The Chocolate Box: Milk

All countries like chocolate. And the good news is, I'm a junior in college and I have friends who are going to a lot of different countries. And I myself have been to a fair number of countries this year (although, granted, they've all been on the same continent.) But I certainly haven't been to Australia (or anywhere near it,) so it's fortunate that my friend Melissa has, and that she was nice enough to bring me back this bar from a store in Melbourne.

The Chocolate Box: Milk

Cocoa content: 34%

Notable ingredients: n/a

Origin: n/a

This bar was thicker than most of the milk chocolate I've had recently, notably those bars by Mitzi Blue (Zotter) and Valrhona a few weeks back. Sometimes, thick cut milk chocolate can get sort of overly chewy and muddy (think Hershey's) but this one from The Chocolate Box was nice all the way through. It wasn't delicate like the Valrhona bar, but it had a clean melt and a consistent, creamy texture. Also, it tasted somehow richer than a lot of American and European milk chocolate. I'm guessing this is because they use more vanilla extract and possibly more cocoa butter -- but this bar certainly avoided the sometimes salty effect that can be brought on by using too much cocoa butter.

I think, although this bar was delicious, I'm at a point in my chocolate-knowing career where I would rather eat a bar of milk chocolate that has mix-ins than a plain bar. It's not that the chocolate got boring; it's just that dark chocolate has so many elements of flavor and milk chocolate is simpler, and thus serves better as a canvas for other treats. There's so much to notice and enjoy in each square of a good bar of dark chocolate, which is why a high quality bar doesn't need anything to distract from the flavor.

Still, the pleasure was all mine. B+.

Trader Joe's: Dark Chocolate w/ Raisins & Pecans

Trader Joe's -- this one being in Millburn, NJ -- is known more for their chocolate covered things than for their chocolate bars -- right? They cover virtually everything in chocolate, and it's all delicious: sunflower seeds, edamame, pretzels. But I thought their chocolate bars were worth a try, because they're really cheap and come in some interesting flavors.

Trader Joe's: Dark Chocolate w/ Raisins & Pecans

Cocoa content: 57%

Notable ingredients: raisins, pecans

Origin: n/a

We can probably all agree that Trader Joe's is a little bit hit or miss. The frozen Indian entree is sensational, but the naan is doughy and limp. The yogurt selection is expansive, but flour is out of stock -- etcetera, etcetera, you have to know how to shop there. I guess somewhere in the back of my mind I thought this bar might be covertly amazing, but I realized something when it proved not to be: cheap chocolate never turns out to be amazing. If a 3 ounce bar costs $8, comes in an exquisite wrapper, and prints a whole manifesto about how to consume and savor it on the back label, you can expect it to be good -- and still, sometimes it will disappoint. But really cheap, unpretentious chocolate never turns out to be anything so spectacular, as evidenced by bars from Tesco, Hershey, and the like.

In keeping with the rule outlined above, this bar was really average, and not at all exciting or surprising. The cocoa content lurked in that murky, unnecessary space between milk and dark, where the creaminess has vanished but the texture has no snap to speak of. The bite was thick and chewy, the flavor kind of dusty and dry, and the ingredients uninspired. In fact, I don't think I even really tasted any pecans. But the raisins, as always, made this bar into more of a trail mix experience.

I think I've learned to stick to the chocolate covered confections when it comes to Trader Joe's. This bar gets a C.

Mitzi Blue by Zotter: Thank You

I may have waxed nostalgic about Zotter, the German chocolate manufacturer, on this blog before. They used to sell their beautiful hand-scooped bars at the Food Emporium chocolate shop I go to on upper 3rd Avenue, but no longer (the salesperson couldn't tell me why.) But, when I returned to the store the other day, I was happy to see that they do still sell some Zotter products. This is a bar from the Mitzi Blue line, named after a sky blue vintage car custom designed for Mitzi Koch.

Mitzi Blue by Zotter: Thank You

Cocoa content: 36%

Notable ingredients: cashews

Origin: n/a

The "Thank You" bar is so named because it was created by Zotter as a sort of material expression of thanks: "only for very special people and for things that cannot be taken for granted," says the box. Why cashews? None of the other Mitzi Blue flavors are named after the sentiments they are meant to express -- there's almond/cherry, strawberry/cocoa, and even spicy sheep milk (!) -- but cashews are singled-out as the flavor of gratefulness.

The chocolate is a dark but milky brown, thin, shaped in a round approximately the size of a big coaster, and divided into segments in a shattered-glass pattern. The texture is intensely chewy and thick, an indication of quality milk chocolate. But Zotter advises not to chew, despite the temptation: "Let the chocolate melt on your tongue for a while, then press it gently to your palate and stroke it lightly with your tongue, so that it melts slowly," instructs the packaging, suggestively. I did, and let's just say it was the right way to go. The flavor and sweetness was so rich and expansive that I couldn't believe I'd only eaten such a tiny piece.

