rococo

Way back when I first starting discovering different chocolates, I heard about Rococo, a chocolatier in the U.K.

When I met up with Tamakikat, she was kind enough to share some chocolates with me...from Rococo!

Their Superior Seagull Salted Caramel Eggs...rich salted caramel center coated with milk chocolate and a thin shell. This was really good but one was enough!

Their bee bars, 20 grams of 65% dark chocolate. Our favorite was Earl Grey.

I hope they bring a shop to Japan soon, thanks again for sharing Tamakikat!

meh

Over the weekend Satoshi and I shared the following two beers by Belhaven...oh em gee...just colored fizzy water with foam.

How can they even call this beer?!

Even more disappointing was their stout...just darker colored fizzy water with foam.

You know, I really don't like to post negative things, but this was bad.

Meh.

bellocq teas

I'm not too sure when I heard about Bellocq teas, but have been wanting to try them for awhile now.

Luckily, Dean & Deluca Japan started selling samplers online.

I picked up the Bellocq Blends line. 8 different teas, 10 grams each.

On the inside cover of the box, they note optimal brewing times and water temperatures for each tea.

I like the packaging.

They also give you these unbleached tea bags to brew your tea in.

We first tried No 01, Bellocq Breakfast.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

Next No 20, Kikuya.

A green tea base with rose petals and a rose essence. The rose essence is delicate and doesn't overpower the green tea, a nice combination.

No 35, The Earl Grey was no different from other Earl Greys I've tried.

No. 47 The Queen's Guard, had a delicate floral fragrance.

And when brewed the lavender stands out the most. A good tea when you want to sit and relax.

No. 52, Etoile de l'Inde, is made with Dragonwell (a pan fried green), Jasmine silver needles, flower petals and a natural essence.

To me it had a bit too much floral fragrance when first brewed, but by the second brewing the flavor reminded me more of a Yunnan tea.

Majorelle Mint, No 38, is perfect after dinner.

It combines Chinese gunpowder, green tea, mint, marigold petals and citrus essence.

No 29 White Nixon, white tea, lavender, flower petals and natural essence.

Is also a nice blend to sit and relax with.

And lastly, we tried No 12, Le Hammeau, a blend of lemongrass, lemon verbena, chamomile, lavender, rose petal, mint, sage, and a natural essence. This is also perfect after dinner.

I'm glad we got to try these teas and now that Dean & Deluca has opened a shop in Osaka, it should be easier to get.

Are you enjoying any teas lately?

chocolate finds

February in Japan means there are lots of chocolates to be found.

I picked up these three recently.

Charbonnel et Walker's truffles.

You can really taste the alcohol in these champagne truffles, too bad they don't use dark chocolate in any of them.

Peters bon-bons are thin and delicious.

From top to bottom: Prosecco-Raspberry, Orange and Latte Macchiato. My fave was the orange.

The container makes a nice pen case, though it isn't too "thick", so you can't put a lot in there.

Dufflett's Nutt-e Dark chocolate with maple coated cashews.

This was more like a brittle coated with chocolate.

Everything was good, hope to find more chocolates in the coming weeks.

keep calm & carry on

I had seen this motto in Japan when they were having a British themed sale at an import shop.

Apparently this motto was thought up during WWII as a way to "cheer" on the Brits.

Before they could use it though, the war ended, so most of these posters were destroyed.

Then 60 years later, a bookseller named Stuart Manley, found this among some old books. And even more recently, more posters were found and auctioned.

The company, Keep Calm and Carry On was able to purchase one and used it for posters, t-shirts and other knick-knacks.

According to some, the motto sends a comforting and reassuring message.

I think it's pretty cool.

english fair

Last year about this time, I went to an English fair at a local department store. Well, the same department store had another English fair which started yesterday.

They had a wide selection of teas as well as food items. Even a wine bar and whiskey corner.

Since I tried the tea and biscuits last year, I decided to get chocolates this time.

Prestat's Choxi 63% dark chocolate bar says it is rich in antioxidants on the wrapper...can't wait to try this...525 yen (about US$5.25) (Their bon-bons were still outrageously priced.)

