Nostalgia Doesn't Always Cut It

So this week I'm reviewing a very special trio of bars - Nestle's Girl Scout Cookie bars!

For those of you who read this blog regularly, you've probably heard me rave about my obsession with the elusive, overpriced, and absolutely delicious Girl Scout cookies. In fact, I've probably compared a couple of candy bars to them. Imagine how excited I was, then, when my sister told me there was a series of Girl Scout Cookie candy bars coming out (oddly, only sold at Walgreens). So excited I requested she send them through the mail as I couldn't wait until Christmas, when I will be back in NJ.

So my wonderful little sister gladly obliged, traveling to a far-flung Walgreens, and when I reached the last stop on my recent West Coast odessey, I found the bars (only slightly crushed and melted from their cross-country journey) waiting for me. Bliss!

So it took me this long to finally review them, and the anticipation was high on the day. Could it be possible that one of my favorite candy bars - Crunch bars - would pair with not one but THREE Girl Scout cookies - Coconut and Caramel, Thin Mints, and Peanut Butter Creme. I think I was actually bouncing in my seat with the anticipation.

And then I sampled the bars. At first, it was great. The three bars had different fillings, but the same structure - thin layered wafers alternated with flavored fillings, and covered with a thin layer of chocolate.  They also all bore an incredibly strong resemblance to their original cookie - the peanut butter crème was very peanuty, which went well with the vanilla wafer and milk chocolate coating, the caramel and coconut had layers of chewy caramel and coconut that tasted exactly like the cookie, and the Thin Mint version was fittingly covered in dark chocolate, with mint chocolate crème and chocolate wafers (and for some reason, the chocolate coating seemed thicker than other two bars.) But then it all started going downhill.

First of all, these bars bore absolutely no relationship to a normal Crunch bar. They were all a bit wafer-y, missing the satisfying heft and crunch from the crispy rice pieces in solid chocolate.In fact, I'm not sure why they were branded under Crunch bars at all – they're more like an oversized, bizarro Kit Kat.

And then it started getting worse. The strong flavors, which made the bars so strongly resemble the cookies on the first bit, got more and more sickly sweet as I went on. Also, the wafer/chocolate and filling ratio is all out, meaning you also start to get a dry taste in your mouth as you go along. Luckily, the bars are divided into two mini bars, meaning I could pawn off the leftovers on unsuspecting co-workers.

I was so disappointed! These bars were good on the first bite, but then quickly rendered inedible by the awful aftertaste. I think I was being too generous when I compared them to a Kit Kat before - these are a disappointment along the lines of the infamous Tronky. I actually even felt a little sick the rest of the afternoon.

A big disappointment for a superfan - I'm going to stick to the cookies. 1/2 bar.

Bar-o-Meter



Breaking the Fast

So last Friday I found myself battling a bit of afternoon weakness. After a long day in the office on very little sleep, I found myself violating my cold turkey 'no sweets' rule (self-enforced after my recent food-heavy vacation) by heading down to the canteen for whatever would be left at that time - likely some run-of-the-mill Snickers or Kit Kat. I hid my head in shame as I bemoaned my incredible lack of willpower.

But wait! As I approached the shelves with the candy bars on them, I noticed a bar I HAVEN’T SEEN BEFORE. I am redeemed! This has suddenly transformed into a research mission!

The mystery bar is the Dubble Bar, which appears to be a special Fairtrade bar to support Comic Relief (which also means it's about double the price of the other bars - a source for its name, perhaps?). From the insignia on the back, it looks like it’s made by Divine (a fairly decent purveyor of chocolate bars - real ones - and advent calendars), so it can’t suck that much, right? The promise of 'milk chocolate crispy crunch' bodes well – I love crispy bars.

The bar is pretty simple - a thin layer of crispy rice encased in milk chocolate, topped with a double layer of fairly dense milk chocolate. 

YUM. It’s like a slab of milk chocolate pasted to the top of a Crunch bar. And the chocolate is GOOD. This is no cheapo, oranguntan-killing, palm-oil padded candy bar chocolate. This is actual chocolate, which doesn’t disintegrate in your mouth like so many other cheap bars.. And it might be the early-winter-cold-induced fatigue and general Friday malaise, but I can’t get enough of it. And thanks to the work canteen, it is also refrigerated – which I absolutely love.

Delicious AND benefiting a good cause (although PS, this donation seems pretty paltry!). Nevertheless, this is a big win.

