Despite its popularity in Canada, chocolate is still an exotic thing.
The big bin at the local supermarket featuring oversized candy bars priced at three for a fiver doesn’t do this complex treat justice.
Chocolate starts with the cocoa bean, plucked from the cacao tree, which, save for a handful of specimens found in the southernmost reaches of the U.S., doesn’t grow anywhere near us. Cocoa beans have been an important culinary and ceremonial ingredient in Mexico and the Amazon Basin of South America for millennia. Today, West Africa is the largest supplier of cocoa beans, though varieties from other faraway places like Madagascar and Indonesia are also available.
Aside from the remote origins of its base ingredient, chocolate is alluring because of its seemingly endless applications, including its use as a cough suppressant, as a coating for ants, or as the star ingredient in edible body paint, this latter function bringing us to another aspect of chocolate’s exoticism: its sensuality.
Chocolate lovers are among the most passionate fanatics you are likely to encounter; I have watched otherwise composed, level-headed adults consume a piece of chocolate and then yield to absolute rapture: eyes closed, lips pursed in a spellbound smile, the external world apparently tuned out entirely.
It is not a mystery, then, that chocolate should feature so heavily in Valentine’s Day gift giving. A gift of chocolate is a gift of the exotic, the sensual, the indulgent.
Of course, not all chocolate is created equally. For a truly memorable Valentine’s Day offering, I highly recommend a visit to one of the North Shore’s fine boutique chocolate shops, where the special ingredient in question is treated with the utmost respect and attention.
New to the scene is the recently opened Temper Chocolate Pastry in Dundarave, where chocolatier Steven Hodge, following four years of intense training in the craft of fine chocolate creation under local phenom Thomas Haas, turns out dainty and elegant confections from a decidedly posh venue.
On the afternoon of my visit, Temper was bustling with wide-eyed and eager patrons who, like me, were keen to discover the flavours that corresponded to the magnificent smells emanating from the kitchen.
Members of staff at Temper are knowledgeable, offering sage advice on selections from the large inventory of goods on offer. While I was after an assortment of chocolates to be painstakingly sampled in the name of research for this article, I couldn’t help but note that chef Hodge’s pastries looked exquisite.
With my eyes trained on a tempting brioche dusted with confectioner’s sugar (the last on the tray), I made my way towards the front of the queue. When it came time to order, that gorgeous brioche had been claimed by the customer ahead of me, affording me new insight into why the place is called Temper.
With a steely resolve I persevered and ultimately ordered a chocolate coconut croissant (a lovely creation, with a crisp shell of flaky pastry surrounding a dense layer of creamy, marzipan-like coconut paste) and a box of 16 impeccably hand-crafted, ornate chocolates.
At $30 per box, these chocolates come to just under $2 a piece. While that may seem a tad steep at first blush, you will know that your money has been well invested each time you savour a bite of Hodge’s creations.
The box of 16 afforded me the opportunity to sample most of the chocolates on offer and there was not one in the mix that I regretted choosing. For my taste, the two best were the crispy coconut, a delicate square of milk chocolate surrounding a crisp base of toasted coconut and a layer of silky and rich coconut cream, and the mint chocolate, a strikingly assertive and fragrant confection featuring the bold flavour of fresh mint leaf.
Some 15 minutes away from Temper, discreetly tucked into a cosy space on East Second Street in North Vancouver, is another chocolate purveyor well worth visiting, Cinnamon’s Chocolates. Cinnamon’s does not feature the accomplished pastry, chic interior design, or silk-screened chocolate finish found at Temper, but their wares are lovely and indulgent all the same. On my visit, Cinnamon’s was in the throes of Valentine’s Day production, its walls lined with dozens of stylish and tasteful, gift-oriented packages of delicious chocolates, from zebra-striped cubes to classic heart-shaped boxes.
Cinnamon’s helpfully pre-packages a number of gift offerings priced to suit a wide range of budgets. You can choose your own mix of chocolates to populate a gift box, but I can assure you from my experience there that trying to select a defined number of chocolates from the dozens upon dozens of Cinnamon’s wonderful creations can be a painful exercise in self-restraint.
If you do select your own chocolates, make sure you choose at least one macadamia nut cluster, an unforgettably crunchy, toasty, rich and rewarding treat.
Temper Pastry is located at 2409 Marine Dr. in West Vancouver. Cinnamon’s Chocolates is located at 119 East Second St. in North Vancouver.
Chris Dagenais served as a manager for several restaurants downtown and on the North Shore. A self-described wine fanatic, he earned his sommelier diploma in 2001. Contact: [email protected].
