A Roaring Disappointment

Dear readers,


I have a confession to make. I have been wilfully skipping candy bars. I see them in the display case at the off-license, I note their presence, and I pass them on by. I know I was going to take the rules very seriously when I set out to document my opinions on British chocolate bars, but really, life is too short for eating bad candy bars.


So I passed by the Milky Bar (ew white chocolate), and a Terry's Chocolate Orange bar (an unholy flavor combination), and will be skipping the Aero bars (both varieties at the shop) next week. I've had them and they are gross. So there.

On to the bar I actually DID eat this week - a Lion bar. Not sure if this is meant to be wildly patriotic or Nestle just ran out of things to name their candy bars. The Lion bar is a veritable festival of ingredients - a wafer filled with a vanilla-y cream, surrounded by a layer of chewy caramel, all covered in a thick outer layer of chocolate studded with crispy rice pieces. 

I never thought I'd say it, but maybe one bar can have just TOO many good things going on. I mean, I am a fan of the 'goodies', but it's almost like someone at Nestle said, 'hm, this bar doesn't have enough going on, let's add about 12 more ingredients.' All the component parts are fairly tasty on  And it's a workout to eat! I was sitting in front of a movie and just wanted to relax, and ended up working far too hard to chomp my way through all the crispiness and the overly chewy caramel. It's like a Loaker with plate armor. 


Lion bar, you're pretty good, but you're just trying too hard. An underachieving three bars is all you'll get.


Basically, this is a case of a little too much of a good thing. Kinda like the Christmas season, which makes this a good bar to start my holiday hiatus on. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, see you in the New Year!

Bar-o-Meter



Toffee: Creepy or Delicious?

This week I'm back to English soil and reviewing a Toffee Crisp. 


So, I’m coming from the American-centric view that toffee is one thing and one thing only – those Werther’s Original snacks that had the creepy Grandpa/Gransdson ads recycled from the early 80s. So when I was steeling myself for overly sweet gobs of candy that would get stuck to my teeth for the remainder of the day, imagine my surprise when I bit into the bar and found that 'toffee' was actually caramel – or something that tastes an awful lot like it!

The Toffee Crisp is a nice substantial candy bar with a reasonably thick layer of chocolate on the outside, surrounding a base of crispy rice coated in chocolate, all topped with nicely chewy caramel. The caramel is a great consistency - not too chewy as to make it impossible to eat, but gooey enough that it doesn't all just melt away into nothingness. In the grand tradition of Nestle bars, it’s generally lacking in chocolate flavor, but the caramel (excuse me - toffee) does a lot to sweeten up this bar. The bar is indeed crisp, unlike some disappointingly soggy bars of the past that delivered big promises for crunchiness and then disappointed.

The Toffee Crisp actually tastes an awful lot like an American 100 Grand bar, which, oddly enough, I was totally craving last week. In fact, I think you can’t really ever go wrong with a bit of crispy rice added to a candy bar. (At least, it hasn’t happened yet – I’m sure someone has done something unspeakable with chocolate and rice somewhere – a special Olympics bar, perhaps? – so stay tuned). 

YUM. This is a really tasty bar, perhaps only held back by the poor quality of the chocolate on the outside – the palm oil Nestle loves so well leaves a slightly oily aftertaste, as does the thought of all those poor dead sun bears. I'd like to consider myself a reasonably ethical person in most matters, but maybe in the pursuit of sugary calories (especially ones as satisfying as these), there needs to be some necessary collateral damage.

4 bars!

Bar-o-Meter



New Continent Explored!

Hi everyone,


I've just gotten back from a holiday in Marrakech, and it was an amazing experience. I encountered some strange and new things there - camels on the roadside (for tourists, obviously), mile after mile of winding souk (although after a while, they all begin to feel like a variation on the Camden Markets), full body exfoliation at the hammams (ultimately rewarding, but at the time - ouch!) and perhaps the strangest and most unexpected thing of all - a Moroccan chocolate bar!


Ok, so technically, it isn't actually Moroccan. It's from a company called Tiffany, based in Dubai. But you can BUY it in Morocco (from a hole in the wall -literally - shop around the corner from my riad, where you could also buy cigarettes and a wide selection of French-inspired cookies, and where the shopkeeper showed me how much it cost by laying out the correct coins on the counter), so I'm going with it. 