4 bars!

Bar-o-Meter



The Olympics are Over...

...and all I got is this lousy mascot-shaped chocolate.

Actually, its not lousy at all. To finish off the British summer to end all summers, I thought I'd write a review for the chocolate Wenlock that I got as a thank-you from one of my co-workers. Not only does this beat the chocolate medals that everyone else seemed to be getting hands down, its also another addition to my totally creepy mascot collection, as I have been OBSESSED with these things this summer. (But not as obsessed as this person. Or the creative team that made this.)

At least it WAS an addition to my collection. Fatigue from one too many early shifts set in and I devoured the entire thing in 10 minutes of madness. Although the wrapper is pretty sweet, the chocolate isn't much to write home about, as it's kinda like eating a Cadbury's easter egg, only one that's oddly shaped. I know I haven't been too generous to Cadbury's chocolate in the past, but maybe it was the sleep-deprived deliriousness or the Olympic and Paralympic spirit going to my head, but this thing was pretty tasty. The chocolate shell was a little thin (this is no substantial Lindt chocolate bunny) and therefore a little floppy, but tasty all the same. Nothing amazing, but some pretty decent milk chocolate. 2.5 bars.

I am off on vacation (finally!) the next couple of weeks, so I expect you all to be waiting with bated breath to see what kind of weirdness I manage to bring back from the US. Until then, I will stuff myself on delicious seafood and California produce as I wend my way down the west coast. So much for that Olympic diet...

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Insert Clever Title Here

So, I thought it would be clever to try and tie this review into the Paralympics, but the long weeks of shift work have rendered me unable to be creative. I've got nothing, people.

Ok, I DO have a review of not one but TWO bars. And thanks to the generosity of my little sister, I have two bars from Central America. Exotic guest review, here we come!

So the two bars that made it back from Nicole's Central American adventure are the wonderfully named Huevitos from Ecuador and Canonazo from Paraguay. And they almost even came back without having been completely melted and reformed in this adorably labeled ziploc bag:

So, the Canonzado is a round bar that kind of looks like the fake logs that take you around a log ride in any amusement park. It's a multi-layered affair, with a layer of crispy rice-studded chocolate wrapped around a tube-shaped cookie layer, all filled with soft chocolate cream. It's like what you would get if you rolled a Crunch bar out flat and wrapped it around one of those chocolate-filled wafer straws you get in the Pepperidge Farm cookie variety pack at Christmas.

Unfortunately, it doesn't actually taste as good as that would suggest. The cookie tube is really dry and the chocolate (both within and without) is pretty tasteless. This is an interesting concept, but doesn't really deliver. No bars.

Next up - Huevitos. Even those of you with the most rudimentary grasp of Spanish (myself included) will recognize that the name means something little and cute. And it delivers, with four little chocolate covered balls (not unlike chocolate-frosted donut holes from Entemann's) inside the wrapper. The Huevitos (little eggs!) also go for the layered effect, wrapping a chewy marshmallow center in a thin layer of something between honeycomb and wafer, covering it all in chocolate. 

Again, this is somewhat of a disappointment despite all the variety it provides - the honeycomb/wafer is a little dry, which kinda takes away from the overall experience. However, I find that I can't stop popping these little chocolate eggs into my mouth because of the crack-like (I only can imagine, Mom, I have never taken drugs) hit of sweetness from the marshmallow in the middle. So sugary, so chewy! Plus, they're fun to eat. However, if asked if they were GOOD, I'd probably say no. 2 bars for the sheer joy of eating.

Two fails, then. Much like the zero medal count from both Ecuador and Paraguay in the Paralympics, so far (do they even have athletes competing?). Perhaps central America should stay away from candy bars and simply devote their energies to making delicious food instead, which I will continue to devour with relish.  

Overall? 1 bar. Ouch. Better luck next time.

Bar-o-Meter



Going for Gold

Yup, here it is - the obligatory Olympic-themed post. I promise I'll keep it short. :P

Today's competitor is the Wispa Gold, which my English friends tell me used to exist, was sadly taken off the market, but has made its triumphant return in time to join the legions of Olympic-themed products in 2012 (Its long and complicated bio on Wikipedia states: launched in 1995, relaunched for a limited time in 2009. Discontinued in 2010. Relaunched in 2011.)

