Celebrating chocolate during Valentine’s Day this year

Last year’s first-ever Chocolate Festival was such a success when it was hosted by the Dusit D2 Hotel in Westlands that Michael Metaxas, the hotel’s general manager, had little choice but to bring the Festival back this year just in time for the Valentine’s Day weekend.

The 2nd annual Chocolate Festival will be as good if not better than last year’s Choco Fete. And there are several reasons for this. One is that this year, the four-day festival will feature more than 50 different chocolate recipes, all available every evening from 5pm.

Everything from warm chocolate fondant, chocolate mousse, choux and pralines to chocolate tables, chocolate waffles, chocolate mandiants and chocolate entremets will be on the menu and available at the chocolate buffet. What’s more, there will be so many different flavours of chocolate that will be blended by the hotel’s brand new pastry chef, Anis who’s been preparing chocolate desserts for many years. It will be his task to create the most amazing delicacies using fresh chocolate from several countries including Brazil and Ecuador in South America as well as from Madagascar and Sao Tome in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Then there will be a number of Valentine’s Day and weekend specials available at the Hotel which will feature four-course meals, live music and lots of chocolate as well. There will even be a special ‘Chocolate Treatment’ offered everyday at the Devarana Spa.

One aspect of the Festival that Mr Metaxas has brought back this year due to its popularity when demonstrated last year by Kenyan artist Adrian Nduma was chocolate art. Last year, Adrian painted portraits of children using thick melted chocolate (as if it were golden brown paint) in the Dusit’s Den during the Hotel’s monthly public art exhibition.

This year the Chocolate art is being provided by Kenyan painter Patrick Kinuthia whose painting will be on display and for sale throughout the festival. So for couples who may not know how best to celebrate Valentine’s Day, a trip to Dusit D2’s Chocolate Festival could be the perfect plan for proving to your sweetheart, spouse or ‘side dish’ that you seriously care, enough to treat her to a yummy array of what many writers describe as edible Gold.

One warning however to all the chocoholics in the room. Beware the temptation to over-indulge during this once-a-year event. I wouldn’t blame you personally as I have chocoholic tendencies myself; but given the festival is only an annual event, you might give yourself a break and put the chocolate festival on your Valentine’s Day calendar.