Notes on chocolate: sometimes the best things are found close to home

Perhaps it was best I didn’t find any chocolate on my recent trip to Zakynthos (not the party part of the island as that life is behind me). The heat was intense – 39C at certain times, in certain places – making me sweat so profusely I looked like a smuggler trying to clear customs. I eyed up the Toblerone at the airport (I always eye up Toblerones in airports), but resisted. As for the uniform for the flight home, I didn’t get the memo: pastel neck pillows, seersucker shorts, cami tops and eyelashes that looked like plough trucks.

I did have the most exquisite chocolate mousse made with olive oil and brandy, top-hatted with whipped cream and the finest of candied orange zest slithers at the Old Windmill. I had something called ‘milk pie’ at Skinos, which came with a blob of chocolate ganache and was all-round excellent. And I found some wonderful ice-creams called Chillato (the best!), but the chocolate version wasn’t great (pistachio was). Otherwise I was disappointed to find nothing exciting to tell you about, chocolate-wise.

So it was back home to Suffolk to hear that my local chocolatiers, Pump Street, have updated their excellent mini bars. Perfect little 20g bars (from £2.80), which they say are to be ‘enjoyed as a single portion’ – you can’t argue with that instruction. Choices range from a 40% Brown Bread to a 75% Jamaican with some yummy inclusions in between – six bars in total.

Also, to get you back into the work/school grind after the holidays: a superb new bar from Lumi: the Colombian Crunch. Colombian cocoa 40% chocolate and coffee beans mixed with crunchy wafer (£7.50/100g).

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