Amano Jembrana 70%

Ingredients: Cocoa beans, pure cane sugar, cocoa butter, whole vanilla beans.

This 70% Jembrana bar comes from Amano, one of my favorite chocolate makers.  It’s made with beans from the southwest coast of Bali.  I love the new packaging of the bars.  Each one features different artwork – in this case, a piece by Martina Shapiro.

The flavor starts out earthy, very chocolatey and deep, before bright, fruity notes pop up to lighten the taste.  Some hints of citrus rind emerge, before it reaches a nutty end.

Like other Amano chocolate bars I’ve tasted, I loved the complexity of flavors.  Based on the bars I’ve tried, I’m not surprised that all five of Amano’s bars received medals at the 2009 Academy of Chocolate Awards.  I’m looking forward to seeing Amano at the SF Chocolate Salon in late March – hopefully, they’ll bring something new along!

Recchiuti Fleur de Sel and Cardamom Nougat

Whenever I’m near the Ferry Building in San Francisco, I have to avoid going inside unless I’m prepared to buy a few pieces from Recchiuti Confections.  Take, for example, a couple of weekends ago when I had gone downtown to buy some chocolate from TCHO (review coming soon!), and had some time to kill before a movie.  Since I’d just spent money on chocolate, I thought I wouldn’t end up buying more, but of course I was incorrect…

I picked out two pieces, which got a little smushed in my bag:

Fleur de Sel Caramel: Dark chocolate encases a dense, chewy caramel. As the caramel is flavored with salt, it comes out in small bursts.  Small, but complex in flavor.

Cardamom Nougat: Delicious chocolate ganache with subtle cardamom flavoring. I didn’t really taste the cacao nib nougat.  Looks like my piece didn’t get much dripped on top?  I still enjoyed it, though.

Both were solid pieces, what I expect from Recchiuti.

What really drove me to stop and purchase something at Recchiuti rather than stopping and checking out new products, like I did at the Scharffen Berger store, was the great customer service.  As soon we approached Recchiuti, we were offered hot chocolate, and the employees seemed friendly and approachable.  If I hadn’t been planning on buying Tcho chocolate, I probably wouldn’t have gotten any, because the employee there didn’t even look up from her computer when we were in the otherwise empty store.  I really appreciate how Recchiuti employees are always friendly, no matter how busy they are – chocolate and good feelings should always go hand in hand!