chocri – choccie fun!

Lots of yummy chocolate!

Last week I succumb to another Groupon offer – after all, how could I possibly turn down the opportunity of creating my own chocolate bars?

So, we got a £15 voucher for £6.75 for Chocri.  in fact, when I told The Man that I was just going to get a bar for me and a bar for The Girl, he demanded I buy two vouchers.

Oh, it was fun deciding what to add to our chocolate , the range of toppings is HUGE.

Our choices were dried banana and peanut butter drops (The Man); gingerbread spice and plum pieces (Me); raisins, sprinles and mini cookies (I chose for The Girl); bourbon vanilla and cinammon cornflakes (another one for me for paying!).  We also got two mystery bars (which have turned out to be dark choc with lime cream and gummy bears and milk choc with cinammon and hazlenuts).  Not bad for £13.50 inc postage.

It’s nice that you can get to name your bars too – as you can see from the photo.

The chocolate is actually really nice, although it’s no Montezuma’s – but I wasn’t expecting it to be in the slightest.  The Girl was extremely excited as we never really buy her chocolate, so it was a really special treat.  she particularly loved the fact it had her name on it – she loves ANYTHING with her name on it!

So, would I go to Chocri again?  Probably – for very special occasions, maybe for presents etc.  The P&P pushes the price up quiet a bit, but I think that’s because it comes in from Germany.

One good point is that they donate to a charity that supports homeless and orphaned children from the region that their fair trade chocolate is from – and have apparently donated over £31k so far.  I’m not sure on the ethics of their trading – so please don’t quote me on it – it wasn’t my reason for ordering or recommending after all – but for those that are interested in it, it might be soemthign worth looking into!

Now I’m off to break myself another square of my self-created ‘Plum Pudding’

things i did yesterday

I wanna SIX you up!

Me & The Man can be lazy bastards at the weekend.  Especially when we don’t have the Girl around (which we don’t this weekend as she’s off with her dad). So, we quite surprised ourselves by getting up, dressed and out before midday!

The reason for ths momentous occasion – we were off to show our support outside Broadcasting House in the protest to Save 6Music.  as, I’ve said before, this really is a cause close to my heart.  I adore 6Music.

I think there were probably about 500 people there, milling around.  What struck us as being funny is that everyone was so polite and niddle-classed, which is to be expected as that’s the 6Music audience.  People mainly late 30s/early 40s probably, not really the protesting type and not quite sure what to do.  we were there to show our support, but a little embarressed and self-conscious about it

Some people had even brought sandwiches!

So, Liz Kershaw, Gideon Coe and Tom Robinson gave speeches – there was some music from a couple of bands (whose names I didn’t really catch – but one had a guy with a fab voice…Asian-looking and was sitting on his brother’s shoulders to make himself able to be soon over the crowds!).

Unfortunately the heavens opened and the rain came down very very hard.  We’d been there about an hour or so at that stage and sung a couple of songs (again all half-heartedly and a little embarressed) and I was starting to get nipple-strain as I was so cold!

So we decided to forgo waiting for Adam Buxton and went for a drink at The Cock (where I had been on Wednesday night too!).  A good and proper Sam Smiths pub.

after that, we made our way down to the Southbank Centre to the Chocolate festival, which was all well and good, but it was SO crowded, and the one chocolatier that I particularly wanted to see wasn’t even there!

By this time it was gone 3pm, and we suddenly realised that we hadn’t even eaten (apart from sharing a bag of crisps and a bag of nuts in The Cock), so we got on a bus and ended up in Brick Lane, considering curry, but not altogether convinced by the idea.  Wandering around though, we came across the Brick Lane Food Court which I have realised is a very new venture as I just had a look on Google Street View and this is the pic they had then, and it is now in the building on the left!

The choice of international street food served there was fantastic – all stalls had 3 or 4 dishes including a couple of Chinese, Japanese, Morroccan, Sri Lankan, Dim Sum amongst others!  It was brilliant – and they don’t sell drinks in there, so you can pop over to the offy over the road and buy some booze (or pop) to go with it!  I had the Japanese fried chicken, tempura prawns, salad and udon noodles.  Yummy yummy yummy – and only £5.50!