Back to the question -- why cashews? In amounts this small, I feel that cashews are basically indistinguishable from peanuts. The salt is, as we've seen, a great companion for chocolate, and the pieces were of a small enough size such that they provided a pleasant, but not overwhelming crunch to the texture of the bar. So, in sum -- I don't know how well this bar says thank you, but it was definitely delicious, and aesthetically pleasing as well.

This bar gets an A-. Thank you, Zotter.

3400 Phinney: Bread & Chocolate

Why does the cat on the wrapper of 3400 Phinney's Bread & Chocolate bar look so playful and mischievous? Probably because she's partaking in the pleasures of that old Parisian standby -- bread and chocolate. This bar was given to me by my cousin just before I left for my semester in Ireland over 4 months ago. I fully intended to take it on the plane with me as a midnight snack, but amid the confusion of last-minute packing and flight anxiety I forgot. Consequently, this little bar spent the semester in my refrigerator, and I was more than delighted to find that no one had eaten it upon my return.

3400 Phinney: Bread & Chocolate

Cocoa content: 70%

Notable ingredients: french bread

Origin: n/a

3400 Phinney (the weird name refers to the chocolate factory's address) is a line of Theo Chocolate, a company that focuses mostly on single origin dark chocolate bars. The 3400 Phinney collection -- which Theo refers to as a "fantasy assortment" -- moves the focus from the chocolate to the accompanying flavors, which are often original and daring. This isn't to say the chocolate isn't good; on the contrary, it's snappy and consistent in both flavor and texture, and it comes exclusively from Central American beans. But you won't find the often overpowering acidity associated with many single origin chocolates in these bars. Some of the other flavor pairings in the 3400 Phinney collection include chai milk, coconut curry milk, and fig, fennel, and almond dark -- the last of which I can most certainly recommend.

Is everyone aware of how delicious a simple chocolate sandwich can be? I learned about it in high school, when my French exchange host parents packed me some little slices of baguette with a square of dark chocolate inside with my lunches. I've always felt like this was the perfect grain accompaniment to chocolate, far superior to the chocolate croissant. After all, chocolate is already sweet, so it shouldn't need to be surrounded by more sweetness. Salt is a much more interesting and dynamic mate for chocolate -- especially dark chocolate -- which is why a salty, crusty baguette makes the perfect complement for an earthy, sweet square of chocolate. Full disclosure: the croissant family is a family of graceless, tasteless pastry.

So the question is: does this bar serve as a good twist on the chocolate and baguette combination? In a way, no, because this bar is precisely that -- a bar -- and not a sandwich, which detracts from the structural perfection that a baguette achieves. But the little shards of crusty french bread here do add the perfect amount of salt, and a pleasant crunching sensation not unlike that of puffed rice -- but subtler, and denser. Considering that, and the high quality of the chocolate, this is a delicious bar if not an entirely successful imitator. It gets a B+.

MarieBelle: Apricot Belle-Helene

I went to Whole Foods (Union, NJ) around Christmas time and was delighted to find that they've started carrying MarieBelle bars -- not just the standard Aztec bar (as previously reviewed here,) but also the entire Belle-Helene set, which includes such fruit-sweetened flavors as mango, peach, and blueberry. Whole Foods just keeps getting better in the chocolate department -- too bad the founder and CEO was revealed to be somewhat of a wanker in last week's New Yorker. Anyway, being that I'm a sucker for all things with my name on them, this bar was an easy sell -- even at a whopping $8.

MarieBelle: Apricot Belle-Helene

Cocoa content: 70%

Notable ingredients: apricot pieces

Origin: n/a

MarieBelle uses a standard recipe for what they call their "Hot Chocolate" bar; all variations on the theme, such as the Belle-Helene line, are just Hot Chocolate bars with added pieces of dried fruit. When I reviewed the Aztec Hot Chocolate bar last June, I expounded upon the virtues of this solid-form hot cocoa imitator -- as a reminder, MarieBelle uses a lot of added sugar and cocoa butter to smooth out the flavor and achieve the murky sweetness of hot cocoa residue. We have the same delicious bar of chocolate here, but with the addition of apricot pieces, sliced thin and sprinkled generously throughout.

I chose apricot as opposed to the other flavors because I feel like apricot is the tastiest dried fruit -- certainly more so than bananas and blueberries, which are also on offer. As it turned out, however, the apricot pieces didn't have the gummy, slightly moist texture that I usually associate with dried apricot. I think it was actually more akin to freeze-dried fruit, though the product listing on MarieBelle's website definitely doesn't call it that. I haven't messed around with freeze-dried fruit since Kellogg's came out with Special K Strawberry, so I felt a little bit misled. The apricot was dusty and crunchy -- exceedingly dry, and kind of devoid of any distinctive flavor other than plain sugar. The quality of this chocolate could override, I believe, pretty much any flavor blunder, so I can't really complain -- but I think in the future I'll stick to the standard Aztec bar.

It's worth mentioning that listed among the ingredients of the chocolate is potato starch -- this seems weird to me, but it's undoubtedly working for MarieBelle, so I'll trust their judgement. This bar gets a B.