Merci Chocolate

"merci offers a thoughtful collection of rich, European chocolates made from the finest ingredients available. Known as Europe’s famous gift-giving chocolate, merci offers something for everyone and is sure to be warmly received."

You can probably guess how I discovered merci.

Indeed, "Europe's famous gift-giving chocolate" was given as a gift to a co-worker, who immediately ditched the box, providing me plenty of content for a chocolate review!  I wouldn't exactly consider these premium chocolates, as it turns out you can buy this box in Walmart or Target in the US too, but, hey, content for you that is *quite* accessible!  (Our box was actually from Germany ... I think?)

merci Finest Selection Box.

"Each slim, stylish box of merci Finest Assortment of European Chocolates contains eight unique, individually wrapped flavors, including Milk Chocolate, Coffee and Cream, Hazelnut-Almond, Hazelnut-Creme, Marzipan, Dark Cream, Dark Mousse, and Praline-Creme."

Our box was the "Finest Selection", a mix of different milk, dark, and white pieces, all bar shaped.  Merci also makes a mousse and a milk & creamy assortment, each with only 4 flavors.

Guide.

The box came with a handy guide on the back, which was nice, since our box really did seem to be from Germany, and the pieces were labelled in several languages.

Individual Wrapping.

Each piece was individually wrapped, thin long-ish bars, kinda like the shape of a single Kit Kat piece.

They were labelled in multiple languages - I could at least find French, German, and English on them.

Praline-Creme: Inside.

"Luscious milk chocolate with a smooth chocolate praline center."

I started with a milk chocolate selection, never my favorite type of chocolate, but, I was drawn in by the "Praline-Creme".

As I kinda feared, the chocolate was very mediocre boring milk chocolate, smooth enough, but, nothing special.

The filling though?  Really strange.  I didn't really think of it as praline, nor as "creme", it was more just like a gritty paste.  Meh.

**.

Hazelnut Almond.

"Delicate pieces of hazelnuts and almonds in smooth milk chocolate."

The next was not much better.

The texture of the nuts was nice, but the milk chocolate very mediocre, and the nuts seemed bitter.

**+.

Hazelnut Creme.

"Milk chocolate filled with a smooth, creamy hazelnut cream."

The hazelnut creme?  Alsono better.

Same mediocre milk chocolate, same strange cream filling.  **.

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Dark Mousse.

"Fluffy chocolate mousse wrapped in rich dark chocolate."

So I went for the next best sounding one: Dark Mousse!  I prefer dark chocolate, and, um, yes to mousse?

Like the Praline-Creme, it was a filled bar.  The dark chocolate was ... barely dark chocolate.  It was very sweet, creamy, and smooth, not really what I think of as dark chocolate at all.  For those of you who think Hershey "Special Dark" is dark chocolate, then this is for you.

The dark chocolate was also just a very thin layer, the inside filling was the majority of the bar, a milk chocolate "mousse", again, just more sweet filling.  Not interesting in any way.

**.

The Collective Dairy

The Collective is a dairy brand found in the UK, but originally started in New Zealand.  They produce mostly yogurt (including drinkable kefir, and a non-dairy line).

"Fresh, natural, vegetarian friendly with no added nasties or other tricky stuff. No artificial colours, preservatives so you won't be finding any weird numbers amongst our ingredients, honest!"

While they have plenty of healthy, simple offerings, I was drawn in by the flavors of the premium line, which includes dessert worthy varieties like one with layers of fudge (yes, really), along with your standard fruity offerings.   You may recall a similar draw in for Müller Dairy, another UK based dairy producer that I reviewed last week for their banoffee pie "corner".  Yup, the to have its share of dessert-as-yogurt offerings.

Banoffi.

"Thick and creamy live yogurt with a double layer of delicious banana and toffee sauce".

Unlike the Müller offering of banoffee that included crispy bits, I knew this would be just yogurt, but still, banoffee!  I love banoffee.

Really though, this was .... just banana yogurt with some sweet caramel on top.  Still yogurt.  No texture.  It didn't really channel banoffee for me in any way as it entirely lacked the biscuit component.  

Meh. **.

Gus's Community Market

Once upon a time (in 1981 to be exact), a family of immigrants opened a produce market, Haight-Ashbury Produce, that did quite well.  Well enough that the family opened a second location, Noriega Produce.  And then, after further expansion to the Haight location to add a deli and meat department (and rebranding as Haight Street Market), a third location, Gus's Market, sprung up in the Mission. And then another, in Mission Bay.  

