DB Infusion Chocolates

In a word: State of infusion.

The specs: #0681 
Address, hours & details via Isthmus; reviews of David Bacco at Madison Dining Online, Yelp, Irony or Mayo; interviews at Isthmus, WKOW; reviews of DB Infusion Chocolates: 77 Square, Yelp, Storybridge; official web site.

Latest DB Infusion Chocolates news and reviews

JM, John R., John W., Mark, Nichole and Rose ate an eight-piece assortment.
The bill was $18, or $3/person.
John W. gave DB Infusion Chocolates an A-; JM, John R. and Nichole gave Infusion Chocolates a B+; Mark and Rose gave Infusion Chocolates a B (see our grading rubric).

Shopping for DB Infusion Chocolates at Hilldale Mall is still like buying jewelry. They still offer a discount if you bring back a box for a refill, and the chocolate concierge still wears white gloves.

Gone are the chakra-themed bars, replaced with a spectrum of secular choices with the same recipes. Gone is the truffle classification scheme based on the classical elements. New is a selection of drink mixes and a partnership with True Coffee.

Many of the truffles themselves appear to be the same, including the his-and-hers "aphrodesiacs" (we skipped those yet again because they're just too much for us; and then there's the issue of the logo).

We repeated one truffle from our last visit, the cashew caramel, and purposefully skipped the bleu cheese truffle and anything with white chocolate.

We cut up the truffles on a pink paper plate. The six of us got two or three tastes each. Clockwise from upper left:

• S'mores: a fragment of a Potter's hazelnut graham cracker and a little bit of marshmallow fluff under a speckled dark chocolate shell.
• Pomegranate malbec: semisolid, dark, rich center, also quite sweet.
• Thai peanut butter cup: grainy peanut butter center with a hearty ginger and spice kick at the tail end. Really cleared the sinuses.
• Exotic caramel: liquid center with overpowering passionfruit flavor. We're not ready to say it doesn't taste like armpit.
• Maker's Mark: Tasted not unlike Merkt's port wine cheese spread and had the same gritty texture. No relation to Member's Mark.
• Cinnamon cappuccino: semisolid, almost pudding-like center with an impressively strong, bitter coffee flavor. The same coffee filling is in the espresso truffle, without the cream layer to tame it.
• Szechuan peppercorn: solid square, quite fragrant, with the peppercorn more in the nose than the mouth.
• Cashew caramel: as good as last time. It was the lone fresh face among its heavily made-up companions, yet it too suffered from overembellishment (a little too much sea salt on top). Inside a solid caramel bound together chopped, toasted cashews.

These chocolates are still the prettiest we've ever seen in person, yet the more elaborate the appearance, the waxier and more melt-resistant the chocolate itself. This makes for good signifiers but not great sweets, in our opinion.

Comments

[Reem Tara]

The Exotic Caramel is my favorite! Now I'm going to have to examine my relationship with armpit taste.

[Betsy]

mmmmm- i have to admit my mouth is watering! how does this measure up to gail ambrosius?

[Nichole]

We got to compare the two makers' tea-infused chocolates back to back once, at Ma-Cha (penultimate paragraph). Their styles are really different.

Personally, I'd almost always rather eat Gail Ambrosius' truffles. There are maybe two exceptions - I guess I'd rather have a DB Szechuan peppercorn or Thai peanut butter cup than a GA ginger (too astringent) or Earl Grey (that tea always seems to taste like sock lint), but that's just me.

[Ken]

Re: Betsy ~~ In general it seems DB has amazing LOOKING chocolate, while Gail Ambrosius has excellent TASTING chocolate. Obviously there are some exceptions, but in general it seems to have help true for several years already.