La Folie Macarons : new Marou Chocolate & cacao nibs macaron

May 20, 2012 / posted in Uncategorized / No Comments

‘La Folie Macarons’ is the creation of Christine Casin, a French lady with an obsession for making macarons that looks to the likes of Pierre Hermé for inspiration and dedication to making the perfect little pastry. As countless connoisseurs in Hanoi or Saigon will tell you, she gives a run for their money to the best Parisian pâtissiers. We know Christine well and felt flattered when she offered to create a new flavor, using our Single Origin Vietnam Couverture and broken roasted cocoa nibs that came straight from our chocolate factory.

The result is a macaron of perfect texture, its chocolate brown color just brushed with a bit of gold to distinguish it from the plain chocolate macarons that Christine makes using Valrhona chocolate. Once you bite into it, the taste of the pure cocoa nibs resonates with the strength of our couverture to add an usually powerful chocolate aroma to the sweetness of the confection. Under the crunchy shell of the perfectly civilized little cake you can get a feel for the jungle where the cocoa pod grew. A masterpiece, in my own humble and unbiased opinion!

Breaking the mold

May 14, 2012 / posted in Uncategorized / No Comments

 

“Why are all the pieces of your chocolate bar a different size?” We often hear this question and it has many answers depending on the mood we’re in and whether we are inclined to sympathize with the noble equalitarian aspirations of those who want all their chocolate pieces to be the same or with the liberalism of those who think that no matter how small or big a piece of chocolate is, it can still contribute to our well-being when it melts in the mouth.

A source of admiration for some, of frustration for others, the design of our custom chocolate bar mold has intrigued many who have tasted our chocolate. For those who are simply curious, here’s the story…

When we started making chocolate we naturally didn’t own a chocolate mold. So we used baking tins and our first chocolate ‘bars’ were rather thick slabs of untempered chocolate that we would cut on a chopping board with a kitchen knife, like this:

On occasion we would even go a bit crazy and create massive lumps of chocolate and a hammer would be required to try and break them…

By the time last year when we were about to show our first bars to the world we had decided to invest in… a new baking tin, with an elegant lozenge-pattern textured bottom that graced the first ‘bars’ we wrapped; these bars were really square sections of the big slab molded in the tin that we wrapped in fancy paper with a hand-written label. Each was weighed individually, and none was really the same shape or size as the others.

 

That was quite a start… We took these bars to Hong Kong Fine Food Expo (HOFEX) and introduced the world (or at least people we were lucky to meet there like Willie Harcourt-Cooze!) to Marou Chocolate.

In Hong Kong we also had a chance to buy a couple of real molds made by Chocolate World of Belgium, so we soon retired the baking tins and started trying our hand at molding chocolate.

We knew however that Marou chocolate could not just come out of a generic mold. We needed an original design. Seeking inspiration everywhere we could we were bombarding our designers from Rice with requests to create an original mold. But creating the specs of a 3D object in negative was rather daunting and initial ideas (such as a wedge-shaped bar) proved to be creative dead ends.

And this is when we got lucky…

One of our neighbors was also a designer, 3D mold design happened to be just up his alley, and he loved our chocolate… Sasha Vassay of EIGHT Design who had been doing molds for high tech molded parts in athletic shoes and mountaineering backpacks could not only design a chocolate mold, he could conceptualize what it would be like to eat chocolate that came from such a mold; crucially he could also introduce us to local companies that could turn the design into a steel master and churn out the high quality food grade poli-carbonate molds that we would eventually use for molding our chocolate bars.

At that time, slanted lines were very much the flavor of the day for us and our design team.

And so Sasha took the initiative to take this design cue one step further to propose the design of slanted, slightly asymmetrical lines with our monogram in the center spot that became our signature mold. When we saw this, it was love at first sight: we had a bar of perfectly classical proportion but with a totally unique design!

Sasha Vassay of Eight Design pictured left

With the design created, things moved quickly and we soon had a prototype that we were happy with and the molds went into production quickly.

Happy with the mold prototype we were good to go into production

Almost a year on from those heady days of inventing everything for the first time, not everyone may be convinced by our mold but we definitely love it and think of it as a future classic.

 

Marou Bars – The Classic lineup – on tour!