So, then we wandered back via Old Spitalfields and popped into Montezuma’s (which again, I have mentioned before!) and then braved another torrential downpour to get back to Liverpool Street to come home.  Unfortunately by this time, my leg was absolutely killing me and I was lurching really badly, like an drunken old biddy yet again.

I’ve been fine with my leg, but I must admit, I haven’t exactly pushed it hard – and being out wandering around town for most of the day did put a lot more pressure on it than I usually do.

I’ve put on loads of weight over the past few weeks as I haven’t been doing so much, and I haven’t been to the gym at ALL, simply because the thought of doing it in again really actually scares me!  i mean really scares me.  i know I joked about it a lot of the time, but it really, really hurt – and I can still feel it aching from yesterday’s exertions even now – whereas before I used to be able to walk around London for hours at a time!  Obviously the weight hasn’t been helped much because of The Man’s wonderful creations due to the present a bought him a couple of weeks ago!  but still – I want to get back to the gym and doing something, but I’m nervous of how/where to start!  I need to sort it out.

I’ve just realised – it’s quite ironic that we went to the Chocolate Festival but only bought chcolate from the company I always buy from in the end, LOL.

chocolate heaven

Little mouthfuls of chocolate velvet

Every girl loves chocolate, don’t they?  Well, it is generally accepted that they do, even though there are obviously quite a few exceptions to the rule – which is great, because it means there is more chocolate left in the world for the rest of us!

Until 2 or 3  years ago, if asked what my favourite chocolate was, I would always answer ‘Galaxy’ – but this has changed.  A lot.  I still like Galaxy, but it’s more of a fallback these days.  And I thought I would share my now favourite with you.

Montezumas.  Oh yes.  Lovely, smooth, flavourful, totally chocolatey Montezumas.  Found at http://www.montezumas.co.uk/ in case you don’t click/notice links!

I first found Monty’s when I was wandering around in Brighton and happened upon one of their shops.  My friend had been raving about Choccywoccydoodah (or something like that), and we had just been into their shop, which I found AWFUL!  It was garish, OTT and the chocolate didn’t taste anything special.  I felt a bit like I do about Hotel Chocolat – that they put too much effort into what the chocolate products LOOK like and not enough abotu what they TASTE like.  Saying that though, Hotel Chocolat LOOK quite stylish – and the same couldn’t be said for Choccy-thingy-stuff.

And then we wandered into the Monty’s shop.  Classy.  Simple.  And the girl offered us a couple of samples, and I was blown away.  So blown away, that I immediately returned home and treated myself to the unthinkable – a monthly chocolate box.  God I felt extravagant (I’m not exactly rolling in it!).  But the moment I got my first box through, I knew I had made the right decision.

The monthly box comes in a very plain cardboard outer, and there is no additional packaging inside.  There are always 15 truffles/single chocolates, a large bar and two ‘other’ chocolate products.  And you never know what you’re going to get!!  It doesn’t sound a lot, but each mouthful of chocolate is just so packed full of flavour, and gives such a chocolate hit, that you don’t sit there eating one after another like you would with say, Thorntons or Roses – it actually satisfies your chocolate cravings.  And a fair amount of their range is organic and/or vegan (if you’re worried about that kind of thing).

Some of my favourites so far have been their wonderful smooth drinking chocolate, the absolutely perfect air-dried mango dipped in white chocolate with chilli (amazing!) and their dark milk chocolate with butterscotch.  Surprisingly, seeing as The Man has always hated white chocolate, he loves theirs (although I think it’s a ploy to be able to eat more of MY chocolate!), and he was also in heaven last Father’s Day when I got him a 900g kilner jar full of of giant milk chocolate buttons for him from The Girl.  Guess how many the two of us saw of those!

I look forward to the middle of every month, and attack the cardboard with glee!  I am now contemplating which single choc I am going to have, as I need one because I have been thinking about them to compile this post!

If you’re in Brighton, Chichester, Winchester, Kingston or Spitalfields, make sure you check their shop out!

Now I just have to dream of the day that I finally go all out and order a ‘Create a Kilo’ Bar…I have dreamt about dark milk chocolate, coffee and dates for a long long time…