Chocolate paradise for expats and choc lovers

I would just like to thank Noir Chocolates and Lemon Tea for inviting me to this chocolatey tasting.

When we arrived, there was a table set up with tea and bread, it was really thoughtful of them as we had not had dinner yet.

 

Located near California Kitchen at Mega box, this Chocolatier offers a wide ranges of chocolates ranging from chocolate covered nuts and berries, Swiss and Belgian chocolates.

 

 

At Noir Chocolates they explained that chocolate is either made from cocoa butter or vegetable oil and after tempering there is a nice shine to them.

When I tried the local chocolates in Hong Kong, they always tasted weird because the texture was similar to solid lard and does not melt in your mouth.

But after the talk about how chocolates were made , I realised those weird ones were made of vegetable oil.

At Noir Chocolate, there is a wide choice for dark chocolates because the owner loves dark chocolate, hence the name of the shop!

As an expat, I was drooling over their chocolates because they had so many chocolates that you can get at the local pick and mix stalls.

For the chocolate covered freeze-dried berries, I was so glad they had gooseberries and cherries.

Gooseberries

 

My favourite was the dark chocolate covered strawberry.
The picture below shows white chocolate covered berries.

 

They even offer ghana and cocoa chocolate.

I also tried the chocolate covered ginger which tasted like candied ginger and this was delicious as well.
(This is currently unavailable but they are going to stock these soon!)
For the alcoholic truffles they had Bucks Fizz too!!

bucks fizz

 

Although I did not try the bucks fizz, I tried the rum truffle and the alcohol in it was as intense as drinking real alcohol.
The inside of the rum truffle was silky and the alcohol is not liquid like other alcoholic chocolates.

 

Another interesting flavour they had was chocolate and chili but the chili was not as spicy as I anticipated.

 

★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Brazil nuts:
I loved the huge brazil nuts which had a buttery taste.

Brazil nuts

 

★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Pecans:
These chocolate covered pecans were really moreish because the pecan nut is light and crumbly.

pecan

 

★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
hazelnut:
The hazelnuts were also moreish and the dusted cocoa gives it more depth.

 

★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
When we left, we were given a box of chocolates too which was really sweet of them.

Delicious Italian buffet at Forte

Thanks to the communications team and Lemon Tea for inviting me to try the gourmet buffet at L’hotel elan.
The hotel is located in Kwun Tong conveniently near Ngau Tau Kok MTR station.

L'hotel elan is part of the China Chem group who have other restaurants which I wanted to try such as V-Cuisine that serves innovative dim sums.

When I got the email from the communications teams, their hotel footer was fun and stylish which really makes a difference from the standard emails.

At the hotel, there were lots of stylish elements, the check in counter is not on the ground floor but on the top floor!
It is located on the top floor because the views of Hong Kong are breathtaking, especially at night and there is a beautifully lit pool with deckchairs as well.

 

 

The buffet selection was really good, I would have been happy just having the buffet without ordering extra mains because there were so many of my favourites.
Normally when I go to buffets there will only be 2-3 choices that I like, but at Forte I liked most of the choices.
They even had caper berries and pistachio nuts.

 

The pistachio nuts were deshelled.

My favorite part of the buffet was the antipasto because I love proper Italian and Western dishes and they had portobello mushrooms as well!

 

 

 

 

Other items I really liked were the buffalo cheese, pistachio nuts, octopus in sun-dried tomato dressing, prawns in pesto.
The buffet costs $228 per person, which includes a soup, drink and a dessert platter.
For $70-$240 extra you can order mains as well.
Although the grapefruit juice was not included in the buffet, it was freshly squeezed and extremely refreshing.
The grapefruit juice costs $65 a la carte.

 

For the mains, there were three that I wanted to try:
-Polenta with Garden Vegetables & Rich Tomato Concasse
-Ossobuco with Saffron Risotto

 

-Roasted Whole French Yellow Spring Chicken

In the end I chose the Polenta because you can only order that in Fine Italian restaurants.

 

The polenta tasted similar to mashed potato and it tasted lovely and cheesy too and similar to thick porridge.
The char-grilled vegetables were delicious.
However I felt that there could be more polenta and less grilled vegetables.
To finish off, I had the earl grey tea with the dessert platter.

 

 

There were berries to garnish the dessert platter such as blackberries and redcurrants which are rare in Hong Kong!
For some other tables, I saw them serve just berries.
Overall, the buffet was fit for me and I believe it should be fit for expats too!
It was really good that most of the ingredients were imported and they did not use local items and pretend it was Italian/Western.