It's 9am on Monday and I'm already munching on Pump Street Bakery's 64% Madagascan chocolate with the tiniest hint sea salt and crunchy pieces of their dehydrated rye sourdough. It's been a hectic few days. This bar is amazing. I picked it up at the Craft Chocolate takeover by Cocoa Runners at Kings Cross over the weekend. I'll be visiting them mid-week towards the end of June. Should I raffle off a place to join me?
I usually encourage people to let chocolate melt in their mouth but the sourdough makes that impossible with this bar which means I've eaten two rows before I've even paused for breath. Ha. An excellent start to Monday (I've been awake since 5am and already had fruit and toast so it's kind of like my Elevenses snack...).
Here's the other delicious things I ate this week (totally sneaking in more than 5, sorry!):
WEEK 8 ending Sunday 13th May 2018 - LONDON & SPAIN
- The BEST tomatoes and asparagus I've ever eaten. Finally I've found a match (or improvement?) on the tomatoes I ate in the summer of 2004 on the island of Brac in Croatia. If you ever go to Granada go to Taberna La Tana and order the tomatoes and green asparagus and some wine/sherry. It was a recommendation from @travellingsaffron. I'll be posting a picture on my Instagram this week.
- While you're in Granada also get a pionono from El Sol Pastisseria. I tried one in another place and it was terrible. By all means try more (there might be better!), but get one from here as a benchmark.
- I went around the Balance Festival on Friday and my highlight was the 100% hot chocolate drink from Boca Cacao. I love their mission to get people to drink chocolate like coffee and with the quality of the beans they're using it is so easy to drink it without sugar or milk (definitely if you're already a black coffee drinker).
- Most of the stands seemed to be selling plant-based "milks" (the hazelnut milk from Innocent drinks was the best I tried), protein powders or "protein balls" or "raw food treats". Both of the latter two were mostly just dates and nuts. The only truly enjoyable versions I had were from Pollen & Grace, particularly the hazelnut brownie version. The Snact company's banana-based treats were a better riff on the theme and make use of bananas that would otherwise go to waste, sold in compostable packaging.
- We hosted our first Taste Tripper Brunch yesterday and Edd reminded me that he still is the most consistently excellent baker I know. His pecan sticky buns were other-worldly (the two bites I managed to snaffle were just a tease) and his is the best brownie I know.
Tomorrow I'll be judging the Great Taste Awards and I've just bought a ticket to Thursday's Bake for Syria event. 100% of the ticket proceeds go to Unicef's UK Children of Syria appeal.
Maybe I'll see you there?
