Whenever I go for my haircut, I always take a sidetrip to Simon Johnson. Now, I clearly don't have the intention of buying anything, or so I thought. I'm not really a lover of chocolate, or any food in particular, but I do enjoy the finer things -- artisan cheese, hand-made bread, truffles.
As I took up this box of Mazet's chocolates (which was the last one, by the way), I thought I didn't have any idea of what it is...it's all in French. The store clerk approached me, knowing that I'm puzzled. I could however, easily guess that it's chocolate. Chocolate with caramel, perhaps? Yes, it is. But, there's something more. It's salted caramel, he added. Ha! Now, I got exceptionally curious. Some months back, I've read so much from other sources that salted caramel is just divine, with or without chocolate. There's something about the sweetness of the caramel, sprinkled with that salty taste that almost everyone loves. You see, I've never really tried salted caramel before, well, maybe some version of it in some dessert but it's always been with chocolate. The store clerk also assured me that Mazet's creates one of the finest chocolates, and I will be happy with my purchase. Ok. I'm sold.
I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I open the box, but it's too nicely packaged that I'm afraid I might break it. Anyway, I still did. Looks to me there's a mixture of dark and milk chocolates in the box. As I bit into one, first impression is that there were rice crisps inside the truffle. So it's actually pieces of salted caramel in a soft chocolate centre (a ganaché), covered with chocolate. To say that it's fine quality is true enough, the chocolate was not too sweet and very smooth. It melted on my fingers in as little as 20 seconds. As for the salted caramel part of it all, it is actually hard, salted caramel bits, which was nice in contrast with the chocolate.
Will I buy it again? Well...I will try another one of Mazet's creations but maybe a bar of dark chocolate and without fruits or nuts...or caramel.
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