Sunday, April 18, 2010

lB's visit = Cal + chocolate + crafting!

lB was in town this weekend, just in time for an East Bay favorite "holiday" - Cal Day!

We donned Cal colored clothes that we crafted - lB had sewn herself a cheerful yellow dress back in Chicago, and I wore a Berkeley bioengineering t-shirt I designed a while back:


After a swim through the sea of blue and gold, we made it to Prof. Pieter Abbeel's Robot Learning Lab, where one of his students demonstrated their autonomous helicopter. I took a quick video. Click on the photo below for the youtube link:


That afternoon we went shopping in Union Square mostly for chocolate. It's become my habit to buy El Rey chocolate at Bristol Farms in Westfield Shopping Centre, but they no longer carry that. =( I will probably need to switch to Chuao.

We essentially went chocolatier-hopping all afternoon. We tried some dark chocolate from Charles Chocolates, which opened a couple months ago in Westfield. I may return there to try their tea infused truffles. I bought some unique flavors elsewhere: Vosges's dark chocolate with bacon and sea salt, Bristol Farms' homemade chocolate-dipped bacon, Godiva's mango truffle, a jasmine tea infused chocolate at CocoaBella, and Oriol Balaguer's olive oil chocolate at CocoaBella.

From left to right: Vosges' bacon chocolate (excellent), Godiva's mango truffle (way too sweet, mango too jam-like), Bristol Farms' chocolate bacon (good, not great)


On left jasmine tea chocolate (ok, too sweet), on right Oriol Balaguer's olive oil chocolate (excellent! muy bien!)

Oriol Balaguer's olive oil piece was divine! I need to visit his store the next time I'm in Spain - missed it last time, because August is vacation month in Spain.


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