This time around I decided it was time to give Lindt a fair shake. I’ve got mixed feelings about their Lindor Truffles, but I’ve always enjoyed their solid bars and it had been a while since I had bought one. I’ve actually been looking for the 99% Excellence bar for a while and not buying any of their other bars because they weren’t the ones I was looking for. I’m not entirely sure I would actually like the 99% bar (it’s a scary concept), but I’ve really wanted to try it just so I can see what it’s like. Well, they didn’t have the 99%, but they did have a couple of other bars that caught my eye. It had never really registered with me that they made any single origin bars, but there on the shelf was an Excellence Ecuador bar and as I was moving it to the cart I noticed the other Lindt bar I bought: the Intense Pear bar. Dark chocolate with pieces of pear and almonds? Ooh, I love dried pears with a passion, almonds are lovely, and I have a passing fondness for chocolate as well. I wasn’t intending to buy two bars from them, but I just couldn’t help myself. It sounded too good to pass up.

Next up I grabbed a bar from Charles Chocolates, a California chocolatier whose products I had seen and come close to buying before. This was their lucky day because I was really in the mood for a little fruit with my chocolate. I saw their Hazelnut and Candied Orange Peel bar and that, like the pears, suited my mood. Plus, as I said, I had come close to trying them before, but had never taken one of their bars home.

Unlike Charles Chocolate, I have tried Chuao before. I had their Spicy Maya Hot Chocolate during the extended Hot Chocolate Week this past winter and I also tried one of their Chinita Nibs bars (which was strong but good) on the sly. I’ve been impressed with them so far and was planning on trying another of their bars and the Caracas Bar with its hazelnuts, pistachios and almonds really sounded quite good. I went for the dark chocolate variety, of course.

Next I grabbed a Ritter Sport Cornflakes bar. This is one of my all time favorite bars of chocolate. It’s not high-end tasting chocolate, but it’s a good satisfying and tasty eating chocolate that offers that little diversion from all of the crispy rice bars out there. And while I was grabbing my cornflake fix I figured I’d try another of their bars and grabbed the Dark Chocolate á la Mousse au Chocolat (which I think is the same as the Feinherb á la Mousse au Chocolat which Cybele tried this past June). Ritter hasn’t let me down yet (probably because I refuse to touch their Yogurt bar) so I’m looking forward to this (and have already cracked open the Cornflakes bar).

Last, we have the humble Valomilk. It always sounds good and usually sounds better than it turns out to be. I don’t know why, but I need one about once a year but if I go over that each one gets progressively more disappointing. I keep my intake down by only buying at Jungle Jim’s rather than my local source which is just as well because I’ve only gotten one non-smooshed Valomilk locally.

I kind of breezed through most of the international sections pretty quickly because I was in a hurry to get home to feed the rabbit (I don’t like to keep Her Ladyship waiting), and as a result didn’t pick up anything else. I kind of wanted to get one of the Kit Kat Editions Golden Caramel that I had tried before and compare it to the US Kit Kat Caramel to see if there is any difference between the two, but forgot to grab either of them. I had also planned on grabbing some Pocky, but I was headed for the registers before I remembered it and didn’t want to go back.

The ride back was entertaining thanks to the constant presence of the Highway Patrol (they weren’t fooling around on Friday) but in all the fun I didn’t think and just tossed everything in the back of the car where it got some nice sun on the way back. A couple of items felt a little soft when I got home, but don’t seem to be too bad off. But the best part of the trip is that it was just a warm up for a bigger trip in August when I head back down to Jungle Jim’s for the Weekend of Fire (and more chocolate).