Thursday, September 29, 2011

continuing the godiva binge plus more!

okay so last night in somewhat of a tipsy (do people still use that word or is that a circa-j kwon era word?) blur i ate some of godiva's new dessert bars: tiramisu, milk chocolate covered cheesecake, and dark chocolate lava cake or something else dark chocolatey i dunno.

tiramisu: white chocolate covered coffee flavored mousse-y cream. delicious. it doesn't taste like awesome alcoholy traditional tiramisu but i love white chocolate and i happen to love coffee too, and the textures together were good.

milk chocolate covered cheesecake: i'm more of a filling person when it comes to chocolates like i'm more of a frosting person when it comes to cake, and i feel that godiva kind of coats their bars fairly thickly in relation to how much filling there is in the bar. it seems that all of their bars "end" with the chocolate encasement on your tongue rather than a mixture of the filling and the coating, unless i am just always eating it wrong? so this was a disappointment seeing as i could hardly tell the gooey filling (not as nice texturally as others, especially compared to the tiramisu) was cheesecake flavored. the milk chocolate overpowered it almost entirely. i could only tell the center was not milk chocolate, not that it was a whole 'nother flavor.

dark chocolate lava cake somethingness: you know, the rest of the bar is in the other room and i hope to update the description for the sake of posterity but the bar was just dark chocolateness. i dunno what i was expecting, but i don't think you can turn lava cake into a bar. i think the center was more solid than even the cheesecake bar.

lemon mousse truffle: this is the second time i tried it, i bought a tray of them when they were on sale. i think i liked it the first time i ate some because i was toasted, this time just tipsy i was more discerning. i prefer lemon meringue type lemon or lemon curd type, and this was very lemon zesty. it had a sort of bitterness all throughout that i identify with the zest instead of the tartness of the juice and i was sad for this.

my newwww favorite kettle corn is colby's kettle corn - salty sweet addiction. it's not entirely glazed like some but there are a few pieces that have a crisp layer of salty sugar crystals clumped together to form a crunchy flavor packed coating. the rest is lightly dusted with sugar and salt and you end up with a small pile of crystals at the bottom of the bowl (or bag) that you can eat up by licking your fingers and jabbing them to scoop them up.

ftr i made stella's eating stella style pumpkin pound cake and it came out extraordinarily well. i made it exactly to specs. recording this because the other day i made the low carb carrot cake muffins from the low carb baking and dessert book but forgot the extra cream cheese i am sure i put in the first time i followed the recipe and it came out dryyyy. then again i also doubled the recipe so maybe i messed up trying to do that.

Monday, September 26, 2011

godiva truffles

in an attempt to delay the start of my diet i think i will review some truffles.

new and improved pumpkin truffle - pretty damn good. it's that one in the orange foil with a curly little twig and leaf to make it look like a pumpkin. i don't remember how last year's tasted so i can't attest to the new and improvedness of it but embarassingly enough i think i still have some in my stash and could dig them out and compare if i got another of the new ones but it might be unfair to judge year-old, old pumpkin truffles against new fresh improved ones.

red velvet truffle - i honestly don't understand the OMGness of red velvet that everyone seems to fawn over and this is no different. it's good chocolate on its own i suppose but it tastes no different to me than some other muted chocolate flavor.

chocolate eclair truffle - so delicious. one of my new favorites! i love love love custards and creams and this is a very awesome creamy vanilla custard ganache in the center of a milk chocolate coating that is a perfect thickness, not thick but not too thin that you can't taste it after the center has melted away in your mouth.

pumpkin cheesecake truffle - another freaking amazing one! the coating is a little on the thick side but that is likely due to the two chambers inside, one holding a creamy "cheesecake" filling and another the thick yet creamy pumpkin pie filling. i liked it.

creme brulee truffle - they don't usually have descriptions at the boutique and with a name like creme brulee i thought it would be self explanatory like "carrot cake" might be. but no. this thing has a chocolate ganache inside of its white chocolate sprinkled with sugar crystals shell. not what i was expecting so naturally i hate it. it is probably very good if you like chocolate ganache masking as a silky eggy slightly burnt sugared custard but i don't and i want the latter.

