Lots Of Chocolates For Me To Eat And Sphynx Paint Grease And Sphynx paint grease The highlight of the

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Combine Eliza Dolittle with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and you have the Salon du Chocolat in Paris. About 200,000 visitors descend annually, barge past chocolate recreations of the Eiffel Tower, Sphinx, Venus de Milo, Mona Lisa… to reach the hundred million stalls offering a hundred million chocolate samples. The ultimate chocolate exhibition. And absolute madness. But at the Salon you learn about the imagination, innovation and perfection involved in fashioning the finest chocolates. Indeed, to the chocolatier his creations are art. The Salon aims to provoke healthy (a word inappropriate when talking about chocolate?) competition between chocolatiers, but furious rivalry results in super sophisticated production technique. Refinement in chocolate quality now teeters on the absurd to any non-connoisseur of chocolate. The finest chocolate is of cru (cultivated like gastronomic wines of cépage). But the Salon is principally a place of indulgence and decadence for hopeless chocoholics, including French ministers (some rather important ones), who dismay not at being captured shamelessly demolishing masses of chocolate. What else can one do when convened under one roof are the mightiest names in chocolate from France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Russia, Japan, China, Syria… And French regional chocolatiers whose specialities sphynx grease

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now linked with glamour, extravagance and fashion. The Salon du Chocolat’s Chocolate Fashion Show is becoming increasingly more exuberant. Maitres chocolatiers replicate identically in chocolate Haute Couture creations from the biggest names in fashion. Top models parade down the catwalk wearing these astonishing re-creations of designer dresses, which are also exhibited on mannequins for closer inspection of the art and craft that goes into the faithful duplication of drapes, swirls, twirls of fabric. The highlight of the Salon is this spectacular chocolate fashion. And then there is also a showroom of chocolate shoes… Chocolate was originally consumed as a drink (which disgusted Columbus). The Salon exhibits chocolate drinks including crazy champagne cocktails- say champagne, dark chocolate and ginger à la Casanova. Chocolate has insidiously infiltrated savoury gastronomy as star chefs explore and experiment with combining traditionally ‘contradictory’ flavours: chocolate with game, meat, fish... Available at the Salon are chocolate pastes and sauces containing wild rabbit to accompany foie gras, pasta… The Salon’s Chocolate Museum takes one on a whirlwind waltz through the 2600-year-old history of chocolate. The Mayas and Aztecs discovered the cacao tree, which they called the ‘Tree of Paradise’. We learn that cacao has always been precious and sphynx cat

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Jacques Bellanger and Sebastien Broacard. New Japanese chocolatier Miki can out-French the French and Swedish M’A’LARCHOCOLATERIE does super horseradish chocolate. Bassam Ghraoui whom I met in Damascus once won “Best Foreign Chocolatier” for Ghraoui’s oriental exotica like dark chocolate filled with almond-pistachio-orange paste. I ask one artisan where I could buy their exquisite chocolates from again. He replies, “Next year’s Salon du Chocolat- unless you come find us in Alsace.” Annually, after five days at the Salon du Chocolat and three dozen bags of chocolates (at least…), I promise NEVER to attend the Salon again… Chocolate chic in Colombo Chocolanté: Colombo’s one-stop-chocolate-shop. Extraordinary! A 125-year-old bungalow converts into a cocoon of coco. Terraces open onto charming fountained courtyards. I am meeting CEO Sriantha De Alwis. I arrive with a book hoping he is late so that I can bask in the setting. Alas, SDA is punctual. And he immediately avows his obsession with perfection. I decide we’ll get on... He next declares, “Everyone does the same thing in town. We wanted to create a difference.” And he whisks me to explore the terrains of temptation. An arrayal of handmade chocolate leads one from temptation to temptation. Oscar Wilde said, “The.

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ubiquitous-in-Colombo offensive cream or grease). Panic. I guess there is pure cocoa butter. But butter too? SDA smiles affirmatively, “We don’t use margarine- why would you want to consume edible plastic?” Chunky Choc and chocolate brownies (two types, rich and raunchy or slender slices) offer that same unctuous luxury. Cupcakes and muffins (both in duplicate flavours) are dainty- as they should be. White chocolate I despise (yes, that’s the word) but Chocolanté’s white cupcake enclosing lemon mousse under white chocolate snow is a delight, although the cupcakes, like the chocolate, could be more tender. But I admit myself ravished by their liqueur-laced three-tiered chocolate mousse cake. Devouringly good. Phenomenal feel. How? “It’s not rocket science,” SDA says enigmatically.... Stupendous though his repertoire, he is restless: the cakes must match the multitudinous chocolates variety. Further, he anticipates, soon others will be replicating their products. Me thinks he’ll stay ahead... Chocolanté’s are amongst the finest chocolate cakes in Colombo. True, they could be a lot less sweet. I suggest low-sugar options. They apparently flirted with low-sugar and sugar-free ranges. But SDA says, “If we launched it, you’d be the only consumer.” Lankans want SWEET. They haven’t grasped the paradox that a sweet.

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special order from Fine Things). Chef Gerard accomplishes those near-impossible soft-coated textures. Very French, but Lankan flavour pervades Coconut & Orange Sensation, Coconut Peak, Coconut & Orange Bar... Marzipan chocolates are little marvels whilst liqueur ganache (Fresh strawberries in Grand Marnier, Red cherries in Cointreau, Rum and Raisin) that squirt in your mouth are ebrious exquisiteness. I’m still recovering from Coffee Rollers. His melt-at-touch truffles (honey, strawberry or unusual peanut) alone conform to the definition in Colombo. Fine things? The finest. If sometimes the chocolates seem too sweet, he admits the pastry kitchen tries to be over-adventurous and improve upon the master’s strictly sugar-controlled recipes. Perhaps Sri Lanka should tax sugar as in Europe to curtail such saccharine audacities… Coco Veranda: Everything evokes chocolate. Deep, dark chocolate tables, counter, classy cake cabinet, milk chocolate chairs. Temptation is to start eating the furniture. But save your appetite for their new hot chocolate. You’ll need it- they have eight sorts! The ‘Sri Lankan” hot chocolate (two kinds, with or without molten marshmallow) comprises 70% of their hot chocolate business (it’s called Sri Lankan hot chocolate simply because it’s sweeter, bigger and therefore appeals to locals, although made with Cadburys). New Italian.