Restaurant Day, November 15th 2014

As many of you may know, November 15th was Restaurant Day, which is a big deal for many people, at least here in Finland. It's a day when anyone can open up their own pop-up restaurant for a day without any formal permissions from officials etc. The idea of the day is to have fun, share new food experiences and enjoy our common living environments together.

On this Restaurant Day I decided to open up my own restaurant for the first time. Since I'm no cook or even "home chef", I wasn't going to cook anything. Instead I served my customers what I know something about and not many people in my home town (or even country) know about: Quality chocolate. My aim was not only to sell chocolate but also offer free information and let people know what is out there in the world of quality chocolate. You have to remember, that this is a totally new thing for the Finnish people.

My restaurant was offering 2€ tasting pieces and 5€/10€ chocolate plates consisting of these six chocolates, that I have recently reviewed in this blog of mine:

Chocolate Makers Awajun 80%
Marou Dong Nai 72%
Original Beans Papua Kerafat 68%
The Chocolate Tree Madagascar 100%
The Chocolate Tree Peru Nacional 69%
Willie's Cacao Madagascan gold Sambirano 71%

Together with the quality chocolates I offered (free of charge) three most popular 70% dark chocolates from big manufacturers, that can be found in supermarkets over here. These chocolates were available for comparison. I will not mention their names, since I don't want to embarrass anyone, but one was Finnish, one Swedish and one German.

I was a bit worried in advance about how people would react to my restaurant and product and if anyone would even find my restaurant (even if I had a very central location in my home town) or be interested in what I was serving. I was so happy when I noticed that there was no need for my fears or worries. People started coming as soon as I had opened and they kept coming. I was actually sold out before my planned closing time!

Of course I was happy that my restaurant was a financial success (small scale, but still). But more than that I was overwhelmed by the fact that my customers actually liked the chocolates I was serving. None of my customers thought that the supermarket chocolates were better than the quality chocolates I served. I got all the OOH and AAH reactions that I was hoping for. The feedback I got from the restaurant and the chocolates was so good that I almost thought I was living in a dream.

Thank you to all the people who visited my small scale Chocolate Restaurant. Next Restaurant Day is on February 15th 2015 and I will most certainly be there with different and maybe even more chocolates. Here are some pictures from my restaurant. Yes, that's me. Hello world!

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Willie's Cacao milk of the gods Rio Caribe 44%

This is the first milk chocolate in this blog. It's also the first milk chocolate I've ever noticed  to include only milk (powdered in this case) in addition to cocoa and sugar. Cool. No lecithin, salt or artificial or natural flavours. The exact distribution of ingredients is as follows: Cocoa mass 25%, milk powder 21%, cocoa butter 19%, which leaves 35% for the raw cane sugar.

The blue color of the box is a happy coincidence, since Finland's most popular chocolate uses the color in their wrappers and the chocolate name. Nothing wrong with the color of the box, but I have a slight problem with the font used in the name of the chocolate. Does it look childish to anyone else? A more elegant font might have been what the name requires. The surprisingly light brown bar only has a small engraving of a cocoa pod combined with a W on it.

44% is a pretty high cococa content for milk chocolate. With that in mind the aroma of the chocolate is not very strong cocoa-wise, but it has a slight metallic aroma to it. I've noticed the same with other darker milk chocolates. Anyone know what causes it, or is it just the Venezuelan cocoa?

Like in the two previous Willie's Cocoa dark chocolates, I once again find the texture a little floury (but not as much as to call it grainy). This milk chocolate is of course softer and melts faster in my fingers and mouth than the darker chocolates, but the texture is basically just as pleasing.

Yep, this sure is milk chocolate. I instantly feel a need to chew the chocolate as I would any milk chocolate or candy. After being focused on dark chocolates the last couple of years this tastes bland. I miss the vibrant flavours of the cocoa with all its twists. This (and again, I mean it in the nicest possible way) tastes like sugar and caramel. There's nothing wrong with this chocolate as milk chocolates go, but I see that I require more cocoa to get my engine going. If I want milk chocolate in the future, I will spend my money on the cheaper (but not the cheapest) supermarket stuff, because the taste difference isn't really that huge.

The aftertaste is not as sweet as I expected. There is a metallic flavour, which is even stronger in the aftertaste than it was in the aroma, but I don't like it. No real cocoa flavour is left at this stage, if there ever was any.