William Curley, a chocolatier and patissier, was also featured for the first time in Kansai. He had several bon-bons as well as truffles and chocolate bars.

I bought the bon-bons...420 yen each (about US$4.20 each)

(top row)toasted sesame, green tea, earl grey, Japanese black vinegar
(bottom row)thyme with scottish heather honey, salted caramel & passion fruit with mango.

I really liked the passion fruit with mango, earl grey & salted caramel. All of the ganache fillings were well flavored and matched the coating chocolates.

Though the chocolates were pricey, it was a nice chance to try these products from the U.K.

london

Yesterday, I went to the London fair being held at a department store in Osaka. When I got there, it was only 5 after 10 a.m. (the store opened at 10 a.m.) but there was a huge line for Claridge's make-shift tea room. For 1365 yen (about US $12) you could enjoy scones, jam, clotted cream and tea, but the waiting time was over 45 minutes, so I decided to check out what else they had. (Actually, I'm glad I wasn't there at opening time, I probably would have been trampled!)

They had Prestat Chocolates but the prices they were charging for a box of bon bons were quite outrageous!

So instead, I decided to get some tea and biscuits (shortbread), which were more English anyway, right? I bought a little tin (40g) of the Organic Lavender Grey (which combined two of my favorite flavors--lavender and earl grey) tea from Tea Palace. And a tin of Partridge's Mr. Sheperds English shortbread. I love the deep purple color of both tins, though the price of the tea cost as much as the tin of shortbread.

Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed like everything that they had to offer was quite expensive, which I didn't find at the Spain fair....hmmm.

Oh well, it was still a great opportunity to be able to try these products. The cookies were light and flaky and the tea's aroma heavenly.

eccles cake & a little venting

A couple of days ago, I went to the Little Mermaid bake shop and they were passing out advertisements for a new product called Eccles Cake. The word was in katakana "ekuruzu ke-ki". Since the ad talked about it coming from the Northwestern part of England, I went onto the internet to find out more info on it. Here's a little history of Eccles Cake from a website called "Pride of Manchester" with a recipe, too.

I bought one today and it tasted great, really flaky, kind of like eating an apple pie without the apples...

Here's the recipe from the Pride of Manchester website:
Ingredients
500g flaky pastry
25g melted butter
Nutmeg
50g mixed peel
100g sugar
200g currants

Method
On a lightly floured surface, roll the pastry thinly and cut into rounds of about half a centimetre thickness and 10cm diameter.
Warm the butter in a saucepan and mix into it the sugar, currants, nutmeg and peel.
Place a teaspoonful of this mixture into the centre of each pastry round.
Dampen the edges of the pastry. Press the edges together sealing in the currants etc.
Place upside down on a greased baking tray and press them down a little.
Make three small cuts across the centre of each cake.
Brush with water and sprinkle with a little sugar.
Bake at 425F or 220C for 20 minutes.

Enjoy!
Do you have door-to-door salespeople where you live? We do...lots of them. And they are the most obnoxious people! They will hound you until you buy something from them...

There are the newspaper salesmen who, as soon as people move in, they are at your door trying to sell you a subscription to their paper.

And there are the salesmen, salesmen...trying to sell something...last night, the doorbell rang at about 8 p.m. I usually don't answer the doorbell because I hate dealing with these salespeople, but I was expecting something to be delivered, so I picked up our inter-com...it turned out to be a salesman. The guy was rambling on and on about something. Now I speak Japanese, but that doesn't mean I understand everything. I told him, "I don't understand what you are talking about, no thank you!" and hung up.

He then went next door to ring their bell. I then went to stand by the peep hole of our door, so I could catch a glimpse of what this guy looked like, just in case I needed to call the police or something...he then came back to our door and with something sharp (hopefully not a knife...) made lines on my sticker which says "no soliciting!" but really politely in Japanese....as I heard him vandalizing our inter-com, I really wanted to go out there to give him a piece of my mind...but there are a LOT of weirdos nowadays and you never know what is going to set one off...so, I held my tongue...
I know they have to sell things to get paid, but just because they can't sell anything, they don't have to take it out on my inter-com....