Over the course of my chocolate obsession blogging, I’ve been lucky enough to taste chocolate from all over the world. Today, however, marks the first time I’ve reviewed chocolate from the Middle East, courtesy of my lovely friend Robyn of Girl On Raw.
As for the second part of this Chocolatepalooza, well, I’ve reviewed Fremantle Chocolate from Western Australia twice before. Something old, something new, something… wait. I don’t really want to end up eating blue chocolate one day.
Patchi Chocolate
Patchi Chocolate originated in Lebanon and, according to Robyn, is the Middle East’s favourite chocolate. It is therefore fitting that Robyn gave me this chocolate, for she is my favourite person living in Saudi Arabia. (Tangent: I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since I ducked off to Brisbane to meet up with Rob. I also can’t believe how much bigger and more adorable Manus is these days.)
Anyhoodle, let’s talk about the chocolate. From the ingredients list on the beribboned box (awesome; my spellcheck says beribboned is a word), I gleaned that these truffles were likely to be milk chocolate pralines studded with hazelnuts and almonds.
Lo and behold, milk chocolate pralines studded with hazelnuts and almonds! I started with one of Patchi’s large lighter-in-colour domes, which was soft, rich, and tasted more like hazelnut paste than the Ferrero Rocher-esque flavour I’d been expecting. Buttery, lightly sweet, a bit caramelly in flavour with a hint of hazelnut gelato, this particular Patchi chocolate turned out to be my favourite of the box.
The other nut-studded milk chocolates were pleasant without being mind-blowing, though that may be due to personal preference. (I’m a dark chocolate lass at heart.) Thank you, Rob, for this thoughtful gift!
Fremantle Chocolate Dark Chocolate Almond Medallions
I have another wonderful blog friend to thank for these Fremantle Chocolate Dark Chocolate Almond Medallions. Kari, you are a generous sparklefairy.
I was surprised to see butter oil listed in the ingredients for these 58% dark chocolate treats, as it is both unnecessary in quality chocolate and prevents vegans and the dairy-allergic from partaking.
That disappointment aside, however, I did enjoy these nutty dark chocolate treats. The dark chocolate is certainly on the sweet spectrum, sending forth notes of toffee, caster sugar, something floral, and a bit of pear. The dry-roasted almonds were super-crisp, and in a strange way reminded me more of Melrose Almond Butter (not Barney Butter; oh how I miss Barney Butter) than straight almonds. Also a little like marzipan. Which makes sense, seeing as marzipan is made of sugar and almonds.
I’m very clever sometimes, you know.
Hannah out.
Hoolydooly, those Patchi chocolates made my mouth water! Meethinks it’s a good thing that my lunch break is over and the chocolate shops are so far away. (and no, spell check doesn’t like those words but I do so they’re staying
)
*gasp* You mean you don’t take chocolate to work with you every day for lunch dessert? Must be just me then
I am now craving chocolate!
Love the Patchi packaging.
….is that shallow and wrong?
Absolutely not! Judging a chocolate book by its cover is all part of the thrill of the thing.
Who knew Middle Eastern chocolates would look so good? And who knew I would ever be called a sparklefairy?! Thank you Hannah – I like that very much
So much that I may adopt it as my new name.
I’m glad you liked the chocolate, too, although I’d forgotten (or not noticed…) the butter oil. I agree that it should not be there!
Oooooh, I’m utterly tempted to only refer to you as Sparklefairy from now on! …Yep, totally going to do that.
The butter thing annoys me greatly – it’s in all the flavoured “dark” Lindt Excellence range too. Patooey!
I know :*( (Re. the Lindt Excellence nonsensical dairy addition…) In fact, I may be bemoaning that very fact in my next post!
Yours,
Sparklefairy
Dear Sparklefairy,
It gives me joy that we can still bemoan the pointless dairy together, even when our chocolate tastes differ.
Ever yours,
Hannah
Is there no better combination than dark chocolate and almonds? I think not.
Or any nut really (let’s share the warm fuzzies here).
Although I just discovered the Lindt Sea Salt flavour and dare I say it – I think I am in love.
I’m going to have to politely interject with “dark chocolate and pistachios” in response to your question but, seeing as that combination is rarer than a tooth in a sea urchin, I will agree with you that dark + almond is good too.
Teehee, love when people get surprised by the chocolate and salt combination! It feels so old hat to me, but then I remember that not everyone spends their days scoping out new chocolates
You certainly are clever! After all, how many people use beribboned!
I think I’ll use to every day from now on. Anyone with their hair tied up shall henceforth be “beribboned”
So sweet! Gotta love chocolate packages from overseas! Or just in general
Heidi xo
But the best of all is chocolate from Canberran friends of wonderment, right?
it just sounds so exotic to have chocolate from the middle east, you lucky girl
Butter oil sounds like something I want to have a cupful of, everyday. IT SOUNDS DELICIOUS.