more to come later.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

before i forget

alright so at first i was just gonna review recipes as i made them. but as you can probably see i did that only once, about three years ago. well perhaps to cater to my everchanging new ideas/hobbies i will just use this for all things food related from recipe reviews to food event recaps to product reviews or whatever else i might be forgetting right now, even if only to remind myself for future reference.

off the top of my head:

Taste of Newport - was worth it the first year we went, maybe three years ago. was not worth it the year after. i suppose we wouldn't mind paying $25 to get in on top of the 1-3$ per tasting costs if they kept true to "the taste of newport" or even the taste of newport and other surrounding cities but left out the chains like ruby's diner and weinerschnitzel or whatever mediocre crap they started to let take over the real winners like Mastro's steakhouse.

Saban Free Clinic Extravaganza for the Senses - worth it. always. we've attended the past two years and even if you only get regular admission tickets for a mere two hours of unlimited tastings of wine and gourmet food in LA and you have to stand for the whole two hours and rub elbows with most everyone there, it's totally worth it. maybe next year we will go all out and spring for the vip tickets to see what's inside the exclusive tent, and to get an extra hour to digest everything we stuff ourselves on and i will report on that. it's for a good cause and i tasted the most orgasmic lasagna from Angelini's Osteria that i've ever eaten and am willing to drive close to an hour just to get it (except on mondays because they are apparently closed on mondays which i learned the hard, traffic-filled way).

OC Cupcake Camp - benefitting a children's charity. I went this year for the first time though i believe it was their second year only far less organized than i would have expected. it was a madhouse. i went with my sister who was carrying her firstborn child in her arms and we overheard someone say, "don't push her, she has a baby" as if that was the only reason a sane person could have not to elbow her in the face for some partially stale not very impressive cupcakes that you likely only paid half price for if you got one of the over-sold groupons for tickets. next year i plan to donate some of my own and i will show them what's what. but it's for charity and i like frosting so i will still probably attend even if i don't donate cupcakes. get there half an hour early because each two-hour session ran out of cupcakes about 20 minutes after the doors opened.

LA Chocolate Salon - unlimited tastings of chocolate, confections, spirits, and wine! another somewhat over-sold and poorly constructed event with lines that wrapped around the room and around tables and people cutting lines and wines running out, etc. this one is a maybe re-attend because it's all the way up at the pasadena convention center so if they don't sell discounted tickets on bloomspot like they did this year it would sway me to go again a little more because i'd hope for less attendees. they had a tequila booth though that was fantastic and david and i had about a shot each and probably split a whole bottle of The Chocolate Shop wine between us and i only felt queasy in line at the second to last booth (approx 25 booths total). another good wine was the black muscat one from the company who makes Essencia. I will have to review the chocolatiers at a later time when i am slightly more (or less) sober. Next time we know to bring around a bag of meat to snack on in line to counteract all the diabetes we were asking for, instead of waddling across the street afterwards to eat a crumbly overly mustarded burger at Island's. UPDATE! i just found the bag of cards and pamphlets (and eek, some chocolates) and here is the tequila that i fell in love with: Alquimia -- i loved the reposado the best but the blanco was really good too. some of the chocolatiers that i had cards for: Jer's Chocolates; Lamourettechocolate.com; Mignonchocolate.com; Cielchocolatier.com; Martichocolatt.com; Amanochocolate.com;

Starbucks' salted caramel mocha frappachino - disgusting. tasted like slightly smoky dirty water. and watered down dirty water at that. ugh.

The Silver Trumpet - discovered this during Costa Mesa Restaurant Week. can't remember
exactly what i had for lunch but it goes something like this: roast chicken breast with wilted spinach and truffled broth, i think a goat cheese and grilled peach with prosciutto salad as an appetizer, some sort of "kettle corn ice cream" for dessert. whatever i missed was still delicious, i'm sure. amazing, anyway, and we will certainly be back.

Trader Joes' dark chocolate covered peanut butter wafer cookies - the chocolate is too chalky and there is either not enough peanut butter itself or the peanut butter is not peanut buttery enough. it is like chalky wafer cookies with a slight aftertaste of peanut butter. boo.