Fort Smith Find: "World's Finest" Chocolate Almond

I’m behind on my posts! Trying to get caught up... First up:

Last week I took a trip to Tulsa and Little Rock for a project I’m working on – I flew into Tulsa, rented a car, worked all day, and then drove the four hours to Little Rock to work the next day. Not knowing if there would be a single bite of interesting food in the great expanse of nothingness between Tulsa and Little Rock, I tasked Andrew with finding out if there was any dinner to be had, and boy-howdy did he ever come through.

He flagged R&R’s Curry Express in Fort Smith – an Indian place with stellar reviews and a closing time 45 minutes after I’d be passing through the tiny township. The GPS led me a merry chase, insisting that the restaurant was, in fact, an hour north in Springdale (it was not), and that it was closed (it was not), but when I finally located the place sharing a building with a small independent gas station it was everything I was hoping for.

Papdi chaat - crispy bits of fried naan suspended in an amazing soup of spiced yogurt, tamarind, and mint chutney *swoon*

Having a company card and a slightly exorbitant daily food budget, I ordered the papdi chaat appetizer which showed up looking like a delicious Indian stew, with crunchy chips of naan suspended in a sweet, complex, creamy, delicious sludge of mint and yogurt and goodness knows what all else. It was divine, and unlike anything I’d ever had before. As I was still trying to navigate it, a man sitting and eating dinner with his family at the table next to me, called out to me gently in his lilting Indian accent – “ma’am, excuse me. You’re supposed to mix it up. Mix it all up, add a little salt, and eat it with a spoon – it’s good!” This was the point where I noticed he was wearing an apron, and realized that I was in the presence of the restaurant owner.

What ensued, was a thoroughly delightful meal. The malai kofta was delicious, the mystery appetizer was crazy good, and I got to know the gentleman and his wife who own both the restaurant and the gas station next door. They moved to Fort Smith from LA almost 10 years ago, looking for a small town to raise their kids in, opened the gas station, and then decided to expand their operation when the space next door opened up. These hard-working entrepreneurs happily conversed with their kids in fluent Hindi, the daughters regularly came by my table to top off my iced tea, they all assured me that staying past closing time was absolutely fine, and, as I was winding down and looking for the check, the second daughter appeared at my table with a box of chocolate, asking if I’d like to buy a bar to help her school purchase new computers.

Yes. Yes, indeed, I would.

I retrieved the last of my cash from the car, purchased a bar, and got back on the road to Little Rock.

One of the things I love the most about traveling is finding little hidden gems and supporting local businesses with my reimbursable dollars. This was exactly the kind of place that I truly love giving business to. Right down to the young chocolate seller running out to my car after I left to make sure that I’d gotten a straw with my to-go iced tea, this restaurant is awash with the delicious food and lovely, personable feel that makes me really look forward to the next time I get to drive through Fort Smith. Hopefully next time I’ll get to visit more than 30 minutes before close.

Item: Almond 

Percentage: Who knows! Probably in the 20s, if I had to hazard a guess

Made By: World’s Finest Chocolate 

Made in: Chicago, IL   

Purchased At: R&R's Curry Express 
Purchase Price: $1

Review: This is pretty much an almond Hershey’s Kiss in bar form, but maybe a little heavier on the vanillin and a little lighter on the chocolate than Hershey’s. Sugar content is about the same. Strong notes of vanillin, powdered milk, and nostalgia. As Andrew said, “It’s the finest World’s Finest Chocolate I’ve ever had.” Not exactly a bar for chocolate snobs who are hung up on cacao content (*ahem*), but a perfectly reasonable nibble for dessert or to take the edge off an afternoon sweet tooth. The one thing the bar really gets right is the size – at just 1.3 ounces it’s quite small, but the size is actually about perfect for how sweet it is, and the bar is divided up into four nice, bite-sized chunks, making it easy and enjoyable to demolish. Plus, it’s for a good cause!

Chocolate Bar: Meh

R&R’s Curry Express in Fort Smith, AR: Highly Recommend

With Love, Kat

Happy New Year!: Kate Weiser Passion Praline Candy Bar

Happy 2017!

I turned 29 on the 31^st. I’ve always loved having a birthday on New Year’s Eve – it’s a day that begs for celebration and has a delightful cyclicality to it. As the calendar ticks of another trip ‘round the sun, I can draw energy and inspiration from the delighted resolutions of so many people determined to get the very best out of the coming year. I can’t imagine a more invigorating day for a birthday.