Ingredients: Raw cane sugar, cocoa mass, milk powder & cocoa butter

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Ara Chocolat Équateur 75%

I ordered a full range of plain origin chocolates from Ara Chocolat to be tasted and reviewed. In all honesty I must say, that my expectations for this Ecuador were lowest. Reviews of Madagascar, Chiapas and Trincheras are on their way.

Well, this is special: The small 27g bar isn't actually a bar at all. Instead there are five individual thin neapolitan sized pieces of the chocolate inside a clear plastic bag. The outer wrapper is made of paper, which has all the required information on it. I like how the ara parrot and the cocoa pod in the logo are almost mixed together.

The chocolate has a spicy aroma. I can at least smell cinnamon and some very earthy aromas in it. There are no fruity or acidic aromas and actually there are no other strong aromas either, apart from the "basic" aroma.

A smooth texture in chocolate is what I like and this complies. The chocolate melts quite fast and the melted liquid is thick, but doesn't stick to my tongue or palate like some others have done in the past.

The chocolate starts to melt on my tongue immediatly. The melting chocolate tastes mild and earthy at the same time. I get the cinnamon aroma in the flavour as well but I also get stronger flavours like black pepper and coffee. The overall taste is very dark and there is bitterness as well. It also makes my mouth dry.

The aftertaste is very much like the flavour experience I had while eating the chocolate. The taste stays in my mouth quite a long time and the first flavour that disappears is the cinnamon. The last taste is that of black pepper.

Ingredients: Cocoa mass, cane sugar & cocoa butter

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Willie's Cacao Venezuelan gold Rio Caribe 72%

Willie's chocolate bars are square shaped. I don't really have an opinion if that's good or bad, but at least it's different. The only negative thing I would say about the wrapper (which is going into my collection) is the blue color used in parts of the text. Either my eyes are failing me or it is difficult to read off the brown background, especially on the backside. The golden bag surrounding the bar looks nice. The bar itself is one block of chocolate with a logo decoration on top. There are no hints as to where I could break off a piece, so I'll just use my imagination and the strength I have in my fingers. Overall this looks very nice and distinguished.

Now, I have to tell you that I've had a bit of a dry spell concerning chocolate, my stash has been empty. Sniffing away at this chocolate makes me want to inhale it through my nose. It smells very chocolatey in every way. I don't get any very strong individual aromas, maybe a bit of fruityness and another bit of... who cares! I have to put this in my mouth right now!

For such a small bar it's quite thick and you really need to have some strength in your fingers when breaking apart pieces. The chocolate melts into a thick liquid which feels very nice. It is however not quite as smooth as it could be. I feel a slight floury texture all around, but having said that, I really love the feel of the melted chocolate.

The chocolate releases flavour immediatly after touching my tongue. I notice the fruityness I got in the aroma disappeared somewhere between my nostrils and tongue. The cocoa taste is powerful and strong, but not bitter at all. I taste dirt (the clean kind) and nuts, maybe almonds. There is aboslutely no fruityness here, only earthy flavours, which is a bit of a shame, because I happen to love fruity chocolates. There's nothing "wrong" with this chocolate, it's just missing the final touch.

The aftertaste is at least as powerful as the flavour was, wow! In addition to the strong earthy taste, the chocolate has also left a coating of thick chocolate liquid in my mouth and that makes the aftertaste last a long, a la la la long (sing along!) time.

Ingredients: Cocoa mass, raw cane sugar & cocoa butter

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Michel Cluizel Los Anconés 67%

Michel Cluizel changed their logo and chocolate bar styling some time ago and I'm not really convinced that it was a change for the better. The brown and green packaging of this bar is not much to look at. At least the chocolate pieces have a small cocoa pod engraving on them for visual pleasure.

There are no strong aromas in the chocolate. I can barely tell it apart from any basic milk chocolate. Having said that, there is also nothing repulsive in the aroma as it still smells like chocolate, if not a dark one.

The texture of the chocolate is very smooth, like having creamy milk on your tongue. I don't know but would assume the cocoa butter percentage in relation to the cocoa mass percentage might be a bit higher than in most dark chocolates. Feels like a slippery dream.

There is bitterness in this chocolate, maybe even a bit more than I would like. There are at times also slight fruity (maybe plum) tones but they seem to disappear quite soon after the chocolate starts to melt on my tongue. This actually tastes quite "earthy" and is just a bit too stuffy for my taste. Wonder why I can't taste the vanilla (that's a good thing)?

