Southeast Asia is now a treasure trove of interesting chocolate.  I returned from that region recently with a suitcase full of chocolate after visiting chocolate stores and “factories”, admittedly hobbling to and fro with a cane and my hubby to support me.    Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia have been growing cacao trees for many years but it’s just in the last 10 that they are making bar chocolate, truffles and bon bons.   Here are some of the places I visited and you may want to head there on your travels.

Penang, Malaysia

Georgetown Heritage Chocolate was our first stop as we eye spyed the sign while walking (or rather hobbling for me) through Georgetown.   The shop keeper was very nice and explained how they import conching machines from India and conch for 24 hours to get their chocolates super smooth.   On my journey after this I found that everyone in the region was buying these same machines.  One could only do small batches with these but they seem to be working for everyone.   This store didn’t have single origin bars in stock but we picked up a few Malaysia / Ghana mixed ones.

Harriston does a great job of attracting tourist buses and selling customers on their wares but I wasn’t super impressed with their chocolate.  Of interest were their ruby pink chocolate bars.   These are made from pink cocoa beans, at least that’s the story they sold us on.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

In the grocery store, I found Beryl’s chocolate chips.  Made in Malaysia but just “so so”.  That must be why they are at the grocery store and not a fancy shop.  They were fun to add to my collection as they are definitely “made in Malaysia”.

Next stop was Chocolate Concierge which we found via an internet search looking up “chocolate, Kuala Lumpur”.   Their chocolate was fantastic, each bar representing a specific single origin growing region in Malaysia.  They also had a bar called Temuan which is sourced from indigenous growers. The laksa bon bons are especially delicious. It’s in a shopping center and just a counter store but well worth visiting.   Later that day I found out my sister-in-law is a friend of the owner.  What a small world.

Siem Reap, Cambodia

Wat Chocolate may have been the most interesting “factory’ we visited as it’s only 2 years old and crazy hard to find.  Our tuk tuk driver had no idea where this place was but we pointed it out several times on our phone after we found this gem via a Google search and we eventually found it.  We were pleasantly surprised by their “factory” tour which walked us through their chocolate making process, all hand done.  I have a goofy photo of my hubby with a hair net but I promised I wouldn’t share that with everyone.   I picked up a great cinnamon bar, 2 kilos of cocoa powder and a few other goodies.  They just may have been happy to offload that cocoa powder at a discount price since they are using the cocoa butter for their bon bons but I could not see how they would use the powder.

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Being inspired by the Somebody Feed Phil Netflix show, we headed to Maison Marou. This “factory” was even more than Phil promised and so fun.  You could see the “factory” through a plexiglass window but the bean roaster was in full view for customers to enjoy.  I loved their map on the wall showing the bean origin of their single origin chocolate bars.   As it was our last day on the trip I snapped up quite a few of their bars after enjoying a hot chocolate in their café. 

What I realized I had missed were some bars with funky local ingredients so I snapped up a few bars at the airport and paid a pretty penny ($7 USD per bar vs. $4 at the shops in the city).  But I found some durian bars to buy which are not to my taste but a super fun idea for a Southeast Asia Chocolate Tasting class.