In addition to scriptwriting (and rewriting), I’ve been very busy running around town testing the various hot chocolates that make up this year’s Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival! Today, we reached the 1/4 mark of our epic chocolate journey…
Round #6…
Chocolat Glacé: Iced drinking chocolate. Served with a Gaufre de Liège waffle, along with a side of fleur de sel caramel or chocolate hazelnut spread..
Available at: Chocolaterie de la Nouvelle France 198 East 21st Ave., Vancouver, B.C.
www.chocolaterienouvellefrance.ca
Surprisingly refreshing. Not overly sweet, it strikes a nice textural, neither too thick nor too thin.
The Hive: ‘Hives for Humanity’ honey dark drinking chocolate. Served with a honey nib caramel.
Available at: East Van Roasters, 319 Carrall St, Vancouver, B.C.
A gloriously frothy cup of hot chocolate, the sweetness of the honey accented by just a touch of salt. I liked it, but Akemi isn’t a believer of the “adding salt to sweet” school of dessert preparation. The honey nib caramel served with the hot chocolate embodied the same contrasting flavors and I loved it. A heavenly two bites.
The Verdict: Both great in completely different ways. But, if I had to choose…
The Winner: The Hive (East Van Roasters).
Round #7:
Chocolat Glacé à la Noix de Coco: Coconut flavoured iced drinking chocolate. Served with a Gaufre de Liège waffle, along with a side of fleur de sel caramel or chocolate hazelnut spread.
Available at: Chocolaterie de la Nouvelle France 198 East 21st Ave., Vancouver, B.C.
www.chocolaterienouvellefrance.ca
While the regular iced chocolate drink was great, this one, fairly bursting with coconut flavor, was even better. Initially, I feared the flavor might stray into cloying Pina Colada territory but it turned out to be surprisingly strong in chocolate flavor as well. The warm local waffle serve with the home made hazelnut spread was to die for.
Granville Island Grocery List: Inspired by the flavours of Granville Island, this is a beet and saffron hot chocolate. Served with a Gjetost macaron.
Available at: Soirette Macarons & Tea 1433 West Pender Street, Vancouver. (Coal Harbour)
Well I have to give Soirette credit for creativity. Last visit, it was Five Spice Chocolate. This time, it was beet and saffron and chocolate. Like the last time, the chocolate base was amazing, but the inspired ingredients maybe a little…to inspired? To be fair, I’m a little biased when it comes to saffron (I think it tastes like public pool water) and, while I enjoy beets, the tiny pieces at the bottom of my cup felt a little out of place. I was, however, mightily impressed with the macaron, the meringue sandwiching a piece of Gjetost, a slightly sweet cheese so unique I actually referenced it in an episode of Stargate: SG-1 (http://culturecheesemag.com/events/gjetost_gets_shout_out_stargate).
Verdict: Both quality products but there’s only one I’d go back to again. And again.
Winner: Chocolat Glacé à la Noix de Coco (Chocolaterie de la Nouvelle France).
That’s 16 hot chocolates down, some 46 to go!
I like the look of the beet and saffron one… you’ve inspired me to go and find different hot chocolates here… if we have any… it’s possible we are more conservative.
Can someone please explain serving drinks in bottles/jars they didn’t come in? I’m seeing it more and more in people’s Instagrams. Mixed drinks in big jam jars is the best description I can given them. Just a trend?
This weekend is Australia Day. I believe tomorrow I will be going strawberry picking with family to celebrate. Seems good enough to me. Then Monday we have the day off so I’m off to the cricket. This version is more exciting – 20 overs each team.
Yesterday I chaired the first meeting of a library working group I’m overseeing. I was a bit nervous how it was going to go and while I was setting up the laptop/data projector the power went out. Was I going to have to explain things in a bad mime?
Fortunately the power came back before the meeting started and all went well.
Cheers, Chev
Thanks for the answers to my questions Joe… you make me laugh – golfers LOL… Regarding the NCAA, have you ever done George Costanza tipping? That if every choice is wrong, then the opposite must be right. So just choose the opposite of your first choice. Of course, what if fate already knew you were going to choose the opposite and therefore your original choice was right. It is a dilemma.
