This weekend Dan and I are in NYC visiting close friends. In between a hectic schedule of eating, drinking, and hanging out, I managed to stop by the Chocolate Bar to pick up dessert for dinner last night. After a delicious meal of aged balsamic-drizzled steak frites (featuring no less than three varieties of 'frites' - classic pommes frites, crinkle fries, and tater tots), garlic spinach with butter-caramelized onions and sauteed mushrooms, the 6 of us tasted 8 varieties of truffles and bon bons. The Chocolate Bar stocks a few lines of chocolate confections, one of which is made by Andrew Schotts of Garrison Confections. Those are the ones we tried. Garrison's confections feature a square-cut soft ganache, sometimes layered with pate de fruit or infused cream, enrobed in a thin layer of chocolate. Their line is all about creative harmonies of classic flavors, spice, and several exotic fruits (pomegranate, mango, guava, etc.). This line would be a good fit for a chocolate lover craving a subtle twist on the classics. Here are a few highlights of what we tried:

Blood Orange: This was an all-around favorite of the set. Two layers - blood orange pate de fruit over a milk chocolate ganache enrobed in dark chocolate.

Salted Caramel: Salt and chocolate is an incredible combination, and this is one of of Garrison Confections' best sellers. This confection featured a mildly salty, soft caramel center enrobed in dark chocolate. (It also had a thicker chocolate coating than the rest of the chocolates we tried, which intensified the blend of sweet and salty, and made sure that the chocolate wasn't overpowered by the sweetness of the caramel.)

Pomegranate: This one was Bill's favorite. A layer of pomegranate pate de fruit made a lovely match with a dark chocolate ganache enrobed in dark chocolate. The pate de fruit layer in this chocolate was thinner (1 part pate, 2 parts ganache) than that of the blood orange. The pom flavor was somewhat difficult for us to distinguish - I got a cherry-ish flavor, Kristi got more of a raspberry.

Spicy Mango: Our friend Karl picked this one out as an 'appetizer' to eat in the car on the way back from the boutique. It started off with the mango flavor and ended with a spicy kick that lasted well beyond the point that the chocolate was gone. In spicy chocolates, I often find that the spice comes in later on in the game, kicking things up a bit in the last few moments and lingering on into the aftertaste.

The other flavors we tried were:
PB Sizzle: Peanut butter + a bit of cayenne pepper
Caipirinha: Fresh lime juice + casacha infused in a milk chocolate ganache, enrobed in milk chocolate.
Single Origin: Classic truffle made with single origin chocolate, though oddly, no one at the boutique knew what origin the chocolate was actually from, we just knew that it all comes from one place...
Cafe Cubano: Coffee infused milk chocolate ganache enrobed in dark chocolate.

And as a last aside, somewhere in the middle of our chocolate tasting, we took a little break for some gelato from Il Laboratorio Del Gelato . Two flavors - peanut butter and mint chip. Pretty sweet. When we were picking up a few pints at Il Laboratario's gelato boutique earlier in the day, I also tried their honey lavender flavor, which was fascinating. Our friend Bill took us there. Il Laboratorio Del Gelato is Bill's favorite gelateria in New York City.