14th Annual Chocolate Show!

November 13th, the Cjaps and guest blogger of the day Sangita attended the 14th Annual Chocolate Show at the Metropolitan Pavilion.  This was the 2nd year Caryn and I attended the show.  Last year was amazing, and we were excited for weeks leading up to this year's event!  Now we learned two lessons from last year - one, to survey the whole room before getting too full to try all of the different exhibitors.  And two, if you fall in love with some of the chocolate, buy it then and there, because most of the places are not New York, or even United States-based, and it's either difficult, expensive or impossible to order it online.

The winner of the day was Comptoir du Cacao. They are a French artisan chocolate, with a factory located just outside of Paris.  They were sampling all of their offerings, and every single thing I tasted was out of this world.  They had brought 200 sampler boxes, and had only 5 left by the time we got there.  Caryn and I both bought them, and I'm going to save it for a special occasion.  They had milk and dark chocolate candies with prailine inside, that reminded me of a gourmet Kit Kat.  There were chocolate squares with ginger, coffee, Sichuan pepper, curry and rose powder.  "Croustines", which were chocolate crystal pieces with salted-butter caramel, candied orange zest & white chocolate with grated coconut.  They use chocolates from around the world (primarily countries in South America and Africa where the best cacao beans come from).
They do sell their products sometimes in Zabar's, however the super nice man that worked there told me it always sells out really fast, so if you do happen to be on the UWS and see them there, grab it.  Otherwise you can order it from their website, www.comptoicacao.fr


Neuchatel Chocolates is a Swiss chocolatier that we discovered at last year's show, and Caryn remembers best for their milk chocolate covered potato chips.  They also sell truffles and chocolates, but these potato chips are fantastic and we all were compelled to buy them.  For $8 a jar it's a little on the pricey side, but mine are going to my parents for Thanksgiving, and I'm sure they'll be much appreciated in the Kessler household and gone before the turkey makes it out of the oven.
www.neuchatelchocolates.com

West End Confection Co
This place was like Dylan's candy bar miniaturized. They had candy covered everything - pretzels, marshmallows, rice krispie treats - and the presentation was fantastic. Based in Morganville, NJ, West End makes amazing tasting treats ready to be given as gifts. I bought chocolates cellophane wrapped and ribboned in martini glasses. One was melted chocolates with pretzel bits, resembling a chocolate martini adorned with a Twizzler straw. There were also Chinese food take-out boxes filled with chocolate candy-covered pretzel rods. I walked away from here poorer and with more bags to carry, but the bags were pastel pink and I made a few people very happy with their gifts!
www.westendconfectionco.com/
New runner for top cookie - Salt of the Earth Bakery. Just as Sangita was commenting that she needed something salty to offset all the sweet, in came Salt.  The employees were the pits - they were rude about everything from providing samples to asking where their cookies were sold. But the cookies were filled with chocolate chunks, a bit of salt to give a nice flavorful combo, and I liked them better than Jacques (who was also here again, but charging for his life-sized cookies).  Salt of the Earth sells their cookies, made with sea salt from the Kona district of Hawaii, in a few stores - the most I was able to get out of them was Garden of Eden and 'some store in Brooklyn' - thanks for the specifics - but if you come across them again, I highly recommend giving them a try!!

http://saltoftheearthbakery.com/

Sweet Factory charms had a unique candy to sell - jewelry pretty enough to eat! There were cupcake and donut earrings, and bracelets where you could select your charms from every sweet imaginable. I wouldn't actually wear any of it, but for a child this would have been adorable, and a fun party idea for a grade schooler.


The Ecuador Trade office was there, featuring all of the best chocolates from the worst country I visited on my South America adventure.  Pacari was my favorite, the one I kept trying to bring back for people but it melted and I was forced to keep eating it.  They make really awesome chocolate covered bananas, and their bars range from chocolate blueberry and lavender to lemongrass and sea salt.  They were the nicest people, unlike the sketchsters in Quito who tried to kill me everywhere.  These people gave us a million samples, and told us where we could buy their bars.  You can find them in Whole Foods, among other places.  They're definitely more expensive here than in Ecuador, where it was about $4 a bar (here it's $6-8!), but it's so good.  

Co Co Sala, from Washington, DC, had a pumpkin seed brittle bark that made it to the must-have list.  It was dark chocolate, pumpkin seeds on top and a layer of brittle in between.  That was one of our favorites too, and it lasted not even 24 hours in my house :)  Can't wait to go to DC to go to their restaurant and get more!
http://www.cocosala.com/



For our international fans, The Chocolate Show will be in a ton of other cities internationally from 2011-2012: Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Madrid, Zurich, Bahia, Cairo, Moscow, Shanghai, Tokyo and 6 cities in Japan.




Thank you guest blogger of the day, Sangita, for participating in this fun day!!!

Chocolate Show 2010

This week was the 13th annual Chocolate Show. Shockingly, the last 12 years I was unaware of this amazing event. Of course this year, with the blog in full force, Caryn and I are on the lookout for all things chocolate-related.

