Every year for the last three years Tom Reeves and Monique Wells of the newsletter Paris Insights have conducted a chocolate tasting contest. They always choose a specific type of chocolate and last year it was chocolate covered cherries and the year before, chocolate truffles. In fact when they did the truffle contest in 2010, I duplicated their truffle tasting on my own and published my results for Sweet Week 2010.
This year I was honored to be asked to judge the contest and was talking about it for weeks on end before about what a difficult job it would be. There were three other judges, Eric, who is a chef and who runs a cooking school, Yetunde, a manager of apartment rentals in Paris, and Robyn, a blogger from Canada. We were invited to Tom and Monique's apartment in the Latin Quarter on a cold Sunday afternoon in January for the tasting.
This year the product was Venezuelan ganache and we were to blind taste test five varieties from high quality chocolate shops from around the city. Tom gave us each a serious looking scoring sheet with five categories to rate the chocolates on: appearance, aroma, texture, flavor, and overall rating. The ratings were from one to five, one being the lowest, five being the highest. The tone was very serious and we were methodic in our judging. Our opinions varied but in the end we all chose the same one our favorite. In between each tasting, we were offered bread and water to cleanse our palates.
I now understand the stress that Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler must endure when they judge American Idol, although we don't get the free glamorous wardrobe like they do. We have the power, just like them, to make or break a chocolatier's career.
Here are the five brands we tasted in the order they were served and the results.
Michel Cluizel- The finish was flat and unimpressive and the taste milky and waxy, not very flavorful. I thought it tasted like cheap milk chocolate from the supermarket even though Michel Cluize is one of the better chocolatiers in the city. We all pretty much agreed there was a lot more to be desired.
My overall rating: 2.5
Pierre Marcolini - We all agreed this was superior to the first one we had, and it had a rich smell, a smooth, buttery texture, and a clean taste. I liked the rectangular shape with the word Venezuela written in bold white letters.
My overall rating: 4.15
Debauve & Gallais- I thought this had a decent taste but was not great. It was a little on the milky side but I liked the long after taste. Also, the presentation was nothing memorable. We had a difference of opinion on this one, with some give it a rating in the 2s and some as high as 4.
My overall rating: 3
Fabrice Gilotte - This ganache overall got high marks, but it's no surprise because Fabrice Gilotte was named one of the 12 best chocolate makers in France and also won the the title Meilleur Ouvrier de France Chocolatier-Confiseur in 1990 at the age of 26. What I like most was the hard outside, which crumbled, and the soft, smooth, buttery center that had a long-lasting aftertaste.
My overall rating: 4.25
Servant- Last but not least, Servant had the most mixed opinions. I quite liked it because it had a slight tinge of coffee and it went down the easiest.
My overall rating: 3.75
I didn't find a perfect five, but we all thought Fabrice Gilotte was the best we tasted, so he was the clear cut winner. After our intense tasting, Tom served a bottle of Le Clos Paulilles, a red dessert wine.
Below are the addresses of the chocolate shops if you want to do your own personal tasting, but if you do, you have to bring me a piece from the best ones.
It was tough assignment, but someone had to do it, and it might as well have been me.
Michel Cluizel
201, rue Saint Honoré
75001 Paris
Tel.: 01 42 44 11 66
Hours: Mon to Sat from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
http://www.cluizel.com/
Pierre Marcolini
89, Rue Seine
75006 Paris
Tel.: 01 44 07 39 07
Hours:Mon 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.; Tues to Sat 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.;
Sun 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
http://www.marcolini.be/
Debauve & Gallais
30, Rue des Saints-Pères
75007 Paris
Tel.: 01 45 48 54 67
Hours: Mon to Sat 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
http://www.debauve-et-gallais.com/v1/
Mococha (for Fabrice Gillotte chocolates)
89, rue Mouffetard
75005 Paris, France
Tel.: 01 47 07 13 66
Hours: Tues to Sun 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
http://www.chocolatsmococha.com/
Servant Chocolatier
5, rue de Sèvres
75006 Paris
Tel.: 01 45 48 83 60
Hours: Mon 2:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.; Tues to Fri 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.; Sat 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
http://www.chocolaterie-servant.com/
While on the topic of contests, Cat Bernuier, a cupcake baker in Paris, is running a contest now through February 12 to win a gift-box of 6 Valentine's Day cupcakes, giving away a total of two. Click here for more information and to enter contest.
In addition to my Eye Prefer Paris Tours, we now offer Eye Prefer New York Tours, 3-hour walking tours of New York's best neighborhoods including Soho, Meatpacking/West Village & Tribeca. Tours cost $195 for up to 3 people and $65 for each additional person.Come take a bit of the Big Apple on an Eye Prefer New York Tour!
Come experience my blog ìliveî with my Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour walking tours I lead. The Eye Prefer Paris Tour includes many of the places I have written about such as small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes & food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks, and much more.Tours cost 195 euros for up to 3 people, and 65 euros for each additional person. I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you my insiders Paris. www.eyepreferparistours.com
New! Eye Prefer Paris Cooking Classes
I am happy to announce the launch of Eye Prefer Paris Cooking Classes. Come take an ethnic culinary journey with me and chef and caterer Charlotte Puckette, co-author of the bestseller The Ethnic Paris Cookbook (with Olivia Kiang-Snaije). First we will shop at a Paris green-market for the freshest ingredients and then return to Charlotteís professional kitchen near the Eiffel Tower to cook a three-course lunch. After, we will indulge in the delicious feast we prepared along with hand-selected wines.
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Time: 9:30AM- 2PM (approximately 4 1/2 hours)
Location: We will meet by a metro station close to the market
Class days: Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday
Minimum of 2 students, maximum 6 students.
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How did you clean your palate between tastings? Having just participated in a cook-off, I spoke with the judges a bit often during the hours of the competition. They said they had learned to take ONLY one taste, no matter how yummy the dish was.....did you limit yourself?
Posted by: Beth Rankin | February 07, 2012 at 01:17 PM
I would have loved to watch this tasting.
Posted by: Sarah T Skinner | February 07, 2012 at 01:20 PM
we had bread & water in between to cleanse the palate. we did limit ourselves during the tastings to one, but after we had more of the ones we liked.
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