Review: Hotel Chocolat Advent Calendar 'Truffles to Share'

This advent calendar was gratefully received courtesy of Hotel Chocolat and it felt really naughty to eat the whole thing by 14 November!  However, I had a review to do, so I had the perfect excuse.    I'm guessing this is aimed at Double Income No Kids Yet couples (can anyone else afford £24 for an advent calendar?) who want to share a high end product. The (rather seductive) gimmick is that there are two chocolates behind each window.   I do have children and they were very excited about it, but they only liked one or two of the truffle flavours.  In fact rather than bickering over who would have the chocolates we were all saying 'No, go on, you have the mulled wine truffle.'

 I loved the Salted Soft Caramel and quite liked the gingerbread truffle, the plain and milk truffles, but the mulled wine flavour was rejected by all of us and only one of us, my 10 year old son, liked the cinnamon praline. All the chocs were the same nipple shape.  It would have been more fun with some variation e.g. Stars, trees, snowmen etc

On the plus side, two chocs per advent window is a great idea.  Right sized chocolates, three quarter sized = a nice mouthful.  

Negatives: high price and dubious flavours. The packaging design was half right: I liked the sparkly icicle and tree pattern but there was an ugly strip of white cardboard down the middle on the hinge of the calendar. 

It would have been nice if the website had listed the truffle flavours contained within this calendar.  There are some very tiny icon symbols to show they contain e.g. alcohol, nuts, milk etc ( hey, hotel choc, can you make those symbols a bit larger?  They're very difficult to interpret in such a small size) but no list of flavours.

Overall our verdict was that it is a good concept, a little overpriced with not particularly yummy chocolate.

There are four other advent calendars in the range.  I think the others have festive shaped chocs inside and are priced at £12-17

 Rather interesting that their website is also advertising a 'Cheese and Chocolate Tasting Experience.'  As a youngster I discovered the taste sensation of pairing mature cheddar cheese with Kit Kats, a guilty pleasure, but I've always been a fan of sweet-savoury combos.  They even use chocolate as a 'cracker' for cheese and serve sweet relishes instead of Branston.  Whooh.  Brave, but I'm liking it.

Penge Punch, First of the Month

It's true: I rarely leave Devon and Cornwall.  But for the hottest day of the year, with everyone heading for a bonus day on the beach, I ended up travelling to South London. Craziness.  What a good time I had .  A superb party held to celebrate my dear friends, J and L's 40ths.  J had invented two new cocktails, Penge Punch (in honour of the venue) which was lethal - a stronger version of Long Island Iced Tea (including laminated instruction sheets for novices on how to concoct the tipple - he is so anal organised).

There was also a totally delicious Southern Sangria (Spanish red, lemonade, a healthy dash of fresh lemon and lime juice and tons of ice and fruit).

Needless to say, a good time was had by all.  Hawaiian shirts, fairy lights, paper flowers, cocktail dresses, posh kebab canapes.  I spent a manic hour in the kitchen assisting these two strapping lads and generally dropping things on the floor.

A really great idea.  Wraps containing pre-bbqed meat, veges and condiments had been prepped the day before and our job was to bake them for 15 minutes and then slice them into 2cm slices and serve on trays as kebab canapes.  They were hungrily snapped up.

Later we moved on to genuine live opera singing (M and L were astonishing), a put-together-at-last-minute-band and then dancing, Shisha pipes with apple tobacco and fire baskets in the garden.

And after just a couple of hours sleep (there were about eight kids in the house) we were up and at 'em again.  I'd bought long some fab bacon from Borough Market (my first time at BM - WOW, what a change from Devon farmers' markets) from Sillfield Farm and we cooked up bagels,bacon and more pitchers of Southern Sangria in the sun.  

Finished off with some perfect hangover food made by the resident starlet, H, chocolate dipped peppermint creams.

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Penge Punch Yeehah

Like a cross between long island iced tea and mojito.  Kicks a fair punch

Quanitity makes a large pitcher

300 ml  cointreau

300ml vodka, 
300ml tequila
300ml dark rum and 
300ml white rum

125ml sugar syrup infused with mint

1 litre of Coca Cola

125ml freshly squeezed lemon and lime juice

Loads of ice

TASTE AND ADJUST TIL YUMMY!

