Sweets Expo

It took a while due to limited free internet availability during our travels, but here's our take on the Sweets Expo.

The Sweets Expo was a lot of fun. There were numerous candy stations as well as other non-candy items. We spent between 3 and 4 hours there. We missed the talk by Steve Almond, but we would have had to hang around for a few more hours to catch it. And it also would have interfered with dinner at the restaurant formerly known as Marché Mövenpick, which was another important aspect of our trip. And as much as I would have liked to hear him, I really was ready to leave when we did.

There were several stands with various chocolates. I wasn’t taking notes or anything, so can’t remember all the different brands. But most had free samples. None of them were so good that we bought any though. We almost did, but they just didn’t inspire us enough, especially since were flying home and had to take luggage room into consideration. Some of them were very good, but perhaps we shouldn’t have tried the Soma Chocolate the previous day because little can compare to those very high end truffles. I think if we hadn’t spent $50 on truffles the previous day and didn’t have to fly home, we might have purchased some chocolate.

A favorite of the group was this Hot Mama’s jelly. Having a very low spice tolerance myself, I didn’t try it. However I will at some point. I just didn’t want to really dislike it and then have my taste buds be ruined for the rest of the day. Tammy went back for samples at least 6 times, but ended up buying some jelly so I think they didn’t mind too much.

Dave bought some of these Energy Ballz as a substitute for his pre-hockey game energy drinks. They come in cherry or coffee, and I’m not a fan of either of those flavors in general so they weren’t for me. I did try the cherry one, but the cherry flavor combined with the weird texture just weren’t for me. But Dave liked them enough to get 2 boxes of them.

There was also a honey display that featured honey from New Zealand. I think this was one of Grace’s favorite spots and she came away with a jar of Manuka honey after trying several different kinds.

A highlight for me was the free cotton candy being given away. It was made fresh right there, so none of that bagged inferior stuff. Just fresh, fluffy cotton candy.

There was also a table with free candy for the taking. There were SweeTarts, Tootsie Pops, Laffy Taffy and these lollypops that were similar to SweeTarts. There was a display of various curry spices with samples of dishes made with those as well. And a few stands with novelty candies and other non-chocolate candies and gums. Grace found a gum made with Xylitol, Spry Gum, that she was a fan of.

There were a few things that were not so much to our liking. One that stands out was this all natural “cotton candy.” At first it looked perfect because it was as if they had matched flavors to our group: maple (Tom), bubble gum (myself), cinnamon (Grace), licorice (Tammy), and root beer (Dave). Some were okay, but the bubble gum was just awful. And none of them were anything we’d actually spend money on. And while we were tasting it there was this guy with a video camera filming it and watching us intently. It was just bad. They also had kind of a fake Pixie Stix type powder and some mints that weren’t all that great. The lemon powder was decent, but again, nothing any of us would ever actually purchase.

But overall it was a lot of fun, and I’m glad we went.


Also, in case anyone else is wondering about this, I couldn’t find information on if young children were admitted free or needed a youth ticket. I e-mailed Intev Productions asking if I needed a ticket for a 15 month old child and was just told what the website said, that there were child tickets for children under 12. So we bought a ticket (I ordered them online to save $1 a ticket), but at the door were told that children under 3 don’t need tickets.