Fantastique chocolat!

Bonjour everyone. Ca va?

Ok, that's about all I can remember from my high-school French lessons ~ Oh well. Why am I suddenly speaking French? Well, it has to do with this chocolate shop - La Maison du Chocolat.

I was out shopping with a friend about 2 weekends ago, and happened to walk by this classy (and expensive) looking chocolate shop near the Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. She exclaimed "Oooooooh!! We should go in and have a look!" Hey it was chocolate, I'd never say no. And THAT was the beginning of my adventure into the fine arts of chocolate.

I am not going to kid you or myself - it was damn expensive chocolate there. On the otherhand, each piece was like a master piece. There were no fancy gimicky prints on the chocolate, the packaging was simple (basically the entire shop was brown, brown and brown, just like chocolate). There was however a certain elegance about the setup. We bought some truffles and wow they were goooood. The whole thing melted in my mouth with a silkiness that is hard to describe.

So while we were making the purchase, I noticed that they actually hold chocolate appreciation classes. The Tamanaco class (journey in the world of chocolate) cost $55 for a 1.5hr session.

[At this point, I will forgive you for saying: OH NO you DIDN'T... because yes I certainly did]

I left my name with them and they did call me up, and no one was mad enough to go spend $55 US on a chocolate class with me, so I went along by myself. I figured I gotta try it at least before I judged it.

I got there and was greeted by a shop staff who let me to a table and provided me with a cup of hot chocolate. One sip and I was thinking: hmm, no problem - I think it is going to be fine.


We started off the class a brief history of the shop, and the who, what, where and how La Maison du Chocolat selects their cocao beans and eventually make them into couverture (translated: large block of chocolate used to make chocolate bonbons and pastries).

Every now and then, at the relevant points, we got to sample one of their chocolate pieces. We went through a milk chocolate pastille, a 56% dark chocolate pastille and then a 65% dark chocolate pastille. You might think me silly, but oh boy, you could actually TASTE the difference in the quality of that chocolate.


Now that we had the basics completed, we went onto the ganache, which La Maison du Chocolat was famous for.

We sampled a milk-chocolate ganache (I forgot the name of it), the Guayaquil (a dark and bitter sweet ganache with a hint of vanilla), and then the Caracas (a really creamy dark chocolate ganache). What I noticed the most was, while the chocolate was melting away in my mouth against my palate, it was absolutely smooth, no lumps no powdery feel or bitterness and there were no after tastes of any sort once the chocolate was consumed. We also tried the Garrigue, a dark chocolate ganache infused with fennel (for those of you who don't know what fennel tastes like, think aniseed or liquorice). I am not a big fan of that flavour personally, but this ganache I didn't actually mind. It almost tasted somewhat like a really ripe berry and the flavour was very subtle.

But the best part was yet to come - the presenter made fresh lemon infused ganache for us right there!! We all got a cup of it to eat/drink (it was like a thick chocolate soup, with a wonderful aroma of lemon filling up the room as he stirred the cream into the chopped up couverture). The taste was unbelievable - I wish I could bottle the leftovers and take it all home!!


Well - that is the end of me eating junk chocolate - the hershey's bars are going straight to the bin.

But I have to add - I think the hot chocolate on offer at Koko Black in Melbourne is still slightly ahead of the one I tasted in La Maison du Chocolat (it is my personal opinion, but I think maybe the koko Black one has more fat in the cream they use so it feels even more velvety). Anyway I hope the standard at KKB hasn't dropped since I last went there!!

I am going to verify this as soon as I get home! hee hee hee