The Wispa Gold is basically a pimped-out version of a normal Wispa, which as you'll remember from a previous review, is actually pretty good on its own. I was planning on starting my reviews of the variations with the 5 billion versions of KitKat out right now, but the Wispa Gold in its shiny foil wrapper simply caught my eye first, with its Very Willy Wonka-esque with its offer to ‘Unwrap Gold! And win Olympics tickets’.

I pulled open the shiny wrapper and found more or less exactly what I expected - a Wispa with a layer of somewhat runny caramel on top. And it's delicious - the regular Wispa portion of the bar  tastes like chocolate nougat – not unlike a Three Musketeers bar, another US favorite of mine. This is tasty stuff - and in fact, this is the only bar in months that I've had all to myself and haven't offered pieces of to my colleagues. 

Wispa Gold - too good to to share. 4 bars!

Happy Olympics, everyone. :)

Bar-o-Meter

More International Fixtures

Perhaps fittingly, I've had two international contenders gifted to me in the previous weeks, which just all ties in with the Euro 2012 spirit (go Deutschland!). I thought I'd review them, in the spirit of updating the ever-shifting international league table. 


A few weeks ago, Carol most generously brought me back a mint crisp from Dublin, after my past disaster tasting. (Apparently I got the cheap rip-off rather than the true Cadbury's bar?) Ok, it would be more accurate to say Carol generously brought me back HALF of a Cadbury's Mint Crisp (a small price, I'm sure, for getting one hand delivered, what with the restrictions on airline luggage nowadays). 

So, after being given another opportunity to try this bar...I have to say I still don't really like it. (Sorry, Carol, I am truly an ingrate.) The bar (which I actually forgot to take a photo of, so this one is from the internet), is Cadbury's milk chocolate with oddly yellow-green bits of mint crispiness inside. Although I am a loyal proponent of the mint/chocolate combination, I'm not quite sure this works with milk chocolate. Maybe milk chocolate is just a little too sickly for the combo? I also am pretty sure a pre-requisite for liking this bar is actually liking Cadbury’s chocolate – which I still find pretty difficult, even if it is the more superior Irish Cadbury's (read the comment at the very end of the page). Sorry, Cadbury's lovers, I just didn't grow up with it! 

So I'm a little sorry to report this bar gets a measly one bar in the ratings. I was a little worried this would bring down Ireland in the league standings, but fear not, the sheer quantity of deliciousness I reviewed last time outweighs this poor score easily. Better luck next time, Cadbury's?

Second bar comes from Sally, who brought me back a Ciocori from her recent holiday to Italy. Apart from being nearly impossible to pronounce (Cho-coree? Chio-coree?), it seemed to be a marked improvement on the last Italian disappointment. (It's ok, Italy, you disappoint me in so few things.) The wrapper was a bit incomprehensible (why is that chipmunk carrying an American football?) but the promise of CROCCANTE was tantalizing.

And CROCCANTE it was! The Ciocori is a lot like an Italian version of an American Crunch bar, one of my favorites (especially in its pleasantly petite 'fun size'). The bar had bits of crispy rice (or...riso croccante) in a pleasingly sweet milk chocolate layer. The bar was a little disappointingly thin - some of the riso was protruding from the other side and I think I would have preferred something a little more substantial, as this bar disappeared in no time at all. Also, strangely (but not unpleasantly), the chocolate had a slight tinge of Nutella-like hazelnut flavor, but that might just be me remembering pretty much all the rest of the chocolate from Italy. All in all, quite tasty.


Che buono! A solid 3 bars. This is MILES above the Tronky and brings Italy up to a more respectable score of 2 in the rankings. 


So, a combined two bars from this week's selection, and just in case you were interested, the revised rankings below. Enjoy the football (I know, it's really called soccer), everyone!

Sweden: 3.5

Denmark: 2

Germany: 3.5

France: 3.5

England: too lazy to average them all, will go with 3 to be safe.

Ireland: 4

Italy:2

Switzerland: 3

Latvia:4

Poland: 2 (combined score)

Bar-o-Meter

Sifting Through the (Oh so Delicious) Dregs

Dear readers, it would appear that I have finally reached the end of the (British candy bar) universe! I know, I also thought it was impossible in the early days of surveying the seemingly limitless varieties at the corner shop. But then that corner shop was emptied of its novelty, and then the next. 


When I went to procure my latest candy bar, I noticed to my surprise that there appeared to be nothing available in the way of new bars. So I'm going to do the unthinkable, and go against yet another one of my ground rules (have any of these actually survived?) - I am going to try variations on bars I have tried before. Fear not! There appears to be about 10 different varieties of Kit Kats alone, so there may well be material for many a blog yet. But of course, any suggestions for bars I may have missed in my less-than-methodical trawl through two shops on the same street is always very welcome - as are international guest stars! 


