Name: Mueca Acidito
Place Purchased:
Price: $2.29 for 10
Size: .88 oz each
Type: Lolly

These curious little plastic cups have a mango lolly in the lid and a cup filled with a sour/spicy powder to dip into. Muecas, as far as I know, means face in Spanish. Maybe it’s in reference to the faces you make when you eat this stuff.

The mango pop itself is rather pleasant, as long as you like mango flavored things. It tasted rather like peach to me, but I guess mangos are rather peachy. (I love real mangos, just like I love real peaches, but I don’t care for things that are “flavored” like them.) Mango is a great, versatile fruit that goes well with savories, especially mango salsa with jerk chicken.

But I digress. Mostly because I don’t really wanna talk about these puppies, but I’ve got another eight of them at home, and once I blog them, I think I can safely give them away or throw them away.

The dipping powder looks kind of like lemon pepper, but has an overwhelming scent of corn meal. I’m not sure if there’s any actual corn in there, but that’s what it smells like. The stuff itself is just a citrusy powder with a little chili kick. Not overly hot and a good combination, in theory, with the sweet lolly.

Unfortunately I found the aftertaste of both the pop and the powder to be too unappealing and I threw it out (because the corny smell was just repulsive). The little resealable bottle was pretty neat though, and allowed you to save it for later. Or dispose of it and not be able to smell the contents.

I think the concept is sound though, and I’m sure there’s a combination out there of spicy/sour/sweets that would please my American palate.

Rating: 2 out of 10 (mostly because the packaging was cool)

Name: Botticelli Bites
Brand: Botticelli Chocolates
Place Purchased: Big Lots
Price: $1.79
Size: 7 oz
Calories per ounce: 140
Type: Chocolate

I was excited to see these at Big Lots. I’ve been buying something called “Cookie Joys” made by Harry London Chocolates from Trader Joe’s for a few years now. I assumed that these were the same thing. And they probably were - about four years ago when these were probably manufactured.

I guess this is one of those things you learn the hard way from buying at the closeout stores. Chocolate is not something to buy on the cheap. Most often I am sorry when I do.

These came in three different flavors - Mint Chocolate, Chocolate Peanut Butter and Double Chocolate. Only the Mint Chocolate ones did not have a bloom on them.

The Chocolate Peanut Butter looked fairly good (as they do in the photo) but the peanut oils must have gone rancid. The Double Chocolate were just plain white and chalky and I tossed them after sorting through to see if any of them were good.

Wholly disappointing.

However - if you ever find the Harry London varieties, I heartily recommend them. Hershey’s introduced a mint cookie bar a few years back which I was positively addicted to. This is the new replacement for it.

EDIT: Since writing this review I’ve found out that Botticelli is owned by Alpine Confectionery that also owns Harry London. They’re the same thing, just different packaging. Obviously these were stored improperly and were past their prime, thus got a poor rating.

Rating: 2 out of 10 (because I actually ate some of the mint ones, otherwise it’d be a 1)

Name: White Chocolate Reese’s
Brand: Reese’s (Hershey’s)
Place Purchased: Convenience Store
Price: $.50 (they were trying to get rid of them)
Size: 1.5 oz
Calories per ounce: 154
Type: Chocolate/Nuts

Someone left the peanut butter cups in the sun and they got all bleachy white.

I think this was a brilliant idea. First, I love Reese’s. Mostly I love the miniatures, the ratio of chocolate and peanut butter is ideal and there’s less of that “hold it by the edges so you don’t get chocolate on your fingers” thing.

My biggest problem is that I like white chocolate in concept. I like the idea of just the buttery smoothness of chocolate without the cocoa to it. But white chocolate is never like that. Instead it’s like sugarwax. And it smells like fake vanilla, which always reminds me of Easter. However, I think the White Chocolate Reese’s uses this to its advantage.

Because the peanut butter is more savory than sweet, it really cuts the oversweet of the white chocolate and makes an excellent mix of flavors. The scent of vanilla mixed with the nuts and slight grain of the peanut butter is a nice combo.

I’ll probably not buy the cups again, but I’m kind of curious about the ratio in the miniatures they mention on the Reese’s website. And here’s a weird comment, I think they should have put them in white cups instead of brown ones. The color combo just makes the white chocolate look dingy.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Name: Hi-SOFT Caramel and Milk Caramel
Brand: Morinaga
Place Purchased: Mitsuwa Marketplace (Little Tokyo, Los Angeles)
Price: $.99 each
Size: 2 oz
Calories per ounce: 125
Type: Caramel

First, I give high marks to Morinaga’s packaging team. Like the Hi-CROWN chocolate, the Hi-SOFT caramel comes in a spiffy hard box, perfect for carrying in a pocket or purse and fun to flip open to share. I’m not sure how many caramel products Morinaga markets, but these are just two I’ve found.

Of the two, I prefer the taste and texture of the yellow box Milk Caramel. Both are soft and chewy without being grainy, but the milky smoothness of the Milk Caramel far outweighs the Hi-SOFT’s keen box. Of course nothing will ever top the happy fat cows that got me started on the Japanese caramels.

In fact, of all the caramels I’ve tasted over the past few months, I like the Milk Caramel best. Looking over the ingredients it has the right mix of sugar and milk products, a dash of salt and something I didn’t expect - tea extract.

Rating: Hi-SOFT - 6 out of 10; Milk Caramel - 8 out of 10

Name: Pocky (Chocolate)
Brand: Glico
Place Purchased: Gift from Mom
Price: $2.25
Size: 3.53 oz
Calories per ounce: 142
Type: Cookie (Pocky)

I love Pocky. Can I just start with that? What a perfect candy. It’s got the savory crunch of a biscuit and the smooth velvety flavor of chocolate.

Opening one of the foil packs I was met with the overwhelming scent of dark chocolate. The sticks were nicely coated (not too much) with chocolate, and leave a little uncoated spot at the bottom where you can hold it without getting chocolately fingers - something they don’t do with chocolate covered pretzels.

The coating is a thin sheath, but because of the richness of the chocolate, it’s the right proportion. The biscuit or pretzel part is bland - it’s not salty nor sweet, but the perfect bit of crunch and crispness for the chocolate.

The portion size is huge. Half the package (250 calories, 90 from fat but only 20 mg of trans fats). I wasn’t able to eat that big of a portion - that’s 22 sticks. I think they’re a great thing to tuck in a lunch bag or to go off on a picnic (provided your pack doesn’t get too hot and they melt and stick together). Easy to snack on, easy to share.

Rating: 9 out of 10

See earlier review of Green Tea Pocky.