Tahlia's Chocolate Tour

Since we were really busy on my birthday, and I wanted an "experience" more than a particular gift, we went to Pike Place market over Labor Day weekend to do our own chocolate tasting tour.

Here were the stops:
Winco Grocery Store - we got chocolate donuts for our drive up to Seattle

Cupcake Royale - the Peppermint Party cupcake.

The Chocolate Box - an amazing, yet tiny, $3 truffle made locally with chocolate from France. Wow! They also gave us samples of sipping chocolate...I will be buying this super-rich hot chocolate every time I go to the market in cooler weather. I love hot chocolate and this was exceptionally good.

KuKuRuZa - Hawaiian Salted Carmel popcorn.  So sweet at first with a salty bite at the end.  Admittedly, this was not chocolate...we started straying into "food we wanted to try" instead of just "chocolate".

Pike Place Chowder - Totally worth the line.  We got a sampler of 4 chowders (listed in order of preference): Original Clam Chowder, Seafood Bisque, Smoked Salmon Chowder, and Mexican Chicken Chowder.  They were all amazing!  Plus it fed our family of 4 because they give you all the sourdough bread you want.

The Confectional - White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake.  So rich and so good.
Dahlia Bakery - owned by a famous Seattle chef.  We tried the Truffle Cookie - voted best cookie in Seattle and it did not dissapoint - and the mini coconut cream pie.  Both were really good, but by this point we were having a really hard time finishing.  We had to save half the cookie for later...(later being the next morning for breakfast!).

After our food tour we went to see the Fremont Troll.  He lives under a bridge in the Ballard area.  Pretty crazy.  Here are the girls with the troll, and yes, he is holding a real VW Beetle.

It was a great time as a family and something we wouldn't normally do, which made it special.  The hard thing is now every time I go to the Pike Place Market I'm going to want to revisit these places!