My New Year’s was delightfully quiet. Andrew and I spent the evening with friends, eating the rest of the amazing Kate Weiser chocolates left from Christmas (another post on that coming soon) and an incredibly dense, chocolatey birthday cake concocted by my amazing mother, and watching Star Wars. We had our obligatory champagne at midnight, and then dispersed, enjoying the last of the Christmas light displays on our way home.

Now, by most objective measures 2016 was pretty rough. Suffice it to say that it was a hard year for water, refugees, heroes and celebrities, American politics, the UK, the EU, global politics in general, anyone who’s Muslim, and all residents of Syria and neighboring countries.

On the other hand, after a century of decline the tiger population increased in 2016, Tubman is set to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, the US has reached an all-time low in teen pregnancies and seen impressive gains in high-school graduations, the FARC rebels in Columbia signed a peace agreement with the government after decades of armed conflict bringing peace to the entire Western Hemisphere for the first time in at least 60 years, India planted 50 million trees in a single day, Costa Rica ran on 98% renewable energy for a whole year, giant pandas and manatees just got taken off of the endangered species list, the Americas were declared measles-free, Liberia was cleared of Malaria, we found the ALS gene, Africa has no active cases of Ebola, we finally detected gravitational waves, and pretty soon I might be able to go visit Cuba without selling my kidney. So that’s all pretty cool.

This year in particular seems to be marked with new beginnings and transitions. There’s a weird sort of impending finality associated with turning 29 – it’s the last year of my 20s, and it feels a little bit like I’m coming to the end of the first act (not to be overly dramatic, of course). My sweetie and I are both starting new jobs this month, I’ve got a brother with some exciting career news for this year, and a mom who’s also in transition. My dad and youngest brother are in for some big changes this year as well, and I’ll be helping one of my best friends get hitched in June.

As for me, I’m still trying to figure out what I want from 2017 beyond a big sunny field to lie in. I’d like to read more actual books (scaling back on the internet articles, news, and blogs that currently dominate my reading habits). I’d like to get better about staying in touch with all the wonderful people in my life and maybe figure out how to be less conservative about interacting with strangers. Maybe figure out how to make some new friends. I’d like to join the board of a non-profit and take at least one international trip to Asia or South America – maybe Ecuador or Thailand, but suggestions are most welcome. 

I'd also like to write more. And eat more chocolate. So, one pledge for 2017 is that I will write at least one review for this blog per week. They may not have lengthy stories attached to them, and they may not always get posted to Facebook promptly, but there will be at least one post per week for the duration of this year. 

Here's to a more chocolatey year for everyone!

Item: Passion Praline Candy Bar
Percentage: ?? (Pretty light - maybe 35-40%?)

Made By: Kate Weiser
Made In: Dallas, TX

Purchased At: Kate Weiser Trinity Groves Outlet Store

Review: Kate Weiser makes what can only be described as art chocolate. She describes this one “tart passion fruit combines with crunchy hazelnut gianduja for the perfect citrus treat. My personal fave!” This is not pure chocolate, but it’s definitely top-notch candy. A crunchy, beautiful art-milk-chocolate shell encases two gorgeous, creamy layers of creamy chocolate filling. The upper layer is a white-chocolate passion-fruit ganache, while the lower layer is a milk chocolate hazelnut gianduja (a chocolate spread or filling of at least 30% hazelnut), sandwiching whole toasted hazelnuts and some crunchy “cornflake praline.” That’s a complicated description for something that actually winds up coming across pretty wonderfully simple in the eating. 

There’s a delicate, lovely inter-play between the creamy, tart passion fruit and the earthy, crunchy hazelnut, and the chocolate ties it all together, providing a smooth medium for everything to play nicely together. I’ll say that the praline seemed to get just a tad soggy after a while, but the whole bar held up admirably in the car on a hot day (an important virtue in Texas). The milk chocolate is also stellar, which is something you won’t find me saying that much – It’s sweet, but not overwhelming, gentle, but not spineless, milky, but utterly free of that gross dried-milk aftertaste that hangs around after cheap milk chocolate, reminding you of every horrible decision you’ve ever made. *shudder.* This is some really wonderful (and beautiful!) stuff. 

HIGHLY RECOMMEND

With love,
 - K 

All the World's a Stage: Beatrice Honeycomb Milk Chocolate

This is part 2 of 4 chronicling my two-week adventure in Europe. For more pictures and stories, take a peek at my Facebook photo album HERE. 


