OC Chocolate Festival...

A festival. Of chocolate. How can you go wrong? I had seen this advertised last year and thought how cool it would be to go, but as usual just never got around to buying tickets or even researching it much more than a glance. Well, this year, my best friend emailed me the link on Facebook and said "We have to go!". I'm in. There were multiple options of ticket packages, so we opted for the $35 for 8 tastes and 4 spirit/beverage tastes. I mean if there's wine I HAVE to taste it. After watching the zillions of mouthwatering posts from the OC Chocolate's FB page we were excited to attend this past Saturday. It was held at the Hyatt Regency in Garden Grove. We were stoked when we drove past it and saw street parking just a few blocks down from the hotel. I had planned on driving around looking for free parking and there it was. We parked, excitedly got out of my truck and started speed walking toward the hotel. We were told the doors opened at 11am and we were walking up about quarter after. When we walked in there was a mob of people and lots of confused faces. Oh lord. I can tell you right now the organization in the front was disastrous. We asked the random guy asking people if they wanted to attend where we went if we already had tickets. He pointed to a table where frantic volunteers were trying to figure things out. There was no line, so we sort of guessed are way up to the table. A woman scanned our tickets then handed us wristbands. She said she'd cut them but didn’t put them on. Um. Ok. So Lib and I attached our own wristbands and joined the sort of mob that looked like a line. The doors weren’t open yet, so it was a bit chaotic. Along the left side was what looked like an auction table. I walked up and realized it was opportunity drawings. I told Lib I'll buy tix why we wait. The women said it supports the OC Boys and Girls Club so why not! The woman told me I had to buy the tickets where I checked in. Oh lord. I told the girl I wanted the 12 tickets for $20 and the 1 ticket for $5 (this was for a bigger prize). "That will be $46" she said. I picked up the little sign and pointed to what I wanted. "$31" she said. "Is there a lot of tax or something?" I asked. "I know I have an issue with math, but isn’t 20 plus 5 25?" Well apparently the machine said it was 12 tickets for $26. Ok forget it. I bought 5 tickets for $10. Well this started a war, because all the signage was wrong and the basket lady started yelling at the machine lady and a man joined in the yelling. The doors open and everyone vanished into the room of chocolate and there I stood with my tickets wanting to cry. I quickly filled them out, threw them in some baskets and ran inside. Good lord. Lib and I walked in and did a scan. It was much smaller than we anticipated. But we were still excited. There was this massive cake as you walked in and the banners introducing the place so I snapped these:

The first table we hit was this woman. Her business was called Le Dolce Vida and 100% of their proceeds went to an animal shelter! Oh my God I'm in!!! She was very sweet and explained what she had. "I have sweet and savory and wine!" she exclaimed. And you only had to use a taste ticket not a wine ticket. The wine was just a bonus. I started falling in love with her right then. The savory taste was a garlic/onion spread. OMG so good. The sweet was a hazelnut spread. Tasty! And the wine was divine!

Next we spotted cupcakes and Lib went in for a mint one. That's when we realized we could share our tastes and get even more! (This idea was regretted later). The mint cupcakes were soooooooooooooo good. The baker was called Bubba Sweets. They also had little cupcakes with bacon on the top! WTF?

We now decided we should survey the area and then come back around deciding what we wanted to taste. It didn’t take us long to circle the venue, but all the vendors had really great displays! Here is what it sort of looked like:

Lib had been dying to try this chocolate wine that was advertised. I knew I wouldn’t like it since I'm not a sweet alcohol type person - especially sweet wine, but Lib was game. The ticket got you 3 tastes!

I tasted one of the 3 that Lib said wasn’t too sweet. I didn’t like it too much, but it was a trip because it tasted like a normal red wine but then left this trippy chocolaty aftertaste in your mouth! Lib didn’t care for the other one too much, but did like the one that looked like a milkshake!

Next stop was Marco Paolo Chocolates. I was told it was hand painted chocolate. They were absolutely gorgeous, but I think they looked better than they tasted.

We then spotted the chocolate covered strawberries and ran that way but were told they were actually for sale for $5!!!! Down from $11!!!! For a strawberry! Um, we passed but look how good they looked!

