Belgian Chocolate is best IMHO, but it all becomes personal choices. We all taste differently and have preferences. There is a little shop in Florennes, BE that is WONDERFUL! In the '70s and '80s they won many European chocolate competitions! Right in downtown...

I used to be in the food industry (I worked for Mars and one other company who WILL remain nameless), it feels a very long time ago...

Ethel M is the best chocolate made in the USA (there possibly are some local, small Mom and Pop shops who will be better). It is sold direct after being made and shipped flash frozen so it is fresh when it arrives. The company is set-up for only production of high end chocolate with the freshest ingredients possible and of the highest quality and standards! It is owned by M&M Mars, the family set up this business from scratch. It is of the highest standards and quality, it is not cheap.

Welcome to Ethel M® Chocolates

If you wish to get into discussions of quality on mainstream products, Mars uses less wax and fillers than the competition. The overall quality of the process and the materials is generally higher than the mainstream competition as well. I cannot speak to small regional producers.

I never saw a dirty Mars plant. The equipment, floors, walls of the manufacturing area were always kept spotless. I would have considered setting my lunch out on the floor and eating there. I have been into MANY pharmaceutical and other food processors who were no where near as clean!

Godiva is shipped and handled multiple times before you receive it. Fresh from the factory it is wonderful, sitting on the shelf for a month or more and it is just chocolate.

IMO, Belgian is the best.

There used to be a small chocolate shop off the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria in NYC. I didn't think price made much of a difference until I had their chocolates, incredible difference. Makes a Hershey bar taste like dog poop!

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I'm also biased... but Moonstruck is pretty darn good (Portland OR.)

Chocolates: Chocolate Truffles, Gourmet Chocolate, Father's Day Chocolate Gifts, Chocolate Gifts | Moonstruck Chocolate Company

My family tradition is Sees for the holidays... not as fancy as Swiss but hard to put down :D

A must see if you visit Las Vegas! (I persume that plant is still there?)

bad chocolate is like bad sex..you just eat a little less.

I agree fresh is way better even hershey is good if fresh

The worst chocolate I ever had was.....great! I kinda' had to chime in with my username and all. . .

Chocolate is very similar to coffee in a lot of ways. Some people are fine with Folgers, others think Starbucks is awesome and some will spend extra to find something else that's better to them.

For coffee, I look for local coffee shops that use beans roasted onsite or at least nearby and are fresh. I find that my preferences for chocolate are similar. I tend to buy Ghirardelli because it's made nearby, or even better, Mackenzies, who are not only local but they make chocolate Porsches. :D

http://www.mackenzies-chocolates.com...te_porsche.jpg

when i was little, we visted Hershey, PA on one of our vacations. That was a COOL place for a 6 year old to see. The factory was fun, and I still remember the Hershey Kisses on the lamp posts.

There's a place in Fort Wayne, Indiana that makes/sells really good stuff. DeBrand Chocolates. On the other hand, I bought one these the other week, and it was pretty tasty, too:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1306955176.jpg

+1 for Lindt. It just has a different feel (and taste)

Toblerone

I recently had to throw away a few pounds of semisweet german chocolate (Schokinag?). It had sat in my cupboard for a few years and had gone racid.
Saddest day of the year.

Fassbender & Rausch in Berlin is pretty damn good. Their chocolate arrangements are quite cool too. Take a girl there, buy her chocolate and you are guaranteed, well, you know....

Best of all, after fives beers or so (YBCMV), one tends to drop the letter "F" from their name. Good times and the Germans are still scratching their heads about that incident as well as my pronounciation of the German language......

Then of course in Salzburg, theres that Mozart chocolate. Whats so special about that chocolate you ask? Well, girls think it's special (like the stuff in Berlin), so of course one needs to take the girls to Salzburg to have a taste. A feast it was!!!!

this

the thing I remember when we went to Hershey was the smell, chocolatazmagorical

I love those! And "Whatchamacallit", as low-brow and un-hoity-toity as it may sound, I will eat those before Godiva or the fancy Swiss chocolates.

can't do toblerones....when i was in college, the parents of a friend asked me to take their kid around campus, and do a tour and stuff. the kid's dad (the kid i took around) worked as a brand rep for the toblerone line of kraft foods. several weeks after the kid visited me, i got a gigantic box in the mail. it had to be 30 lbs of toblerone bars.

the idea of them makes me want to throw up...ha!

Pretty tasty!!!
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1307148585.jpg

The dark chocolate Lindt truffles are very good. The center goes liquid at a warm room temp.
It's ok, but certainly not my fav. I love dark chocolate. I'll eat milk or white, but dark is by far my preference.

Bah! If It had been in my house it wouldn't have lasted that long.

Tasty thread!