I remain a bit prejudiced against Ghirardelli because for a long time the only item of theirs I’d had was Flicks. Have you had those? Large chocolate kisses (about half again as big in diamater as a Hersey’s Kiss, but flattened more like a lozenge but with a little curl on top) sold in a foil covered cardboard tube at the movie theater. They were … not very good. A bit waxy, slow to melt, and not nearly as creamy chocolatey as Hershey’s anything. In fact not chocolatey at all. I suppose theaters liked them because when kids inevitably dropped them on floors and seats, they didn’t make a melty mess. So there’s that.
I’ve had other Ghirardelli chocolates over the years and was never very impressed. But this dark chocolate bar with raspberry bits is pretty good!
First thing to clear up, though, is that “raspberry bits” does not mean “bits of raspberries.” So the first time I tried one of these bars I was a bit put off. The raspberry bits in this bar consist of, according to the ingredients on the package, “sugar, raspberry powder, fructose, natural flavor.” They’re crunchy teeny tiny bits of raspberry flavored candy. Fortunately, their raspberry flavor is pretty close to the real thing and it complements the chocolate quite nicely.
The package doesn’t specify what percent the bar is of unsweetened chocolate, but Ghirardelli’s straight “intense dark” bar is 72% so that’s probably what this is. From the taste, that’s probably about right. It is indeed intensely dark tasting, but sweeter and smoother than you might expect from that number. Again, no surprise: the top three ingredients are, in order, cane sugar, unsweetened chocolate, and cocoa butter. So, sweet and smooth and intensely dark. It melts nicely, exposing the crunchy raspberry bits, so you can dispatch them between your molars.
This is a decent (almost-) premium chocolate, and if you like the chocolate and raspberry flavor combination (and come on, who doesn’t?) I recommend it. You can find the 100 gram (3.5 oz) bars wherever good chocolates are sold, and buy them by the case of 12 at Ghirardelli’s website.
