BonBonBar: love at first bite
It's nice not to be in college anymore, where I would snarf down anything put in front of me on a plate, or eat leftovers from a $5.00 lunch for two days because I needed the money for something else. Now I work in the heart of San Francisco and make some nice pocket change to spend on some of the best restaurants in the world. So I know I've become somewhat of a snob about eating out, dinnertime foods, and restaurants.
But enough of that! Today I'm blogging about being a snob about dessert! :)
I was introduced to BonBonBar by a friend recently. Nina Wanat, the founder of BonBonBar LLC, hand-makes chocolate candy bars and marshmallows. (And she blogs about desserts!) My friend had ordered a sample pack, which included a package of 4 vanilla marshmallows, a package of 4 passionfruit marshmallows, a dark chocolate caramel nut bar, and...well, to be honest, I get fuzzy on what else was in the sample pack because I was sort of occupied with the first three. :)
The chocolate bar was absolutely amazing. The ingredients are top of the line: Mixed Nuts, Cacao Nibs, and Buttery Salted Caramel make up the gooey center of a modest bar of Dark Chocolate. I was absolutely amazed by the salted caramel! It had some of that French Laundry butter with fleur-de-sel magic - natural, expected caramel goodness with just a tiiiny tang of something else that keeps your tongue stay alert and your taste buds say WHOA.
And then I had the marshmallows...holy crap holymoly holy crapola @#$%^$%# ohmygod duuuude, they were good. (I can say dude, damnit. I live in California and so does Nina.) I absolutely loved the vanilla marshmallow - surprisingly dense and flavorful, yet with a melt-in-your-mouth, light texture. But oh man, then came the passionfruit marshmallow. JenC has a picture of my face when I bit into the passionfruit marshmallow: it's not a very photogenic moment of mine, but you can sure tell I'm really enjoying that marshmallow.
Price-wise, yes, these bars are considerably more expensive than those bars you grab on your way through the checkout stand. These are probably even a tad more expensive than the factory direct bars like Scharrfen Berger and Ghiradelli. As for the marshmallows, definitely the most expensive marshmallows I've ever had. But I would put in writing that these are so very worth ordering (I guess blogging counts!) I didn't even LIKE marshmallows before BonBonBar's marshmallows - unless they came with lots of chocolate sandwiched between graham crackers. I'll definitely be ordering more BonBonBar chocolate and marshmallows - but I'll be snarfing them down one by one.
I should really (re-)try those other delicious looking chocolate bars too....
