Chocolate of the Week:  The Raleigh Bar
By: Kate Opatz
Published: November 13, 2009

A full bar of chocolate can be quite hazardous.  Shard by shard, they tend to disappear.  And so, while perusing the specialty chocolate section, as I always do when there is one, I was drawn to the Raleigh Bar, a mere two inches in length (stocking stuffer?) and just three dollars.
Its creator is David Briggs of Xocolatl de David in Portland, Oregon.  Briggs, once the sous chef at the Park Kitchen in Portland, keeps his culinary skills fresh by incorporating savory flavors into his chocolate bars.  There's the bar with Piment d'Espellete (a chili pepper from the Basque region), fried Marcona almonds and smoky paprika in the Almond and Pimenton bar, and a dark chocolate truffle filled with blue cheese.

But the Raleigh bar is less molecular gastronomy and more common sense.  Few would argue that salted caramel and pecan chocolate nougat aren't excellent partners.  The caramel truly is salty - bits of fleur de sel linger on your tongue - but with the sweet nougat and slightly bitter edge of the 72% chocolate holding the whole thing together, it's a good thing the bar is so small.  Oh, and there's also a bacon caramel version.
The name of the bar is an homage to North Carolina ("Plus, it sounds nice," says Briggs on his blog) and can be purchased on the Xocolatl website.

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