Sugar Savvy

If you read Well Fed On The Town, you know that I was recently in South Beach on business. I sampled a number of good (and not-so-good) restaurants while there and it was fun. But there was one little eatery that kept taunting me with it’s giant sign and promises of chocolately goodness . . . I resisted for as long as I could. Finally, I could resist no longer and in I went to the Ghirardelli store.

There are only 11 of these stores in the country. They include both a chocolate sales floor and a soda fountain serving yummy ice creams and scrumptious cookies. Everything is made with their chocolate too. And I am a big fan of Ghirardelli chocolate. The company was founded in 1853 in San Francisco, where the headquarters remain today. In 1965, the Ghirardelli headquarters, known as Ghirardelli Square, was declared a landmark.

So what did I have? I was remiss in not photographing this, but I had the most delicious white chocolate chip cookie ever. It was large, and hard on the outside but it melted in your mouth. The cookie had hints of coconut throughout it as well. But it was so big that I had to save some for the next day (hello, breakfast!). It was one of those things where you really *want* to finish it, but just can’t right away.

I also picked up a few gifts to bring home.

For my husband, I bought a canister of the White Mocha Hot Chocolate and a package of their new Intense Dark Chocolate Squares with mint filling. He hasn’t sampled either yet, but I am looking forward to when he does (because then I can too!

And for my coworkers, I bought chocolate covered espresso beans. We sampled them yesterday at work and found them to be a very good mix of sweet and crunchy beans. The chocolate was so smooth too . . . mmm. Nothing beats a little shot of caffeine covered in chocolate.