mary eats

When searching for the perfect souvenir, what, I ask you, could be better than novelty chocolates?

Who wouldn’t be glad to recieve chocolate covered macadamia nut clusters from Hawaii, or cocoa dusted truffles from Belgium. And for you, the gift giver, a sleek box of chocolate fits perfectly into your carry-on. And, seeing as how no one has yet tried to create an explosive out of the brown sweet, chocolate is a safe, FAA approved gift.

But would you want chocolate covered kimchi? Or chocolate seaweed squares? Yeah. Me too. But the novelty of it gets to me at my tourist core, and quite a few others too, proven at the Lotte Duty free store, perched on the 11th floor of the Lotte Department store in Eujirlo.

There I found hoards of Japanese and Chinese tourists fondling boxes of chili flavored bonbons, chestnut or sweet potato filled truffles, and the most curious of curios, kimchi and gim (toasted and seasoned seaweed) chocolates. At around 10 US bucks a box they are a bit pricey, but warrant a try once in one’s life.

Our South African friends served as a good excuse to enact on our curiosity. We first tried the gim chocolate. Both Kev and I have a fondness for gim, the toasty salty roasted sheets of seaweed, are the perfect crackling accompaniment to a bowl of rice. But salt, sesame oil, and chocolate: could it work? Check out the Video for James’ reaction- ours were in-sync.

The kimchi version fared far better. The Ghirardelli style squares packed a piquant punch. But the faint essence of vinegar was less than palatable.

Are they worth it? Most likely not. Not one of us ate a whole one, opting instead to break each square into small sections then passing the specimen around. But what is to say about a country that doesn’t capitalize on pairing its indigenous foods with chocolate?