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A traveller's tale

            I'm not in the habit of advertising, but here goes...

We have an office ritual. If you go abroad on duty, you bring back chocolate. That's the rule. The spirit is that you bring back chocolate from wherever you've visited. It stems from the days of doing short courses of a week's duration in Brussels. Bringing back Belgian chocolates was a no-brainer. Leonidas and Godiva were favourites, but there are plenty of little small-scale chocolatiers between the Bourse and the Grand Place.

But, there are places where finding decent chocolate is tricky. Chocolates brought back from Moscow tasted like cardboard with a light cocoa dusting. In Budapest a shop assistant laughed at me when I asked for Hungarian chocolates to take home. They only make it as a convenient container for the local hooch. Germany, France, Holland, Italy and Belgium are all really easy, and the office has firm favourites they expect from each. In Australia, the chocolates are just the same as home, except they melt in transit.

The US is the tricky one, because, in general, mass market US chocolate is pretty poor stuff. I challenged my cousins in the US to track down something interesting to take home. So, every time I'm across the pond, I have to find a local chocolatier. This is easier in some places than others. San Francisco spoils you for choice. Ghirardelli's and others are well-established. Seattle turned out better than I expected.

I was awake at 4am on a Sunday morning, and my body clock was eight hours adrift. By 9am local time I was downtown while I had the chance, before getting down to work in the evening. I spotted a leaflet in one of the shoreline stores. Seattle chocolate tours, it said, starting from a shop on Pine and first, just off the market. Not keen on the tour, I didn't have time, I made a mental note of the location for something to take back to feed the young gannets in the office.

Was I surprised and in luck. This place turned out to be reasonably busy, even at 10:30 on a Sunday morning. A gaggle of 20-something women were drinking and gossiping around a table at the rear of the shop. The shop and clientele were well-organised, chic and sleek. 

A very cute Asian assistant, probably in her early twenties, looked on somewhat indulgently as I went through their selection of truffle bars and extra cocoa collections. Then for the piece de resistance, I sat down and indulged myself with a large, rich, hot chocolate, topped with cream and dusted with cocoa powder. Chocoholic heaven. I left with a huge smile on my face.

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Taken in: United States / Washington / Seattle / Pine Market (show map)

Taken on: July 14, 2008

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Nikon

FM2

35-70mm f/2.8D

35mm

film

Kodak

T-Max 400

black and white

old school

manual everything

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Groups appears in: • Seattle • Chocohol!cs more » • Nikon FM2 • TMAX LOVERS • Views: 5000 • Black and White Film • Oh Please tell me a story! « less

Camera: NORITSU KOKI QSS-32_33 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	NORITSU KOKI QSS-32_33
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	QSS-32_33 8.01.002 2006.09.28
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