A couple minutes after the chocolate has gone, my mouth still feels a bit stuffy. Nothing is left of the fruityness but I do feel like just having eaten some dark chocolate.

Ingredients: Cocoa mass, cane sugar, cocoa butter & bourbon vanilla

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Rózsavölgyi Csokoládé mara 70%

The wrappers on these Hungarian Roz (short for Rózsavölgyi Csokoládé) bars are just beautiful. This particular wrapper is turquoise with a bird & plant pattern. But if you thought the wrapper looks good, just wait until you see the bar itself. It's one big beautiful piece of art and might not be the most practical bar to break into pieces, but I would rather watch this than many paintings considered to be "real art".

The aroma is chocolate at its best. It has a rich cocoa aroma and there is a slight whiff of something, but I can't really put my finger (or nose) on it. There is simply nothing negative to be said about the aroma. When the chocolate melts it turns into a very smooth and quite thick liquid, which spreads all around my mouth. Feels very luxurious.

After the rich but mellow aroma the chocolate actually tastes quite bitter. I would not have expected that. It tastes like a mixture of coffee grounds and wet dirt (in the best possible way), which is not one of my favourite flavour combinations. But here's the strange thing about this chocolate: While it has its bitter side, it also has a totally separate smooth and light side. It's like the chocolate has two totally different worlds of flavour in one bar. This is very confusing for a simple chocolate blogger like me and makes the taste difficult to evaluate.

Lucky for me, the bitter coffee grounds taste is not present in the aftertaste. The flavours left are pretty much the aromas I found in the chocolate before tasting it.

Ingredients: Cocoa beans, organic cane sugar & cocoa butter

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Marou treasure island ¾ 75%

Compared to earlier Marou chcolate bars (outside this blog) this light brown wrapper looks a bit boring. The map on the wrapper seems interesting once you notice it. The inner wrapper is gold and sealed with a sticker with the Marou signature M. Looking better. The bar itself is quite stylish. The signature M can be seen in the center of the bar and the rest of the bar is divided with diagonal lines.

There are no strong aromas in the chocolate. Sure you can smell the cocoa and recognize it as a dark chocolate, but nothing jumps at you. After a while I get slight caramel and cardboard odors of which the latter is a bit stronger.

When the chocolate melts, it turns into a very thickened chocolate liquid. It's so thick it almost sticks to my teeth. It's almost like a built-in system to make sure you get all the flavours around your mouth.

The first taste is more like a feeling, it's acidic. Once the chocolate starts to melt, the cardboard aroma appears as a flavour. Somewhere in the backgound there is an acidic and slightly fruity taste which wants to break free, but just isn't able to. Alongside the cardboard I taste something resembling raw potato. Even if neither of these flavours are considered brisk or fresh, this chocolate is not stuffy. It's just a very special kind of discreet in my opinion.

Like the other flavours, also the aftertaste is mild. It doesn't really differ from the actual taste, it's just a bit milder. The aftertaste doesn't stay in my mouth very long, but maybe that's just because those mild aromas easily fade away.

Ingredients: Cocoa, cocoa butter & cane sugar

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Bahen & Co. Papua New Guinea 70%

The pattern on the paper wrapper looks like something I would see at a science fair. It's sort of 3D but not quite. Doesn't really give a very strong sense of a chocolate bar at a glance. The choclate bar itself is as basic as possible. Small pieces, no engravings or anything on the pieces.

There is a very strong aroma in this chocolate. I'm smelling at least raisin and maybe some other dark fruit as well. I would almost call this aroma extreme.

To my disappointment I notice the chocolate texture being floury. Because this is not the first floury or even grainy chocolate I come across, I have to ask the question "Does somebody really enjoy chocolate that is not smooth?" Apparently somebody does, because why else would such chocolate be made? I'm not one of those that do.

If the aroma was strong, wait until you get a taste of this chocolate. The taste might even be stronger of the two. This really tastes the same as it smelled like and there is a lot of raisin flavour. In addition to the raisin I almost taste tar. This is definetly not a chocolate for those who are just getting to know the world of dark chocolates, because it might scare someone off and back to the world of milk chocolate (not that there's anything wrong with that).

I taste bread in the aftertaste. Why am I tasting bread in my mouth after just having eaten chocolate? The tar I tasted is also here in the aftertaste but the raisin has gone. I would call this aftertaste more to my liking than the actual flavour of the chocolate.

