fire up to old fondue pot this weekend and melt some decent chocolate, dip some fruit and cake in it. Rule #3: if you get some on your body, the other person has to lick it off

I wasn't before obsessing on this thread, but now ...

my name is Nick and I am a chocoholic

mmm....i love almost all chocolates. Even the cheap ones have their allure.

Right now I got a bag of those Hershy's Truffle Dark Chocolate ones. Works for me.

i heard you don't get really good chocolate over there in the USA? don't know if it's true.. and i mean compared to belgian or swiss chocolate^^

any chocolate that's NOT white, black or filled with milk/creams is perfect for me. the best are the ones with nuts or caramels or something else with em.

Well, our popular native chocolate here in the USA isn't very good. That's why we end up writing about all the European chocolate we love. I love my country but we need better chocolate. The closest we come is probably some "custom" chocolate shops that use imported chocolate or Ghirardelli in San Francisco. I like going to Ghirardelli Square in SF just to have one of their wonderful sundaes.

this is true..very very true. our native chocolate would be something like hershey's, which is waxy, gritty, and lacking depth of flavor. It's like instant coffee compared to the freshly ground stuff.

oh geez... i just woke up from the coma after the fancy food show....

food, the cheeses...wow the chocolates...mmmm the chocolates...from all over the world.

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/