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CANDY RATINGS

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July 2005

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Gummi Sushi

Name: Mikakuto Osushi Gummy
Brand: Uha-Mikakuto (distributed by Hosada Bros)
Acquired from: www.candywarehouse.com
Price: $14.90 for a set of two boxes
Size: 1.41 oz
Calories per ounce: 98
Type: Gummi/Marshmallow

This has got to be one of the cutest candies I have ever seen. It’s gummi sushi. The fish is little fruit-flavored gummies, the rice is marshmallow and there’s a little chocolate goo inside the marshmallow (I’m not sure what that’s supposed to be).

 

Inside the box are eight individually sealed pieces. There’s a huge variety. As far as I can tell: a grape octopus, a pineapple roe, a raspberry tuna, a green apple something (looked kinda like edamame, but you don’t usually have that on rice), a berry shrimp ... I think that’s about it. I’m guessing the variety differs depending on random chance. There’s a little guide on the inside of the lid ... in Japanese, but at least it shows you all the varieties.

 

The gummi part is very fragrant, soft and fresh. The marshmallow is a really nice complement to the tart gummi, but the chocolate center just kind of ruins it for me.

As a gift or stocking stuffer, this is great. It’s novel and well packaged (easy to wrap) and the images on it are really cute. It’s a little expensive, but I’d be willing to buy something like this for the right person. For just eating, I’ll probably stick to regular gummi bears.

Interesting fact from wrapper: no MSG!

Rating - 7 out of 10 (because of the price and funky chocolate filling)

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:06 am     CandyReviewUHAGummi CandyMarshmallow7-Worth ItJapan

Monday, July 18, 2005

Wonka’s Oompas

Name: Oompas
Brand: Wonka (Nestle)
Acquired from: CandyWarehouse.com
Price: $.80 each
Size: 1.85 oz
Calories per ounce: 108
Type: Fruit Chew

Now, when I was a kid there was a candy called Oompa-Loompas and they were nothing like this. Well, they were something like this - they came in a bag and were about the same size as these but they were like a mash-up of M&Ms and Reese’s Pieces (this is all a vague recollection, correct me if I’m wrong). When you bit into the little disks (like fat, large, plain M&Ms) the top layer was peanut butter cream and the bottom was milk chocolate and it was all covered in a bright candy shell.

Wonka discontinued those pretty quickly.

Now we’ve got the new Oompas which are pretty much jumbo Skittles.

Oompas are brightly colored and about the size of garbanzo beans (about two or three times the size of Skittles). Where most of us eat two or three Skittles at a time, I’d probably only eat one of these at a time. Thus losing out on one of the great things of Skittles which is flavor combos - you put a lemon and lime in your mouth at the same time. Generally with Skittles consumption I spill the bag out on my desk and separate them and eat pairs of comparable flavors - citrus with citrus, although lemon can be combined with grape or strawberry, etc.

Okay, enough with the Skittles comparisons. Oompas come in six flavors: Green Apple, Cherry, Lemon, Orange, Grape and Strawberry. What’s especially interesting about eating these is that they’re very sweet when you start to chew and they get more sour and zesty as you go (which is the opposite in most chews). Though I don’t care for the intense sweet start, these have a nice finish and are less grainy that some other chews. Think of them more like Starbursts than Skittles.

My thing about these assorted flavor packages of stuff is that I invariably only like a few of the flavors. I don’t care for the cherry at all, though it does have a strong flavor. I didn’t like the strawberry or green apple either, and again, that’s personal preference, I’m not saying they were bad. What I did like was the orange and lemon and the grape was just okay. If I liked the majority of the flavors, I think I’d be able to give this a higher rating. As it is, they’re pretty good and I wouldn’t turn them down if you put a big bowl in front of me and I could discreetly pick out the flavors I like.

Interesting fact from the wrapper: made in New Zealand.

UPDATE: Tracy commented that she can’t find an image of the original wrapper. Here’s one from Imaginary World of one version of the wapper and here’s another.

UPDATED UPDATE (4/17/07): For lovers of the original Peanut Butter Oompas, you might want to try the Easter M&M Peanut Butter Speck-Tacular Eggs for a more consistent ratio.