Two 11 Year Olds Play with the Hummingbird Cafe Cookbook

My 11 year old daughter and her friend wanted to make something from the Hummingbird Cafe Cookbook.  We had all the ingredients for the raspberry cheesecake brownies.  Including wonderful local, Devon raspberries from our local farm, Shute Fruit.  I was getting our house ready for some guests who were coming to stay, so just let them get on with it in the kitchen.  I was rather impressed when two hours later (including a bit of refrigeration time), they presented me with the finished product:

The recipe is fairly simple, but does involve three layers so I was impressed.  The chocolate brownie and vanilla cheesecake layers are baked together in the oven and then when cool, smothered with pink creamy muck muck.

I made it again today as a treat for my daughter as she started Secondary School today.  It's simple and very fattening, but delicious.  I recommend halving the quantities if you just want to feed 4-6 people.  The original version is enormous and serves 12.  Also, where the recipe says to beat the cream, sugar and raspberries together for the wonderful pink shaving foam topping, it's best to whip the cream lightly, then add the sugar and raspberries, otherwise the mixture won't thicken.

I've never been lucky enough to visit the actual Hummingbird Cafe in London, but we've made a couple of things from the cookbook - other notable favourites are: the vanilla cupcakes, and the double chocolate chip cookies

Hotel Chocolat - Putting Myself First for a Moment...

Food PR, and fellow food blogger, Beth, from Jam and Cream PR sent me this (initally) very attractive parcel of chocolate from Hotel Chocolat to review.  It's called the Essential Easter Collection and it retails for £35.  Initial impressions were favourable although I immediately felt unhappy with the amount of packaging: the Tiddly Chicks were in a packet with in a box within a bag within a box?  A tad excessive, even for mail order protection.

I decided to hold a tasting review panel with my husband and two children, aged 9 and 11.  The kids were, of course, rather enthusiastic to have an early Easter treat.  My children totally buy into the Hotel Chocolat thing.  When we visit Exeter, it's somewhere they nag us to take them.  They claim it's their favourite chocolate and love all the cutesy shapes and packaging.  They feel they're being spoilt if they get a bar of  this stuff.  My husband is of a rather more cynical persuasion (understatement of the year) and hates the shop and product.  'It's not a hotel, and chocolate has an 'e' on the end of it' is his response to their nagging.  'Overpriced' and 'style over substance' may also have passed his lips.

We gave each item a mark out of 10 for Presentation, Taste and Easter Factor. Overall winner was the Doodle Chick bar - slab of caramely chocolate with a chick moulded on the front.  The children adored the taste of this but both adults thought it was horrible - a caramely coconut taste that was too sickly.  In last place was the Easter Expose Half Egg - the most 'traditional' of the products.  We really marked this egg down for its cheeky claim on the side, something about 'we were advised to make thin eggs to save money but look how thick we've made it' - and it was thick at the visible edges and was really thin towards the back.

The Tiddly Chicks scored badly for their packaging but were cute and lovely if you like plain choc shaped little chicks (I do).

The Egglets (caramel eggs in a cardboard basket) were probably my favourite although they had been bashed around a bit in the post and weren't in perfect condition. 9 year old son really hated these and actually spat it out.

The Tiddly Pot - an Easter decorated cardboard cup filled with rabbit and chick shaped chocolates was a hit with the children but husband declared it looked like a cheap cup of carry-out tea.  He's harsh.

We enjoyed them, but didn't love them.  Huge divisions between which things the children liked compared to the adults.  Not an all round hit, but we all liked something.

Unfortunately I'm going to have to mention the wording on the packaging.  It's becoming a bit of a geeky pet hate of mine that I have to read all the packaging and I get quite wound up when it's spelt wrongly (my current bottle of Original Source Shower Gel has two spelling mistakes) and Innocent Smoothie cartons (yes, I found them refreshingly cute a few years ago, now I wish they'd bland themselves out a bit and just provide basic info).  So the offending words from Hotel Choc?

 'And with the absolute minimum of recyclable packaging, putting yourself first for a moment won't cost the earth.'

