Darker than Black, Week 38: Graeter's Gourmet Bar 72% Cocoa
Yesterday, softlykarou and I went with my parents to the orchid show at the Chicago Botanic Garden. The weather wasn't great for garden-viewing, but fortunately this was an orchid show, so all the flowers were indoors. When I was a child, I hated looking at flowers, hated being dragged along with my parents to flower shows, and didn't understand why they cared. There are a lot of things parents tell children that they'll understand when they're older only because they don't want to actually answer them, but sometimes, it is true.
After we were finished at the flower show, it was too early for dinner but we wanted to go somewhere, so my parents suggested an ice cream place called Graeter's that wasn't too far from the garden. softlykarou and I split a brownie sundae with coconut chocolate chip ice cream on top, and pecans and chocolate sauce covering it, and it was amazing. It was a bit too far afield to write about here, but my real advice would be to get one of those and put some double chocolate chip ice cream on it so it tangentially counts. The chocolate chips are chopped by hand, and we had a giant chunk about the size of our thumb that we had to excavate out of the surrounding ice cream. It was amazing.
As we were leaving, I saw that they sold chocolate bars, and one of them was dark enough to qualify. So I bought one, and here we are.
Black and red, my favorite packaging colors.
This was just as good as the brownie sundae we had, albeit in a different way. 72% is usually on the low end of dark chocolate I like and this was pretty sweet for dark chocolate, but it was a pleasant sweetness matched with a smooth creaminess of the bar. There was a kind of heavy undertaste that helped ground the chocolate and prevent it from overwhelming my taste buds, though by the time I was done with my half of the bar it was getting a bit too much for me, and I'm glad that I haven't set myself up to eat the entire bar before writing about it. That would have been too much, but half of it is perfect.
Now I'm wondering if this was the chocolate bar that they used in the sundae. It was much too dark and solid for the milk chocolate bars they had on sale, and it doesn't have any filling so I can't be the caramel or the other ones. If so, then I have to say that the best way to eat this is surrounded by delicious homemade ice cream. Possibly with dark chocolate sauce and pecan. What I'm saying is that I want another brownie sundae.
Maybe that ineffable quality I tasted is just how much I appreciated the sundae. Taste is subjective, after all. If so, my advice to you is to go eat brownie sundaes with chocolate chip ice cream on top. You'll thank me later.
The bar has a geometric pattern but I took the picture crooked.
softlykarou's OpinionSo yesterday I encountered this chocolate in amazing ice cream. It was a giant chunk and it's what made me really excited to buy it. It's a bit sweeter than I like my chocolate and yet it's so rich and creamy that I don't care. It's smooth and comforting and feels like a slightly more grown up version of something I would have enjoyed as a kid. Plus I loved the build of the bar, it felt like eating a kit-kat in how I broke it and that just made me smile.
We tapped our halves of the chocolate bar together before we ate them. It was syrupy sweet in the way that this chocolate was not.
After we were finished at the flower show, it was too early for dinner but we wanted to go somewhere, so my parents suggested an ice cream place called Graeter's that wasn't too far from the garden. softlykarou and I split a brownie sundae with coconut chocolate chip ice cream on top, and pecans and chocolate sauce covering it, and it was amazing. It was a bit too far afield to write about here, but my real advice would be to get one of those and put some double chocolate chip ice cream on it so it tangentially counts. The chocolate chips are chopped by hand, and we had a giant chunk about the size of our thumb that we had to excavate out of the surrounding ice cream. It was amazing.
As we were leaving, I saw that they sold chocolate bars, and one of them was dark enough to qualify. So I bought one, and here we are.
Black and red, my favorite packaging colors.
This was just as good as the brownie sundae we had, albeit in a different way. 72% is usually on the low end of dark chocolate I like and this was pretty sweet for dark chocolate, but it was a pleasant sweetness matched with a smooth creaminess of the bar. There was a kind of heavy undertaste that helped ground the chocolate and prevent it from overwhelming my taste buds, though by the time I was done with my half of the bar it was getting a bit too much for me, and I'm glad that I haven't set myself up to eat the entire bar before writing about it. That would have been too much, but half of it is perfect.
Now I'm wondering if this was the chocolate bar that they used in the sundae. It was much too dark and solid for the milk chocolate bars they had on sale, and it doesn't have any filling so I can't be the caramel or the other ones. If so, then I have to say that the best way to eat this is surrounded by delicious homemade ice cream. Possibly with dark chocolate sauce and pecan. What I'm saying is that I want another brownie sundae.
Maybe that ineffable quality I tasted is just how much I appreciated the sundae. Taste is subjective, after all. If so, my advice to you is to go eat brownie sundaes with chocolate chip ice cream on top. You'll thank me later.
The bar has a geometric pattern but I took the picture crooked.
softlykarou's OpinionSo yesterday I encountered this chocolate in amazing ice cream. It was a giant chunk and it's what made me really excited to buy it. It's a bit sweeter than I like my chocolate and yet it's so rich and creamy that I don't care. It's smooth and comforting and feels like a slightly more grown up version of something I would have enjoyed as a kid. Plus I loved the build of the bar, it felt like eating a kit-kat in how I broke it and that just made me smile.
We tapped our halves of the chocolate bar together before we ate them. It was syrupy sweet in the way that this chocolate was not.