Travel Stories About Bargains, Adventures, and Opportunities
June 13, 2011 Leave a comment
Online Coupons Provide Sweet Travel Deals
The Internet has suddenly become drenched with a great variety of discounted event and dining coupons in practically every city in America. Groupon offer a 50% discount on a $30 boat, kayak, barracuda, bike, or surrey rental at Wheel Fun Rentals in Seaside, Oregon. CBS (yes the network) has an unbelievable 75% discount on an $80 ticket to the Vampire Tour in San Francisco. And Bloomspot has a whopping 50% discount on a 60-minute facial and 60-minute massage ($238 value) in New York.
I started this journey with Groupon. I purchased a home delivered Thanksgiving dinner for my son. Soon after, I signed up with and then CBS Local Offers (San Francisco area). The catch? You don’t get the discount unless a certain number of coupons are sold in a certain period of time. But you don’t get charged unless the deal goes through.
Daily bargains will flood your inbox if you sign up or you can go on their websites and shop for offers in most US cities and even Canada and Puerto Rico. You can reduce your dining expenses on your trip by 50% by using these deals and if you are skeptical about the quality, read reviews on Yelp.com for reassurance.
I decided to put CBS Local Offers to the test. It was time for my yearly sojourn to Napa valley for wine tasting and they had a 50% discount on an event in Yountville, CA that I couldn’t resist… The 1st Annual “Napa Luxury Chocolate Salon”.
My eyes were transfixed on the word “chocolate”. And the word “Salon” threw me. At first I imagined being massaged with chocolate mousse. Fantasies aside, I read on and learned this event was a one-day event of chocolatiers presenting their prized chocolates. As for “Salon”, Horace defined a poetry salon as a gathering with the aim to “either to please or educate” (“aut delectare aut prodesse est”) like-minded people.
I arrived with hundreds of other aficionados, fanatics, lovers and addicts at the local community center the finest artisan, gourmet, and premium chocolates could be tasted in one of the world’s great culinary regions.
If you haven’t noticed, the world of chocolate is exploding. The Reese Peanut Butter Cup is taking a backseat to “designer chocolates”. Chocolatiers are traveling the continents to find the perfect cocoa bean. They return to their kitchens to experiment by putting every imaginable ingredient in their dark chocolate recipe.
Chocolate Tasting has become a new art. And chocolate lovers are now learning how to pair chocolate with wine, champagne, and beer. The unusual ones at the Salon I hadn’t tried came from Chava, Landru, J Truffles, and JADE. I was surprised to Dove participating with chocolate daiquiris. They have also join the craze by creating the “Tupperware Party” of chocolate. Yes, you too can have a chocolate party in your home with Dove chocolate that is not on the shelves.
My friend offered me a strawberry filled with chocolate mousse to get me started on my parade around the room lined with vendors. Every table held a new experience, but these were my favorites.
Chava
Chava is the “vital” chocolate. “Studies have shown that consuming a small bar of dark chocolate everyday can reduce blood pressure…” Dark chocolate has also been shown to reduce LDL (bad) cholesterol by up to 10 percent. And theobromine found in chocolate, may help harden tooth enamel, which helps to prevent cavities.”
The higher the amount of cacoa (70%), the darker the chocolate and the greater the antioxidant value. Chava claims their chocolate has the highest nutritional profile of any other fruit, vegetable or chocolate on the market. Only 40 calories a bite!
Tasting Notes: Chava Vital Chocolate, from a region referred to as the “cradle of chocolate” in South America, is nothing short of decadence. The bold intense flavor, rich velvety overtones and a smooth finish harbors a secret – it has a powerhouse profile of antioxidants (ORACFN 37,208) in every 8‐gram square. All natural, Chava is 70% organic cacao infused with a hyper‐potent chocolate extract and Waiora’s Natural Cellular Defense in an antioxidant explosion that seduces the palate, dances with the soul while helping the body safely remove toxins. Health food never tasted so good!
