Chocolate -- Vosges Barcelona Bar

Time for another chocolate review!  And this is a good one -- the Vosges Barcelona Bar.  First let me tell you what it is -- It's a slightly darker milk (41% -- a lot of milk chocolate seems to be in the 30% range) combined with hickory smoked almonds and grey sea salt.  Now I'm a sucker for the whole sweet & salty thing, so I knew that there was a good chance I would like this bar.  And apparently so do a lot of other people because I had a bit of trouble finding it.  (Keep in mind that I don't live in a major city, so opportunities for chocolate hunting are limited.)

So when I went up to Chicago to play in the park last week with Maddie and Theresa, I decided to take a look and found it!  After all this searching, I was hoping it would live up to the hype I had created for it in my own mind.

I have to say that I finished the bar in 4 nights -- it was delicious!  The salt was intense and flavorful and combined perfectly with the sweetness of the milk chocolate.  And the hickory smoked almonds?  They gave the bar a strange and interesting flavor that you weren't expecting -- a bit of savory in your sweet and a nice crunch too. 

If I had one complaint -- well, I have two complaints.  First, the bar is way too expensive.  It's $7!!!!!  There's not gold leaf on the thing -- it's chocolate, salt and almonds for goodness sake.  All high quality, no doubt!  But $7???  (Okay, now that I got that off my chest.)  And second, there was a bit of a distribution problem with the salt.  The first square I tasted was *very* salty.  My first thought was that if the whole bar was this salty, I wouldn't be able to eat it.  But every other square was perfect, so all was well.  I just think that for that much money, ever square should be perfect, know what I mean?

In the end I can't complain -- I'm already thinking about driving up to Chicago to get another one -- it was that good.  The perfect combination of ingredients in the right proportion -- it's magic, I tell ya!

Comments

[Theresa]

Chuckle. I think I've found this one in the Whole Foods on North Ave. And John walks home by that Intelligentsia every day, so if you need help doing some procurement, let me know.

[splatgirl]

Wow. That sounds yum! Vosges is the absolute best chocolate I've ever eaten, although I am a dark rather than a milk girl. My favorite is the Black Pearl Bar, with ginger, wasabi and black sesame seeds in dark, dark chocolate. It's amazing. And if it makes you feel any better, I've paid like $8 or 9 before!

[shoofly]

ooh...if you like salty-sweet, Teaism in DC makes salty oat cookies...basically, they're oatmeal raisin cookies with sea salt sprinkled on top. Someone tried to make them and posted the recipe at this link on dcist.com:
http://www.dcist.com/archives/2005/07/27/teaisms_salty_o.php

Also, the other day I saw a bar of chocolate called "art bar", $7 and each bar comes with a reproduced work of art (collector card) inside. fun idea!

[trope]

Yes, there's a whole Vosges store out here on the Magnificent Mile. I like their chocolate pretty well, but too much of the price, IMO, is for the name rather than the taste. I like Vosges most when they put the extremely odd stuff in their chocolate--I can get a great chocolate-and-caramel or chocolate-and-espresso in more than one place, but as far as I know no one else puts wasabi in their chocolate.

[Jess]

That sounds fabulous!

I think the price of almonds is up pretty high right now - I was looking at peanut butter alternatives the other day and a jar of almond butter was $10! vs. $5 for cashew butter. Maybe that's part of the reason for the high price.

[Dianna]

For those of us in small (1200 people) communities, how do you find out about all these wonderful chocolates? Once we find out about them, there is always the Internet.... thank you for helping us out!

[Norma]

You talk like eating it in four days was EXTRAVAGANT. I'd have the whole damn thing done in one night. You kiddin'?! It sounds amazingly decadent, but I know no restraint.

[Rain]

ooooo I wanna get me some of these!!

[AJ]

Chocolate is good! :)

[Carrie]

I just had my 1st Vosges chocolate bar, the Woolloomooloo. Yea, try saying that even one time fast...
It was very good!

[Kristin La Flamme]

If you like interesting chocolate. you should try the Weihnachts Chocolade from Lindt. It's chocolate with cinamon and corriander mixed in, plus almond for good measure. My favorite variation is the almonds covered in the spiced chocolate. I think you can get this at World Market.