The Chocolate Garden Review

This past Thanksgiving was spent in Detroit with my guy. On our way back from there, he informed me we had time to kill, and asked if we had passed any billboards that advertised something I was interested in visiting. I immediately thought of the billboards for The Chocolate Garden. Those billboards have been there for years. I remember pointing them out as a kid, wanting to visit, but never getting the opportunity. So here was my chance. We caught sight of one of the billboards, and followed the directions to what I had always imagined would be a chocolate paradise.

Visiting their Facebook page days later, I came across this comment made by a person who visited them a month before me:

"maybe a name change.....something snappy like "we only have truffles".....or how about "if you were looking for a chocolate shop you will be horribly let down"....how about that?"

The comment made me laugh, because that is exactly what I thought when I left that place.



I admit, my imagination can get carried away sometimes, but honestly, the reality of "The Chocolate Garden" was nothing short of disappointment. We drive a lovely scenic route, only about a mile out of the way, expecting something... and finding an average sized house.

 The actual shop is only one room, and all that's in it is a few trinkets - most relating to chocolate (you know, wooden boards with "chocoholic" sayings on them, etc.) ... and a few shelves full of chocolate truffles. That's it. I was trying my hardest not to get disappointed, but was having a hard time with that.

In the center of the room they offered taste testing for a price so my guy paid for a tasting. You chose three truffles from the list of 20 or so, then they gave you a quarter slice of each truffle on a plate in suggested tasting order. I chose:

White Chocolate Strawberry -- Creamy white chocolate packed with real, freeze-dried powdered strawberries for a fresh-picked, natural taste. Talk about strawberries and cream!


Vanilla Rose -- Pure vanilla and real distilled rose petals make this milk chocolate truffle unique. The flavor is delicate and floral and has been described as tasting like summer. It pairs beautifully with a Pinot Noir.


Citrus Ginger -- This unique and sophisticated truffle has a bright, almost effervescent quality that dances on the tongue.


Those descriptions are taken straight from the site. They're also listed in the suggested tasting order. I love white chocolate, so I figured I'd give those a try, and the Vanilla Rose milk chocolate just sounded pretty.

So I try the White Chocolate Strawberry first. It was so incredibly sweet I barely caught any of the strawberry flavor. I shared half of my slice of truffle with my guy, and he deemed that half too big. It was too sweet for him as well.

Next up was the Vanilla Rose. The description makes it sound so delicate, but in reality, I had trouble tasting the vanilla, or the rose. It just tasted like a plain milk chocolate truffle - and a sub par one at that. My guy took an even smaller bite of that one, and wasn't too impressed.

Last was the Citrus Ginger. At first bite I thought I liked it. I immediately changed my mind before I even swallowed. The citrus was so overpowering it nearly made my eyes water - I'd compare it to taking a box of Lemon Heads, chewing on them all in one go, and washing it down with unsweetened lemon juice. And for over an hour afterward, the powerful taste lingered.

I suppose I made some incorrect decisions on which truffles to try, because those three left me sorely unimpressed.

Still, my guy was trying to make the best of the situation and offered to buy me some truffles.

They sold all of their truffles prepackaged, which sounds ridiculous to me, and obviously to a lot of other people, because they had signs up. Their signs said something along the lines of "We're required to include ingredients lists for each truffle, so we have to prepackage them". Sounds like BS to me, how hard is it to keep individual cards of the ingredients facts that you could simply slip in to the bag with your truffle?

Their "2fers" are 2 truffles in a pack, and cost $5.79. He said I could get two "2fers". I immediately went for a plain White Chocolate & White Chocolate pack, because you can't go wrong with plain white chocolate if you love it, right? But I really didn't want anything else. So we picked up a pack of Dark & Darkest Dark Chocolate for my dad.


A few days later I pulled out my truffles.

I took a pic and wanted to tweet to the world that I was trying these, and I wanted to tag them in the tweet as well. But I couldn't find their twitter account. 

I took this picture of the back of their pamphlet they dropped in my bag. There you can see the icons for Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, AND Youtube. But if you go to their website, the only link is to Facebook. Why aren't these icons on their WEBSITE as well?! Especially since, you know, they're meant to be clicked on. I left a complaint on their Facebook about not being able to find a link to their twitter, to which they responded with a very simple account name... which I should have been able to find myself. @chocolategarden. Simple enough right? But I couldn't find that, because the twitter name is different from the twitter account. It uses the company owner's name, with a picture of the company owner. Incredibly unhelpful when you're looking for a company. Sigh. I did get told they would look in to adding the appropriate links to their official website once the Holidays are over. A good move, if you ask me.

Anyhoo, I gave up on tagging them in the tweet. Instead just Instagrammed it. Then I opened up the pack and took a bite.


Meh.


That's how I felt about it. Meh. White Chocolate tends to be the sweeter of the three chocolates, which is why I figured I disliked the White Chocolate Strawberry so much, (I love sweet, but I can't do too sweet.) but this plain White Chocolate hardly tasted sweet at all. I was fairly indifferent about it. My guy took a bite and, again, wasn't impressed. I eventually ate the second one only because I didn't want it to go to waste. It is a bit pricier than mass produced truffles.

I later asked my dad how he felt about his truffles, and he said they weren't all that great. He mentioned they were too soft, (our house is set at 68 degrees, so it couldn't have been too warm in the room) and that he should have put them in the refrigerator. I told him that the site doesn't actually recommend refrigeration, and that it highly recommends eating them at room temperature. *shrugs*


Overall, I feel like my imagination and The Chocolate Garden were at fault here. They really should include on their billboards that they only sell truffles. Instead of "Sensational" being the only other words on the billboards, how about "Sensational Truffles"?

But even then, I'm probably just not a very good chocolate connoisseur, because I didn't find any of the four truffles I tried to be "sensational". They weren't even all that "good" to me.

My opinion is my opinion, but obviously it veers from the majority, because this place has even been featured on the Food Network. (Back in 2000, tried to find a clip, but couldn't.)  And there's a ton of good testimonials, so it must be me. And my guy. And my dad. *more shrugs*

I'm glad I finally went to visit The Chocolate Garden. Now I know for sure I'll never want to visit again.