Michel Cluizel chocolate

A while back someone -- I think on Making Light -- posted a link
to an article in the LA Times about a dark chocolate taste test.
It seems to be registration only (and/or bugmenot) now.  Anyway,
I read it at the time and was interested to see that my favorite
chocolate, Valrhona "Le Noir Amer", came in second.

(Which stirs the memory:  it *was* on Making Light, because a 
regular there said something along the lines of, "Good ole 
Hershey's Special Dark wasn't pretentious enough to make the
list, eh?"  Which sparked an argument that more-or-less ended
with me declaring, "There is a reason that Hershey's isn't on
the list, and pretension isn't it.")

So then I was quite interested to taste the number one on the list,
Michel Cluizel "Noir de Cacao".  I figured I could get them at 
my local upscale grocery, or at Whole Foods, but I was surprised
to find it at neither place.  Today I had an opportunity to visit
a specialty chocolate cafe in north Oakland, and they had it, so
I bought some.

I have to say that I'm not disappointed.  It's an excellent chocolate,
somewhat more assertive and earthy than the Valrhona.  (I could
say more but I'd risk sounding like a wine snob...although it's
quite possibly too late there.)

Unfortunately for it, to get it I have to make a special trip to
a place I don't normally go and spend $6.95, whereas the Valrhona
I can buy for $2.99 when I'm getting groceries at Trader Joe's.
So Michel Cluizel will be an occasional guest in my kitchen, but
not a permanent resident.

-- 
   David Goldfarb          |"In the fifties, people responded well to
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  | authoritative disembodied voices."
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 |                -- MST3K