Chocolate & Chalk Art Festival

On an overcast Saturday, May 31, 2008, I looked over the list of bay area festivals and, deciding I was in the mood for something unusual (and certainly not something I attended before), selected the Chocolate & Chalk Art Festival. Although a small festival, it was good excuse to drive to and wander around my old stomping grounds in Berkeley, the gourmet ghetto. Most of the shops in the gourmet ghetto had chocolate goodies--some funky--that could be purchased with tickets. The booths that sold tickets also sold chalk; people drew all sorts of things on the sidewalk up and down Shattuck and on the side streets. Also, some stores made cool renderings of their store name and logo in chalk. Finally, entertainers performed on street corners, though I generally didn't stop and listen to them.

I don't have much more to say about the festival other than the story told by the pictures I took of the sidewalk art I liked and the chocolate items I ate. I must've walked the gourmet ghetto loop three or four times as I hopped from shop to shop, eating dishes in the order that pleased me. As you no doubt guessed, I tried to focus on the more distinctive offerings.

There were only two items I planned to get that I didn't get a chance to. One was a goat cheese truffle which was, oddly, provided by a smoothie shop. When I went there, they said they were all out and that they'd went so fast, they were thinking about adding them to their regular menu. The other was a chocolate ganache cupcake. I walked by the shop a few times. The cupcakes looked good. I planned to get one as I left the festival to save for a dessert the following day. However, by the time I left the festival, they were all gone. Oh well. As you can tell from the pictures, I probably had enough chocolate anyway to last me through the next week, at least.