The Chocolate Show was held at the Metropolitan Pavilion, from Thursday to today.  They had all sorts of celebrity demos, includes Jacques Torres (<3),Christina Tosi (our Momofoku girl), and Zac Young, the pastry chef from Flex Mussels who we did get to see demo a chocolate creme pie.

There were about 65 different chocolate companies at the event, so we're going to do our best to highlight the ones that we remember, or who gave us the best samples. And of course tell the one place we will never go to again because they refused to give us anything!

My hands down favorite was 5th Avenue Chocolatiere.  They had the prettiest set-up, with all sorts of fun chocolate presents you could bring with you to Thanksgiving (chocolate turkeys, boxes of chocolate covered oreos WITH sprinkles on top!)  They were sampling frozen truffles, which were pretty amazing but didn't look half as good as the products they were selling.  I couldn't fathom buying anything today, because I'm sure after eating my weight in chocolate this afternoon I won't want to look at it for at least 48 hours, but I'll definitely be hitting this place up for something soon.  They're on 5th Ave between 43rd & 44th street too, super convenient!

2 Chicks With Chocolate wins the award for most fun chocolate creations.  They had all kinds of interesting fillings in their chocolate that I don't actually remember now, but what I do remember is oreo bark, chocolate covered rice krispie treats and chocolate covered marshmallows with candy on them.  The 2 Chicks, whose name I like so much I wish we had thought of it for our blog, are actually a mother/daughter team who debuted at the 2009 Chocolate Show and won a "Top 10 Chocolatier" award. We love people who come out with unique ways to bring us our chocolate, and the chicks take the cake in this category. They also sell Rock-N-Pop, chocolate covered popcorn with popping candy (pop rocks I assume?) We didn't try this, but will probably order something from their website www.2chickswithchocolate.com

Next stop - the chocolate fountain by Lily O'Brien's.  The Irish chocolate makers, whose NY store is right across from Bryant Park, had a beautiful chocolate fountain set up in the back of Metro Pavilion.  For $1, you were able to dip a marshmallow or graham cracker in the fountain. I think it was kind of lame to charge extra, considering the show itself had a $28 admission fee ($30 at the door), but we had to try it, and it was delish.  I pass by Lily's every day on my walk home from work, and they're always promoting new hot chocolate flavors, which I'll now have to go in and try and write a thorough review of.

Let's see, who's next.  Let's move on to Jacques Torres, since they were the booth right next to Lily O'Brien's.   We're major Jacques fans.  He makes a mean chocolate chip cookie, and even meaner chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich, and all of his actual chocolate is amazing.  Today they were sampling milk chocolate covered Cheerios.  They also have dark chocolate covered Corn Flakes.  Now that's what I call a breakfast cereal!  They were selling mini cups of the Wicked hot chocolate, which we hadn't tried before, so today was the day.  It was really thick and rich, I couldn't handle more than a sip, but Caryn loved it so it might just be that I was delirious and chocolate'd out by that point in the day.

Neuchatel Chocolates gets to be included in the write-up, because they gave us chocolate covered potato chips.  What's better than sweet & salty together in one bite?  They sold the potato chips in decent sized cans for $8, which I really wish I had You can order from their site or find them at the Park Avenue Plaza at 55 E 52nd Street.  They're also at the Reading Terminal Market in Philly.
Neuchatel Chocolates 

Other people to mention:
William Dean Chocolates - they were sold out of almost everything by the time we got there, but we did get to try a piece of sweet potato ganache chocolate, which we loved.  Their chocolates were so pretty, and I was disappointed that I couldn't buy some to bring home with me.
William Dean Chocolates

Galler Chocolates - A Belgian chocolate comany (HUGE in Belgium - they have 2,000 stores!)  We liked their chocolate the best today out of all of the regular chocolate places, however, we totally blew it by not buying it when we had the chance.  Turns out the website is all in Belgian, so it's impossible to order.  Guess we'll have to wait until the 2011 Chocolate Show.

 Divine Chocolate - These people weren't that great, but they did have a chocolate tasting where we got to try 3 different chocolate flavors that weren't released yet and pick which one we liked best.  My favorite was the chocolate orange, Caryn's was the coffee, but both of us weren't too thrilled with them overall.

Lastly, I'd like to call out our least favorite experience today (aside from someone passing out in the middle of the show. I mean, why would you bring a diabetic to a chocolate show, really? It's just mean).  Maison Boisser.  Some French chocolate people who I can't tell you anything about because they wouldn't talk to us.  They had these pretty little packages of chocolate, in pastel colors, and I would have liked to see what they were all about but the nasty French poodle refused to give us any!  

Here's a few more pictures from the event.  All in all, lots of fun, not for our waistlines, but good material for the blog!!

Zac Young's demo:

Train made of chocolate:

Chocolate clown sculpture (the artist was there making more in person!):

Someone that we think is a famous chocolate man, but can't be sure. 

Chocolate horn.  Wish I remember who this was from.

Dress made of chocolate.