In the episode where Kantaro goes to Minimal, a high-end chocolate shop, he gets a chocolate bar and a chocolate fondant tart. I was really hoping to get that tart, but apparently they only serve one type of dessert per month (it’s a very small shop) and this month it was a chocolate parfait.
Okay, chocolate bar it is. There’s only one issue, though it’s a big one. The price for a 50 gram bar of chocolate: 1404 yen. That’s almost 17 bucks Canadian.
I really didn’t want to pay that much money for a tiny bar of chocolate, but I’m doing this, aren’t I? So I did it. They have a few different varieties, but “Fruity” is the closest to what Kantaro ate, so that’s what I got.
Just in terms of the flavour, it’s some of the most interesting chocolate that I’ve ever had. The Fruity moniker is certainly accurate; it has a surprisingly berry-like flavour that’s somewhat acidic, with a complexity that’s pretty astounding. It’s just a little bit bitter, with a nice hit of sweetness that rounds things out. It’s phenomenal.
I feel like I need to be blunt when it comes to the texture, however. It sucks. It’s unpleasantly grainy and sandy in a way that robs the chocolate of a lot of its appeal. This, bafflingly enough, is intentional. They say right on the packaging that the texture is “rough.”
It’s really bizarre. I’ve had chocolate where they include cacao nibs for additional crunch and texture. That works because there’s a separation between the chocolate and the nibs, so you get a nice contrast between the creaminess of the chocolate and the crunch of the cacao. You don’t get that here — just a uniformly sandy texture that feels like something went wrong. It’s unpleasant.
Still, the flavour is so exceptional that, if it weren’t so ridiculously expensive, I’d say it’s worth putting up with the texture. But at that price point, they’re competing with literally the best chocolate that’s being produced in the entire world. For that kind of money, you can easily buy a top-shelf bar of chocolate with just as much complexity, but with a luxuriously creamy texture and no off-putting sandiness.
Location: 2 Chome-1-9 Tomigaya, Shibuya-ku, Tōkyō-to 151-0063
How to find it: It’s right around the corner from Yoyogi Park. The sign is entirely in English, so it’s easy to find.
Featured in: Kantaro: The Sweet Tooth Salaryman, Season 1, Episode 11