Michel Cluizel: Noir au Praline a l'Ancienne

November is turning out to be a great month in terms of eating chocolate -- and really, what else could a month ask for but to be spent eating bars like this one? Michael bought me this beauty at a speciality food store in Dublin called Fallon & Byrne. They had an excellent selection of chocolates, including a huge variety from Cocoa Bean Chocolate Co. of County Kerry -- they were the makers of the Sea Salt bar from several weeks ago. The true mark of a distinguished chocolate seller is, I think, the inclusion of Michel Cluizel. He's without a doubt one of the best chocolatiers in the world -- or so goes the choco-lore! Let's find out.

Michel Cluizel: Noir au Praline a l'Ancienne

Cocoa content: 60%

Notable ingredients: hazelnuts, almonds, praline butter

Origin: n/a

First, I should admit that this bar challenged my previously-held notion of what praline is. Praline, in French, actually refers to the combination of a powder made from ground up sugar-coated nuts added to chocolate. Nothing wrong with that, right? I guess in the United States the word most commonly refers to hazelnut praline, but outside of the country the nut content is not specified. Here, we have a tasty, roasted mix of hazelnuts and almonds. The word "ancienne" refers to the old-style taste of the praline. I'm just quoting Michel here.

Each piece of this bar, of which there were (I think) 18, contained a slightly grainy center of praline. The effect was entirely delicious. Honestly, I've never had anything other than a fudge brownie that tasted SO MUCH like a fudge brownie. The earthy roastedness of the nuts raised my holiday merriment levels tenfold -- and you thought they were high last week! Michel Cluizel has taught me a valuable lesson: if you roast anything for long enough in caramelized cane sugar, and then add THAT to deliciously snappy dark chocolate, a real treat have you.

Thank you Dublin, thank you Michel Cluizel, (thank you Michel Goldsmith,) and thank you November. A.

Montezuma's: Nutmeg

You can expect November to be a month of fine chocolates because I've been doing some traveling and have sought out some of the greater chocolate venders in this fine continent. Last weekend I was in London, where I came across a Montezuma's chocolate store in the Spitalfields Market. I had actually never heard of Montezuma's -- it's a relatively new UK company with a flavor/ingredient variety comparable to that of Christopher Elbow, who uses Pop Rocks and weird spices. I chose this bar with little hesitation, as I have never seen nutmeg in chocolate before, and I love a good holiday spice just as much as the next person.

Montezuma's: Nutmeg

Cocoa content: 34%

Notable ingredients: organic nutmeg

Origin: n/a

The back of the bar has some corny testimonial from one Helen Pattinson (Co-founder,) who likens the flavor to one's "mother's secret rice pudding recipe." I think this is a useful, if not wholly accurate comparison. Nutmeg is usually paired with cinnamon, in cookies or in the incredibly delicious Cinnamon Nutmeg frozen yogurt that I once had from Ranc's in Lexington, MA. Indians use it in desserts, most notably kheer. I would say it provides warmth and a very subtle spice, like ginger but sweeter and milder.

I had no doubt that it would be a good companion for chocolate -- specifically milk chocolate. Since nutmeg often accompanies creamy desserts like eggnog and rice pudding, it is a natural match for the silky, high quality milk chocolate we have here. It provided a depth to the chocolate, and absolutely filled me with holiday merriment. Nutmeg makes pumpkin look like the Grinch who stole Christmas.

This was the first bar I've had in a while that I actually closed my eyes for and savored -- that's how delicious it was. Every respectable chocolate maker out there has a ginger bar. Why not nutmeg, I wonder? It smells incredible and presumably goes a long way in small doses.

This bar could get infinite points for originality but on taste alone it deserves a top grade. I'll definitely be trying more of Montezuma's chocolates in the future, and keeping my eye out for similarly innovative spice inclusion elsewhere. A.

The Chocolate Alchemist: 73%

I got this bar at McCambridge's in Galway city center. I'd never heard of this company before and it's fun to come across nice, unfamiliar packaging. The Chocolate Alchemist is a UK company. They apparently experiment with a lot of interesting flavors but McCambridge's sells only this bar and a chili bar. I've had it with chili for now, so in this entry I make my return to pure, dark chocolate.

