Chocdoc Flying High in Amsterdam

[FauxPas]

2 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

We cabbed out to Chocolate Makers this afternoon - we were unexpected, the owners were on holiday this week so we dropped in on the rest of the staff who, once they figured out why we were there, were very accommodating (and quite relieved when they figured out we knew something about chocolate and they didn't have to explain from scratch). 

 

 

roaster

 

Whose autographs are on there? Did you leave one behind also?   

 

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

6 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

 

 

 

Stopped in to Joselito - a spanish tapas spot. This guy was on the chair next to me - not terribly friendly and I have to holes in my hand to prove it!

 

 

 

A local hardware store has a cat that is not terribly friendly.  However there are signs posted to that effect.

 

[Kerry Beal]

Got picture of sprinkles this morning - forgot hot food again 

 

 

 

 

[Kerry Beal]

8 hours ago, FauxPas said:

 

Whose autographs are on there? Did you leave one behind also?   

 

 

Not sure - was tempted but it was early in the tour so didn't feel right!

[Kerry Beal]

restaurant Bazar at the market
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kerry Beal]

 

 

 

[BeeZee]

Ben & Jerry's ice cream in Amsterdam, that's surprising to see. Food looks outstanding.

[curls]

@Kerry Beal the Chocolate Makers facility looks quite impressive. Thank you for sharing your tour with us.

[MelissaH]

19 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

 

Oh, you found Sie Joe! I really enjoyed eating there on my last trip to A'dam.

 

(And to answer an earlier question from @kayb: Yes, Dutch forms plurals of some words with an apostrophe followed by an s. It isn't English, so get your knickers out of a twist over the apostrophes. More rules about making plurals in Dutch are at http://www.dutchgrammar.com/en/?n=NounsAndArticles.11

I am NOT anywhere close to fluent in Dutch, nor do I claim to be.

[kayb]

1 hour ago, MelissaH said:

(And to answer an earlier question from @kayb: Yes, Dutch forms plurals of some words with an apostrophe followed by an s. It isn't English, so get your knickers out of a twist over the apostrophes. More rules about making plurals in Dutch are at http://www.dutchgrammar.com/en/?n=NounsAndArticles.11

I am NOT anywhere close to fluent in Dutch, nor do I claim to be.

 

That makes me much happier. It grates, because it "looks" wrong, but if it's correct, I'm content. Thanks for the info. Off to untwist my knickers.

[Kerry Beal]

On our travels today - we came across this burly tree. 

 

 

 

 

Another dog in a store - this one a food store which surprised me a bit.

 

 

This afternoon was set up for the show which starts tomorrow.

 

 

Our booth.

 

 

Our shared booth with Diamond Customs machines which is where we will be running demos on bean to bar followed by tempering.

 

 

Booth pretty much ready to go for tomorrow.

 

 

[Kerry Beal]

Dinner later tonight at Vatten Ramen Zeedijk.

 

Didn't think they had room for us - then we discovered there is a room downstairs.

 

 

 

 

 

Gyoza

 

 

Don katsu 

 

 

Tonkatsu ramen 

 

 

vegan ramen

 

 

Many cute sayings on the wall.

[Tri2Cook]

23 hours ago, blue_dolphin said:

Given the confectionary bent of this trip, my first thought was a very fancy peep store

That would be awesome but I'm still pretty darn impressed that there's a dedicated rubber ducky store... and a dedicated store for rubbers sans ducky.

[Shelby]

2 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

Booth pretty much ready to go for tomorrow.

 

Your venue looks really cool.  Not just a big "convention center" type place.  

[curls]

4 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

 

 

Our shared booth with Diamond Customs machines which is where we will be running demos on bean to bar followed by tempering.

 

Beautiful! Looks like EZtemper 2.0 with the new clamp closure is on the market. Any other upgrages?

 

Was Chocolate Makers using melangers from Diamond Customs?

 

Good luck to both of you at the show!