May 2, 2012 / posted in Uncategorized / No Comments

Our classic line up is the 4 bars of single origin Vietnam chocolate we are currently producing, it is made up of :

Dong Nai 72%

 Ba Ria 76%  Ben Tre 78%  Tien Giang Bio 70%
A finely balanced dark chocolaté with hints of spice from farms in the upper Dong Nai Province  A bold and fruity chiocolate made from Trinitario cacao sourced directly from family-owned farms in Ba Ria Province  An intense yet balanced chocolaté from Ben tre Province in the Mekong Delta, where cacao trees are planted among the coconut groves.  A full bodied chocolate with spicy, fruity notes, made from cocoa organically grown by farmers of the Cho Gao Co-op in the Mekong Delta 

Here is a small collection of photos where we have all 4 chocolates making an appearance. In various locations…

At the MAROU Chocolate factory proudly standing on top of cocoa bags:

In the romantic Old Quarter of Hanoi

 

Dressed down for dinner by Chef Don Berger:

Ready for a drink, at dusk by the beach in Nha Trang:


From our Milan Correspondent

April 20, 2012 / posted in Uncategorized / No Comments
We need not have worried about not being able to bring our chocolate to Milan for our Brand Ambassador, his excellency John Reeves did a splendid job: this is straight from the electronic telegram John sent us, complete and unedited:
Dear All,
What a wonderful event. I managed to tell the story of Marou a record number of times to eager listeners- they were astonished by the flavours and the packaging really made it stand out. Funnily enough the chocolate was in a presentation box next to an “entertainment kit” made by Architectural Titanium and designed by Jacques- Elis – it included a cheese cutter, chocolate / toffee hammer, cutting board, and crumb brush all in a black leather wallet- all made in black titanium as a celebration of the material piece- good that it was next to the chocolate because of the choc hammer- very good compliment to each other- although on 2 separate occassions a group of German design enthusiasts who had fun not reading the write up- made their own mind that it was an S&M kit- calling the hammer some sort of sex hammer….astonishing- twice I tell you!
I do have pictures, the party stretched over 3 (or maybe even 4) floors with a downstairs courtyard that included an amazing ice cream stand sponsored by the Milan Gelato university- who knew! and a fantastic little movie by Brioni (which incidently is a bespoke and tailored suit company) where a fitted suit was fitted for a hand that walked around on his finger tips (definitely a man!) he even had a little bow tie- I suppose it was a hand and finger suit because of the hand made… The champagne was flowing and the nice thing was because it was a pretty strict guest list there was no anxiety at meeting people as everyone had been invited and therefore were relevant to each other- sometimes it can be tricky to know where to begin – this time it was so good it was hard to know where to stop!
I met with the Danish Lindberg glasses founder Henrik Lindberg, I mentioned that I will be going to Denmark and indeed Aarhus this summer for a wedding, bizzarely enough after some subtle cross examination from him on who it might be (as he and his wife live in Aarhus) he realised that she (Maria) sits three meters away from him (Henrik) at work as she is the new graphic designer for Lindberg- he may well also be at the same wedding- she’s marrying an Irish designer called Bernard who was senior designer for Crumpler in Ho Chi Minh and a house mate of mine for a year- small world!!!
The chocolate was being given out next to the coffees upstairs which worked well, I was kindly given a bar back (as I did not keep any!) so that I could give people a taste as they looked at the display- this really got their imagination going. People were fascinated by the single origin concept and in the context of Wallpaper handmade were excited to be seeing a great little company at it’s starting stages.
All very proud to be part of the journey in my small way- I will send pictures as soon as I have them downloaded.
Take care and all good luck in Singapore Sam and Vincent!
Best,
John
x


MAROU’s journey to Milan

April 15, 2012 / posted in Uncategorized / 1 Comment

Among the most amazing breaks we got since the beginning of Marou was the email we received early this year from one of the editors of Wallpaper* Magazine the famous London based design magazine. The message was short and to the point: “It’s Wallpaper* calling, and we want your chocolate… We think Marou could go into our August ‘Handmade’ issue.”

At first we couldn’t quite figure out how a few bars taken home to London for Christmas by one of our friends could turn into such an opportunity, but we looked up all the great products selected by Wallpaper for their annual Handmade edition, learnt that all selected products were exhibited at the Palazzo Brioni during Milan’s Design Week and couldn’t quite believe our luck. It was clearly not a hoax, so we rang our favorite designers and soon we were all being whipped into a creative frenzy. In fact we went far beyond the Wallpaper’s brief to simply rebrand one of our existing bars and created a whole new Limited Edition chocolate with 80% cacao, selected from the best of our organic cocoa farmers in Tien Giang province.