The Chocolate Alchemist: 73%
Cocoa content: 73%
Notable ingredients: n/a
Origin: n/a

Don't you love it when the bar is so simple and chocolate-centric that it's named after its cocoa content? And the cocoa content is so precise: not 70 or 75, even, but 73%. I think I've had some other 'random' content numbers before -- 59% in a Dolfin bar comes to mind. It does make me feel like the makes are really aiming for something specific.

This bar was so, so delicious. So refreshing after that last bar from Tesco, the dead one. I'm trying to think of another pure dark chocolate bar to compare this to in terms of quality. Marie Belle was similarly excellent, but a little more ambitious and thus an unfair comparison. Looking back in my archives tag, I see that this bar is probably pretty similar to these: Le Pain Quotidien's 70% bar, and Amattler's bar, also 70% (could this be my favorite cocoa content?). It's the perfect level of sweetness and clarity.

To add to that, this bar had fantastic snap: another refresher after that Tesco bar. It melted slowly and deliciously, broke cleanly and evenly, and generally tasted wonderful. I'm happy to have known it, and to now count the Chocolate Alchemist as one of my preferred European finds. A.

Tesco Finest: 70% with Ginger

You'll notice that I uploaded my own (low quality) picture of this bar. That's because I found the Cairns Building for Business and Economics on campus here in Galway! Non-arts students always keep a clean facility, not to mention the highest internet speed known to Ireland. I got this bar at Tesco which is a huge European supermarket chain. This is their house-brand chocolate line, most all of which is single origin.

Tesco Finest: 70% with Ginger

Cocoa content: 70%

Notable ingredients: crystalized ginger

Origin: Dominican Republic

Imagine my surprise when I found, a couple of weeks ago, that Tesco carries its own line of single origin chocolate. Who else does that! I don't think even Whole Foods does, although of course their chocolate selection is far better than Tesco's when it comes to non-house brand. They had a few interesting options but I chose this one because I love ginger and I haven't had any in a while.

This is really the bottom of the barrel when it comes to ginger chocolates. I mean, surely it's not, but it doesn't even approach the level of other ginger bars I've tasted. On this blog so far we've seen examples from Dagoba, New Tree, and most notably, Chocolove (if you want to see the selection, it's tagged under "spice.") I tried to remember what I loved so much about the Chocolove ginger bar -- the dark chocolate was enlivened by the ginger's spice, sugar, and warmth. It was a warmth sensation, tempered by the earthy, semi-sweet chocolate. Chocolove just works with really great ingredients and makes a delicious chocolate, add-ins aside.

So the problems here were twofold: the chocolate was not that good -- stale, dry, dusty -- and the ginger was dead -- no chew, no spice to speak of, no warmth. It was like freeze-dried papaya or something. Tasteless. Not disgusting at all, just tasteless -- utterly boring. It's worth noting actually that I quit eating this bar halfway through and turned instead to my multi-pack of Kinder Buenos. I award this bar a C-.

Hanf Natur: Canalade Hemp Chocolate

The theme of this week's bar is "Other Things We Have Known, and Liked." No, not really: a botanist may have to set me straight on this one, but I think the marijuana leaf is a little misleading; hemp is the fiber that is cultivated from the stem of certain cannabis plants -- but not the psychoactive variant. That's why chewing on your hemp bracelet at summer camp never got you high -- and this bar won't, either.

Hanf Natur: Canalade Hemp Chocolate

Cocoa content: 33%

Notable ingredients: hempseed (peeled and roasted)

Origin: n/a

Where to begin? Let's start with: since when do people eat hemp? Apparently health-food people eat it all the time. It contains all the amino acids, plus some calcium and iron. It gets ground up into meal, and incorporated into soy products, milk alternatives, and nut butters. And apparently, the hemp food market is big enough that there is such a thing as "Europe's biggest hempfood producer" -- and, guess what -- it's Hanf Natur.

It's a German company that, I gather from their website, also makes cosmetics and accessories from hemp. They distribute primarily in Germany, the UK, and Ireland -- I got this bar at Evergreen in Galway, Ireland. Some of the company's food products are hard to imagine -- hemp pasta? Hemp marzipan? But after trying this bar, I would probably venture to try all those things.

