Finally! I got around to trying Vosges truffles. For a year I've drooled over the catalogue, received mouth-watering emails, even given their Aztec cocoa collection as a gift. Finally on Friday (after happy hour at the Billy Goat), I visited their Michigan Avenue boutique.

What has always piqued my interest in Vosges truffles is their unique combination of ingredients. Chocolate paired with wasabi, whiskey, cayenne, cardamom, lime, paprika. Enticing, no? (Geez, reading their French-themed site has me affecting the dialect already!)

Anyway, I wanted to try one of their "collections," plus the one truffle that I've always wondered about: Black Pearl. Ginger and wasabi and sesame seeds with dark chocolate. Sounds wonderful! Unfortunately, (or fortunately for the less adventurous) the wasabi was so subtle I could barely taste it, and the ginger was only whispered. I guess that's ok, too much of each might throw the thing off balance. But if you're going to use exotic ingredients and charge two bucks a truffle, I want to taste the crazy combinations!

To be fair, the woman at the counter told me that the Black Pearl chocolate bar had a much stronger flavour than the truffle. Perhaps I'll go back and try it, because now I'm dying to know what wasabi and chocolate are like when properly fused. However, their chocolate bars are six bucks each, so I'll save that for a day when I really want a treat.

Let's talk texture. The truffle itself was quite dense but very smooth. Outer layers were nice and thin, so as not to overwhelm or detract from the center. Everything was fast-melting and creamy.

Now let's talk marketing. Vosges really plays up the woman angle: it's a woman-owned company, which I admit makes me want to support them more. They market primarily to women, and draw some not-so-subliminal links between chocolate and sex. To be fair, chocolate and sex are both very sensual things; I've been guilty of using each to sublimate the other. And hey, the marketing scheme worked: I read their emails, I visited the store, I spent $11.12 on five pieces of chocolate.

Besides the Black Pearl, I also purchased Vosges Green Collection, to celebrate spring. The truffles were:

* Kayoko: Had a nice green tea flavour that I could actually distinguish, but I'm not that down with white chocolate. It's poseur chocolate.

* Kaffir: Light and citrus-y, reminiscent of Thai food.

* Elletaria: I'm a cardamom fan, so I enjoyed this one. Warm, kind of reminded me of chai.

* Buddha’s Leaf: The most traditional truffle in the collection, somewhat nutty. Didn't seem to fit with the others as well, but still good.

The strength of the collection didn't emanate from one particular chocolate, but the feeling of spring that they each embodied in their own way. Different aspects. I'm curious about their other collections now; conceptual chocolate is a great idea, but its implementation is an instance of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

Having said that, I'd still go back and try more, even if the strange flavours are almost frustratingly mild. Vosges is expensive, but I am intrigued. And a sucker for quality, interesting chocolate; glad I yielded to my curiosity.