Chocolate Unwrapped 2010

Well I managed to fit in a visit to one event during Chocolate Week and I'm really pleased I did. What a great show. Chocolate Unwrapped took place at Vinopolis just off Stoney Street. It was a beautiful day and London was looking  it's best. Fortunately we managed to arrive just in time to listen to Paul A Young and taste some of his delicious chocolate brownies and sample some of his juniper berry and cocoa nib creations. There were a lot of people there but he managed to provide everybody with a generous sample. Not only was he presenting but he was also manning his stall which is always good to see.


The list of exhibitors was impressive including Artisan du Chocolat, William Curley, Paul a Young, Melt, Rococo, Rabot Estate, Duffy Sheardown, Divine, Matcha, chocolateandlove, Auberge du Chocolat, Baruzzo, GoDo chocolate, The Chocolate Café, Original Beans, Cocouture, Cacao Sampaka, Lucky's, Jeff de Bruges, Nicky Grant, Cococru, Patchi, Hotel Chocolat and Thorntons.


Chocolate samples were everywhere and by the time we'd been round the room a couple of times we couldn't eat anymore. William Curley had some delicious chocolates to sample and one that sticks in my mind was a dark truffle filled with a dark chocolate ganache and raspberry jelly. It was amazing. Slightly odd was the SMOKE offering from MIST which will not be on my Christmas list as it didn't agree with me. However, I did buy a SEA SALT bar which will be featured soon. GoDo Chocolate also had some interesting and very tasty bars. The oddly named chocolateandlove had a mix of their own brand and other Chocolatiers, a 70% wild Bolivian dark chocolate was available to taste which was excellent. 


Nicky Grant had some fantastic wedding cake ideas and beautiful fresh chocolates which tasted divine. The centre piece on the right is made with white chocolate from Venezuela. Nicky, apologies for the awful picture! 
If you have time I recommend a visit to Nicky's website for some truly stunning pictures!


These are just some of the goodies that we amassed from today's visit all to feature on the blog at some stage. I was interested to see the huge range of packaging used and how the majority of the more expensive brands had fairly basic packaging for their bars e.g. William Curley and Paul A Young. I purchased a 70% Autumn bar from Paul A Young which was in a simple cellophane wrapper, nothing flash about that but the chocolate tasted fantastic. Isn't that what we want?

A very enjoyable couple of hours!