After my brief period of believing that there was no unique candy in Montreal , I was proven wrong – with a vengeance. All it took was a trip to the shopping district of Rue St. Denis, a shopper’s paradise of quirky little shops, restaurants and cafes – and some great chocolatiers.
One of those is Marius et Fanny Patisserie Provencale, which, despite the name, is a chocolatier as well. On the pastry side of things, they do a variety of cakes and cookies including some marvelously crisp-on-the-outside, tender-on-the-inside macaroons filled with a flavored ganache (and as they weren’t technically candy, I had no qualms about devouring mine on the spot instead of bringing them home to write about later).
Of their chocolates, I was most intrigued by their tiny tasting bars or “tablettes,” each about the size of a couple of fun-sized Kit Kats. The little bars came in a variety of intriguing flavors, including paprika and sun-dried tomato and basil (YES! I knew somebody had to be doing a sun-dried tomato chocolate bar after tasting this combo for the Great Chocolate Experiment). Eventually, I decided on lavender, a flavor I’d never tasted before.