To enhance the subtle flavors of light citrus fruit, banana, cinnamon, honey, with a hint of tobacco, we also decided to make a thinner bar, using the same original molds that we use for our classic line up, but filling the molds only up to 80g, so that the chocolate melts more easily in the mouth.

Based on our initial brief to transform our existing bar by incorporating Wallpaper’s recognizable asterisk logo:

Josh and ChiAn, our designers went into overdrive, coming up with an amazing new packaging that went into a cool retro-futuristic direction, highlighting the incredible skills of the small printing house that prints and embosses all our wrappers using traditional methods.

As we couldn’t make up our mind as to which color looks best, the Wallpaper Handmade limited edition bar will come in two different colors: a pale blue-green that is reminiscent of the color one sees everywhere on Saigon’s fading old streets and a light purple that evokes the color of ripe cocoa pods. Both packs will contain the same chocolate but we thought we’d give people a chance to choose which color they like best, although we do recommend buying both just to be on the safe side…

And now after all this effort, there’s only one little hurdle left: to safely bring a pack of 80 bars of our delicious chocolate from Ho Chi Minh City to Milan for the show’s opening night in 2 days… Being unable to fly to Milan ourselves (although we did receive the beautiful invitations and thought there was something rather enticing about taking our chocolate to a party held at the headquarters of James Bond’s official tailor’s and sponsored by Veuve Cliquot…), and puzzled by the Italian custom’s request to use a registered importer’s address to send the chocolate by airmail, we were very happy to give the consignment to our friend, fellow Saigon resident and well-known furniture designer John Reeves with the mission to please make it safely to the Palazzo Brioni with his precious cargo!

 


Les Faiseurs de Chocolat au Consulat

April 3, 2012 / posted in Uncategorized / No Comments

La Résidence du Consul Général de France à Ho Chi Minh Ville

Pour une fois, nous allons faire un article en français (for those who can’t read French please scroll down below to the English translation).

Nous avons eu le plaisir ce matin de rendre visite à Madame Sophie Mauriès, l’épouse du Consul Général de France à Ho Chi Minh Ville. Cette invitation faisait suite à la découverte par Mme Mauriès de nos tablettes chez Fanny, le glacier français bien connu de la rue Ton That Thiep.

Comme le Consul et sa famille sont de grands amateurs de chocolat nous nous sommes fait un plaisir (sans compter un devoir patriotique) d’amener quelques échantillons de nos tablettes à la Résidence du Consul, cette extraordinaire demeure du XIXe siècle nichée dans le coeur historique de Saigon.

Sur le guéridon du salon de la Résidence, devant Madame Mauriès, quelques tablettes de chocolat Marou...

Là nous avons pu raconter par le menu nos aventures vietnamiennes, nos récents débuts de chocolatiers, et reçu des encouragements sincères pour nos efforts, sans compter une bonne commande de chocolat pour la cuisine de la Résidence.

Donc un grand merci à Madame Mauriès pour la gentillesse de son accueil et le soutien apporté à notre entreprise qui marie le savoir faire chocolatier français et la production agricole vietnamienne.

 

Now in English:

We had the pleasure this morning to pay a visit to Mrs Sophie Mauries, the wife of the French Consul General in HCMC. Mrs Mauries invited us after chancing upon our chocolate bars at Fanny the well know French ice cream shop on Ton That Thiep street.

As the Consul and his family are big chocolate fans, it was our pleasure (as well as our patriotic duty) to bring some more chocolate samples to the Consul’s Residence, an extraordinary 19th century mansion in the heart of old Saigon.

There we had a chance to tell of our Vietnamese adventures, how we recently started out our chocolate business and received sincere praise for our efforts as well as a size-able chocolate order for the Residence’s kitchen.

So we’d like to thank Mrs Mauries for a kind welcome and for supporting our business which uniquely brings together French chocolate-making know-how and Vietnamese agricultural production.


