Bittersweet Cafe, Oakland, California
Posted by Shelly Butcher on Well Fed on the Town
Bittersweet, the self-described chocolate café of Oakland and San Francisco, is one of my favorite places to get a chocolate fix. Whether you’re looking for a good dark chocolate bar such as Hachez 88%, a steamy cup of probably the best vegan hot chocolate around, or some nice pain au chocolat, Bittersweet probably has what you’re after. Bittersweet goes far beyond the typical supermarket varieties of Lindt and Cote d’Or chocolates. This is the place to go for a fairly expansive selection of high quality chocolate, whether dark, milk, or that strange little hybrid called white chocolate.
Of late, Bittersweet has begun selling chocolate covered nuts in small eight ounce bags. I recently tried a bag of dark chocolate chipotle almonds. These are salted, roasted almonds with “dried chilies” all covered in dark chocolate. The idea of smoked chilies with sweetened chocolate appeals to me not only because this seemingly odd combination might evoke the flavors of ancient xocolatl, but also because I like a little salt with my sweets. If salty sweets please the palate, how much more so might salty, spicy, smoky sweets? That corn syrup is one of the ingredients in this confection gave me pause. Do I disregard the documented dangers of corn syrup for a moment of pleasure? The insatiable glutton in me said “absolutely!” while the virtuous health nut said “certainly not!” They duked it out for all of ten seconds, until the glutton said “Dude, it’s chocolate with chipotle. Chocolate with chipotle!” I grabbed the bag while the poor health nut grumbled and ate some hemp.
The verdict?
These are a fun little snack. The almonds are nicely roasted, and their saltiness is a pleasant counterbalance to the sweetness of the surrounding dark chocolate. The ratio of salty to sweet is pretty much perfect. The chipotle chile flavor, however, isn’t quite powerful enough. In about eighty percent of the nuts in the bag, whatever smoky flavor I could taste was overpowered by chocolate, while my palate detected only a hint of spiciness. The glutton was a little disappointed, and the health nut… well, she was too busy sitting in the lotus position looking smug.
“Now hold on you two,” I told them. “Let me finish the rest of the bag.”
Sure enough, I was right. The remaining chocolate covered almonds were just what I had been expecting. They were assertively spicy and smokier, the hot chile sting lingering on the tongue long after the dark chocolate had melted away. Now this was a fun snack. If Bittersweet can get the whole bag of nuts to taste like the bangup ones at the bottom, they’d have themselves some chocolate covered nuts that are far more exciting than the ones people steal from the bins at the supermarket. If they covered them in chipotle infused ganache and then rolled them in cocoa powder, they’d have a sophisticated dragée/truffle that would send my little glutton into paroxysms of delight. (Quiet, you. This is a family publication.)
The health nut hopes Bittersweet replaces the corn syrup with something a little less processed, like simple syrup. The glutton wants to try the chocolate covered pistachios, and, well, everything else. Me? I’m with the glutton.
