With Halloween approaching, the Angry Chef and I have candy on the brain. Consider this the first article in a series of chocolate tastings.
We spotted these at Whole Foods and couldn’t resist picking them up. If you’re familiar their mind-bogglingly vast chocolate bar selection, you know we’re lucky we walked away with just two.
One we loved, and one was surprisingly just…eh.
Chocolate Bar #1: Mo’s Bacon Bar by Voges Haute Chocolat
With a giant, glossy picture of a rasher of crispy bacon on the box, we were sure that we’d adore this, bacon lovers that we are. Sadly, not so much.
Mo’s Bacon Bar is made by Voges Haute Chocolat, a company that manufactures a range of exotic chocolate bars. Despite the fact that we weren’t crazy about this one, there are a handful of others that I’d love to try, including the Barcelona, with hickory-smoked almonds and Fleur de Sel, and the Black Pearl, with ginger, wasabi, and black sesame seeds.
The Mo’s Bacon Bar bar is definitely easy on the eyes. From the packaging to the delightful embossing on the chocolate itself, we wanted to eat this the moment we saw it.
The chocolate itself is very nice. It’s a rich, 41% cacao that we think would be lovely on its own. Other main flavors include applewood smoked bacon and Alder wood smoked salt.
It’s the bacon that tripped us up. Not because we don’t like the combination of salty, smokey, and sweet. We do. (Oh, we do!)
The initial taste was more reminiscent of hazelnut than bacon, which was a little startling. After a minute, the smokey notes started to come out, and�though it’s not greasy�we could definitely taste the bacon fat over the butter fat in the chocolate.
After a few more bites, it just wasn’t the overwhelming experience of chocolate-covered bacon that we were expecting�and very much wanted. It kind of reminded us of bacon bits stirred into chocolate. For just about $8 for just under 3 oz. of chocolate, we were both underwhelmed.
Will we finish the bar? Sure. Will we rave about it to our friends? No way. Will we try to make our own chocolate-covered bacon? Definitely.
Chocolate Bar #2: Sirius Pure Icelandic Chocolate
The packaging on Noi Sirius Pure Icelandic Chocolate is much humbler. Wrapped in simple, wax-y paper, you could definitely miss this in a sea of brightly-colored candy. It was the weight of this bar that made us pause, and eventually walk out with it.
This was the one that we loved�and totally didn’t expect to.
The first surprise came when we opened the wrapper. Instead of one thick bar, there were two thin ones.
These bars look like chocolate you would bake with�something that Sirius advises you can happily do. Their bars come in a range of sweetnesses. We chose the 45% semi-sweet.
This chocolate has a nice snap to it when you break a piece off.
In terms of taste, it’s rich, with just the right amount of bitterness. It’s not too creamy. It’s not too dark. It has exactly the kind of smooth, clean mouth feel you want in a good chocolate bar.
And at just under $4, it was definitely a deal. We’ll definitely be buying this again.
And what about you?
Any recommendations for chocolate bars we should put on our list for next time?
***
Copyright 2008 The Hungry Mouse�/Jessica B. Konopa. All rights reserved.