Although whatever it actually is probably is sort of gross. BUT: we were just given a bottle of crazy amazing olive oil that tastes like buttered popcorn, so that’s probably why I’m getting frothy over the mention of ‘butter oil.’
Emma out.
Lady needs to find an Indian store and pick up some ghee then
Hoooooo-boy. Why is it that I neither swoon over butter or buttered popcorn (give me the salty-sweet kettlecorn style any day), but I kinda want your froth-inducing olive oil?
P.S. Hannah in.
Aww, hi there!
SQUISH!
Oh, it’s ghee? The mystery has dissipated.
I don’t even like popcorn / buttered popcorn very much, so it’s an odd choice for me to fixate over as well.
Probably not, in this application anyway. I just know that ghee is the oil left over when you melt butter and separate the milk solids, leaving the oil of the butter…. but really it’s probably some wacky lab creation in these chocolate bars
The smell of buttered popcorn in cinemas makes me feel sick. So yep, odd.
I want one! NaO!
To a chocolate shop with you!
Ooo. They’re all beautiful. I love that you get to try chocolates from all over the world.
Me too Alayna. Me too.
Pooo….I’m so envious, because right now I’m just munching on a fake Easter chocolate egg that was half price off because…well, it’s WAY past Easter. Haha!
Bahahaha, at least you know that because it was fake chocolate to begin with, the fact that it may have expired won’t have made it taste much worse than it was to begin with
Yours,
The Chocolate Snob
hannah, i’m sorry i’ve been so on and off but i have read through all your eloquent written posts
. oh my, and all those chocolate reviews, yum! i still remember when you met robyn last year because that is when i first started reading your blog. can you believe already a year has flown by? 
hope you are enjoying the week!
Oh Junia, thank you for your lovely comment! I’m so touched that you’ve still be reading amongst all your busy-ness
I totally just realised it’s only been about 8-9 months. Ooops. Maths isn’t my strongest point 
Oooooooooh yum! I want the buttered popcorn. Yum!
Bahaha! You read through the comments? Awesome!
I have a feeling I’ve had patchi before…. the logo looks familar anyways!
damn I need a chocolate fix !
Swap you some chocolate for your gingerbread?
I think you are very clever
Bahaha! Thanks Gary.
Chocolates from overseas always get me more excited – I love pur chocolate here but from overseas there is just such exoticness
These look amazing and of course have me drooling
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
I’d love to see blue chocolates and I ‘d love to taste the praline chocolate and I’d love to see you having a stern talking to the fremantle chocolates folk about butter
If I ever find blue chocolate, I will dedicate the post to you
Ohh, butter fat. Such a shame. Either way, all the chocolate looks yummy – but that first one, the inside shot of the hazlenut – wowie!
I definitely looked pretty cool crouched down on the floor trying to catch that shot, too
Oh Hannah you are making my honey-coated kamut rice bubbles feel very boring this morning. And I don’t think there is any chocolate in this house!
There is no way I could ever survive in a house with no chocolate. I feel panicky if I have less than twenty bars in the house.
I wish I were lying.
Wait, no I don’t. I love that I’m not lying about that
I really, really like when chocolate comes in tiny bites which are all dressed in beautiful gold paper … It somehow seems so noble and sophisticated, and reminds me on the tiny chocolate bits you find on the pillow of your bed in good hotel rooms, to have a little sweetness to happily close the day with. (However, this doesn’t apply to candy-style single packaging like this http://picture.yatego.com/images/4173bc2eb372f2.0/6469-kqh/croccao—schokobonbons-aus-haselnusskrokant–1-kg.jpg or packaging you have to tear open, but only to this gold paper which I like to imagine was gently coated around the chocolate by careful hands.
What a beautiful way of thinking about this chocolate! Though if I’d been writing your paragraph I’d have finished with “gently coated around the chocolate by glittering fairy hands”
Chocolates on the pillow! That’s the high-flying life, for sure.
Oh Hans did you really wait this long to try them or just to blog about them? And I am going to send you some dark ones PRONTO!!!!!!
Teehee, just to blog, I promise! I gobbled them up very quickly and shared them with my dad, who also liked the big hazelnut praline ones the best
So lovely to hear from you! I think of you every time I pass a Boost Juice 
xo
P.S. I never say no to chocolate
Oh…yum…a blog about chocolate!! Those Patchi chocolates look divine
Chocolate is, of course, the most magnificent of all the things
I’ve had three phone calls while trying to read your post. Now I’m all confused! I do like almonds in my chocolate. I do like my chocolate to be dark and I’m also a fan of marzipan. Sounds like the sugary almond chocolate is for me xx
And you didn’t hang up on them because you had more important things to do/read?!
Oh, how I wish I could share my chocolate treats with you all! xo
That first Patchi chocolate looks absolutely delicious, I’m sure it would make a fabulous breakfast.
With a latte? Absolutely.