A Chocolate Tour of the Gold Coast

I know what you're thinking. "More with the chocolate?" Yup. If there's a fun event in the area that has chocolate in its name. . . I am so totally there.

A few weeks ago, my friend Lynn came up to celebrate her birthday with me, and we were trying to come up with something fun to do. She brought up a walking Chocolate Tour of Chicago that one of her doctors had been on with his wife. Apparently, they'd really liked it. So we decided to try it, too.

What is a chocolate tour, you ask? Well, we went to five different chocolate-themed independent or artisanal candy shops and bakeries, and had samples at each of them. On the way, we learned about the history of chocolate and about the ingredients that go into fancy chocolate. My favorite sample was actually from this first place, teuscher chocolates. It was a truffle with dark chocolate, then milk chocolate, with champagne on the inside. Simply divine.

Next, we went to More bakery, where we sampled a mini cupcake and bought a few more. My favorite was the more cupcake, which is kind of their take on a hostess cupcake. I loved the cream in the middle.

Outside the bakery there was a building with a ladybug cow crawling up the side. No, really. I'm not making this up.

Next, we went to Hendrix Belgian Bread Crafters, and tried the most delicious bread with Belgian chocolate in the center.

As you can imagine, I was in a carb-lover's heaven at this point. I especially loved all of the excellent quality dark chocolates I was getting to sample. Our next stop is probably the shop I'd be most likely to visit again on my own--Sarah's Pastries and Candies.

This place had really delicious dark chocolate covered caramel lollipops. I love the combination of a good, smooth dark chocolate and caramel.

The reason I'd visit this place again was that their chocolate was reasonably priced and still very delicious. They even showed us where the dark chocolate pours from. I wouldn't mind having one of these in my house. I'd have chocolate covered strawberries every evening, I think. Or blueberries.

Our final stop was to Tazo, where we had chocolate chai. By this time we were both really beat, and my feet were starting to swell a bit. It was a really fun tour, though, and I love going downtown, even though it can be really expensive.

I bet we got enough exercise to work off all of the chocolate samples. They have these chocolate tours all over the city, and I'd love to go on another one. I think my friend thought it was a pretty good birthday present, too.