The bar in question is a Team Up, with not one but two skinny chocolate bars to delight. Not entirely sure why the bar has an English name (and the vaguely unappetizing-sounding description of 'cocoa coated fingers'), but whatever. Like what I imagine any authentic Moroccan candy bar stored in the hot desert sun would be like, this one is part melted, slightly flattened and reconstituted. So far, so good.

Turns out the melting didn't do anything to mar (and maybe even improved?) the taste. The two chocolate bars are layers of soft, crispy chocolate wafers (think Loacker wafers) covered in a thin layer of chewy caramel, and then covered in a thick-ish layer of milk chocolate. And the end result is a tasty bar indeed!


Perhaps due to the melting, perhaps to the bar itself, the bar is lovely and chewy. The wafers, used to disastrous effect in previously reviewed bars, works in this case because the soft caramel that surrounds it keeps it from being too dry and flaky. There might also be some sort of Loacker-esque chocolate cream between the wafers, but the bars I tried have been flattened a little too much to tell. :P


The milk chocolate surrounding it all is fairly passable - a little too sweet but no weird flavor to it. The bar actually really reminded me of the Caramel deLites (the dear departed Samoa) Girl Scout cookies without the coconut. Maybe it's the sweet chocolate and caramel combo? Weird.


In any case, after not even expecting to find something resembling a chocolate bar in Marrakech, I found myself very pleased indeed about what I did find. This is an eminently eatable  bar, and a somewhat less robust but fairly passable Kit Kat substitute while traveling the Arab world. Yum - 3 bars.   

Bar-o-Meter



Eastern Europe and Egg Cream

So while the original purpose of this blog was to familiarize myself with strange and different British chocolate bars, I've managed to get in quite a few international guest stars through traveling (and through the generosity of traveling friends). The latest exotic acquisition? A Laima dark chocolate bar filled with egg cream, of all things, from Riga, Latvia. (Thanks, Oli!)


Egg cream, you say? I KNOW, I think. But it was all a huge amount less gross than it sounds. The bar itself appears to intriguingly have no name - I originally thought it was called a 'Laima', but then figured out it was the name of the chocolate company - reportedly the 'Cadbury's of Latvia'. Personally, I think this is selling Laima a bit short. The exhausting list of products on their webpage includes ice cream bars and Russell Stover-type variety boxes, which is where this bar appears to have originated. 

The bar consists of a nice thick layer of dark chocolate covering little segmented sections of egg cream filling. The chocolate is nicely sweet, kinda like a Hershey's Dark, but much better quality. The filling is absolutely delicious - it's this yellow, custardy consistency that is thick enough to keep from oozing out of the bar, but creamy enough to leave a nicely soft texture on your tongue. The chocolate is thick enough to provide a good contrast to the filling. The entire thing has a vaguely alcoholic taste, like so much Eastern European chocolate (although I don't think there's any actually in it).

This is DELICIOUS. Maybe it's because I didn't have huge expectations, but I ate this bar so quickly it wasn't long before I sadly realised it was all gone. More than anything else, it reminds me of those little assorted Polish chocolates that Barb used to bring back from Ohio (some awesome, some disastrous). Yummm, nostalgia. I'm totally going to have to visit Riga now, if only to go on the factory tour and stock up on all the many varieties of Latvian chocolate favorites. 


Four bars! International win! 


Next weekend I'll be in Marrakech, which for some reason I highly doubt has cheap chocolate bars sitting around just waiting to be reviewed. Mint tea, yes, cheap cocoa, no. Who knows, though, I could be surprised. If not, see you in two weeks, when we're finally back in Britain!

Bar-o-Meter



A Not So Triumphant Return

Dear Readers,


I know you all have been waiting desperately for me to return from my self-imposed chocolate holiday (ok, maybe it was just Carol), but you'll be pleased to know that I'm back at a near target weight after my summer o' bingeing, and feel comfortable sampling a candy bar here and there.


