If you missed this, I am so, so sorry. The Dallas Chocolate Festival was stuffed full of chocoholics, pressed for breathing space, filling up their sampling boxes with every shaving of the precious brown stuff they could finagle away from the vendors.
This is what chocolate reduces perfectly respectable adults to. Standing in lines for teeny tiny tastes of glory.
I digress.
But really, this was such a fun event. The Addison Conference Centre was packed in both the vendor room and the “classroom,” where attendees got to listen to and question chocolate makers from all over the country, watch treats get made right before their eyes, and learn more about the bean-to-bar process in one day than was possible to retain in sugar-rushed heads.
Among the local favorites like Chocolate Secrets, CocoAndré, Dr. Sue’s Chocolate, Haute Sweets, Steel City Pops, Dave Collier of Knife & Spoon, etc., there were also some lesser-known Texan chocolate makers such as SRSLY Chocolate from Austin. I was impressed with the texture and purity of their bars, and they are available locally at Green Grocer. Some of the national makers were also there, like Amano, Taza, Potomac, Tejas, and Cacao Atlanta Chocolate Company.
If you want a bar of chocolate that will change your life, try Amano Chuao. If you want really creative local treats, check out Haute Sweets. If you want something for winter that can be eaten plain, melted into coffee, or made into hot cocoa, try TAZA’s Eggnog wheel. Their $5 wheels are a steal for the quantity and quality you receive.
Thanks to Sander Wolf for making this event bigger and better each year. For more information about the chocolatiers and where you can purchase their chocolate, visit dallaschocolate.org.