Guy's Community Market: Mission Bay

Eventually, all adopted the Gus's branding.  And yes, Gus was the real human involved in the expansion and success.

 "Gus’s Market has been a local neighborhood staple for almost 40 years. In all that time, we’ve worked out how to serve best: you like to find the highest quality version of what you’re looking for, at great prices. Our family still heads out on the floor to make sure you’ve got everything you need, because we don’t just call ourselves mom n’ pop – we strive to make you part of our family."

In addition to being a well curated neighborhood grocery store featuring many local vendors, Gus's Market has a deli/cafe with made-to-order sandwiches, salads, desserts, etc.  They also offer catering, which is how I was able to try a few items.

For breakfast catering, which is what I had, Gus's offers just the basics: bagels and spreads, pastries, a salmon platter, fruit, and overnight oats.  The event I attended had the bagels (from House of Bagels), along with overnight oats bowls and fresh fruit.  Everything was individually packaged to be extra COVID friendly.

I was quite pleased with the quality, and plan to seek out Gus's sometime on my own.

Peanut Butter, Blueberry, Banana Overnight Oats.

"Oat Milk, Rolled Oats, Peanut Butter, Banana Chips, Maple Syrup and Black Chia Seeds."

The first overnight oat bowl I grabbed had what looked like a blueberry topping, so I went for it.  I had no idea what else was it in, besides the obviously banana chips on top.

The banana chips were a great element in that they stayed perfectly crisp, and added nice crunch factor to the bowl.  (Note: I did save half my bowl for the next morning, and by then, the banana chips were soft, as I would have expected.  They weren't bad, just a slightly different eating experience.

The berry element was two forms - a blueberry compote on top, and then, whole berries throughout.  I really like blueberries so I was pleased by the berries, although I think strawberry would be a better match given the other ingredients in the bowl (banana, peanut butter).

PB, Blueberry, Banana Oats: Side.

Below the toppings was the real surprise.  It looked like just some chia and some kind of dairy (or non-dairy), and some mushy oats?  I wasn't particularly excited for it.

But one bite, not even, one tiny tiny taste, and I realized that these were not just chia-oats!  The flavor was intensely peanut butter.  Mmm, peanut butter.  The base was very creamy, and I liked the soft mushy overnight oats, and wasn't bothered by the chia (I'm not a huge chia fan).

I love peanut butter, and this was basically a fun play on a pb & j meets pb & banana, two wonderful sandwich combos, but, as a overnight oat bowl.  I wished the "j" was strawberry though, even though I like blueberries more in general.  That said, the peanut butter was quite rich, and this wasn't a bowl that made you feel healthy, rather, it really weighed me down.  A half a bowl really was plenty, although I found it addicting in small doses.

****.

Strawberry Almond Overnight Oats: Top.

Next, I grabbed one that looked to have strawberry and sliced almonds on top.  Again, I didn't know quite what lay beneath.

The strawberry compote was even more generous on top of this one compared to the blueberry on the other.  It was fruity, sweet, and seemed made from real fruit.  This bowl did not have fresh berries in it in addition.

The almonds on top were thin sliced, and much like the banana chips in the previous bowl added a great crunch.

Strawberry Almond Overnight Oats: Side View.

Once I dug under the fruity layer, I found another base of creamy mushy oats with chia, again a really pleasant texture.  And this time, no surprise peanut butter.

But instead ... surprise almond butter!  The almond butter complimented the almonds on top and the berries quite well.  Again though, the nut butter did make this a very heavy bowl.  These are clearly not diet food bowls, but rather, will keep you powered up and sustained for hours, if you eat one all at once.  The almond butter flavor was good, but, I prefer peanut butter.

This one also seemed to have a final layer at the base, a ground almond crumble.

I enjoyed this combo too, and honestly, I can imagine squirting some whipped cream on top and calling it dessert, it really is sweet, creamy, and decadent.

I preferred the blueberry/pb/banana bowl because I like peanut butter more than almond, but again, what I really wanted was the pb/banana elements of the first bowl, with the strawberry compote from this one.

Gus's also makes an "Apple Pie a la Mode" version, which I'd love to try as well.

***+.

Fancy Fruit Salad.

"At Gus’s Fresh Produce is everything to us. We hand select the finest fruit from the season and cut it, mix it and portion it into 5 ounce portions."

We had a large variety of fruit bowls to pick from, some with more melons, others with tons of berries, others entirely without berries, and some even had nectarines!  Really, every one was quite different.  I appreciated the variety, and it didn't seem random.

The fruit was all far above average.  All perfectly ripe, juicy, and quite flavorful.  For March, this was quite a feat.

****+.