The Top 5 Reasons Chocolate Lovers Love San Diego

By Carole A. Lane

If you’d rather have your chocolate in a garden, another very popular Chocolate Festival is being held this weekend at

Quail Botanical Gardens in Encinitas. On Sunday, Mother’s Day, from 10 am to 4 pm:

If you can’t imagine a life worth living without chocolate, here are five more reasons to LOVE San Diego.

1. This Friday from 3 to 6 p.m., UCSD’s Sixth College will hold their fourth annual Chocolate Festival, this year themed “Charlie and the Chocolate Festival.” This event will feature industrial chocolate fountains, games, arts and crafts and music, and you don’t have to attend college to come to this festival. Family and friends are welcome too.
2. If you’d rather have your chocolate in a garden, another very popular Chocolate Festival is being held this weekend at Quail Botanical Gardens in Encinitas. On Sunday, Mother’s Day, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.:

Enjoy dozens of delectable chocolate tastings, cooking demonstrations, a chocolate fountain, and more. This family-friendly event also features entertainment, food, children’s activities, plant sales, and a variety of Mother’s Day gifts.

3. About the time that you recover from those events, you can attend the 2nd Annual Vista Chocolate Festival & Street Fair on Sunday, May 27th from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Highlights of this event:

* FREE admission *
* Chocolate Ally *
* Live music *
* Two food courts *
* Kids Zone with rides *
* Laser Tag *
* Children’s 10Mobile *
* Red Cross Bloodmobile *
* Castle Building Block area *
4.
If you can’t sit around just waiting for a chocolate event to hit your calendar, plan your own. Head to Chi Chocolat in the Gaslamp for your own Chocolate Tasting party. Cost per person starts at $26.95, and includes presentation by chocolatier with 7 tasting disks, flight of chocolates (5 pcs), chocolate samples and beverages.

If you need some chocolate tasting advice, Chi Choloat provides this tasting tip for your enjoyment:

Place the chocolate in your mouth and wait for a few seconds to release the primary flavor notes; chew five to ten times to discover the secondary flavors; push the chocolate gently against the roof of your mouth and note the flavor, the texture and the way the chocolate lingers on the tongue.

5. If you’re a frequent reader of The San Diego Beat, you Ghirardelliknow that I’m going to find a way to combine my chocolate with ice cream. Ghirardelli Soda Fountain & Chocolate Shop (also in the San Diego Gaslamp) makes it easy, and who knows chocolate better than the world-famous Ghirardelli? What will you find there? Chocolate ice cream, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate squares, chocolate bars, cocoas and drinking chocolates, just to name a few. Need I go on?

If these 5 top ways to enjoy your chocolate in San Diego aren’t quite enough for you, why not join a Chocolate Meetup group? They actually plan outings based on their love of chocolate! What could be better?! (I can only think of one thing, but they haven’t formed an ice cream meetup group yet.)