Galler Cafe Noir

Galler Cafe Noir

Four square slabs make up this elegantly packaged 70 gram bar, which is the perfect size and shape for slipping into a handbag. The glossy dark chocolate encloses a smooth, creamy richly-flavoured coffee praline. The dark chocolate and strong coffee flavour make this more palatable and less cloyingly rich than Galler's other coffee bars, which were a bit too much for my taste. Excellent.

Galler Chocolate Noir 70 and Newtree Pleasure

Galler Chocolate Noir 70

Glossy with a nice rich fragrance and snap as suited for a Belgian Royal warrant holder, this is my first taste of Galler's pure chocolate bars. Previous experience has been with the praline-filled bars which were very rich and creamy, perhaps even a little too much so. It was nice to see the Galler shops in Brussels, though I didn't buy any of the individual pralines.

This is extremely smooth, slightly sweet, and feels creamier than other dark bars of this percentage. Not a particularly complex flavour though. Good everyday chocolate for mindless eating. Particularly appropriate as I have this in my office. I also like how the individual pieces are thicker and chunkier than the thinner squares of other 100gm bars. Somehow the chocolate feels richer this way.

Newtree Pleasure

Newtree's plain 73% dark chocolate bar is unremarkable. Not bitter or sour, fine, but not particularly memorable. Nothing wrong with it but not something I'd buy again.

Two small bites

These Delhaize Espresso praline and Jacques praline croquante bars were consumed whilst on a much-anticipated holiday in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Both were surprisingly cheap and excellent. The praline in the espresso bar was smooth and the coffee flavour good, though I would have preferred it to be still stronger. This grocery store house brand bar was obviously meant to mimic the more upscale Galler bars. Having tried the Galler bars in the past, I the praline filling in those richer, to the point of being slightly too rich for me, so the Delhaize bar was in this regard preferable. The Jacques (Callebaut) bar was sweeter with a crunchy praline filling. I just wish I bought more Jacques chocolate.