So, which bar to choose for the grand return? I went for an international one from my (rapidly growing) store. During my travels this summer, I picked up a quaint and local-looking Mint Crisp from a cute little town in Ireland. The wrapper is made of an unpretentious matte material, and looks like the basic design hasn't changed since the 40s. It's made in Ireland and I haven't seen it anywhere else. It doesn't get more authentic than this, I think. Plus, mint and chocolate - what could be better?

Turns out, a lot of candy bars could be better. Carol's really built up this one, telling me I'll love it, as she knows well that mint + chocolate = my downfall (Put a box of After Eights in front of me at your own peril). However, it just doesn't work here. 

The bar is a thin, solid slab of milk chocolate, with microscopic crunchy little mint bits that give it a bit of texture. I thought this would be similar to a minty Crunch Bar (and wouldn't that be amazing!), but the 'crisp' aspect of the Mint Crisp leaves something to be desired. To be honest, the 'Mint' aspect fails as well. This bar is middling to downright bad, oversweet milk chocolate with not enough of the minty crispness that might save it. In fact, it tasted like nothing more than those weird little chocolate-dipped mint stirring sticks they only seem to serve with coffee at weddings. I mean, they're ok in a pinch, but with all the other insanely good mint/chocolate combos out there, how can this compete?


A half bar. I'd be hard pressed to eat this one again, but can't give NO bars at all to mint and chocolate - it would just be wrong.


So maybe it all boils down to the fact I prefer DARK chocolate with mint. Or maybe it's just that the Mint Crisp is best tasted through a nostalgic fog of a childhood in Ireland - a childhood I never experienced. In any case, a disappointing return to the blog, but a return nonetheless. And with the cold, dark afternoons of winter approaching quickly, you can expect many more uninterrupted reviews - that is, unless I have a new bridesmaid dress to fit into.

Bar-o-Meter



On Hiatus

In the spirit of the Germans and the French (no slouches when it comes to chocolate), I am taking a break from the hard work of chocolate blogging during the month of August so that I can spend my food calories elsewhere (and eventually fit into my bridesmaid dress - eek!). See you in the autumn! 



Vive le Manger!*

Hi everyone -


Just got back from exploring the joys of Paris with my little sister, who was here to visit (although, let me tell you, those joys are a lot less joyful in rain and near-freezing winds. In July. Le sigh.)


And somehow, in between stocking up on various pates from Le Grande Epicerie (food hall heaven!), mistakenly buying nearly two kilos of bread from famous baker Poilane (I panicked! I don't speak French well...or at all), and stuffing myself silly on baked egg in foie gras and duck with blackberry sauce at my favorite restaurant in Paris - nay, maybe my favorite restaurant in the WORLD - I somehow managed to get my hands on some cheap chocolate bars so I could have something to review. Now that I'm finally recovering from my eating fest, here they are!


The first bar I got was a Nuts, simply because it fit with the model of getting bars with funny/ridiculous/unappetizing names when I visit other countries. The Nuts (hee) bar is creamy, light colored nougat with a layer of caramel on top, all covered in a very thick layer of milk chocolate. The added ingredient that makes the bar so nutty are the chunks of hazelnut buried in the nougat.

Now this sounds fantastic - and could probably be that way if some essential modifications were made. The nougat was lovely - light and whipped, kinda like a Three Musketeers bar from the US (one of my favorites). The caramel wasn't overly sweet, and the chunks of hazelnuts were big and crunchy. But somehow it just didn't all come together. Because the hazelnut chunks are just floating in the nougat, the contrast between tastes and textures was just too strong. Now, I like added crunchiness in my bar probably more than the average person, but it veered too much towards the chocolate-covered pretzel kind of mix of sweet and non-sweet (even salty) that I totally abhor. Seriously, how does a salted caramel macaroon from Laduree taste oh so good but this tastes oh so slightly wrong? A nice bar all the same, and a middling 2.5 bars - if only the hazelnuts weren't ruining the rest of it for me.


The next one I tried was slightly harder to find. My sister and I saw it advertised in cafes all over town but weren't able to find one until we passed a corner store with a generously stocked candy section somewhere near Bastille. The bar in question was a Ballisto, and it was worth the hunt!