Onto the review. At the very bottom of the convenience store shelf, I came upon a Drifter, a bar I've never seen or heard of before. A new discovery! How exciting. From the outside, the Drifter looks like nothing special, but the promise of not one but TWO chocolate bars inside bodes well.

The Drifter turns out to be something like the love child of a Twix and a Kit Kat - a thin chocolate finger with a wafer sandwiched between two layers of caramel. There may even be chocolate cream between the wafer's layers, but I wasn't able to work that out. The wafer is actually a little dry for my taste, but the two layers of caramel (thoughtfully provided on both top and bottom) give it a nice chewiness and make it a little more substantial. Like all good things, this vaguely reminds me of a Girl Scout cookie, the ever-delicious and chewy Samoa (uh, sorry, Caramel DeLite). But then again, anything with some kind of cookie/caramel combo seems to do that. And as for the two-for-one option, I actually saved my second bar for the next day's enjoyment, so points for that.

All in all, a little dry, but a very tasty combination of flavors. I think my main complaint was that the wafer makes it feel a little too insubstantial - it was all gone before I knew it. Of course, this could have been a side effect of wolfing this down during my day of hell at work (just one exciting component of the week of hell) and not actually realizing it was gone before getting my 3pm sugar fix. Three and a half bars!

Tune in next time for the first of many variation reviews - just how many squares of Cadbury varieties can I down in one tasting session?

Bar-o-Meter

European Championships of Chocolate

So I am recently back from a lovely trip in Eastern Europe with my friend Chava, where we visited both Berlin and Krakow, stuffed ourselves on pretzels and pierogis, stayed in a caravan, and took advantage of nearly every mode of transport each city had to offer, being the transportation planner nerds we are. Ah, it's nice to be amongst your people. :P  But on to the important bit - how was the chocolate?


I skipped reviewing anything in Germany, as I had done such a thorough job last time, but never fear, dear reader - I ATE an awful lot. Highlights include Neideregger marzipan and dark chocolate hearts and the amazing array of Easter candy on offer - the chocolate section at KaDeWe put the English Easter chocolate onslaught to shame. I briefly considered bringing back a 2-foot tall chocolate bunny, but then thought that my suitcase capacity could be put to better use (and it was - who knew instant packets of zurek could taste so so good)?


As Poland is a new addition to my list of countries reviewed, I got not one but two bars to review - a 3 Bit and a Pawatek – so far, so good. And it seemed fitting to get the 'official candy bar of Euro 2012' (or at least this is what my rudimentary translation led me to believe - I also think I could win tickets if I was clever enough to learn Polish), as wherever we went in Poland seemed to be frantically putting the last touches on all the new infrastructure before being flooded with tourists this June. 

The 3 Bit was the first experiment, and at first it all seemed to be going well. Nice thick milk chocolate on the outside, nice crunchy biscuit base...all ruined by the layer of white chocolate in between the two. Ew. Why does all cheap white chocolate only taste of vegetable oil? I was hoping it was some kind of marshmallow goodness, but it only disappointed in a big way. I swiftly gave this one up to the team to share, and desperately tried to get the taste of white chocolate and disgust out of my mouth. Further disappointments when I turned the bar over to see that it was actually made in Budapest, not Poland, and by Kraft, no less. Blargh. 1 bar, if only for the bits that weren't ruined by the white chocolate.

The next bar seemed a little more promising. It was made by Wawel, which in addition to being fun to say, is the name of the castle Krakow is built around, and seems to be an older candy company (again, based off my rudimentary Polish-to-English skills). This was far better. The bar had a nicely substantial outer coating of milk chocolate, with a smooth, intensely fruity filling that was the same kind of intense pinky-red as my parents' dining room, for those of you who have seen it. Some Google Translate help allowed me to identify the filling as cherry, although it could just as easily been strawberry or raspberry. In any case, it had that vaguely alcoholic twinge I remember from Barb’s grab bags of Polish candies, helpfully supplied by her mother when we were in college. The Pawatek very nostalgically reminded me of this taste of exoticness – if Eastern Europe can be considered exotic! I could probably eat about half of this bar at a time, but very nice indeed - 3 bars.


