My Life 365 - The Hunt for Chocolate Nirvana

Now when you are born a 'healthy' girl, chocolate cannot be your best mate or they say? But what do you do if after years of staying away from anything in crinkly, shiny wrappers, you discover goeey brown pools of instant nirvana that are not in packets that can be looked away from but are daintily set to seduce you. This post is for the chocoholics.

I am yet to sign up for the Chocoholics Anonymous, I can still look away if I try hard, but there are days when I can't. The mind is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Every city that I visit, I look for the chocolate confectionery that would stay imprinted in my heart as the sweetest memory of the city - pun was well poorly placed but well-intended!

After thinking long and hard, I came up with two of my all-time favourites - the chocolate and mandarin pomme frites of Amsterdam and profiteroles with cake and otherwise in Turkey. Now this isn't to say that the chocolate crepes with bananas that are available in every lane of Paris does not cut it or that Raymond Blanc's divine creations are not to die for, but remember this is My Life 365 and it is a post-let.

If you ever find yourself in Amsterdam, Prinsengracht is the place to head to. By the canal, you will not miss the Pancake Bakery. Head there for breakfast and devour the chocolate and mandarin pomme frites - they are mini pancakes, dunked in an obscene amount of heavenly Belgian chocolate sauce with succulent mandarins dotting the chocolatey puddly landscape of the deep dish placed before you. Remember to walk or cycle for the rest of the day - if the calories don't kill you, the guilt will. But I guarantee you will die a happy death! Now I kept hunting for my keepsake picture of that debauchery, but I'm hitting a blank, so here's how the Pancake Bakery in Amsterdam looks like. Just in case, you decide to head there!

And quickly to the second favourite - Turkish Profiteroles  at the Cigdem Bakery! They know their business, they have been doing just this since 1961 and they sure know how to whip a mean one that leaves you with little qualms about adding insult to the injury of a not-so-perfect-shape that doubles as your body. The profiteroles that lie in a chocolatey grave with a pista wreath over it leaves you with no qualms as you mutilate it and lick that last bit of chocolate left in the plastic bowl it is served in. And if you are braver, then the profiterole served on a bed of chocolate cake are a must try. Now look at this beauty and tell me if there wasn't a rush of pure lust!

Hmmm...and before I sign off, I can't resist reproducing these quotes that make me chuckle whenever I see them

"Never mind about 1066 William the Conqueror, 1087 William the Second. Such things are not going to affect one's life..but 1932 the Mars Bar, 1936 Maltesers and 1937 the Kit Kat - these dates are milestones in history and should be seared in the memory of every child in the country" - Roald Dahl came up with that heart-felt declaration!!


"Forget love...I'd rather fall in chocolate" ~ some clever soul who didn't want their name mentioned alongside said this, perhaps they did fall in love and chocolate - now that's a double bonanza!! :) 


Signing off in a chocoholic haze after devouring a chocolate baklava ( those are great too, but not as great as the two finalists who got honorary mentions on Life 365)