So I almost completely missed reviewing this bar. That's because, after squeezing myself onto the Metro and then waiting an hour standing up to see the fireworks on Bastille Day, I ate it in a sugar-starved frenzy. Luckily , there happened to be two bars in the pack (much like a Twix). Otherwise I don't think I would have had enough recollection of what it tasted like to go on. (Don't judge - being a tourist is hard work.)

The variety of Ballisto I tried was honey and almonds - or at least that's what it said on the wrapper. What I got didn't taste entirely of these two ingredients, but it was delicious. The bar consists of two thin fingers of a crunchy cookie-like bottom with a light-colored cream (which I assume is the 'honey and almond' part) on the top, all covered in milk chocolate. The cookie base was fantastic, kinda hovering somewhere between the taste of a graham cracker and the consistency of Chips Ahoy. The cream was sweet but not too sweet, and added just enough substance to still make it feel like a candy bar and not a chocolate-covered cookie. My only complaint was that the chocolate on the outside could have been a little thicker, but all in all, one of my faves so far! 4.5 bars.


In total, that works out to an average of 3.5 bars, but seriously, it's Paris, so I'm going for 5 bars in commemoration. And also to mark the discovery of another non-chocolate confection - supermarket-brand strawberry cones. MMMMMMMMM French gummies. Vacation WIN.

Bar-o-Meter


* Badly translated by Google Translate, this is my attempt to title the post 'Hooray for eating!'

Crunch Time

I've repented for my evil, rule-breaking ways of last week, and have finally picked up a Crunchie from the local shop. I promise, I'll never stray from the straight and narrow path of sequential chocolate bar tasting again. (Unless, that is, I have another day at work that drives me absolutely crazy and in need of some serious chocolate therapy...but of course that would NEVER happen. Obviously.)


So, the Crunchie. It's a bar consisting of pretty much straight honeycomb covered in a layer of milk chocolate. Honeycomb (and I'm not sure that this actually exists in America) is a British treat consisting of hardened but slightly chewy sugar - see here. I'm generally not a fan, as it only tastes of sugar and has the annoying habit of getting stuck to your teeth. So an entire bar of it didn't seem too appetizing - or interesting!

I have to say, the bar wasn't as bad as I expected. The garish, orangey-colored honeycomb (THAT can't be natural) was overly sugary and sweet, but the chocolate layer surrounding it was actually thick enough to provide a good contrast. The middle is nice and light, and veers towards a meringue-like texture, rather than a teeth-cracking or overly gooey candy (both of which I've had in the past).

I was actually going to give it a halfway decent rating until the aftertaste kicked in. While the chocolate covering does a good job of toning down the honeycomb flavor while you're eating the bar, the only taste that actually remains after a few minutes is sugar. Boo. This bar is wildly unexciting, although not as bad as I expected. Let's give it 2 bars to prove it wasn't totally inedible.


Next week I'm off to Paris (joy!) and while I'll be on the hunt for some kind of slaggy chocolate bar to review (do the French even DO bad chocolate?), I'll more likely be stuffing my face with crepes, baguettes, pastry, and cheese galore. Vive le obesite!

Bar-o-Meter



Flaking Out

Dear Readers - 


I've got to come clean. I've broken my own candy bar blogging rules. I thought I could get away with it but I just couldn't keep silent any longer. Go ahead and judge, but I had my reasons.

After a particularly stressful week, and with a raging hangover, I headed over to the regular shop for a new candy bar. But the selection completely failed me - first a Starbar, which I found out is actually the same as a Wunderbar (see post on Germany), which was a close miss. (Imagine the horr of reviewing the same bar twice!) 


Then about 7 different varieties of the big Cadbury's Dairy Milk (Dairy Milk, Dairy Milk with Fruit, Dairy Milk with Nuts, Dairy Milk with Fruit and Nuts, etc.), which I skipped as I've experienced Cadbury's chocolate covering about half the bars so far, and since Morgan pointed out it would mean I'd be eating virtually the same bar for a month and a half. Then a Bounty, which is basically an American Mounds, so an easy skip there.

