I found myself in Toronto's distillery district yesterday and visited a fascinating chocolate boutique called Soma Chocolatemaker. In addition to handmade truffles, gelatos, and dipped chocolate confections, Soma also makes small limited edition batches of pure artisan chocolate made from heirloom cacao beans right in their in-house micro chocolate factory. Needless to say, I bought a bunch of their bars - I haven't tried them yet though.

What I did try were two revelatory truffles, also made with pure chocolate that's produced from scratch in-house. I've always been fascinated by the concept of using savory ingredients in chocolate truffles and confections:

"Arbequina" estate olive oil dark Venezuelan truffle cone: The olive oil in this quite pointy (but quite elegant) cone-shaped molded chocolate was subtle, providing just a hint of savory flavor without overpowering the chocolate. The olive oil flavor shows itself in the beginning, disappears in the middle somewhere, and re-emerges near the end for the credits. A delicate and gentle truffle with a soft ganache.

8 year aged balsamic vinegar dark Venezuelan truffle: An interesting counterpart to the olive oil truffle, the balsamic truffle begins with a burst of flavor that softens slightly after a second or so. The savory elements are more powerful here, less subtle than the olive oil truffle, but still nicely-balanced. It makes for a very stimulating flavor combination.