{"id":5624,"date":"2010-02-15T14:04:06","date_gmt":"2010-02-15T14:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/life\/food\/belmont-shore-chocolate-festival-brownies-by-the-beach\/"},"modified":"2010-02-15T14:04:06","modified_gmt":"2010-02-15T14:04:06","slug":"belmont-shore-chocolate-festival-brownies-by-the-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/food\/belmont-shore-chocolate-festival-brownies-by-the-beach","title":{"rendered":"Belmont Shore Chocolate Festival: Brownies by the Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The hullabaloo of Super Bowl weekend, out of town visitors, and Valentine&#8217;s Day was not enough to stop the 6th Annual Belmont Shore Chocolate Festival.  Held on Saturday, Feb. 6th, this tasting festival featured a bevy of chocolate concoctions from just about every food and craft boutique along 2nd Street.<\/p>\n<p>Chocolate Festival patrons purchased books of 10 tickets to be redeemed for whichever goodies piqued their palette&#8217;s curiosity.  Had I embarked by myself, I would surely have been overwhelmed by all the sweets; however, I was fortunate enough to have three lovely chocolate connoisseurs guide me on the quest.<\/p>\n<p>Our first stop was the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, which boasted a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/lbfoodreview\/4360746382\/in\/set-72157623317855127\/\">daunting line of drooling chocolate devourers<\/a>.  With probably the largest selection of chocolate dipped delights ranging from strawberries to s&#8217;mores to bacon (yes, chocolate covered bacon),  I opted for a s&#8217;more, consisting of 2 marshmallows sandwiched between a graham cracker and slathered in chocolaty goodness.  On a normal day, this would have put me over the edge, but I was on a mission and rose to the occasion thusly.<\/p>\n<p>The ladies detoured to Frosted Cupcakery for mini <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/lbfoodreview\/4359999919\/in\/set-72157623317855127\/\">Red Velvet cupcakes<\/a> that satisfied even the lone Red Velvet holdout.  From there it was on to Yogurtland for what really needs to be tasted to be understood: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/lbfoodreview\/4360741460\/in\/set-72157623317855127\/\">chocolate and mint yogurt topped with chocolate chips and brownie bits<\/a>.  At this point the chocolate coma was starting to creep up, but I soldiered on for the good of the group.<\/p>\n<p>The longest line of the day turned out to be both the orneriest and the most worthwhile, and that was at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/lbfoodreview\/4360743830\/in\/set-72157623317855127\/\">Le Creperie<\/a>.  A queue that was consistently well over 100 anxious folks tapped their feet in excitement awaiting chocolate crepes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/lbfoodreview\/4360745618\/in\/set-72157623317855127\/\">filled with Nutella and strawberries<\/a>.  They actually sold out of these delicious little pockets before the end of the festival, much to the chagrine of those that arrived too late.  I can honestly say that they missed out, as it was my favorite treat of the day.<\/p>\n<p>Desperately in need of a stroll to walk off some chocolate, we meandered to the other end of the strip, where we found a pleasant surprise: BJ&#8217;s was slinging <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/lbfoodreview\/4360002007\/in\/set-72157623317855127\/\">mini Pizzookies<\/a>, with a dollop of vanilla ice cream atop a chocolate chip cookie.  They were just the right size and sweetness to cap off a gluttonous day of chocolate chowing.<\/p>\n<p>While I only scratched the surface of the festival, this much dessert far exceeded my normal intake, but it was well worth it.  A festive crowd enjoyed another gorgeous Long Beach day, supporting local businesses along the way.  Next year we&#8217;ll even give you a heads up so you don&#8217;t miss it, but for now all this chocolate talk has made me sleepy.  I&#8217;m off to dream of my next meal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The hullabaloo of Super Bowl weekend, out of town visitors, and Valentine&#8217;s Day was not enough to stop the 6th Annual Belmont Shore Chocolate Festival.  Held on Saturday, Feb. 6th, this tasting festival featured a bevy of chocolate concoctions from just about every food and craft boutique along 2nd Street.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5624"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5624"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}