2012 - The Hype Begins

The 2012 London Olympics. The entire city is getting geared up for the spectacle. We have the countdown clock in Trafalgar Square. We have the thousands of consultation letters going out to those unfortunate residents living on the Olympic Route Network. And now - apparently - we have a candy bar.

To capitalize on the spirit of the Olympics (and to join other misguided athletics-food partnerships along the lines of McDonald's sponsoring the Olympic Village), Cadbury's has jumped on the 2012 bandwagon and has created a new bar - The Big Race. Cadbury's, as a British institution, has snagged the dubious distinction of being the "official treat provider of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games" (should athletes be eating "treats" anyway?). So to celebrate, they've released this new bar, which is accompanied by a indecipherable online game where "spots" can compete against "stripes" for no reason I can work out.

The Big Race bar carries on this theme, with "spots" (crunchy cookie-like spheres) are separated from "stripes" (layers of light wafers) by some chocolate mousse. The entire thing is covered in a thick layer of milk chocolate. It all KINDA works - there's enough crunchiness in the cookie crumbs to make the top half feel fairly substantial, along with the chocolate mousse, but the bottom half of wafers is what let me down. It was just too light for a chocolate bar - if I was looking for wafers, I'd be eating Tunnock's biscuits. Mmmm, biscuits. :)


So, like the actual 2012 Olympic Games are inevitably likely to turn out, this bar ended up a slight disappointment. I mean, really, Cadbury's - you had a chance to make an entirely NEW CHOCOLATE BAR and this is what happens? A tie in to a bad and confusing online game? Could it possibly be that all the good candy bar ideas have been used up? Surely not! Three bars for being decently good, 2 bars for lack of imagination. 2.5 bars total.

Bar-o-Meter



A Tale of Two Cadburys

So I've been so slack in updating this blog that I'll have to combine two reviews in one. It shouldn't make too much difference, since one wasn't even worth the calories anyway.

My bad will last week has been graced on the Bourneville, an attempt from Cadbury's to offer a 'fancy' dark chocolate bar. Apparently they've gone so far with the fanciness that you're not even supposed to refer to it as Cadbury's chocolate - it's 'Bourneville chocolate', thank you very much! The bar is just plain dark chocolate squares, with none of the bells and whistles you'd expect from a normal candy bar. My impression from this and the shiny wrapper (too reflective for pictures!) is that this bar is intended to for the 'sophisticated' chocolate shopper.

Seriously, though, wouldn't the sophisticated chocolate shopper just eat something delicious and only half the price, like Green and Black's or the abundantly available delicious dark chocolate bars on the market? Bourneville isn't even worth the time, in my opinion. It's too sweet and while it tastes like chocolate while chewing, it leaves an unpleasant sugary aftertaste with no hint of chocolate. I don't even think it cracks 40% cocoa content! I know I'm going to make a lot of enemies with this one, but I wouldn't even rate it better than a Hershey's Special Dark - equally aspirational and equally gross. Thank goodness I had some Hobnobs around to soothe my damaged palate. 


Like Hershey's, a Bourneville is only good for one thing - making s'mores. And I as I was not equipped with neither graham crackers nor marshmallows nor an open flame, I give it one bar and one bar only. Fail.   

On the other side of the spectrum is a Twirl, which was this week's chocolate selection. This is also Cadbury's and also relatively plain, but it actually builds on Cadbury's strengths - decent milk chocolate for a wide audience.

The Twirl (conveniently separated into two Twix-style bars for more than one snacking occasion) is kinda like a Flake (not yet reviewed) covered in milk chocolate - that is, a whorl-y, twisty mess of milk chocolate covered in a slightly more solid shell of the same. It feels light and airy to bite into, and actually tastes of...air, almost, in a good way. It's kinda like a little breeze entering your mouth with every bite (to describe the texture in the cheesiest and absolutely most demented way possible). Bog-standard (by which I mean, actually, pretty good) Cadbury milk chocolate (I think I'm warming to the stuff) and smooth. 

Overall, not as exciting as my favored candy bars loaded full of delicious stuff, but nice all the same. A solid three bars.

So really, it just goes to show. Cadbury, stick to what you're good at and leave the nice dark chocolate to the professionals.



Long Time

I've been remiss in updating the blog, but I've been busy stuffing myself with sourdough bread, Danishes, and beer in Copenhagen, making far too much food for a post-Easter brunch, and being possibly the only person not to celebrate the Royal Wedding because I was too busy stuffing myself with delcious Turkish food from Dalston. So you'll have to forgive me as I've been pursuing obesity through other means. :)


But let's get down to business. My lovely cousin Christie just visited from North Carolina, and not only did we have a fantastic time in London being super-tourists (having afternoon tea, Pimms, fish and chips, and stocking up on Kate and Will souvenirs), we also managed to make it out to Copenhagen and Malmo, Sweden (briefly) for a quick vacation. So I obviously took the opportunity to sample some of the finest cheap chocolate bars these countries had to offer.


First, Denmark. While I managed to get some really bizarre chocolate in the supermarket for my work colleagues, including marshmallow mice, chocolate with mint candies in it and boiled sweets that at least five people have already spit out in disgust, I picked up the incredibly boring - read: tastes just like a Milky Way -Yankie bar for myself. Actually, it wasn't a complete disaster, as it tasted more like the American version (decent) than the British Mars bar (yuck - see previous post). I ended up freezing half of it and having a flashback to summers spent around the snack bar at the Orange Avenue Pool. Ah, memories. 2 bars, if just for that.

But Sweden, on the other hand, offered up a veritable cornucopia of chocolate bars. Christie and I of course indulged in a Daim bar, but I figured I'd go for something a bit more exotic for the blog. After passing by some dodgy liquorice-looking ones, I settled on a Plopp, if only for the absolutely amazing name. I mean, this rivals a Tronky for sheer comedy value. (And by the way, a colleague who will remain unnamed but who has a distinctive accent picked up ANOTHER one of these failures for me when she was recently in Italy - again, see previous post for a poor review. Anyone fancy a Tronky?)

Anyway, I digress. Despite the slightly unfavorable connotations "Plopp" brings to the chocolate eating experience, it was actually a delicious bar. Think a Cadbury's Caramel bunny, only with segmented sections filled with a slightly runnier caramel filling. So it made it a mess to eat, but the taste was fantastic! The chocolate was pretty bog-standard milk chocolate, but was thick enough to be a good match for the slightly salty caramel inside. Yum. I liked this a lot. Of course, my enjoyment of this bar may have been heightened by the fact I was singing along to 'Newsies' at the time. If you haven't already experienced the joys of a young Christian Bale and a pre-'Independence Day' Bill Pullman singing and dancing in a musical about newsboys in 19th-century New York, you have no idea what you're missing. Just ask Morgan. We forced him to watch it. :)


So in total, Yankie = 2 bars. Plopp = 3.5 bars. Chocolate, even not-so-amazing chocolate, eaten on vacation = priceless. 4.5 bars for the experience!


Also, for your viewing pleasure, some actually nice chocolate we got in Copenhagen, in a suitably Easter-like setting...

So that's about it! Unless any more international bars appear, I'm back to the British ones next week. Which seems fitting, what with all the Union Jacks still hanging about. 

Bar-o-Meter