2nd Hot Chocolate Festival + Bella Gelateria
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a Chocolate Festival in the Lower Mainland? Well, there is one called the Festival of Chocolate. However, the events last year were just too far from Vancouver for me to bother going. So, in 2012 I’m gonna be an active member of the next best thing: The 2nd Annual Hot Chocolate Festival.
Put on by City Food Magazine, this is the perfect solution to those winter blues (yes, there are active snow haters out there). Last year, this event didn’t get quite enough traction for me to really get out there, though I did see the awesome Rachel Sawatsky of CocoaNymph Chocolates & Confections cooking up some hot chocolate on Shaw Urban Rush. So when I saw the Tweet and the webpage announcing that there were twice as many participants with a chocolate grand prize ($300 in gift certs or a 2013 festival pass) to be awarded on Valentine’s Day to the winner of their Tweetup contest, I said to myself, to hell with Dine Out Vancouver. (Don’t get me wrong, I wish I could do Dine Out, but the choices are way too many and I’m just too busy to get organized and schedule out all of my dinners.)
The Hot Chocolate Festival started last Sunday and runs for four weeks until Valentine’s, so there’s no excuse to try out at least one vendor. So with my boyfriend in hand I went to one place I’ve always wanted to visit in the summer: Bella Gelateria.
Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate with Biscotti
Bella Gelateria, located under the Fairmont Pacific Rim, is a place most frequented in the summer for its old world hand crafted gelato. I can’t tell you whether the gelato is good or not because I haven’t tried it. However, out of Bella’s three hot chocolate choices (Italian Honey Nouget, Hazelnut, and Salted Caramel) I opted for the Salted Caramel. You can also have your choice of chocolate, which is great.
The dark chocolate was great – I don’t know exactly what the chocolate percentage was, but who cares? It was a bit sweeter than I expected, probably because of the caramel – which is good because I’m a sweet tooth. I got more of the salty part, which made for a great combination of flavour. Bella Gelateria’s choices usually come with Erin Ireland’s It’s To Die For Banana Bread (which really pushed me to visit this location!) but they ran out so I got a biscotti instead. I could have done without it since it had some berries that didn’t really go with the hot chocolate, but the biscotti itself was good.
You can enter the Hot Chocolate Festival’s Tweetup contest by taking a photo and including the following in each tweet: #HotChocolateFest, @CityFood_Mag, the location, flavour of hot chocolate, and an interesting comment. The photos will be posted on City Food’s Facebook Page where fans can vote on their favourites.
I wished that the festival had its own website, as the City Food Mag one is a bit hard to navigate. However they have all of the dates listed on the left hand side so you can click on a day and see which locations are open and what flavours they’re offering (which can still change daily, as I experienced when I went to Bella). I am going to try to visit as many places as possible before the festival ends and blog on each one – but my top choice visits include Chocolaterie de la Nouvelle France, CocoaNymph, Mink Chocolates, Thierry Chocolaterie Patisserie Cafe, Thomas Haas, and Beta5 Chocolates + The Juice Truck‘s street collaboration. Beta5 Chocolates are one of Erin’s “To Die For” items so that excites me.
2nd annual Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival
Website: cityfood.com/events/hotchocolate
City Food Magazine Facebook Page
Twitter @CityFood_Mag
Bella Gelateria
1001 W Cordova St. & Burrard, Vancouver BC V6C 2G8
604-569-1010
info@bellagelateria.com
bellagelateria.com
Bella Gelateria Facebook Page
Twitter @BellaGelateria
Hours of operation (open nice and early and late!):
Mon-Thurs 8am-10pm
Fri 8am-11pm
Sat 11am-11pm
Sun 11am-10pm
