When it comes to chocolates, just like many other forms of indulgence – wine, whisky, cars, women, and so forth – the premium stuff are almost always better. One of the more exclusive brands available anywhere has got to be Godiva, the chocolatier named after the legend of Lady Godiva, a naked lady on horseback (check their logo!)
Godiva cafe at Pavilion KL, this hot chick is Winnie
The company was founded in Belgium in 1926 by Joseph Draps, over the past 80 some years it has grown to become one of the larger premium chocolate brand in the world with annual sales over $500 million. We are fortunate enough to have our very own Godiva Cafe at Pavilion where you can purchase a lot of their products as well as have coffee, cakes, and other good stuff.
Perfect getaway for a lovely tea time.
ciki pours some coffee while Yazeed explains on
A couple weeks ago a bunch of us were invited to Godiva Cafe for a private function that aptly named The Chocolate Story where we were taught a bit of history about chocolates (you can learn them from wikipedia too, but wikipedia doesn’t give you chocolates to eat), and get our hands messy in a Master Chocolatier workshop.
to melt the chocolate, you only need a single candle
According to the brand manager Yazeed, Godiva sources only the best ingredients to make their chocolates. For example, the best cocoa is from Ivory Coast, and hence that is the only place Godiva get their cocoa.
After the chocolate history lesson, we were shown the ways of chocolatiers. First, we melt a bar of Godiva, and all you ever need is a single candle. Try doing that with your pasar malam stuff, I think you’d need a penunu bunsen. (this is due to the much higher sugar content, among other things, in mass produced chocolates)
and make our own chocolate derived goodies
With the melted chocolates, we then made our own chocolate products – chocolate lollipops, chocolate biscuits, chocolate cornflakes, and all these with bits of other stuff to make them real pretty too.
We were then served some food while the chocolates were being chilled.
and you can buy some godiva hampers as Hari Raya gifts too
In conjunction with bulan Ramadan and upcoming Hari Raya, you can now get your hands on “GODIVA Chocolatier Hamper Collection” – there are three types altogether and cutely named Jubilee, Impression and Jewel De Nile
oh yes, ahh, i see, it’s like that haaa
It was overall a fun, informative, and definitely very satisfying session at Godiva, I got to learn quite a bit about chocolates that I previously hadn’t a clue about, and of course, get my chocolate cravings fixed too. You can read Kim, Ciki, taufulou, and KampungBoyCityGal’s accounts.
and a grou picture for all the lucky buggers
Writing this is making me crave for some proper chocolates again, gahhhhh!
Address:
Godiva Chocolatier Cafe
Level 2, Pavilion
Jln Bukit Bintang
Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.148872, 101.713368
Tel: 03-2142 5252
Over the Thaipusum weekend, I went to Cameron Highlands for the first time in my life. I had the preconception that Cameron was perhaps slightly smaller than Genting, with a small settlement of farmers and tea plantation workers. I was wrong.
Cameron Valley tea plantation
I now see why Cameron Highlands is spelled in a plural, there are quite a few towns scattered around near the top of the mountain range: Tanah Rata, Brinchang, Kampung Raja, Blue Valley, Ringlet, Tringkap; with a combined population of some 35,000 people.
strawberry farm
The people at Cameron actually live in Cameron, and many of them are born there, and actually refer to the Malaysia outside Cameron as “low lands”. They operate just like any small town except for the fact that temperature is a cool 8-10c lower than average. Day time peaks at about 28c and at night, it hovers at about 18-20c, I like it very much.
steamboat at BrinjangBrinchang, Cameron Hignlands
Our trip started out brightly, with 3 cars and 10 of us in a 4, 3, 3 formation. About 330 meters up (it’s about 1200 meters at Tanah Rata), our trip came to a slight interruption, and you can read about that at Horng’s blog. We ended up with 2 small hatchbacks, 10 adults, and way too much luggage for 1-night stay.
this is half of the group
Alas, the little incident did not derail out trip. We stayed at a bungalow with a fireplace and had baked potatoe, we had steamboat, tea and scones, visited strawberry farm and bee farm, shoots our own cheesy videos, and had loads of fun in between. It was absolutely awesome.
Mellissa and I
As with all trips, to me, destination come after the company, and I had the best with me.
There will be more write ups on this trip. The steamboat, the self baked sweet potato in the fire place, and maybe even a few silly videos. Stay tuned!
Most everyone who works in an office building has a food drawer filled with snacks for the time when stomach makes the untimely growls. Alongside with the awesome Keebler’s Chips Deluxe Cookies, this biscuit with the silly Hello Panda name is one of my favorites.
well herro panda!
This stuff is made of hollow shortbread with stuffings inside, and my favorite is the chocolate stuffing. One of the two types you can find at Isetan supermarket, the other being strawberry. There are altogether 4 types of stuffings but the vanilla and peanut butter (YUM!) can’t be found anywhere. If only I had discovered this before I went to Tokyo. The sweet and soft chocolate gives a very good taste and textural contrast the blunt but crispy shortbread, sort of like the Oreo experience, but a lot tastier and alot less messy.
ahhh yummmmm
The biscuits come in an over sized tube ala Pringles style. Convenient to store and doesn’t get soft and and limp from the moisture. Best still, you can keep the tube and use it for the great Keebler’s cookies!
A tube is about RM 15+ and contains 450 gram of wholesome bite size cookies. Not exactly cheap, but this thing is awesome it’s really worth it, not to mention packs a meal’s worth of calorie in a snack session. Best. Meiji is a Japanese confectionery brand, but this particular product is manufactured in Singapore.