It took me a couple days to figure out what I tasted in this bar. First, let me suggest its constitution. It's a thick, chewy, melty bar of milk chocolate -- no snap to speak of, which is excused if the chocolate is sufficiently creamy -- with peeled, roasted hempseeds distributed evenly and plentifully throughout. You can see them with your naked eye, and you can feel them on your tongue as soon as the chocolate begins to melt. They're pleasant to eat -- small and soft and chewy, but not crunchy.

But back to the taste. I thought at first that I tasted almonds, but I knew there was more to it than that. I realized later that they reminded me actually of these little sesame candies that I used to buy at a Japanese market in Porter Sq. -- Cambridge, MA. They were these little neat bricks of sesame seeds adhered with something sweet, maybe honey. They had a sweet but distinctly earthy, roasted taste, which is exactly how this bar tasted. It was entirely delicious and novel.

I haven't the energy to go looking for the links between sesame and hempseeds, but I will note that Hanf Natur, on its website, advertises a black sesame product. For its uniqueness but even moreso for its delicious flavor, I award this bar an A.

Lindt: Irish Coffee

The reason -- the sole reason -- I bought this bar was because I'm not sure if you can find it in the United States. In any case, it's distinctly Irish! I didn't even really know what Irish coffee was until after I bought the bar. Someone I was with ordered one this past weekend. It's basically just hot coffee mixed with Irish whiskey and a bunch of sugar and cream. It's a dessert cocktail, I think. I had no expectation that I would like this bar, and that lack of expectation was sadly confirmed -- it was nasty! But it merits discussion, as all bars do.

Lindt: Irish Coffee

Cocoa content: 30%

Notable ingredients: whiskey and coffee

Origin: n/a

I'm not sure if I've ever blogged about a Lindt bar with fillings before. I don't just mean ingredients, but rather liquid fillings that are actually poured into and contained by the chocolate casings. These bars are usually too sweet and messy for me, and the actual quality of the chocolate is totally immeasurable. Still, I've found that Ghirardelli does a pretty good job with it -- mostly because they don't use very much filling.

The Lindt bars are not composed merely of squares containing fillings -- the squares are more like capsules, flimsy chocolate edges around a bulging, dome-like chocolate container. There's really not much chocolate to be had here, and a whole lot of Irish coffee. You couldn't even bite halfway through one of the pieces without releasing globs of the filling that would then slide down your chin.

And as for the filling, it was just as you'd expect -- sickly sweet, unpleasant in texture, and overflowing with some weird, unidentifiable gelling agent. This was all very disgusting but, as I said, expected. Curse you, McCambridge's of Galway! D+.

Cocoa Bean Chocolate Co.: Sea Salt

Lol lol lol yes, all laughs aside, obviously I did not take this picture because I'm not one to waste money on the cuteness of little/big pairs. I could complain more about the internet in Ireland but you know how that goes. Instead, let's talk about the wonders of chocolate bars. This week's theme: Under the Sea.

Cocoa Bean Chocolate Co.: Sea Salt

Cocoa content: 53%

Notable ingredients: flaked Maldon sea salt

Origin: n/a

Cocoa Bean Chocolate Co. is a pretty adorable-looking company run by two sisters from Limerick. They started making this stuff in their kitchen, basically, a few years ago, and have since set up in County Kerry (southern Ireland) to manufacture. They have some really wacky flavor combinations, which we'll hopefully see more of in the coming months. I got this bar at McCambridge's in Galway, which is a terrific specialty foods store comparable to Formaggio and Cardullo's, both in Cambridge, MA.

I've had varying degrees of luck with my sea salt bars on this blog: Nirvana was way too salty, Vosges was just right (see salt entries here.) It's a tricky balance to achieve and it can taste like a supermarket cookie if the cocoa content is too low. I think this bar did a fabulous job and could even have been a few shades milkier, as Vosges's salt bar was. The snap here was really great, and the bar broke smoothly and cleanly -- no air bubbly inconsistencies here, which is impressive for such a small company.

You'll be seeing a lot more chocolate from McCambridge's on this blog -- they have a great selection of local things. I may have been wrong about Ireland's chocolate skills after all! This bar gets an A-.