Some Japanese chocolate

Ok, I have been totally slack on Chocolate Friday, but I did have lots of chocolates, just didn’t get them posted. Well, I have some of them now. Here goes.

This first set is by Morinaga, which I found in an Asian grocery store in Ann Arbor, while looking for the ever elusive Crunky bar.

The whole darn box is in Japanese except for the front, but the gianduja is easy to recognize. That’s a hazelnut flavored chocolate which is exceptionally yummy. Nutella is like liquid gianduja. The box says that these are from northern Italy, but I really don’t know much more than that.

The gianduja were very good and came in individually wrapped tiny blocks. The other two (milk and dark chocolate) had “an artificial flavoring” which I assume is vanillin. They were not so very good and I’m assuming its the vanillin. They had a funny after taste to them and the chocolate flavor was kinda bland.

The one there labeled “Ghana” was kinda neat because the bars were an odd long shape. The box actually had directions for how to open it so that it could be reclosed again using a large flap that comes from the back side.

These tasted ok, but there was a funny aftertaste again (different from the others) that came up after you had it in your mouth a moment. They also used “an artificial flavoring” and palm oil as well. This was distributed by True World Foods, Inc. of Chicago. Again, the box was all Japanese (I think) so I can say much about it.

The next ones I think I bought at Whole Foods. I have them all in the same picture just because I’m running out of time this morning.

First, the Vosges Gianduja bar? Was AMAZING! I think this would cause people (yes, mostly women) to do terrible things in order to get it. Just can’t say enough about the great taste and smoothness to it. Loved the line on the back about tasting it:

“The taste should not be evanescent, it should have a long, lingering finish that is reminiscent of roasted noix, earthy cacao, treenuts, and whispers of the Aztecs.”

Gotta go look up noix and evanescent, but it did sound cool. Great stuff! Buy it. Now.

The other two are from Lake Champlain Chocolates again. These two little sampler boxes were really cool because they had just a few pieces of wierd flavors. The box labeled “Small World Chocolates” had a mango, mole, chai, and lemon ginger.

Now I know what you are thinking. GINGER! Right? No, this time it was not so bad. There was a very mild hint of ginger but the lemon flavor made it all right. It was all very tame, no overpowering chunks of flavor, just very simple.

I didn’t care for the chai or the mole. I can’t remember now but one of them was very spicy. I really liked the mango! That was very, very good. Its such an odd combination too. But yum!

The last one here is also from Lake Champlain Chocolates and its their little sampler box with evergreen mint, honey caramel, green mountain, and maple crunch. All of these were really good. And I really liked the maple crunch. I gotta buy more of the maple flavored chocolate next time I’m in Canada. I found some at Trader Joe’s (next Chocolate Friday) but it was all artificial flavored and stuff.

Ok, that’s it for this week. Gotta go horseback riding, if the thunder ever stops.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 13th, 2005 at 10:31 am and is filed under Chocolate Friday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.