Rating: 7 out of 10

POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:21 am     CandyReviewNestleChewsDiscontinued7-Worth ItUnited States

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Field Trip

Candy Blog hit the road yesterday to visit Candy Warehouse in Irwindale, CA. The president and founder of the company, Chris, gave me the full tour of their facility and has entrusted me with tasty samples to review in future blog entries.

So, look forward to the following: Trolli Gummi Clown Fish, a lollipop bouquet, gummi and candy sushi, finger lites (a lollipop candy that flashes), pop rocks dips, craniyums pops, chocolate poker chips and mint truffle chocolate cards, Wonka’s new Oompas, gummi sharks and hot peppers (they’re really hot) ... gah! That’s it. I’ve take photos and now I’m going to have to start tasting. I can say already that there’s some great stuff in here.

Read longer report here at la.foodblogging.com.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:15 pm     Behind the ScenesCANDY BLOGLos AngelesNewsShopping

Friday, July 15, 2005

Butterfinger Crisp

Name: Butterfinger Crisp
Brand: Butterfinger (Nestle)
Place Purchased: 99 Cent Only Store
Price: 33 cents
Size: 1.76 oz
Calories per ounce: 143
Type: Peanutbutter Crisp

I’ve always been fond of wafer and creme cookies. They’re a pure blast of sugar in a rather bland styrofoamy cookie. I figured this bar was similar to that, only butterfingery.

Essentially there are bland wafers with a butterfinger creme which is a sweet peanut butter flavored concoction. The whole bar is then enrobed in a chocolatey wax and some more crumbled “crunchety” bits.

What I can say, beyond the fact that this bar is a great mix of textures, is that it’s salty. I know that sounds like a weird thing to mention, but there’re 140 mgs of salt in this bar. Don’t get me wrong, I think that the salt is a great complement to the flavors in this bar, but it’s very noticeable.

That aside, the crisp wafers and smooth and strongly peanutty creme is a great combo and if I could just find that as a cookie, I’d be pretty happy. What makes this a candy bar though, is that they dipped the whole thing in some sort of chocolate flavored wax (similar to what they put on Butterfingers). This waxy coating is the reason I don’t enjoy Butterfingers. In fact, if you gave me a Butterfinger, I’d probably scrape the chocolate off and enjoy the great peanut butter crisp center. I couldn’t even find any mention of the chocolately coating in the description of the bar on the Butterfinger site, so they must not think it’s much of a selling point either.

What I should mention is that the bar I tried was manufactured in Venezuela. I don’t know if this is the norm for all bars sold in the states of if it’s how I was able to purchase a normally 75 cent bar for 33 cents. (And it was fresh.)

In general, if I feel like a nutty crisp bar covered in chocolate, I go for a 5th Avenue.

Rating - 6 out of 10

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:54 am     CandyReviewNestleChocolateCookiePeanuts6-TemptingUnited States99 Cent Only Store

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Dars Bitter

Name: Dars Bitter Chocolate
Brand: Morinaga
Place Purchased: Jbox
Price: $1.25
Size: 50 grams
Calories per ounce: unknown
Type: Chocolate

This was one of the purchases from Japan I was most worried about ordering through the mail because of the summer heat. Luckily it made the trip in perfect condition.

Morinaga makes excellent consumer chocolate and for a decent price. I’ve had their Hi-CROWN chocolate and liked it very much. This one is about half the price and still comes in a snazzy package great for sharing. (In fact, I shared about a third of this with others.)

Inside the box is a mylar sealed tray with an array of a dozen chocolate nuggets, each a diminuitive bite of chocolate. Because I ordered this directly from Japan, there is no English wrapper on it and I can only glean a few things from the packaging. One is that it’s 45% cocoa solids and the other is that it’s dark chocolate. I have to say, if they’re not putting a lot of sugar in it, and it’s only 45% cocoa everything else must be cocoa butter and that’s a good thing. This is exceptionally creamy and smooth dark chocolate with a wonderful smokey chocolate flavor with a slight cognac note to it. Not too sweet and not at all grainy.

Bonus to Morinaga for putting a freshness date on there too.

Rating - 9 out of 10 ... if only I could find it easily nearby

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:18 pm     CandyReviewMorinagaChocolate9-YummyJapan

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