Ingredients: Cocoa beans & organic cane sugar

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Amedei Trinidad 70%

I was thinking about not reviewing this chocolate I had lying around. The reason for this is that this contains vanilla, which is usually used to cover up faults or shortcomings in the cocoa itself. But hey, it's Amedei after all. I'll give it a go.

The cardboard wrapper looks stylish in black and yellow/orange. It opens up like an old book and reveals the chocolate in a paper bag. The chocolate bar consists of 10 square pieces and each piece is labeled with the manufacturers name and some lines. Nothing too exciting, but basic nice.

Assuming your nose is working, you can actually smell the vanilla in this. It gives the chocolate a sweet smell. I mean sweet as in sugary, not as in nice/cool. Even though the vanilla scent is not that strong it manages to overpower the scent of the cocoa, which is never a good thing.

It takes a while for the chocolate to melt on my tongue. When that finally happens I notice the chocolate texture is a bit floury. It's not as smooth as it could be and as I would like, but luckily we're not even close to Mast Brothers chocolates grainyness, if you've ever tried those.

The very first taste I get is sugar and vanilla together. This is one of those dark chocolates that are way too sweet even if the cocoa content is 70%. There is no fruityness in the chocolate but there might be some tastes of dirt, maybe? There are actually very few flavours apart from the vanilla. This is the kind of dark chocolate I would maybe have liked in the light ages (the time before I liked dark chocolates). I confess that the knowledge of the vanilla being there might (just might) have a very small influence on my opinion about this chocolate, I am human after all. But I would not recommend this chocolate for dark chocolate enthusiasts. For children maybe?

The aftertaste is the best part of the whole flavour and aroma combination. That still doesn't mean that it's good, but at least I can't really taste the vanilla anymore. The aftertaste is sweet. There are luckily some indications of dark chocolate rather than milk chocolate.

Ingredients: Cocoa mass, cane sugar, cocoa butter & vanilla

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Askinosie Cortés Honduras 70%

And away we go. My first chocolate review in English, may there be many more.

The chocolate wrapper is very rustic with it's piece of string holding the paper bag closed. On one hand I kind of like the rustic feel, but on the other hand I might not be in touch with my inner farmer enough. At least it's not burlap. The chocolate itself looks kinda funny. The bar is divided into 18 smallish squares and each square has a letter on it. Together they spell Askinosie Chocolate. Lucky the name doesn't have 19 letters...

The aroma is very pleasant. The cocoa is definetly there, but it has no strong specific odors. I imagine noticing a slight whiff of citrus however. When the ingredients only include cocoa beans, cocoa butter and cane juice (is that the same as cane sugar...?) you wouldn't really expect it to have aromas of vanilla or other additives either.

This chocolate is plain dark made of Trinitario beans. I'm letting the chocolate melt on my tongue, but even if the chocolate naturally melts quite fast I can't help speeding the process up with my palate. The texture is smooth but not quite the smoothest I've tasted. Very nice however.

On the wrapper it says that I might taste citrus, molasses and sharp stone fruit. I can easily confirm the citrus part. It is best notable after a couple of pieces have melted in your mouth. To my knowledge we don't use molasses in Finland so I wouldn't know what to expect from that. Stone fruit I had to google. Ahhh, it just means fruits that have single stones inside, like peaches, plums, apricots etc. Well, there is a quite fruity taste in this chocolate and it seems to be getting stronger the more pieces I enjoy. Yes, I can already reveal that it is an enjoyment eating this chocolate.

When I was in the light ages (the time before I started enjoying dark chocolate) I really didn't enjoy the bitterness of dark chocolate. Now I understand that it's an essential part of dark chocolates but I still don't enjoy too bitter chocolates. Neither do I enjoy dark chocolates that are too sweet (which is usual with "dark" chocolates having only 40-55% cocoa). Therefore this chocolate is just what the doctor ordered. It's not too bitter, it's absolutely not sweet but it's fruity. Nice.

I find the aftertaste almost as nice as the actual eating taste of this chocolate. There is a bit more bitterness in the aftertaste and my mouth does feel a little bit dry afterwards, but mainly it's all quite pleasant. The aftertaste is long. It's been about 15 minutes since I had chocolate in my mouth but I can still taste it. It would seem we've started this blog with a winner.

Ingredients: Cocoa mass, cane sugar & cocoa butter

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