Hot Chocolate: Koko Black's

Having made a lightning dash to Melbourne over the weekend, I thought that I should pay a visit to Koko Black's, and sample their hot chocolate. I have been past before on previous jaunts to the city, and all I can remember were the long long queues stretching out the door.

There wasn't much choice: you could get a hot chocolate - with full cream milk, 70% dark chocolate, and cream; or you could get the light version, with "skim" milk. $5.75. I got the full cream version.

And it was nice. For the first 10 or so sips. Then it started to get almost sickly: too creamy for my tummy. I managed to finish the cup off. End result: me rushing through St Kilda about 30 minutes later hunting for a public toilet!

I wonder how it compared to the hot chocolate that I tried in Paris near the Louvre? I do remember that one being very very sweet and creamy as well... and I also remember we couldn't finish the pot!

15 hours of food: The afternoon tea

Adriano Zumbo's chocolate patisserie in Balmain got a rave review in good living a few months back. My sister asked me: "Have you heard of Adriano Zumbo's patissierie? Sooooo good. "
Thus we sauntered into Balmain for an inspection. First up: the patissierie. I was amazed at the creations, too shy to take a picture, and ended up with two macarons - one blue cheese flavour, and the other mango.
We headed to the actual chocolate cafe, and ordered a dark hot chocolate, a salty caramel macaron and an earl grey tea macaroon. The macaron range was different in the cafe than to that of the patisserie, but everything was most definitely chocolate based.
The dark hot chocolate was wonderful: rated higher than the lindt version. Very dark and rich, but not sickly sweet or overly creamy. The salty caramel was yummo... I wanted another one. I forget how salt can bring out other flavours, such that the caramel wasn't sickly sweet. The earl grey macaron was also lovely: scattering of tea leaves on top, and a delicate tea flavour. I couldn't swear that it was that of earl grey, but it was very moreish and tasty. I would head there again... and "settle" for the lindt if I only I was in town. :-)

USA Round up

I spent lots of time in State Parks and National Parks. If the weather is fine, don't even think about trying to get a camp spot along the coast. The smells are so much more 'moreish' - like the super Sugar Pine smell, or the smell of the redwoods or the grandeur of the Giant Sequoias. Loved Yosemite National Park ($20 for 7 day entry is so cheap compared to the $8 day entry in the state parks). Saw lots and lots of bears.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is in *everything*. Chocolate bars in the USA are so much more bad for you than they are in Australia; You read the ingredients, and there is not only Coconut Oil and Palm Oil (the worst two oils in existence), but then they've gone and *hydrogenated* it, which makes is superbad!!

Funny too - I think there are two production lines. i bought some 'endangered species' chocolate. The one that I got from the Yosemite general store had "beet sugar". The one that I saw in Australia had "normal" sugar in it. Eh?

Yay for the existence of the BART in SF; What doesn't make sense is making the consumer work out to the cent, how much to put in the machine. You should be able to press which station you want to go to, and then the machine tells you how much to put in. Not: consult table, then put in money.