J Truffles
These truffles find their roots in the ageless architecture from the early days of chocolate history when Mayans used cacao as currency. Composed of European chocolate, fresh Northwest cream and hand ground ingredients blended to make exquisite all natural ganache.
JTruffles chocolate ganache truffles have unique shapes reminiscent of the glamorous Art Deco movement of the 1920s. Each of these specially crafted chocolate jewels boasts a delicate chocolate shell that breaks away to a divine ganache filling that’s nothing less than spectacular. Made with the finest European Chocolate, fresh cream, and 100% natural ingredients.
Tasting Notes: The chocolatier gave me my first lesson in the Fine Art of Tasting Chocolate. Start by putting the whole piece in your mouth, and let it melt (no biting or chewing!). Let it dissolve to get the subtle notes of flavor appearing at the beginning, middle and finish for the full sensory enjoyment.
My Favorite Varieties:
Salt Water Caramel - firm, chewy caramel with dash of salt — just what a caramel should be, firm but yielding with a nice cooked sugar taste. A real winner.
Savory Hazelnut – gently ground hazelnut pieces, lightly salted — rich and nutty with lots of texture from the chopped hazelnuts.
Crème Brûlée – rich vanilla custard with caramelized sugar crunch — quite sweet and rich with a creamy center.
Limoncello – white chocolate ganache and lemon zest — nice hint of lemon, but I wanted a bit more, also the texture of the center was not as smooth as I would have liked.
Landru
Landru Chocolates diverse product line includes sweet, salty and spicy tasting combinations… Salt-N-Pepper Toffees and Caramels, Cognac-Rum Caramel, Citrus Chipotle , Cafe Latte, and Sea Salted Caramel Apples. The earlier products have included Cointreau, English Tea, Wine Pate de Fruit (4 flavors), and PB & J.
President, Oscar Baile, is not unlike the majority of the chocolatiers who have converted from other careers into the sweetshop business. Oscar was educated in Civil Engineering and while working on some of the world’s largest hydro plants in Venezuela, he began training with Chocolatier Carlos Colmenares. He now manages and markets the business.
Tasting Notes: Sea Salted Caramel Apples topped my list. San Francisco Cronicle writer Kanedijkman wrote “The cognac-rum caramel was great but the real standout is the salt and pepper caramel. Imagine a salt caramel with a little spice from the pepper. One of my favorites of the whole show!”
Jade
Jade Chocolates creates a sophisticated and luxurious tasting experience by blendingteas and spices from Asia and the Pacific Islands into their line of chocolates. Mindy Fong, Chocolatier, began to wonder if there was anything better than her childhood favorite, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. I loved the different harmonies that chocolate can play in your mouth. One Jade chocolate will crescendo with a burst of flavor in the middle of the tasting experience, while another may have a more relaxed, subtle flavor profile. Mindy’s newly found love for chocolate was so profound that she had to have it her life and Jade Chocolates was born.
Her Dragon’s Breath, made of 65% bittersweet chocolate, roasted sesame seeds, lapang souchong tea, and ground red chili. It was a 2011 National finalist in the Good Food Awards.
Tasting Notes: This bar has a sophisticated flavor profile with a distinctively different start, middle and finish. Your first bite into the chocolate releases the crunch of the toasted sesame & is immediately followed by the smokiness of the tea. The finish ends with a gentle punch of the red chili in the back of your throat. It pairs well with a spicy glass of red wine.
Thanks to CBS Local Offers, I have had an unforgettable experience that tops all of my yearly sojourns to the land of California wines. I’ve learned that the benefits of chocolate far exceed the warnings of this performance-enhancing drug. I have not experienced the accelerated heart rate, mood swings, or possible pimples. Guilt? Never.
Sign up for the discount event coupons sites. I’m convinced that you will not only find a bargain, you’ll most likely discover something you would never find in travel brochures.
As Gina Welch of Truly Kitchen says, “Chocolate has surpassed love as the language that knows no borders.”
Lexi On the Go
Reporting for Wheels Up Adventures
