Chocolate Review:
Dolfin Chocolat Noir is an intense flavor, especially considering it is only 52% cocoa and $4.29 for 70g (about 8 servings the way I eat it). It’s predominant flavor is the ginger. The texture is smooth (all that soya lecithin emulsifier.) It is almost a medicinal chocolate, in the good sense of the word. It’s a slap to the taste buds. It isn’t displeasing in texture or melting point, but it’s a strangely flat taste for all its intensity. It tends to phlegm me up although I don’t see why it should. I would use it more like solid coffee substitute than for a pleasure of the mouth.
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Michel Cluizel Tamarina Plantation chocolate runs at $8 plus tax (some at $9) for 100g. It is a far more mellow chocolate than any I’ve had of Dolfin, even though the MC is 70% cocoa. [Michel Cluizel also sells 99% pure]. It has more depth of flavor. Not acidic, not chalky, not gummy, not saccharine, not flat. It melts after just the right amount of time in the mouth and releases an engaging variety of bitter and sweet and medium range. It claims to have grassy and licorice tones but my tongue didn’t find what could be grassy. The licorice? I might have to try to taste that later. Each time it comes to the tongue, it tastes different.
i am currently trying to find “dolfin chocolat au lait hot masala” AKA curry milk chocolate. it’s SPECTACULAR!!! i got it in montreal at a deli but i live in mid-town toronto.
It may be more helpful to compare a Cluizel Grand Lait (45%) to Dolphin’s Au Lait (32%), or Cluizel’s 72 and 85% items to Dolphin’s 70 or 88% items - or compare the Cluizel single origin items to each other. I enjoy Dolphin chocolate bars and their interesting flavor selections, but with the soy emulsifier and without any single-origin offerings, Dolphin isn’t really in the same echelon as Cluizel. Another chocolatier I would recommend for comparison on that level would be Chocolat Bonnat, whose single origin 75% bars are hands-down the most complex tasting experience I’ve had with chocolate.