Some of the blog reviews were genuinely amusing, well-written and honest, some were as cringeworthy as Gwyneth Paltrow's Oscar speech. I felt like screaming: It is only chocolate you're talking about, not Mona Lisa.
One dayI hope there will be a blog post, analysing the mysterious ways in which context contributes to the meaning of blog posts.
This is my post-Easter speculation on this year's Extra Thick Egg aka Your Eggsellency from Hotel Chocolat, which comes with the slogan: An extremely distinguished egg (with one 40% milk and one 70% dark shell filled with 12 finest real cream truffles with Champagne, white port, Amaretto and more). The description sounds very tempting and bordering on decadent.
I haven't bought this box, our guests who celebrated Easter with us, brought it as a gift. We opened the pretty box after dinner and shared the truffles. My first impressions were that the chocolates looked very attractive. The shells were smooth, thick and glossy.
The truffles themselves were very alcoholic. Probably wonderful if you love your chocolate very boozy, but I prefer a more subtle use of alcohol in the chocolate truffles. One of the truffles, I think it was mojito-based, almost took my breath away, it was so strong.
As there were several adults, it wasn't difficult to finish 13 truffles.
The chocolate shells were a different story.
Three weeks later, and we still haven't managed to finish them. The chocolate shells, admittedly thick, taste of nothing in particular, are very plain and boring, too sweet and far from being the best chocolate I have ever tasted.
And the best bit about the kit was the round box, which so delighted my younger child. He kept putting it on as a hat, Lady Gaga-style.
And if that was the best bit, I'll let you speculate about the eggsellency of the chocolate.
I have tried a good amount of Hotel Chocolat products, and I am yet to find one that would impress me.
I am also quite unimpressed with their delivery policy. Once I ordered a big box of chocolate as a Thank you gift to the pre-school teacher counsellor who helped us a lot when our older son was young. I never heard from her, and wasn't sure whether she ever got the box or not. When I asked the Hotel Chocolat customer service if they could confirm that the box was delivered, they told me they could not disclose this information. I haven't ordered anything as gifts since. For all I know it was never delivered to the right recipient.
Returning back to our Eggsellency: not so eggciting.
My husband bought me a Hotel Chocolate selection for Valentines Day. It was beautifully packaged and the chocolates looked absolutely gorgeous. However, overall their chocolates are not to my taste. Yes there were some very nice ones but many were too strong for me. Deb x
ReplyDeleteThank you, Deb, I think as a brand, Hotel Chocolat, have very good designers, as their chocolate looks better than it tastes. Their packaging is very attractive, but overall, it is overpriced.
ReplyDelete