But here comes the egregious flaunting of the rules. I looked to where the next bar should be and it was a Crunchie. Now, I've eaten a Crunchie before, but I think my reading of the rules only rules out any bar that I've eaten before IN AMERICA. A Crunchie, no matter how disgusting to me, still falls within the reviewing criteria. But I was dehydrated and craving sugar and totally pissed off for a number of reasons, so I skipped it. And then I skipped the next one. Let's face it, a Flake just isn't interesting. It needs to be put into a soft-serve ice cream cone most of the time just to jazz it up. So I went for the next one, a 'special' variety of Flake.

But I've repented, and I went back the following week for the regular Flake, for a special double review. (I'm not sure I can handle the Crunchie yet, but I'll get there eventually). 


I'm not sure why I thought this would be a terrible task. I LOVED the original Flake. It had a perfect crumbly texture - the flakes of smooth milk chocolate broke up and melted  so nicely, that I almost (ALMOST) felt it deserved the reaction of the creepy soft-porn like commercials my co-workers insisted I watch before reviewing this bar. It was like it crumbled and melted at exactly the same rate. It's like a milk chocolate pillow! Yum - a classic, and deservedly so. Four bars.

The special Flake on the other hand, was a bit of a disappointment. The 'special' aspect of this bar - called the 'Flake Allure' - is a thick layer of soft chocolate 'truffle' coating the bottom half of the bar. This does absolutely nothing to add to the deliciousness of the Flake - if anything, it actually takes something away from the simplicity of the original bar. The 'truffle' has a different chocolate flavor than the Flake itself, taking away from the milk chocolate loveliness of the inner bar. The outer layer also means the bar holds together better and doesn't crumble away as satisfyingly as the regular Flake. Not a terrible tasting bar but points off for messing with a good thing - only two bars.

So a combined three bars for the two varieties of Flake. As there seem to be new versions of tried and tested bars popping up everywhere (chunky KitKats, everything under the sun covered in dark chocolate instead of milk, etc.), I might do this kind of review more often - it was kinda fun trying two bars so similar to each other (and yet so dissimilar in deliciousness!). Just goes to show, why ruin a good thing when you have it? And next time, I'll be less disdainful of the good things which seem a little too boring to review - I could miss out on a treat! 


But that treat won't be a Crunchie, I can tell you that. Ew.

Bar-o-Meter



Made in China

So, I know I missed the last two weeks' postings, but that can be chalked up to a spectacularly successful barbecue lasting over two days, and my subsequent recovery. And my sheer laziness last weekend. Also, the material didn't exactly lend itself to inspiration.

I picked up a Time Out at the off-license, and thought that it might be nice. From the outside of the package, it looked like a Twirl in between two wafer-y bits, which didn't sound half bad. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to my (admittedly mild) expectations.

I'm not sure if the Time Out is supposed to be a 'diet' candy bar, although the addition of the Olympic rings on the outside of this one as well seems to point in that direction. But in any case, the bar was completely insubstantial - the thin inner layer of chocolate melts away almost as soon as you've bitten into it, and there's absolutely no sweetness from the thin wafers surrounding it, leaving you to rely on the stingily thin outside layer of chocolate. Seriously, if you wanted to be on a diet, wouldn't you just leave the chocolate bars behind for some fruit or something? The Time Out is more like the IDEA of a candy bar - so airy the taste has disappeared from your mouth as soon as you take a bite. This left me completely unsatisfied, and if there weren't some dark chocolate Hobnobs around, who knows what could have happened? 1.5 bars.


Just when I started thinking that Germany had spoiled me for good and I'd have to center this blog solely around Niederegger Marzipan and Zetti Fetzers, my very generous manager came back from a jaunt around China with not one but THREE weird Chinese treats to try! Only one of them actually qualifies for the blog, being a chocolate bar and all, but I decided to review all three to spice up this review a little in the wake of the great Time Out disappointment of last week.

First of all was a weird creamsicle-like orange and cream hard candy. I made it for about 5 seconds before having to spit it out. First candy FAIL. No bars.

Second was a espresso-flavored hardy candy with chocolate in the inside - kinda like a coffee Nips, but smaller. This was actually DELICIOUS. The outside was not too sweet, but with the right amount of coffee bitterness, and the dark chocolate filling was tasty and smooth. I could eat a lot of these - and it wouldn't be too hard, considering they were pretty small. 4 bars!

