Since I am in the business of creating and selling chocolate, I like to stay up to date with other chocolate businesses. Sometimes there are obvious trending things that I like to keep up with, sometimes I just like to taste someone else's chocolate and look inside their pretty shop.
This last week was slow for chocolate as I am still working on finishing my chocolate kitchen for inspection. So I took the week to travel with my mom to the small city of Asheville, North Carolina. The purpose of the trip was to pack up her house since it was being sold, but we also had some fun. The city of Asheville is a wonderful place that sits right in the beautiful North Carolina mountains. They have 2 chocolate shops downtown (that I know of) so the first one we went to was the French Broad Chocolate Lounge. The river that runs through Asheville is called the French Broad, thus the name of the chocolate place.
This place is newer, but has just as much of a reputation as the other chocolate shop. The inside is warm and friendly with plenty of places to sit- a whole second and third floor of seating too! The chairs are plush leather and the tables are intimate; a perfect place for a date.
Upon first approaching the counter, we were greeted by lovely light blue boxes filled with truffles. This is their display case for truffles they have on hand. All truffles were round, while the caramels were square. Their flavors ranged from single origin dark chocolates, to more exciting things like the Thai Truffle, which was my favorite. It is a dark chocolate with lemongrass, ginger, lime, and green chili. Such awesome flavors combined with chocolate!
The second case of goods that greeted us was filled with brownies and chocolate dipped cookies. I didn't sample any of these, but they were all beautiful and I'm sure they tasted heavenly. The last case held pots de creme, puddings, parfaits, and creme brule's that would be fixed upon ordering. They were all tempting, I'll have to go back and try more next time!
Overall, I was impressed with this chocolate shop. I enjoyed the fact that they had plenty of seating for people to order their dessert, a cup of coffee, and then hang out. I felt like I could go there for a variety of things, just to buy a box of chocolate, to enjoy chocolate while reading, or on a date with my mom or husband. I rate this chocolate shop a 9 out of 10.
Wow! Must have to sell a lot of chocolate to pay rent on a three-floor chocolate store.
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