Pierre Marcolini in Marou-land

March 11, 2012 / posted in Uncategorized / No Comments

Pierre Marcolini, Mr. Duc, Vincent, MAROU Ba Ria 76% (on the table)

Imagine you’re a busker, playing on a street corner somewhere off the beaten tracks and then Bruce Springsteen (or Nei Young… insert your favorite rock star name here) steps right up to you and says ‘hey kid, I like what you do with that guitar, how about we play something together’… This is how we felt when we heard that the great Pierre Marcolini, the most famous Belgian chocolate maker in the world, whom we’d met briefly at his stand at the Salon du Chocolat in Paris, wanted to meet us on his short visit to Vietnam.

Pierre Marcolini is a traditionally trained pastry and chocolate chef who has won several titles such as World Pastry Champion in 1995 and has opened a string of very successful shops in his name in Brussels, Paris, London, Tokyo… Not just that, but the man has charisma and his apparition at the Salon du Chocolat was greeted like that of a rock star, complete with Japanese girls shrieking his name! Now we also found out that beyond the great chocolate artist and the successful businessman there’s also a great guy who is driven by his passion for chocolate.

Pierre Marcolini wanted to know more about cacao in Vietnam. For a few years now, all of Marcolini’s chocolates have been made using his own couverture, most people don’t realize it but such an approach is really exceptional as most chocolatiers use couverture chocolate they buy from specialists such as Valrhona or Barry Callebaut. But Marcolini’s quest for perfect and different chocolate flavors has led him to search for perfect beans from far afield. And Vietnam is one of the chocolate world’s new frontiers.

Followed by a Belgian television crew, we took Pierre Marcolini to visit the farm of Mr Duc in Ba Ria province, about 80km from Saigon. This was the very farm that we found by luck, and the encounter that led us to making our own chocolate in Vietnam. Needless to say, this place is really special for us. Mr Duc is a gentle 64 year old farmer and although slightly built he is a strong man with a strong personality. This strength is also something we find in his cacao beans, that we use to make our Ba Ria 76% chocolate bar (the red one).

Mr Duc led us through his farm, showing the cacao trees that are drip-irrigated to prevent any waste of water and the large shed where cacao pods are opened and put in the fermentation boxes before being left to dry in the farm’s courtyard. We even got to see and taste Mr Duc’s amazing black pepper straight from the vine. Later, Mr Duc offered drinks of sweet and refreshing fresh cacao juice and several fruits from his garden. Finally at Pierre Marcolini’s request, we all tucked in a bar of our 76% Ba Ria chocolate before heading back.

That bar is made using Mr Duc’s beans. Pierre Marcolini found the chocolate to have a very fresh and distinctive taste with notes of citrus fruit, cardamon and cinnamon. We took that as a real compliment!


New MAROU Chocolate outlets in Saigon

February 23, 2012 / posted in Uncategorized / No Comments

In the past few weeks we’ve had the pleasure to open new points of sale throughout Saigon:

The brand new Shalom Café at Riverside Apartments in District 2 sells our range of Vietnam Single Origin chocolates along with the organic and fair trade coffees selected directly by owner Jonas Van Binsbergen in the highlands of Laos and Vietnam:

Shalom Café by night

And we are also extremely proud to enter a Vietnamese institution: Fanny Ice Creams is now selling our chocolates at their 3 Saigon locations, the classic colonial town house at 29-31 Ton That Thiep in District 1, the Vincom Center Fanny ice cream parlor also in District 1 and Fanny in Thao Dien (District 2) at 63 Xuan Thuy, which is a favorite of our family when we need to fight back the heat with some delicious sorbets!

MAROU Chocolate on sale at Fanny's!

Fanny Xuan Thuy

 


Marou’s Big Derby Day

February 19, 2012 / posted in Uncategorized / No Comments

Somewhere in a northern suburb of Detroit, MI, a furiously fast car covered with Marou logo and colors ripped into the finals, and took 3rd place.

The owner is a 7 year old boy named Adrien, and he’s my nephew.  Unbeknowst to us, Adrien chose to advertise Marou, and we’re thrilled, honoured and proud.  Thanks, Adrien!!


The Pinewood Derby is a classic event for all Cub Scouts in the US.  They are given 4 wheels, a block of pinewood, and a few weeks to craft their derby racer.

MAROU: made with LOVE

February 12, 2012 / posted in Uncategorized / No Comments

MAROU is an anagram of AMOUR, so we decided to show the love with a little Valentine’s gift: a pack of 2 dark chocolate bars to share with your special person of choice, enjoy!

The Valentine’s day pack is on sale at all our retailers’.

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