Date: 7th July
Venue: ITC Maurya, Delhi

Age is in the mind we repeated, as we went to attend the World Chocolate Day celebrations at  Fabelle, chocolate boutique at ITC Maurya Hotel.  They had put together a chocolate Master class followed by a grand chocolate buffet lunch at the restaurant The Pavilion and high tea. It sounded promising but we wondered whether it was really suitable for us.

When we entered the chocolate store, ITC’s chocolatier Sreyoshi was introducing the various raw chocolates that they use for their creations. There were sweetened and unsweetened varieties and also white chocolate slices.

Sreyoshi then took us to the kitchen counter and showed the guests some basic chocolate recipes. The stuff that she made looked very simple and needed few basic ingredients – milk, sugar, Indian spices and chocolate blocks of course. Chef Vikram was up next with some simple chocolate based beverage recipes. We loved the one where he mixed molten chocolate, coconut milk and mango pulp! That’s it and we had a unique drink like a “Choco-colada”.

In the process we had not realized that it was two hours already of choco-time. And it was lunch time now. We have tasted the Pavilion buffet earlier and have always loved it. It was as interesting this time too and the grand dessert spread was by Fabelle. We loved the fruit ganache and chocolate bread. But the date caramel pudding was something to die for; worth every calorie.

We were back to the Fabelle counter post lunch. During this session, the good chefs at Fabelle showed us some easy styles to plate a dessert. We were very excited and created our own Delhi-Fun-Dos  dessert platter. In the process we tasted some of their melt in the mouth chocolates. Most of these had fillings and the saffron chocolate blew our minds. We also had fun making tiny chocolate cups.

On our way out we got a box of Fabelle chocolates – talk about revisiting childhood. Chocolate is ageless we realized. But what we cherish most is the chocolate reference book by Fabelle. It has a lot of trivia in terms of chocolate history as well as how to pair chocolates with other food / beverages. Needless to say, World Chocolate Day at Fabelle, ITC Maurya was one of the sweetest days we have had in a while.