Last of the bunch was an actual candy bar - a Kaci. This one looked very promising - wafers layered with chocolate mousse, all in a satisfyingly thick chocolate exterior studded with peanuts. Alas, the great Time Out disappoinment was to be repeated. The wafer tasted like dry nothing and the chocolate filling is barely there. The outside, oddly enough, tastes of cocoa but is not at all sweet like chocolate, and the peanuts overwhelm the whole thing, making it more of a salty, crunchy mess than a tasty candy bar. At least I got some protein out of it - half a bar.

On average, 1.5 bars. Pretty weak! However, overall, can't consider it too much of a wash, as I actually managed to EAT two out of three Chinese treats. I mean, I could have ended up with any of these. 

Bar-o-Meter



Germany - Land of Culinary Delights

No, seriously. 


Maybe it's just because I have a soft spot for the country and its food because I spent a definitive few months of my childhood there, but whenever I visit Germany, it feels a little like coming home, food-wise. That's why I've been slack with the blog, by the way. On a weekend trip to Berlin, I consumed so much in the way of Spätzle, Spargel, Currywurst, the best ice cream in Berlin, Hanuta, and Laugenbrötchen to even THINK about reviewing chocolate.


But thankfully I planned ahead and packed two German candy bars to bring back (along with the 'real' stuff, including chocolate covered marzipan....mmmm.


The first one I tried was a Wunderbar, which really was a no-brainer to pick out. Perhaps not as whimsically named as a Plopp or Tronky, but certainly more appetizing. The Wunderbar, let me tell you, is wunderbar indeed. It's shaped like a log, with a nice peanut-y filling, a thin layer of caramel around this, and all covered in a thick-ish layer of milk chocolate. 

I really like this bar! The peanut filling is somewhere in between the cream you get in a Reese's cup and what a Butterfinger would taste like if it was soft. It also appears to have crunchy cookie bits and pieces of peanuts in it (kinda like chunky peanut butter), which appeals to my love of 'goodies' in the chocolate bar. The caramel surrounding this layer gives it a nice gooiness, and the chocolate is thick enough to be substantial. It occurred to me that it was a little weird to find a peanut-based snack in Europe, but then a closer inspection of the wrapper showed that it was produced by Cadbury's - in Canada! Authenticity fail, but a bar that almost gave the double decker a run for its money - four bars!

To atone for my Cadbury-abroad sins, the second bar I tried was an honest to goodness East German chocolate bar, produced by Zetti in Saxonia-Anhalt. According to articles across the web, this is one of the 'nostalgia' brands that people still buy regularly, looking for a taste of their DDR childhoods. :P  I picked up a Zetti Fetzer, swathed in a characteristically communist low-key wrapper. While this one also has a somewhat less exciting name than other foreign bars I've tried, this is definitely in the running for my German drag queen name, should I ever need one.

The Zetti Fetzer is basically a communist Milky Way (much in the way Vita Cola subs in for Coca Cola), with a milk chocolate exterior and a layer of caramel over a slightly thicker layer of what the wrapper describes as 'candy creme'. It's not quite nougat, but has much of the same consistency. I think it was slightly too insubstantial for me - it had a nice and creamy texture, but it wasn't as satisfying as bars with crunchier fillings, and it barely survived the journey back to London. What I liked best about this bar was the balance of flavors - the caramel was slightly salty and the creme filling wasn't overly sweet, which matched it well with the nice milk chocolate on the outside. Nice - three bars.

Even better (and weirder) were the small chocolate snacks that Morgan picked up from the same producer - Knusper Flocken. These are little milk-chocolate covered bit of rye crispbread. Think of the chocolate-covered pretzel concept, and substitute Ryvita instead. Weird, but oh so addictive - 3.5 bars.


So, an average of 3.5 bars for German candy bars - not bad! Of course, the 'real' German chocolate scored way off the charts, but that stuff is too fancy for this blog. I'll just satisfy myself with a secret stash to tie me over until my next Friday candy bar fix!

Bar-o-Meter