Portland ChocolateFest!

 

I attended the Portland ChocolateFest with some friends yesterday, and we had a great time indulging our sweet tooth! I, like most people, am a huge fan of good chocolate--preferably good dark chocolate. Ironically, my friend who went with me  isn't much of a chocolate fan and exclaimed, "I'm just going for the caramels!" 

After each paying an $8 admission fee (which was totally worth it!) and donning our "I love chocolate" stickers, we eagerly went in with the goal of tasting as much chocolate as humanly possible. There were almost 50 booths with everything from fudge, chocolate bars, chocolate truffles, chocolate sauce, drinking chocolate, and chocolate frosting! IKEA was even there with Swedish chocolates! 

The "hot" new thing in the chocolate world today is spicy chocolates. I tried cayenne pepper chocolates and a personal favorite was the Hachez Cocoa D'Arriba Mango & Chili Chocolate Bar. It starts off with a sweet mango flavor and then at the very end a spicy flavor lingers. It is not your little sister's chocolate bar!

One of the most interesting booths at the ChocolateFest was Choffy, which is very similar to coffee but instead of roasting coffee beans, cacao beans are roasted! It is very light like coffee (unlike hot chocolate)  and considering that it is only the "essence" of chocolate it only contains 20 calories per serving and no caffeine (which, hello! is great because caffeine is like a drug to me).  I added cream and sugar to it like I would to a cup of brewed coffee.  When I remarked that it was a totally foreign idea to me and asked the man if anyone else is doing anything like this, he told me that no, they were the only ones. I would have to try it again to know for sure if I really liked it or merely liked the concept of it. 

My friend and I both agree on our favorite booth, Ladybug Chocolates. And it seems that we have excellent taste because the judges all agreed too! Ladybug Chocolates was awarded Best Confection, Most Innovative Ingredient, and Best in Show for the ChocolateFest 2010! The one that we tasted and both loved was the applewood smoked salted caramel (which won the best confection). We were both in heaven because it was a chocolate covered caramel with smoky salt on top! DELICIOUS! The most innovative ingredient award was given to their Vermont Shortstack Truffle (pan fried bacon & pure maple syrup in a milk chocolate ganache coated with handmade buttermilk pancake crumbs). 

I would definitely say my first time visiting the Portland ChocolateFest was a success. After about two hours of stuffing my face with chocolate I was a little buzzed on caffeine and had most likely taken in almost my total daily allotment of calories, but I would do it again in a heartbeat! Long live the chocolate binges!

What a Tasty Weekend to Start my Blog!

Hello everyone! Where to begin...I have never blogged before...but here it goes:

This weekend has been awesome and it is still only Saturday afternoon ! My wonderful roommate Lydia and I decided to get the heck out of Newberg this weekend and spend the night in the BIG CITY! We headed to Portland to to spend the night in my parents new eclectic weekender apartment, have girl time, and eat to our hearts content!

We kicked off our night by heading to HotLips Pizza in the Pearl. We had never been there but had always been enticed by this local pizza store with the big red lips! We both ordered a slice of the daily Veggie pizza that had: Green chili, peppers, mushrooms, feta + cilantro pesto. We also ordered a honkin' garlic breadstick (that we split), and each had a raspberry HotLips soda. The breadstick was kind of "gooey," and I wouldn't order it again, but the pizza and the soda were amazing! The pizza was very fresh tasting and semi-spicy, but if I HAD to choose I would say the raspberry soda was my favorite part of the whole meal! I was expecting an average "raspberry flavored" soda like all other raspberry sodas, but no, this one was in a completely different realm! It actually tasted like raspberries, you know, like the ones you would pick right off the bush! It even had raspberry pulp floating around it for crying-out-loud (which is, in my opinion, a very good thing)! Its amazing flavor is most likely caused by the fact that it only contains four ingredients: Carbonated water, Willamette Valley raspberries, cane sugar, organic lemon juice! I was craving another raspberry soda only minutes after finishing the first bottle!

Of course we couldn't stop there so--after a little shopping--we hit up a cozy place I have been wanting to go: The Tea Zone. It is a very quaint little store that has a wonderfully vast tea menu. They often have live music and movie nights. After being quite intimidated by the lengthy menu we settled on familiar favorites: I had a caffeine-free chai, and Lydia had cinnamon spice tea latte. They each came in a precious glass cup complete with an additional tea tea pot for each of us filled with more creamy-delicious tea with tons of foam (the best part, Lydia says).  We got out of there spending about $4 each and we even had a to-go cup full of tea that we couldn't finish (which we reheated the next morning for breakfast)! 

Now what girls night on the town would be complete without dessert? Certainly not Lydia's and my girls night out. After much brainstorming and debating about where to go for dessert we decided to go to the Heathman Hotel for some of their famous treats. After coming in and feeling slightly under-dressed and awkward for having the restaurant host offer to take our Powell's Bags to hang up in the coat closet, we finally got seated and ordered some fine desserts. We were informed that The Heathman is one of few hotel restaurants in downtown Portland that can boast about having their very own pastry chef. Lydia ordered the Tarte Tartin, which is a French caramelized upside down apple tart. She said it was great, but what was most impressive was the beautiful sugar design that was placed on top of the whole thing. I chose to be what some might call "boring" and go for the Creme Brulee, which is one of my all-time favorite desserts. It was prepared wonderfully and had a very authentic vanilla flavor, complete with visible vanilla seeds.

After all this taste-bud stimulation we decided to call it a night and walk back to the apartment for a movie and some well-needed rest, because the next morning we had to get up early for the Chocolate Festival!