Firstly, there's a double meaning there - 'the minimum of recyclable packaging'  - so they've used as little recyclable packaging as possible?  Great, chuck it all in landfill then.  They need to lose the word 'recyclable' rather than putting it in as a soundbite.

Secondly, the idea of 'putting yourself first for a moment' - i.e. being selfish, having your little chocolatey moment and buying stuff with lots of packaging isn't that endearing to me.

Also the bag says British Cocoa Growers and Chocolatier.  Presumably this is trying to position themselves in a niche that Cadbury has vacated.  I've looked at their website and they explain their rationale for not being Fairtrade, as they have their own plantations in Ghana and St Lucia and work / trade ethically there.  OK, I was going to ask where they grow cocoa in UK as I would think that's impossible.  So is that moniker also a tad misleading?  They grow cocoa abroad.

Aha!  I've found it!  There actually is a Hotel Chocolat - it's in St Lucia and opened at the end of Feb 2011 and it's all part and parcel of their brand.  I'm off to tell husband that actually they ARE a hotel.  And I would really like to go there if my eco-conscience and money would allow.

Devon Cafe Owners - I Implore You.....

I'm not going to name and shame, as I think it would be a bit cruel, but today we had a pretty funny Sunday lunch in a South Devon cafe attached to a farm shop.

The seven of us were seated in a quarter full cafe.  My 11 year old nephew wanted a Full English Breakfast and it was 12 noon.  We were told politely that sorry, they stop serving them at 11:30.  This is par for the course for some places and totally fine (although I wonder why - is it out of concern for our arteries? or because they want us to choose a pricier dish?  I'm no chef, but perhaps the frying / grilling thing makes it difficult to combine with making lunch food?)

My daughter wanted the child's burger (supplied by the Farm Shop, a mere five metres away.)

'Sorry, we've run out of burgers.'

O-Kayyyyy.  The whole table glanced at the butcher's counter within our line of vision, but were too polite to say anything.

'I'll have an omelette,'  requested my mother-in-law, 'they're really nice here.'

'Sorry, we've run out of eggs and we don't get a delivery until Tuesday.'

What? At this point all four adults couldn't help but laugh and point out the farm shop produce that was nearly within grasping distance.  Surely they sell eggs in there?  The waitress was adamant that there would be no omelettes for lunch until Tuesday.  Raised eyebrows all round....

Then.....my order arrives and it's wrong, and my daughter's drink and nephew's teacake don't arrive.  In fact we had all finished our lunch by the time the mythical teacake finally made an appearance.  After asking for it THREE times.  I think it took 35 minutes for them to toast a teacake.

The owner - manager (?) asked if everything was OK.  He was embarrassed to hear about the egg and burger situation, apologised profusely and before we left, pressed a pack of eight burgers and half a dozen eggs into our hands as an apology.  May as well have said 'Our waitress is useless, the chef's just been fired, better go cook it yourself.'

Devon Cafe Owners, I implore you, please train your staff and pay them more!


Empower them. So if necessary they can think for themselves and, for example, go and buy some more vital ingredients.

Customer service skills are SO important.  If the food and atmosphere are half-decent and the waiting staff are friendly and helpful, the punters are really happy and will return.  Some Devon waiting staff look like startled rabbits. We didn't really mind that things were going wrong - a sincere apology, a smile, an offer of an alternative dish - pretty simple stuff that would have been appreciated.

A bad day for the cafe? Fair enough, things don't always run perfectly. We all saw the funny side of it, but I won't be hurrying back.  For all the great experiences I have in South West cafes, these crappy occurrences are still all too frequent.

A Child's Food Blog from Giggling Wombat

A food blog from a child's perspective.  What a great idea.

Giggling Wombat promises to provide honest opinions on food, drink and cafes and this week she provides details of her 'top five fave foods':

 http://gigglingwombat.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-top-five-fave-foods.html

I am slightly worried as I think someone's about to get their own back and start reviewing the food I serve for dinner....Quick, I'd better start thinking about wiping clean those sauce-splattered plates, adding garnishes, getting in some forgiving light sources, and making my food look a little less rustic-homemade i.e. thrown-on-the-plate than usual!