          We continue with England, the Motherland...

England was full of delights: renting bikes and cycling through Cambridge to have tea in a beautiful apple orchard. Sitting in camp chairs beside the river in front of Glory's charming home, drinking Pimm's and watching the swan making lazy circles around the house boats. The simultaneously reverent and whimsical Beefeater tour of the Tower of London, concluding in the beautiful chapel in the heart of the Tower where the lovely young Lady Jane Grey was buried in an unmarked traitor's grave, mere days after her coronation, along with hundreds of others with nothing to mark their passing. And the Borough Market! If you find yourself in London, go there. Just go. Delicious, abundant, affordable street food from all corners of the word, a mere hop across the Thames from St. Paul's Cathedral, right in the heart of the city. 

The sightseeing was wonderful, the Russian tea house captivating, and I cherished the opportunity to see Glory in her natural habitat, but altogether, more than any of our other destinations, England felt like the connective tissue of our journey. Although I came to enjoy the well-mannered countryside as it flashed past in the train windows, England was primarily a staging ground for us to shuttle back and forth between our various other destinations, and I feel like I barely got to know it.

In spite of the brevity of our visit, there was one brilliant, captivating, perfect highlight of our time in London... 

 
Allow me to set the stage, so to speak: I curate my bucket list very carefully. There are about 120 things on it, all of which I've carefully considered and selected from a much larger and ever-changing pool of possibilities. However, out of these 120 items, there are a handful which serve as immovable focal points for the rest of the list. These are the things which are so integral to my vision of myself and my life that I truly can't imagine them not happening at some point. 

 
Attending a Shakespeare play at the Globe is one of these. And it was the best kind of happenstance that the show running while we were in London was "As You Like It" - my favorite of Shakespeare's comedies, and one of my fondest Austin student theater memories from my youth. The stars simply aligned, and, £5 later, there we were - standing in the yard, watching some of the most joyful and skillfully executed theater I've ever seen. In that beautiful, historic venue, where so many remarkable actors have trod the boards, just a few hundred yards from where Shakespeare himself once performed, those precious three hours seemed to fly. It was a gift I won't ever forget. 

Afterwards, in the gift shop, amidst the First Folio facsimiles, tote bags, and lapel pins, I made a delightful discovery: 

Named for Shakespeare's beloved heroines, these sweet little things made perfect souvenirs. I had a hard time narrowing it down (Milk sea salt for Miranda! Dark chili for Katarina! Milk cinnamon for Desdemona! Dark espresso for Portia!), but in the end the choice was clear: I couldn't possibly pass up my beloved Rosalind (dark and raspberry - how appropriate for such an intelligent, headstrong young lady), but the one I was most intrigued by was Beatrice. Milk chocolate with honeycomb. Honeycomb? Yep. Definitely honeycomb. Fascinating! Well worth dipping into the 32% realm to try it out.

In a broader sense, so much of my personal history and personality is tied to the culture and literature of this place that it almost seems like home in an odd, disjointed kind of way. Although my connection to England wasn't as visceral or emotional as Ireland, I will certainly return to walk the halls of Oxford, track down 221B Baker Street, visit the hallowed Royal Shakespeare Theater in Stratford-upon-Avon, and meander the well-tended lanes of Hyde Park.

In the meantime, I will content myself with learning to make scotch eggs. Heaven help my poor, abused kitchen. 

Item: Beatrice Honeycomb Milk
Percentage: 32% cacao 

Made By: Sweet Theater presents Shakespeare's Leading Ladies
Purchased At: RSC Shop, Globe Theater - London, England
Purchase Price: £1.00 (Full-size bars available for £3.50)

Review: I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from honeycomb chocolate, but it is curiously satisfying. Our good friends, the bees, deliver deliciousness once again. Admittedly, this darling (albeit gimmicky) bar probably isn't the greatest treatment of it - the chocolate itself is a fairly standard 32% milk setting, which is both overly sweet (unlike it's designated namesake) and a little overpowering. That makes it even more remarkable how well the honeycomb manages to hold its own. Delightful, surprising fragments, alternately chewy and crunchy, serve as the culinary equivalent of glitter, except that you don't have to vacuum it out of the carpet for three years. The honeycomb is remarkably savory, carrying a light, centering honey taste without stacking more sweetness on top of the already very sweet chocolate. Would highly recommend honeycomb chocolate, although possibly not this particular instance as much as some others. More investigation is needed.

Recommend

With love, 
 - Kat