We then chatted with this fellow. He had a trippy set up. We didn’t taste his chocolate because it was made with some really weird vitamany stuff but he had this chocolate truffle thing floating here. He had the personality of a weird mad scientist.

Then we smelled BBQ. Chocolate BBQ. What?! They were cooking pulled pork and had this chocolate BBQ sauce. It was soooooooooooooooooo good!!!!!!! It didn’t tasted like chocolate which I thought would be weird, but had kind of a smoky flavor to it.

Then we hit up Lovely Sweets. Lib bought Hailey a couple of cake pops and tried a chocolate peanut butter crunch covered pretzel. Very tasty!

Now we wanted some wine. So we wandered over to BBG Wines-King Frosch. Now, this vendor was a mess. They didn’t have a line, or really any sort of organization. They were packed and there was a man and a woman frantically pouring wine. We wandered up with a group and the woman ran over asking if we all wanted to try wine. Of course we did. So she gave us all glasses and started pouring. I opted out of the whites but Lib tasted those and I tasted the reds. Lib fell in love with a Chardonnay and I fell in love with one of their blends. The woman said we get to keep our glasses (awesome) and never took a taste ticket. Lib and I did each buy a bottle of the wine we liked, and I have to admit, part of my buying the bottle was I felt bad for the woman. One of the chocolate festival volunteers started helping and bitching at people who were trying to get more tastes and Lib and I realized we sort of scored. Whoohooo! But we did buy some of their wine so I don’t feel totally guilty.

We then found a woman who hand painted glass stuff from wine glasses to pitchers to carafes. So beautiful. I think Lib may order from her later. She was called Barbara's Delight. And I have to say - the woman was absolutely delightful!

Then I hit up Xan Confections and had a chocolate covered Carmel candy called Fleur something. Sooooo very good!!! I didn’t take a picture of it, but did take a photo of the adorable gingerbread candy next to it!

Libby and I were now starting to feel the angst of too much chocolate. Our tummies were starting to churn and I a slight buzz and a huge sugar high. We sat down for a spell and I spotted this:

I mean what’s a Chocolate Festival without a chocolate fountain right? I grabbed a pumpkin bread and doused it. She didn’t take a ticket. I tried to force it upon her but she laughed and said no need. We tried to get our wits about us and moved on. We came across this table where you could log onto your Facebook and write a review and get a free goodie. Um of course we'll take free stuff! Lib and I both opted for the giant coffee mug that says chocolate on it.

There was a long line for the gelato taste but we weren’t in a hurry so we got ourselves some. IT was called Mangiamo's Gelato and it was pretty awesome.

Then I saw this!

You have got to be kidding me! A wine slushy! That can’t be good! But oh was it!!!! They are called D'Marie Gourmet and I plan on ordering some of their stuff next summer!!! Talk about a perfect summer beverage! This was about the time we realized we had still so many taste tickets for food and drink still left and we were dying. Between the sharing and some people not even taking tickets we were hurtin. I was bound to at least use up my taste tickets so we hit another one called Pretzel Sensations. Toffee pretzel crunch things. Amazing. Then I grabbed a chocolate covered Carmel from Amelia Carmel’s. The man started trying to sell me something but my now turning green face turned away. I then grabbed a vegan cupcake. Ok, these won’t be too bad - healthy right? Um nasty.

We were handed a vegan macaroon from another vendor that was equally nasty. I don’t know how you do it vegans, but those were not good at all. We now were done. Both of us felt sick and need to eat a salad or something. So I decided to use my last taste ticket on the first woman who was by far my favorite of the day. So I went back and she gave me an extra wine and I promptly bought a jar of the garlic/onion spread and a bottle of the wine. I gave my last two drink tickets to a man who worked there and told him to give it to someone worthy. Libby gave her remaining tickets to a darling little old couple. We were thrilled when they made an announcement that 10% of all purchases were going to Hurricane Sandy relief. SO all in in all it was an ok festival. There were food demonstrations, but I honestly don’t think anyone was paying attention because you couldn’t really hear anything going on on the stage. They were at least an hour and a half behind schedule so the list of times/events was now void. It seemed a bit of a clusterfuck as a whole. But it was still fun, and Libby and I had a great time. I hope the vendors get some great new business because it really was great for them. We rolled out of the hotel and took one final shot. Chocolate Overdose!!!!