salon du chocolat, valentine's and other stuff

In the past, Salon du Chocolat was staggered from Tokyo, moving on to Kyoto and then to other regions of Japan.

This year it was held all at one time and Salon du Chocolat in Osaka was held in the Lucua Hall area...super teeny!

By the time I went to check it out, a couple of days after it had started, most of the French chocolatiers had sold out...

I did manage to pick up a 70% dark chocolate bar by Marou. They grow their cacao in Vietnam. The cacao for this bar was grown in Tien Giang. It was quite fruity.

Fijiana Cacao, I found at Sony Plaza. They use cacao grown in Fiji. This particular bar had Christmas Island Sea Salt and nibs. This was a dark milk chocolate and also very fruity.

Chocolaterie de Marlieu was another bar I found at Salon du Chocolat, they have been in business since 1906. This tablette was filled with orange peel, raisins and freeze dried raspberries. It wasn't noted, but I think this was a dark chocolate.

Overall though, I think the place that had the best assortment of chocolates was Hankyu Department store.

They not only had a whole area for chocolate bars, but they also had areas for soft serve.

We tried Le Chocolat de H's ecuador soft serve...delicious with the nibs sprinkled on top.

Pierre Marcolini's Blanc Matcha was a bit too soft almost soupy.

The matcha was intense though.

For Valentine's I gave Satoshi these Pocky. They came out with 10 different sayings.

This particular Pocky was super thin and I gave him one that said "thanky"

Hope you had a nice Valentine's.