Offbeat Eats

I just recently returned from a trip to the most wonderful Isle of Réunion, a French Island in the Indian Ocean. We’ll get back to that in a bit, but one of the neater things about our decision to travel to Réunion is that it involved stopovers in Paris on both the outgoing and return trips. So a few weeks ago, we found ourselves in Paris, walking along the Seine, having just dropped off our bags, and decided that the perfect afternoon activity would be to wander by the Louvre, through Les Tuileries, and go give the chocolate shop of Jean-Paul Hévin a visit.

(Closed) One of the many things I love about visiting London is that it has a rather nice variety of chocolate shops. Indeed, a few years ago, we did a chocolate tour in London (wow, has it been almost three years?), and William Curley Patissier Chocolatier was one of the stops. Our visit there highlighted their ice creams, sorbet, and hot chocolate, but they showed us what they serve for their "Dessert Bar", which is a multi-course dessert. We vowed to come back. Several trips to London since then threw various complications (primarily, coming during the holiday seasons, when they were either closed, or packed with holiday celebrants), but this trip, we were finally able to get a decent seating for their dessert bar.

Those that have been reading the blog for a while know that every year I participate in the annual Menu For Hope fundraiser (and last year I even sponsored a prize). I’ve traditionally had very good luck winning prizes (including a walking food tour of London in 2008). This year was no exception, with my winnings include a “Chelsea Chocolate Ecstasy Tour” from ChocolateEcstasyTours.com. So Carol and I invited my brother and sister-in-law along for a 3 hour walking tour of high-end chocolate stores in and near the Chelsea neighborhood (I’ll try to carefully avoid defining the borders of London neighborhoods, that’s always a mild issue of confusion and dispute).

One of the odder topics bouncing around a few of the food-related messageboards and magazines is TCHO Chocolate’s “Beta” chocolate samples. TCHO is a San Francisco-based start-up which is trying to develop new chocolate varieties from scratch by making chocolate from single varieties of cacao, trying to find those that express the basic flavors of chocolate. So far, they’ve released “beta” versions of their “Fruity” (from Peru), “Nutty” (also from Peru), and “Chocolately” (from Ghana) varieties…

(Closed)I’ve just returned from a trip to the Twin Cities. As a former resident, it’s interesting seeing the places that have popped up since my last visit. Unlike other areas where it has died out, the Coffee Revolution is still in full swing, with both the number of independent coffee houses and locally-founded or -based chains (Caribou and Dunn Bros) on the upswing. More interesting to me, however, is that a number of good chocolate places have apparently cropped up in the Twin Cities as well. Particularly, we ran across Legacy Chocolates…