Shame on me, it is way too late to be blogging with Christmas content what with the decorations taken down and the January blues setting in.
But I must talk about Himself and some fine gifts in tune ….
3 Dolfin bars, 2 turtle doves and a voucher for the Cooks Academy ;-)
The 3 Dolfin bars from Fallon & Byrne deserve a mention. The chocolate company itself has been around since 1989 which is relatively new and pride themselves on ‘blending’ chocolate with natural ingredients. I thought this was all marketing until I sampled them.
I love the packaging. Each bar comes in a pouch like an old tobacco pouch, it is really handy, easy to break off a piece and neatly store the remainder. Saves fiddling with foil and paper wrapping. Doesn’t Rococo have the same pouches??
And they claim to be CO2 neutral which maybe other chocolatiers are but these guys (two brothers actually) print it on their bars. I like getting all the info … no tasting notes, maybe they reckon that tasting is so subjective that they leave it up to the customer.
Au Lait Au The Vert Sencha Du Japon: this was a sweet milk chocolate (32%) with tea leaves in it. As a child I absolutely hated draining my cup of tea afraid to get a mouthful of tea leaves – yuck. So I never finished my cup and it’s a habit I have to this day. Now the tea leaves are in my chocolate … I didn’t really enjoy this too much mainly because I ended up chewing on tea leaves long after the chocolate had melted away.
Noir Aux Feuilles De Menthe: This bar (52%) contains real spearmint leaves which makes a change from the traditional peppermint crisps and peppermint creams. A nice bar for someone but not for me because I am not a fan of spearmint and the aforementioned dislike of leftover leaves.
Noir 70% de Cacao: This would have to be my favourite of the 3 mainly because it had no leaves! However to get a true feel for the bar I compared it with Leonidas 70% and it came out tops.
It was light brown in color, clean finish but no gloss at all, quite unappealing. However the smell was exciting, spicy and made me look forward to tasting it. The taste lived up to my expectations, again the spice coming through. A little christmassy in spice and peppery, the taste lingering a while. The texture was smooth with the occasional crunchy nib.
Leonidas 70%: I picked this up at the local Leonidas outlet for a euro. The color was radically different to Dolfin 70% being glossy reddish brown. The smell was bland and the taste was similar unfortunately. It tasted mildly of roasted nuts and coffee, with a bitter drying aftertaste but it disappeared very quickly.
Included on both Dolfin and Leonidas wrappers was Nutritional Info, which I have not found on many chocolate bars at all.
Leonidas: Calories 520, Saturated Fat 24g, Carbs 32g
Dolfin 70%: Calories 507, Saturated Fat 24.5g, Carbs 31.2g
Pretty similar eh? But for me, that’s where the similarity ends.