Eating the official candy of Euro 2012 inspired me to create my own league table for my random sampling of European candies tested so far. Let's see how they all add up:

Sweden: 3.5
Denmark: 2
Germany: 3.5
France: 3.5
England: too lazy to average them all, will go with 3 to be safe.
Ireland: 4
Italy:1
Switzerland: 3
Latvia:4
Poland: 2 (combined score)

So, Ireland and Latvia emerge as the surprise leaders (bet you won't be seeing anything like this in the actual European Championships). If anything, this made me realise how many more European countries I need to eat chocolate in. Onwards!

Bar-o-Meter



The Candy Bar That Leaves You Speechless - Literally

As I sit here eating the last of my Easter chocolate (thank you, Jo - the Thomas the Tank Engine egg was much appreciated!), I'm trying to think back to that ancient time before I was on holiday and I tested my last chocolate bar (is it possible such a time existed?)


Ah, yes, now I remember. I was gifted a Curly Wurly by Lisa at work, who has long sung the praises of this particular candy bar. I was a little disappointed by its thinness when I first got hold of it - how could a candy bar in a package so flat be delicious? I was suspicious.

I shouldn't have been so quick to judge - the Curly Wurly was simple yet completely effective as a candy bar. It kinda resembles a ladder or a chocolate-covered pretzel (without the nasty pretzel bit) - just a braid of chewy caramel covered in chocolate. Both the caramel and the chocolate have a nice flavor, although I could have done with a higher chocolate to caramel ratio. 

The most distinctive feature of the Curly Wurly, however, has to be the sheer chewiness of it all. Biting into this pretty much guarantees that you'll be unintelligible for about two minutes as you work your way through the caramel. The chewiness means you get to savor the thin little bar just a little bit longer, as you try and get all the sticky bits out of your teeth (surely this bar must have made some dentists very wealthy). It's also a bar you can leave for later, as the caramel is less runny than most other varieties and stays in place until you fancy another sweet fix.


Ok, Lisa, you were right all along. What a fantastically simple, delicious candy bar. Methinks - 4 bars?


Coming up next: delights from my recent trip to Poland. I picked up some weird looking bars, so stay tuned for another wacky international tasting!

Bar-o-Meter



Oh...THAT Bar?

So, in the past few weeks, I've made a big fuss about how I was moving on to a new store with as-yet-unexplored delights, and I could choose ANY CHOCOLATE BAR I wanted. In fact, I walked into the new store with one particular candy bar in mind, thinking how wonderful this new freedom to choose was. 


But then I got to the (impossibly long) shelf of chocolate and the bar in question was all the way at the bottom of a dizzying array of new bars. So I reverted to my conformist, list-making self, and decided that I would start on the top left and proceed in order, just like I did at the previous store. I know! It's slightly annoying to me, too, but in an odd way, also comforting. Guess spontaneity isn't exactly my strong suit. :P


So in the brave new world of the News and Food, I picked up a candy bar I've never seen before - a Caramac. It had a pleasingly retro wrapper, but was a little disappointingly thin - I got to wondering if there would be anything worth eating inside. Too late! I'd already committed to the left to right rules, so I picked up the bar and bravely marched out.

I should have known something wasn't quite right when I told a colleague which bar I picked up this week, and her reaction was '...oh.' Hm. But then another one tells me that it's just like a Daim bar and I'll love it. So I begin to feel a little better. I mean, how awful can 'caramel-flavored chocolate' be?


Let me tell you, it can be AWFUL. For the record, a Caramac does not taste like a Daim bar AT ALL. When I opened the wrapper, I was a little taken aback - It looked not quite white, but like chocolate that hadn’t been in the sun in a few years – increasingly similar to my pallor as I live in England for longer and longer without the joy of weekends down the shore. 

And when I took a bite, I realized I had been cruelly tricked into buying white chocolate, possibly the most disgusting thing on this planet. This tasting was a new low - this may well the first bar I've actually had to spit out. The Caramac has the oily consistency of white chocolate, with a touch of gross caramel-like flavour, along the lines of a Werther’s original.  Luckily, after disposing of the rejected mouthful, I had some GOOD chocolate to take away the terrible after taste (mini After Eights, as per my mint/chocolate obsession). Ick. That'll teach me to be adventurous.


NO BARS. No - in fact - NEGATIVE BARS. Negative 4 of them. 


Here's hoping the next week is better - or I get a little less unwise with my choices.

Bar-o-Meter (Negative)

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