I've been intrigued and craving strange chocolates recently. I read an entry on the Portland Food and Drink weblog about a small chocolate store here in Portland called Sahagun.

It seems they feature a dark chocolate bark (gotta have dark chocolate and red wine, you know, or I couldn't count myself a foodie) with toasted pumpkin seeds and ground chillies.

Get it? "All american?" as in, cocoa and pumpkin and chillies native to the American continents?

So I drove down there, got lost in the maze of one way streets, went down a one way street the WRONG way (to the amusement of a construction worker watching), gave Maika some dried strawberries so she would last a few minutes longer in the back street, and finally arrived at the store.

It was a little pricey, but I bought some of the bark. Yep, delicious. Not what an milky way bar or Hershey's confection might make your tastebuds feel, but an entirely different chocolate experience.

Japanese people always complain that American sweets are too sweet. That the sugar content is too high. However, I wonder how they would go for this "all american" chocolate? I tricked naoto in tasting mole sauce at a local mexican restaurant the other day. He didn't really like it. I guess for some people chocolate just has to be purely sweet.

I also came across Dagoba Chocolates Xocolatl dark chocolate bar which also has spices. MMMMMMMMMM-good!

The only problem is they seem to run out of it all the time. Anyway, I have a oregon hazelnut and dark cherry bark awaiting me now that the girls are napping....