[Kerry Beal]

7 hours ago, curls said:

 

Beautiful! Looks like EZtemper 2.0 with the new clamp closure is on the market. Any other upgrages?

 

Was Chocolate Makers using melangers from Diamond Customs?

 

Good luck to both of you at the show!

Most of the upgrades are basically related to branding, the way that the branding is put on the unit. There’s a couple of changes under the hood to simplify the wiring.

 

 

[Kerry Beal]

The hot side this am. The baked beans of yesterday have been replaced by grilled cheesy tomatoes 

 

 

 

 

Not sure why the egg cups as the eggs are all hard boiled.

 

 

[Kerry Beal]

 

An interesting comment by Robert who made the back drop -

 

"When we were putting together the graphic for this show it was clear that these folks were lacking a little, and why my greatest fear was that the lower part of the graphic would be hidden, but not grasping the concept fully I just let it go.

I saw the graphics on e-gullet and my worst fears where realized."

[Kerry Beal]

The cousins arrived (we joke that everywhere we go Bhavani's cousins are where he stays or who we have helping at the booth). I think these two might actually be cousins - they have a chocolate business in India - Soklet. It's tree to bar. They are always good fun to go out with. They wanted to eat at the same Sichuan place we were at the other night - so off we went.

 

 

They attacked before the picture.

 

 

 

 

Vegetarian option.

 

 

 

The cousins went for the hot stuff.

 

 

Cumin lamb

 

 

Pekin duck

 

 

sizzling beef

 

 

noodles

 

 

vegetarian rice

 

 

[ElsieD]

23 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

The hot side this am. The baked beans of yesterday have been replaced by grilled cheesy tomatoes 

 

 

 

 

Not sure why the egg cups as the eggs are all hard boiled.

 

 

 

When I was growing up, we always ate our eggs from an egg cup.  It didn't matter if they were hardboiled, softboiled or somewhere in between, my mother insisted we eat  them from an egg cup.  Oh, and we used coffee spoons to eat them with, they are considerably smaller than our teaspoons in Canada.

[Shelby]

1 hour ago, Kerry Beal said:

 

An interesting comment by Robert who made the back drop -

 

"When we were putting together the graphic for this show it was clear that these folks were lacking a little, and why my greatest fear was that the lower part of the graphic would be hidden, but not grasping the concept fully I just let it go.

I saw the graphics on e-gullet and my worst fears where realized."

I wanted to be some kind of artist when I was in school...didn't happen, but IMO your back drop isn't bad at all.  Too much empty space at the top though.  Maybe everything could have been moved up a bit.  But really, one gets all the information that one would need when walking by.  Or am I missing something?

[teonzo]

12 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

 

An interesting comment by Robert who made the back drop -

 

"When we were putting together the graphic for this show it was clear that these folks were lacking a little, and why my greatest fear was that the lower part of the graphic would be hidden, but not grasping the concept fully I just let it go.

I saw the graphics on e-gullet and my worst fears where realized."

 

I think it's perfect: direct to the point and effective. It's advertising, it needs to do its job in the few seconds of attention span of current people. Adding more would deter from that.

 

EDIT: the booth is missing some EZtemper blimp balloons.

 

 

 

Teo

 

Edited February 21, 2020 by teonzo (log)

[rotuts]

yes 

 

blimp balloons would have put the booth over the top.

[Kerry Beal]

21 hours ago, Shelby said:

I wanted to be some kind of artist when I was in school...didn't happen, but IMO your back drop isn't bad at all.  Too much empty space at the top though.  Maybe everything could have been moved up a bit.  But really, one gets all the information that one would need when walking by.  Or am I missing something?

Missing all the information that is behind the table!

[Kerry Beal]

9 hours ago, teonzo said:

 

I think it's perfect: direct to the point and effective. It's advertising, it needs to do its job in the few seconds of attention span of current people. Adding more would deter from that.

 

EDIT: the booth is missing some EZtemper blimp balloons.

 

 

 

Teo

 

 

Look carefully at the picture behind the most forward bag of chocolate