Monty's Chocolates

Yesterday on my way home from work I stopped at Toowong to pick up a couple of grocery items, and I was determined to buy myself a treat. The last few times I've stopped in the chocolate aisle at Coles have left me particularly uninspired, and that was the case yesterday too. I couldn't even bring myself to pick up some ice cream- I was really disappointed by the Maggie Beer ice cream I tried, but that's another story... I have a few good ice creams to plug as well.

Anyway, while picking up some bread and sliced meat at Fruity Capers Deli I browsed their small selection of tasty sweet things and spied something new- milk chocolate-coated cocoa beans. I've tried panela-coated cocoa nibs before and found them most enjoyable, so I figured I'd found a treat that would hit the spot. Indeed it did. They were absolutely delicious. Expensive, but much more satisfying than regular chocolate. I read the package and noticed a sticker saying "Imported by Monty's Chocolates, 155a Latrobe Terrace, Paddington"... this afternoon, Gam drove us there.

The traffic in the area is awful, but Monty's Chocolates was well worth a visit. To be honest I'm really glad they're not within walking distance of our place or I'd send us broke. It's not one of those chocolate shops that ostentatiously overflow with chocolate. Rather, they have a limited but fairly comprehensive selection of really good quality stuff.

The lady at the store with the guy who owns it was fairly knowledgeable on the products she was selling, and they gave us a small piece of 100% cocoa chocolate to taste. That, to me, was a revelation. I personally enjoy the Lindt 70% cocoa bars, but find the 85% too bitter for my liking. I expected the 100% to be positively inedible. Instead it was buttery, smooth and full-flavoured without being bitter or grainy. Just goes to show how much the quality of the chocolate depends on the beans used.

I knew Gam wouldn't like it so much, but I got a bar of the 100% for me, plus a bar of some special 45% cocoa milk chocolate made with a variety that, according to the lady in the store, constitutes only 3% of the world's cocoa production. I knew Gam would like that one- as it turns out, I'm sure everyone would... at ~$14 a bar it'd want to be bloody good. We also bought a tiny sampler with chocolate made in Ghana (yay!), Tanzania, São Tomé and Príncipe, Madagascar, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. The Ghanaian one was the best. The flavour was just like Kingsbite, the Ghanaian-made chocolate, but more melt-in-the-mouth (Kingsbite has a kind of biscuity texture, which I love, because it is made to withstand the heat in Ghana, where European chocolate wouldn't survive). The Tanzanian chocolate had a really interesting earl grey tea flavour, while I wouldn't recommend the Indonesian one at all- it was sour and grainy.

I reckon Monty's is the place to go for anyone in need of a chocolate fix or anyone interested in broadening their experience when it comes to chocolate... That would be everyone, right?