Olive and Sinclair Salt and Pepper Chocolate Bar

I have a genuinely disturbing compulsion to put condiments in places that they don't belong. It's a pretty unhealthy relationship. If condiments and I were on the post-season finale of Teen Mom, Dr. Drew would be asking me and my adorable food-based child why we were still with the babydaddy. Sour cream goes on eggs, potatoes, and pancakes. Mayonnaise has become an edible primer for literally any flavor before going on sandwiches, and I need at least three dipping sauces for whatever appetizer we're eating before I stop hyperventilating over a lack of dipping sauces.

Seeing this chocolate bar and needing it confirmed that I do have a problem and that, further more, I am completely unwilling to do anything about it. Salt and pepper in a chocolate. Both are fantastic on their own in chocolate, but together evoke fantastic images of two of my favorite things, artisan chocolate and cheap fast food, consummating an unrequited love and creating this thing.The resulting chocolate bar was about as successful as all of the participants of Teen Mom. Clearly, these two foods should have never made love. The dark chocolate was average at best, despite having a beautiful engraving of the company logo on it and being studded with the spices, and had very few notes to it. To be frank, it tasted like Hershey's take on dark chocolate. The spices were obnoxious. The salt was palpably melting on the tongue and the pepper was barely present until, like a persistent sexually transmitted infection, it started burning in the back of my throat. It was annoying, but detracted from the mediocre chocolate, and we didn't end up finishing the bar. Overall, it seemed as though the additions in the chocolate never really melded with the bar, but rather, sat on top of it and interfered with enjoying it.I was surprised at the positive publicity this got from other chocolate connoisseurs, but to each his own. I'm still going to search for the perfect mustard/sriracha/ketchup/soy sauce/barbecue sauce related chocolate bar. Hopefully it will be more integrated than this.

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