Chocolate review: Charbonnel et Walker Milk Caramel Praline Sea Salt Truffles

There were a couple of boxes of fine chocolate that the wife took home last year. These were also given to her by her colleagues from their international offices as they often exchange souvenirs when they meet up in conferences or meetings. Again, we sort of forgot they were in storage as the chocolates in our refrigerator accumulated and we haven't had the time recently to check which ones might be expiring. This wasn't but we were curious about how this one looked like and tasted so we opened one.

The case reminded me of souvenir chocolates I got from friends in Tokyo back in 2014.

Inside were four pieces of chocolates

The chocolate certainly did not disappoint. It was exquisite with the right mix of salty (from the sea salt) and sweet (from the caramel). These were pralines so each had fillings. The time in the refrigerator didn't diminish the taste though the texture was affected (hard fillings). The clincher, of course, was the truffles part. I haven't done some research on where these chocolates are available and how much they cost but these are definitely must buys even just for the tasting. 

There's another one I will be writing about soon.

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Jitaku Japanese Restaurant, Marcian Garden Hotel, Zamboanga City

We are always looking for a new place to eat at whenever we visit Zamboanga and this time around, we spotted this restaurant from across our workshop room at the Marcian Hotel. Before we headed to our hotels after the workshop, I decided to check out their menu and saw a lot of familiar items you'd expect from a Japanese restaurant. Seafood is excellent in Zamboanga so you can assume that a resto located at a quality hotel will have the ingredients for good sushi, sashimi or tempura.

We were not disappointed when we had dinner there. The staff were friendly and attentive. The servings were very generous and the seafood very fresh (we had sashimi and sushi). This was a nice find for us who had not gone to a Japanese themed restaurant in Zamboanga.

 

Seafood curry

Yakisoba or Japanese fried noodles

Maguro (tuna) sushi

Tempura

Chicken katsu curry

The place seems to be popular for meetings and for dates. We saw examples of these at the tables around ours when we had dinner there. Price-wise, we though that their prices were very reasonable considering the quality and quantity of the food they served us. This is definitely a restaurant to include whenever you're craving for Japanese food or tried and tested dishes in Zamboanga.

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Vintage Helbros self-winding watch from the former West Germany

We open September with a watch post. This one's a vintage Helbros automatic watch that caught my attention for it being automatic and made in West Germany. I have many watches made in East Germany (German Democratic Republic or GDR), where the Glashutte factory and many others were located prior to the re-integration of Germany. And it was the first time I same 'West Germany' explicitly stated on a watch.

Watch dial with day and date features

Side view showing the crown

The other side view

Case back showing this watch to tbe made in West Germany

Here's the obligatory wrist shot

Close-up of the dial - "selfwinding" is another term for "automatic"

Another wrist shot

I have only two Helbros watches. The other is a manually wound alarm watch (my only one now after I let go of my Seiko Bellmatic).  I intend to keep the two for a while so these are safe from the recent culling I've been doing to my collection. I have not had this watch serviced and so have not seen the movement. I assume this is running at 18,000 beats per hour, which is common for watches this old (I also assume this was from the 1960s to 1970s). The sweeping second hand though makes it look like this one's got a high beat movement.

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