I predict I won’t be becoming a billionaire this year.
Cheers, Chev
So I take it the iced drinking chocolate is a step or two above Nestle’s Quik? 😉
That Gjetost macaron sounds really good! I’ll have to see if anyone around here makes them.
Hey, I just rewatched that SG1 episode last week and remember that clearly! The cheese does sound intriguing.
I don’t know how you’re going to do it, Joe – 46 more to go. But if anyone can do it, I know you can! 🙂
I have to admit I wouldn’t mind tagging along on some of that testing.
I’d have been more impressed with the iced hot chocolates if it wasn’t so cold down here. But the presentations are all nice, and the waffles triggered a “I want breakfast” reaction. Keep up the good work on the festival, and good luck on managing to get a majority of samplings done.
Hot chocolate served cold, with ice, in a bottle, with a straw. That’s just wrong. I’m gonna have to disqualify those.
a gjetost macaron might be interesting. i’m not sure about a beet and saffron hot chocolate though.
@Ponytail: I’m with you. Iced chocolate in a hot chocolate festival? What sort of nonsense is that?
Speaking of temperature inversions, I sampled the second entry in the Bath Hot Chocolate Festival the other day:
Value Vicky: Vanilla Ice Cream, Milk, Cadbury’s Milk Chocolate, Snickers Bar and a crumbled Cadbury’s Flake on top.
Available at: ShakeAway, 3 Beau Street, Bath.
Better known for their milkshakes, with 180 different flavours that you can make into millions of combinations, it’s a little known fact that ShakeAway can also put your milkshake through the milk frother on the coffee machine to make a hot milkshake. So I went in there and picked the chocolatiest combination I could find. I was delicious! Some might say that it was too sweet but not me. It had my sweet tooth singing! The only thing I would do differently next time is use a Mars Bar instead of the Snickers. Even though the milkshake gets a jolly good blending to chop everything up I didn’t like the particulates created from the peanuts in the Snickers. I think the caramel and fudge from the Mars Bar would create a much nicer texture.
The Verdict: Definitely one for the sweet toothed among us. Creamy, sweet and chocolatey, it’s one that I will be going back for.
Fighting! Stay strong in the chocolate.
The chocolate glacé sounds amazing. And perfect for Florida. It’s usually too hot for hot chocolate here.
🙂 Trish
Mmmm. Gjetost! Yummy. And although I love beets, I prefer them as a veggie, preferably sweet and sour or with a bit of orange zest. I don’t think I want them in my hot chocolate. However, the coconut chilled chocolate sounds like a winner!
And belated thanks to mannas7mom and das for the fun videos over the past couple of days. I really enjoyed them.
Winner: Chocolat Glacé à la Noix de Coco I did NOT see that coming. I thought the Hive would win. Since I’ve never had beets and have only eaten saffron in rice, I have no idea what that cocoa would taste like. Pretty creative use of ingredients though.
I was looking over Kindle’s best sellers in Military Sci-fiction yesterday and was surprised that Terms of Enlistment was on the top ten (it wasn’t a couple of weeks ago). I believe your book club selection is upping Kloos’s sales! The least Kloos can do is give you a dedication in his next book, right?! 😉
JeffW: The sequel is out next week, so you don’t have to ration your fiction too long.
I told hubby about another one of your book selections, WORK DONE FOR HIRE (Joe Haldeman). “Work Done” didn’t appeal to him but he looked up Haldeman’s Forever War and he’s going to re-read that.
Hey Joe!
The Ravens are still looking for an Offensive Coordinator…can you aim a little lower than Head Coach?
http://www.baltimoreravens.com/news/article-1/Coaching-Search-Rumor-Mill/ed93048d-7d25-4234-8e1b-26d38dd6e27f?mobile-id=798531&media-type=N
As a bonus, I can point you to some good crab restaurants. 😉
The Chocolat Glacé choice doesn’t look half bad, a bit odd in what they put it in though, would expect in a cup or something.
I agree with the others–You should not be serving iced hot chocolate in a hot chocolate festival. I’ve seen some recipes for iced hot chocolate….they seem no different than putting milk and chocolate in a blender with some ice.