Oddities and Decadence from the Canadian Pacific Isles
Part 1: Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory Arsenal
First of all, for the uninitiated (i.e. the non-Canadian): The Nanaimo Bar. In short: chocolate on top of buttercream (or other flavours, but buttercream is "original recipe") icing on top of a chocolate/graham cracker/coconut crust. Can't get much richer than that, right? RIGHT?!
For those of you who follow my Twitter feed (all three family members), you may remember my recent post about The Nanaimo Bar Trail. The city of Nanaimo has created a tour where you can walk from eatery to eatery and have different versions of Nanaimo bars, from a vegan gluten free version, to Nanaimo Bar martinis, to deep fried Nanaimo Bars (wrap your fragile mind around THAT). The Nanaimo Chamber of Commerce has even created a score card for people attempting the entire route, which is awesome.
I was a little sad when I knew I'd be blowing through Nanaimo without a chance to try some of these truly nutty Nanaimo Bar iterations. While waiting for the ferry, I wandered into the Quayside market and found myself at a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory kiosk. Myself, I'm not a huge fan of this store. First of all, it's usually only found in touristy areas catering to touristy people, with prices adjusted accordingly. Second of all, they don't do snack size. RMCF has one size and one size only: BIGASS. It's more of a store you behold in reverence than a store you actually shop at.
For example, every RMCF store sells caramel apples, although I would hesitate to call them caramel apples. They are more like caramel clubs. If I could choose any weapon with which to defend myself from a gang of bikers in a dark alley, I wouldn't choose brass knuckles or a chain whip or nunchucks. I'd choose these:
Just got my new weapon. The weapon of choice.
Actually, I find these candy apples remarkably restrained for RMCF. The one in my old neighbourhood had candy apples covered in jumbo marshmallows AND whole graham cracker squares. But there are more weapons in the armory:
These cookies will CRUSH YOU.
In case this doesn't look impressive enough for you, those brownie paddles are big enough to accommodate a spirited game of ping pong.
While beholding all the lethal majesty, I came across this:
Yeah. Chocolate covered Nanaimo bars. WHY NOT? I had no idea these existed. I've never seen them in a RMCF store and I didn't spot them on the official Nanaimo Trail scorecard. Under normal circumstances, I would never attempt an item like this, but now I have a blog where I occasionally eat scary things, so I felt kind of obliged. I'M DOING IT FOR SCIENCE.* So I bought one chocolate covered bar and one mysterious white bar, which the clerk told me was "tiger butter" which he had to translate to me as "white chocolate and peanut butter". I also asked the clerk if these bars were unique to the store. He replied that other stores can make them, but usually don't. And they had invented the chocolate covered Nanaimo bar at this particular outlet.
I was absolutely terrified to try these. I've eaten insects before and they weren't half as scary as . . . this. This which made my blood sugar spike on sight. But I am nothing if not intrepid.
The bars with my awaiting teacup for scale. I had a whole pot of hojicha tea ready to go, hoping it would dilute my blood,
which was about to turn into sugar slush.
One of my burning questions was answered upon dissection. Would they bother with the top layer of chocolate on the bar, or would they just pour chocolate on top of the chocolate? Yep, the latter. And as you can see, they did not skimp on the coatings. I attempted the tiger butter one first, since I was sure it was going to be the sweetest. I wasn't wrong. Unfortunately the tiger butter is more white chocolate than peanut butter, and in conjunction with the butter cream? HOLY SWEDISH NOUGAT. The only way I can articulate the experience is the sound I made while chewing: "Bluuuurrrruuuuuueeeerrrgggghhhhhuuuuuhhh." And that was just one small bite.
Three cups of tea and several wheatgrass cleanses later, I was up to trying the chocolate covered Nanaimo Bar. This one was a lot more tolerable, and the taste made a lot more sense. What didn't make sense was the construction of the bar - it made it really difficult to eat, because the coating didn't want to break and the buttercream squirted out any opening it could find. You know when restaurants serve you a gigantic, sloppy burger on a fancy artisan bun that has a crust so chewy and thick, you can't cut through it with your teeth? That.
Despite the messiness, and despite thinking I was a hummingbird inside of thirty seconds, I polished off the entire chocolate Nanaimo Bar. But there were regrets. I felt like I had eaten an entire Safeway cake. I felt an overwhelming urge to bathe in carrot juice.
By the way, I did see RMCF's actual entry on the Nanaimo Bar Trail scorecard:
NO WAY, DUDE. Even I have limits. This was the "small" size. It was as big as my whole hand (possibly my head). The large portions were bench pressable.
Part 2: Gabriola Island is Beautiful and Weird
Click to viewP.S. - The other flavours available weren't all that weird. There was a chocolate and ground garlic bar and a chocolate/garlic/ginger bar, but aside from that, the rest of the flavours were pretty run-of-the-mill: espresso, mint, orange, dark chocolate . . . oh, whatever the heck "maca" is. I have no idea, but it seems all the hipsters in my area do. I think maca may be the new matcha.
*Science not included