Food & Wine

I eat chocolate multiple times a day, usually after breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Sometimes on its own.  Needless to say, I like chocolate very much.  As the readers of WPS know, I get very involved with my hobbies and interests, and I've since toured and even helped stir chocolate at some chocolate factories.  In addition to shopping at the watch stores whenever I travel, I often seek out sweets shops, usually looking for chocolate or other sweets. 

Many of you also know I like great bargains.  The Parmigiani Fleurier brand makes amazing watches, some of them at fairly accessible prices.  Perhaps one of the best chocolate bars for the money (priced around 7 Euros or 8 Swiss Francs for a large 300 gram bar), the Lindt Dark Chocolate with Raspberry Cranberry Almonds is a delightful bar to behold.  The nuts are toasted to a level of fragrance that's appropriate for the rest of the chocolate, the dried fruit is at the perfect intensity for the chocolate.  The chocolate here, a dark blend, is probably overly smooth, and a tad bit industrial.  It's probably a low-level dark chocolate, meaning probably a 50% to 60% cacao content chocolate (FYI, typical milk chocolate has a 20% to 35% cacao content, I consider low level dark to be 50-60% cacao content, mid-level to be 61 to 70%, and anything over 70% is usually considered fairly high level).  I say the chocolate is a tad bit industrial, mainly because it's overly smooth - but the tempering of the chocolate (tempering refers to how the chocolate is heated and cooled) gives it a pleasant firmness and a fairly consistent snap that is not dissimilar to fine high-cacao content chocolate.  Overall, the ingredients are all in alignment with each other, a chorus that sings in harmony.  The fruit is just at the right tangy-ness that doesn't overwhelm the chocolate, the almond nut is toasted to the right creaminess to complement the chocolate.  The fruit stands on its own here, but the chocolate is still a main character.  The almond becomes more of a supporting character, helping mainly in texture as crunchiness and fragrance, rather than flavor. 

Overall, a one star bar if using the Michelin grading system, so one star is a very good bar; two stars is worthy of a detour; and three is worthy of a special journey. 

At the price of around 8 Swiss Francs (at Zurich Airport), it is definitely an exceptional value bar!  I'd load up!  Unfortunately, because they didn't allow sampling, I only bought two bars, one of which I gifted (my recipient enjoyed it very much), and now I'm thoroughly regretting not getting more!  Perhaps I'll have to fly through Zurich Airport again sometime soon!  I strongly encourage any WatchProSite member to buy a half a dozen or a full dozen.  If you don't consume it all yourself, they'll be very welcome gifts by many chocolate level recipeints!  I finished my last piece of this bar yesterday, and I will miss it very much until I can replenish my stock! 

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