Antwerpen

As you may have noticed there's a big gap between my two last posts. Together with my family I went to Belgium, one of the paradises on earth for chocolate lovers. Since we did a homeexchange we didn't get any chocolate on our pillows when we got there. No, our hosts had kindly left at least half a kilo of Côte d'Or for us to enjoy. Being on a regular vacation I didn't explore as much chocolate as one can imagine, but we did try three different makers of filled chocolate, and in general enjoyed the chocolate culture. Being oversensitive of coffee and tea I allways order hot cocoa after my meal or for my midafternoon snack (the most common swedish custom is to have coffee), and I allways had good hot cocoa in Belgium. Shouldn't have come as a surprise, but years of watery instant cocoa made from powder has made me a bit suspicious.

The names of the three makers of filled chocolates were G Bastin, Elisa belgian chocolate and Devina, finest belgian chocolate. They were all located in or close to the most touristy parts of Antwerpen (regular vacation, remeber). The quality on the chocolates was nevertheless good, and seem little affected by the location

Elisa, belgian chocolate
Grote Markt 2
Antwerpen

Elisa sells general luxury truffles. They look nice and tastes good. The shopkeeper was nice too.


G Bastin
Blauwmozelstraat 3
2000 Antwerpen
(they also have a bigger shop at Paardenmarkt 106-108)

G Bastin sells luxury truffles as well as luxury chocolate bars. Since we visited the shop close to the cathedral we could buy tin boxes with minibars having the cathedral as a carving on the top side. The truffles were in level witt our own chocolatier (Anneli K, Uppsala), and I particularly remember the Rubens coin and the chocolate with ginger that was shaped as a buddha. G Bastin is the only one of the three that has a homepage (that I know of), and as a bonus you can order their chocolate online. Recommended.

Devina, finest belgian chocolate

Devina looks like yet another filled-chocolates-for-tourists-shop (which isn't that bad - I suspect it's impossible to get bad chocolate in Belgium). They claim to sell the best chocolates in town and they mention in their flyer that they have a post in "Guide Bleu", unfortunately my swift research on the internet haven't given me any clue on what that is or its relation to the wellknown Guide Rouge, so I can't evaluate the statement. What I can say is that their filled chocolates were the best we ate. I fondly remeber the one filled with caramell. Highly recommended - a must.

Trying belgian filled chocolate is perhaps not the best way to do it. The belgians seems to enjoy chocolate, so what we should have done was to buy us different brands of chocolate bars, as well as the different chocolate pastes for sandwiches. Ah well; that's a very good excuse for making another trip :-)

Sweet indulgance!