Belgique Chocolate: Worth Its Weight in Gold?

A few weeks ago Mr. Goodbar and I were feeling particularly sassy and decided that it was high time to hit the road and go explorin' like we used to do, way, way back when before the Sugar Baby. The New York Times had a piece about a street festival in Kent, Connecticut and it sounded so charming and small-town New Englandy that we decided to go. Okay, here's where I 'fess up: I mostly wanted to go so I could go to Belgique and buy some chocolates. I wrote about this tiny little chocolate shop a few years ago and told y'all that it was quite simply the BEST chocolate ever. Ever.

Mr. Goodbar had splurged and bought me an entire pound of it while I was pregnant, but alas, my stomach would have none of it, so he got to eat the whole darn thing himself. So I figured I was owed.

What can I say? This stuff ain't cheap. At $65 a pound, it costs more than, oh I don't know, lobster, filet mignon, overpriced seaside vacation fudge, Summer of '08 gasoline ... you get my drift. So being recession-minded, we got just a few pieces.

For me: a vanilla buttercream in dark chocolate and a sea-salt caramel. For Mr. Goodbar: a cognac chocolate and a raspberry heart. For No-Nuts: a raspberry heart and a regular caramel.

The woman handed us the bag (at these prices, even a single piece should be put in a box) and warned us that their chocolates are made with fresh cream so they MUST BE KEPT COOL. Yeah, okay, not a challenge on a sweltering summer day. So we drove for two hours holding the king's ransom in front of the air conditioner.

I can hear you already: "So ... how were they?!"

Well, here's the deal. I'd had the vanilla buttercream before and it's truly decadent. She wasn't kidding when she says fresh cream. It's like a chocolate shell filled with vanilla whipped cream. Lovely, light, flavorful-- a true treasure.

The rest? They were good. Very good. But $3 a piece good? Eh, not so much. Mr. Goodbar loved his selections and still contends that they're the best chocolates ever. No-Nuts was completely unimpressed. She said the raspberry was too thick. I will stick with my original declaration and say these are damn good chocolates. The problem arises when you compare them to say, a $2 bar of Ritter Cornflakes. Then you have some deciding to do: little piece of really, really good chocolate or big bar of really, really good chocolate?

(By the way, the street festival sucked.)