La Maison Du Chocolat
63 Wall Street, New York New York.
(212)952-1133
Web Site: http://www.lamaisonduchocolat.us/us/en/commerce
Even though my foodie lifestyle has changed drastically since September of 2007, and since being diagnosed as a borderline Type II Diabetic, I still have a huge weakness for chocolate.
Diabetics of course can’t eat a lot of sugar, and we have to be very careful about foods that are high on the glycemic index. For all practical purposes, I’ve cut out all processed sugar from my diet. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still have the occasional treat. So If I’m going to have chocolate, it had better be the good stuff. And for me, that’s very high grade dark chocolate, with a very high proportion of cocoa solids in it. It has to be so intense that even a small portion will stop all cravings pretty much instantly.
And so it was on a rainy, cold night in December that I was walking down Wall Street and sighted the downtown New York City branch of La Maison Du Chocolat, one of the world’s finest European chocolatiers. I looked in the window and stopped dead in my tracks.
You want dark chocolate? I’ll give you dark chocolate. Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.
La Maison Du Chocolat’s Wall Street showroom. The lighting in here really shows off the chocolate. I also found the staff member here was very well educated on the company’s products and was extremely helpful in assisting me with my purchase.
And like any skilled drug pusher, he was happy to let me try some of the merchandise. I went straight for the middle.
Some of the fine chocolates on display.
Pretty gift boxes for that special someone. According to the salesperson, even in this economy luxury chocolates are still doing pretty well, its in the same demographic as tobacco — people just gotta have it. I’m inclined to agree with him.
If you are ultra-serious about your chocolate, you can bypass the ganache-based treats and go right for the hardcore cacao. La Maison Du Chocolat sells single-origin chocolate bars at various levels of intensity. La Maison’s bars use cacao beans from the Caribbean, Venezuela and Colombia, although I am not sure if the bars are blended with liquors from the 3 regions or if they use cacao of a particular origin at any given time. Regardless, this is really high quality stuff. I picked up one 74 percent bar (Cuana) and one 100 percent bar (Coro). If you’re not used to dark chocolate, I’d only eat a small piece of one of the squares at a time — this stuff is really, really intense. The 100 percent bar (Coro) has no added sugar whatsoever, it’s completely chocolate solids. In fact, it was so unbelievably bitter that I’m going to reserve it as an accent flavor for for savory food (Mole Poblano, anyone?) and for grating with a fine microplane over cappuccinos and sugar-free hot chocolate that I make with Splenda. This is the chocolate equivalent to freebasing, folks.
Off The Broiler 