Berkely: The Xocolate Bar ... very nice organic salted caramel gelato

[rworange]

Welcome, welcome, welcome The Xocolate Bar. You are just what Solano Avenue needs ... very good chocolate and gelato.

They use Strauss milk for the gelato. There are about 8 flavors which change. I had the three scoop cup which was $4.

Tasted the peanut butter which was also excellent. The cantelope mint just wasn't intense enough for either flavor.

Finally selected salted caramel, chocolate and coffee.

Chocolate was deeply flavored and almost fudgy. The coffee had a nice flavor too.

But the salted caramel was my fav.

Just like Citizen Cake's ice cream seems like gelato ... The Xocolate Bar's gelato tastes like ice cream. It is dense and left a little coating of fat on the roof of my mouth.

The owners don't make the gelato. Someone by the name of Sean does.

The generous samples are served using mis-matched stainless steel spoons.

Tried two chocolates ($1.75 each)

- Aztec Amor (heart with wings) cinnamon, organic orange zest, and chili guajillo.

This was lovely. So often chili chocolates disappoint. Mild heat with the complexity of the cinnamon and orange. Very pretty with a pink heart on top.

- Cashew fig

This was fine. Not an intense flavor of either, but more of a slightly crunchy chocolate ganache. This was also pretty and fun in a way. It was pyramind-shaped, so you could eat one of the four levels at a time. Also the outside was sparkly.

I don't know when I've enjoyed a chocolate company as much since XOX opened. It has that same small, personal feel ... and the chocolate is very good ... and I didn't feel ripped off by the price as I do most places.

They don't just look nice, they taste good. Here's the link to the page with some of their products.
http://www.thexocolatebar.com/pages/flavors.html

From the website ...

"We combine several different fine chocolates to achieve our signature dark chocolate blend. Its high cacao content (around 70%) makes it intensely chocolatey, but not overly bitter. No waxy mouthfeel either - our couverture is silky smooth with a clean finish. Most of our chocolate comes from Venezuela"

I agree.

This isn't the first report, but I thought I'd start a new thread since the old one had a lot of speculation about when it would open. Here's the only report about the shop in that topic by nicedragonboy ... and thank you for reporting.
http://www.chowhound.com/topics/521150#3789020

Couldn't remember if the Kalamata Olive Dark Chocolate was the one nicedragon boy liked .. it was ... gotta go back.

Check out the shopping link on the site for some beautiful and interesting gift boxes.
http://www.thexocolatebar.com/pages/s...

There are quite a few vegan chocolates and they sound delicious. Will try one next time.

They have hot chocolate as well and a few Italian bars like Amedei and Domori.

As someone in that previous report said "Not just artisanal chocolate but chocolate with class and a conscience."

They are such nice people too. I can hardly wait to go back ... and I haven't felt that way about many local chocolate makers.

The shop is next door to Tangerine in the old Jon-Jon location (rip). The hours are still being worked out since they have only been open little more than a week. They are closed Wednesday. They open at noon every other day and are thinking to stay open till 8 pm ... but still not sure about that.

[nicedragonboy]

nice report. I've limited myself to stopping by once a week to try two new chocolate flavors each time. Also I really like their strawberry gelato that tastes like ice cream but lighter and cleaner.

[David Carlson]

My wife and I walked down on Friday evening after dinner at Ajanta, specifically to try the salted caramel gelato. The texture needs some work, a little clumpy, not nearly as smooth as gelato usually is. The flavor was awesome, though. We did chocolate & caramel together and it was a perfect end to dinner.
My wife also had their sipping chocolate - very rich, not sweet enough for me, but she loved it. I also had a key lime caramel in white chocolate - also very good. I was impressed by the reasonable prices on molded chocolates.

[rworange]

So far, that Kalamata Olive Dark Chocolate was the best. This is a really good combination with a salty caramel-like ganache and pronouced olive flavor.

This really should be their signature chocolate. The Aztec chocolate is my next favorite.

The vegan Blackcurrant Sapphire is also excellent. The ganache is tart and full of currant flavor.Until I wrote this, I didn't remember it was vegan.

The lavendar walnut is ok. Also fine, but I'll move on to try other flavors ... Brandy Alexander, Dulche de Leche.

The lemon gelato is very good.

[David Carlson]

Wow - I didn't see the Kalamata Olive Dark Chocolate - I may need to swing by after work...

[Ruth Lafler]

I was in the area and stopped in today. I had the salted caramel and almond gelato flavors. I wasn't really impressed. Mostly, the texture was way off -- more like ice cream than gelato, and there were ice crystals in at least one of the flavors. The almond was gritty and the salted caramel was a bit wimpy, I thought, compared to the salted caramel gelato I had in Las Vegas last week, which had a nice burnt sugar edge to it.

I did better with the molded chocolates: the raspberry had the necessary tangy acidity and the apricot marzipan, although it wasn't very apricoty, was delicious. The kalamata olive flavor I got was a caramel center -- I'm not sure if they also had a kalamata with a dark chocolate center. I didn't like the caramel -- sort of a pattern here, but then, I'm picky about caramel -- either the texture or the flavor, although the kalamata flavor component was good.

Finally, I got a dark chocolate covered cardamom marshmallow, and it was really, really delicious. I'd go back just for that.

[lmnopm]

I had the ice cream once. I think the problem is that it is made offsite and may suffer from freeze/partial thaw/re-freeze issues. That marshmallow sounds great.