bonnat & mazet

Mazet's prasilines are almonds that are roasted then coated with caramel to give them a brittle like crunch.

This tiny tin only had 6 of them in there, but that was just enough to get a taste. I really liked the combination of the sweet crunch with the deep roasted flavor.

Bonnat's bon-bons were an assortment.

Reve (green wrapper)--was a cubed hazelnut center with dark chocolate on the top and bottom.

Noix Apparente--was an almond praline topped with a walnut halve.

Chardon lait--was a coffee flavored almond praline coated with milk chocolate.

This year, I noticed that a lot of chocolatiers were doing the milk and hazelnut combination for their bon-bons and many had heart shaped white chocolate with cherry or raspberry flavored centers.

My French teacher, who has the ins with the French chocolate world because she translates for many chocolatiers, explained that the prices of this year's imported chocolates were high because they need to "book seats" for the chocolates to be shipped over one year in advance. So even if the yen is good for us against other currencies now, we wouldn't see the benefits. Now, does that mean that next year's chocolates will be cheap? I doubt it.

As I said before, I went and bought more chocolates at a Valentine's event..stay tuned (if you aren't sick of chocolates and/or my reviews).