Cluizel Noir Cafe

I hardly have to say more than:
Michel Cluizel
Noir
Au Café

After all of the chocolate I’ve sampled today for you, dear readers, it might be difficult to get a good review.
But this one is good. Beyond good. You’ve had chocolate before, right? Good chocolate? Good chocolate with coffee?
Have you ever had a fabulous chocolate with an espresso built in? That’s this bar.
It’s not just any espresso, either, it’s the wonderful French espresso that you can’t seem to find anywhere except in France.

Reviewed: Cluizel Noir au Cafe
Personality: One of my lifetime favorites
How to enjoy: With a nice glass of water, just like you are served in a café.
Rating:
1: Better than sex
2: Little bites of heaven
3: Share with your best friend
4: Will do in a pinch
5: Halloween candy

Where to buy:
Safran chocolate in Tuebingen, Germany, and http://www.chocolatmichelcluizel-na.com/

Zotter Kuerbiskerne marzipan

Safran in Tuebingen specializes in Zotter chocolate. When we were there, they had just gotten in a new shipment, perhaps the biggest selection of Zotter I’ve seen. The Austrian Zotter bars are perhaps the most creative I’ve seen anywhere. Their particular flavor combinations can’t be duplicated anywhere. Austria is, in my mind, the Montana of Europe. Fewer people, but people who are totally committed to being themselves. That commitment comes out clearly in this bar.
Today’s Zotter is a pumpkin seed and marzipan bar. Who could have thought to combine these two? Curious.
Curiously attractive, too. This handmade bar is also Bio and Fair trade. Zotter’s web site is worth a read, where you’ll learn more about his philosophy and practices.
This bar is wonderful, with chunks of pumpkin seeds blended into a superior tasting marzipan. The almond and pumpkin see flavors blend well, and the chocolate coating makes it perfect.

Reviewed: Zotter Kuerbiskerne mit marzipan
Personality: Upscale trophy chocolate
How to enjoy: Laid out nicely on a beautiful plate, these are to be savored by eye as well as the tongue.
Rating:
1: Better than sex
2: Little bites of heaven
3: Share with your best friend
4: Will do in a pinch
5: Halloween candy

Where to buy:
Safran chocolate in Tuebingen, Germany, and http://www.zotter.at/4.html
UK: http://www.cybercandy.co.uk/
USA: Rumore has it, Zotter is sold at The Candy Store in San Francisco. http://www.thecandystoresf.com/

Leonidas Pralines

Tuebingen is a big small city in the middle of Baden-Wuerttemberg. As a university town and a medical center, the downtown supports the needs of those groups rather than people supporting a town. That results in a thriving downtown that is filled with many fun things to do.
Last weekend we found a number of nice experiences as we window-shopped. The best café is the one overlooking the Neckar bridge, where you can see hundreds of people walk by. As we walked back to the market from the café, we indulged in ice cream. DH had a Fig-Grape mixture, and I had Lemon Basil. Not the lemon-basil herb, but lemon ice cream with regular basil as an accent flavor. It. Was. Amazing. The fig was good too, but the grape didn’t come out so well.
We also visited Safran. If you’ve seen the “Mistress of Spices” movie, or “Chocolat,” then you’ll understand when I tell you that Safran is a perfect mixture of the stores featured in those films.
And Safran sells chocolate. Good chocolate. I scored a Cluizel bar, a Zotter bar and some Leonidas pralines.
We bought just enough Leonidas for the weekend, and I was going to look up the names of the pieces, but it seems the Leonidas website is under attack, and my virus checker kept me from using the site.
They are good, though. The white one is a Manon Café. With a good solid white shell, and a creamy center, it’s praline perfection. The chestnut shaped one is a coffee nougat with krokant. More solid than the Manon, the krokant is crispy and fresh, like a good toffee should be. The aftertaste of this piece is excellent. We didn’t specifically wish to purchase so many coffee-flavored pieces, but that was the bulk of Safran’s stock.
These pralines are all different ones from my last purchase in Strasbourg. And they’re all good. http://talkalotachocolate.blogspot.com/search/label/Leonidas
The square one is Tosca, a brandy ganache. The brandy taste comes out immediately, and enhances the deep dark ganache.
The rectangular is a nougat with puffed rice. A bit of a non-sequitor compared with the others. I keep thinking about the Nestle Crunch bar, but the chocolate is here much better, of course.

Reviewed: Leonidas pralines
Personality: Upscale trophy chocolate
How to enjoy: Laid out nicely on a beautiful plate, these are to be savored by eye as well as the tongue.
Rating:
1: Better than sex
2: Little bites of heaven
3: Share with your best friend
4: Will do in a pinch
5: Halloween candy

Where to buy:
Safran chocolate in Tuebingen, Germany, and Leonidas everywhere. http://www.safran-tuebingen.de/shop.php?cat=safran&subcat=agb

Caffarel Cannella

Our vacation was spent in Berlin, and we stayed just around the corner from the world-famous KaDeWe department store. Stunning place, it’s a real old-fashioned department store, except that it’s a department store on steroids. The food department alone is beyond belief. Here are a couple of pics from our visit. Yes, it’s a liberty bell formed out of chocolate. 1.6 meters high.

