Good Eats: Swiss (Dark) Chocolate

The usage of 'Swiss' in a sentence usually conjures two thoughts: high priced, precision time pieces and chocolate.  When I found myself in Geneva, Switzerland staring at large advertisements for Hublot watches and Toblerone chocolate, I decided that I'd rather not go into debt by spending half of my year's salary on a watch and opted for the edible goods.  I hit the chocolate store. Hard.  I basically bought one of every dark chocolate bar they had in stock and lived to tell the tale.

Dark chocolate comes in various degrees of intensity noted by the percentage of cacao that is used in the formulation.  The bars I ended up with were anywhere from 60 to 85% cacao.  Some of the bars even had pieces of cacao mixed in for added texture and crunch.  Strangely, or maybe not, my favorite bar was a Nestle 40th anniversary dark chocolate special.  Limited edition chocolate?  That's right. Hyped chocolate. I was all over it.  A close second for me was the Confiland dark chocolate which had chunks of cacao blended in.

Really all of the bars were a win, so if you find yourself in Switzerland and either need something to sustain you, or need gifts for friends and family, spare yourself the $10,000 Rolex and go with a Favarger Noir bar instead.  Prices range from 3 to 8 euro (4 to 12 USD) depending on the brand and variety.