They had a sale (yes a SALE) on Caffarel gianduja. These are normally pricey items, costing 50 Euro cents apiece, but we got a bag with a variety of flavors for much cheaper.

Each flavor is more wonderful than the others. You might remember I reviewed the chili version and the blue version and the gold version in earlier posts. This time I tried the cinnamon.

This Caffarel was a perfect balance of chocolate and cinnamon. First you get the slight snap as you bite into the bar, and the gianduja slowly melts on your tongue. Then the cinnamon hits with a subtle but distinct. It’s nice, because they didn’t make it too intense. I love cinnamon red hots, with lots of good cinnamon, but a chocolate this good deserves a cinnamon that complements it, not overpowers it. And Caffarel succeeds nicely here.

Reviewed: Caffarel Cannella
Personality: nicely spicely
How to enjoy: One of the best. Even better when they’re on sale
Rating:
1: Better than sex
2: Little bites of heaven
3: Share with your best friend
4: Will do in a pinch
5: Halloween candy

Where to buy:
http://www.caffarel.com/uk/uk/home2.html
KaDeWe in Berlin, Germany http://www.kadewe-berlin.de/index2_engl.php

Aldi Choco Bistro Knusper

Cough! Cough! Choke! Gasp!

It may not be a good sign when the first bite of a chocolate puts me into a coughing fit, because the crispy flake goes down the wrong pipe.

But it’s not so bad after all. Aldi has brought us a good budget collection of crunchy chocolates (Knusper means crisp in German), and they are a good product for the price. The candies inside look a lot like the photograph on the front of the box.

The chocolates are a mix of dark, milk and white chocolate, all have a crunch of some sort. The one piece that looks like a coated truffle is a round wafer filled with nougat, and tastes very rich, if a bit sweet. There are some chocolate covered nuts and a couple of cookies covered in chocolate. Our box had two compartments with rolled wafers covered in chocolate and nuts.

You can also buy some of the products packaged by themselves, but the selection is a good deal and provides a lot of variety

Reviewed: Aldi Choco Bistro Knusper Selection
Personality: Unpretentious and crunchy
How to enjoy: A great way to treat yourself at the end of the month when the bank account runs a little low.

Rating:
1: Better than sex
2: Little bites of heaven
3: Share with your best friend
4: Will do in a pinch
5: Halloween candy

Where to buy:
Aldi stores

Heilemann Marc de Champagne

Heilemann is a chocolate brand I discovered lately. Their chocolates appear in grocery stores, and generally in a large variety. Sticks of chocolate are also becoming trendy, and I’m seeing more and more of them in the shops.

This bar is the size of a large candy bar, coming in at 40 grams weight, or about 1.4 ounces. It’s a milk chocolate with a truffle filling, made with marc de champagne, which is 60% alcohol volume. The filling is not too sweet, which is very good. Too sugary, and it overpowers the fine chocolate.

The alcohol can definitely be tasted, although it’s no worse than any other filled chocolate. No one can eat enough of these to get drunk, but a piece of this does make a nice end to a heavy dinner, like one with a lot of cheese. (We just ate Hawaii toast for dinner, and the cheese is quite filling.)

All in all, it’s a pleasant chocolate, and not too pricey. I don’t consider this to be quite as good as Lindt, and far away from the gourmet chocolates, but it’s very enjoyable.

Reviewed: Heilemann Marc de Champagne
Personality: Unassuming, like the quiet neighbor who actually has a million bucks stashed away
How to enjoy: Share it with your dinner party after an evening of cheese fondue.

Rating:
1: Better than sex
2: Little bites of heaven
3: Share with your best friend
4: Will do in a pinch
5: Halloween candy

Where to buy:
Groceries in Germany

Nestle Die Weisse

Nestle is well-known worldwide, and they are an institution in Switzerland. Here’s a translation of the back of this package.
Inspired by the milk expertise of Henry Nestle, in 1875, on the banks of Lake Geneva, the first Swiss milk chocolate was invented. Even today, this uniquely delicious and creamy white chocolate is manufactured with the unchanged passion and great experience of the Swiss chocolatiers.
Pretty ambitious statement, almost arrogant. How does the chocolate actually taste?
The first taste is ultra-smooth. As it melts, it’s a little rough, but not quite grainy. Good but light chocolate flavor, and no discernable aftertaste.

Reviewed: Nestle Die Weisse
Personality: Sort of a work horse – plain and practical, but unsurprising.
How to enjoy: Best for baking.
Rating:
1: Better than sex
2: Little bites of heaven
3: Share with your best friend
4: Will do in a pinch
5: Halloween candy

Where to buy:
Where Nestle is sold, therefore most groceries.