Name: Reese’s Snack Barz
Brand: Reese’s (Hershey’s)
Place Purchased:  Long’s Drug
Price: $.69
Size: 1.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 150
Type: Crisp/Peanut Butter/Chocolate

You know this is a cool candy for kidz because there’s that hip Z at the end.

This bar is not really a snack bar in the sense that a power bar or some sort of trail mix bar would be. It’s a candy bar. (I think most bar shaped things that are sweet are considered candy bars whether you stuff some vitamins in there or not.)

This bar is a peanut butter marshmallow crisped rice treat with a base of chocolate. The peanut butter mixed in with the marshmallow cement is smooth and nutty with a good hit of salt. The crisped rice is, well, crispy and it all pulls apart easily without crumbling into bits (as is a problem with some crunchy granola bars). The chocolate base for the whole thing is a really nice sweet complement.

Hershey has a full range of these bars in different flavors including S’mores and Chocolate Cream. They’re apparently fortified with calcium and seven essential vitamins (only 15% of the RDA for them though) and have no saturated fats but 3 grams of protein. There are worse decisions you can make for snack foods and certainly better ones in the candy family, but this is a nice in-between food. It’s certainly satisfying and is a rather large feeling bar. I can see this being a good candy to travel with, a nice little snack on the plane with a watery cup of coffee to wash it down.

Rating - 8 out of 10

Name: Shigekix Super Cola
Brand: Shigekix
Place Purchased:  gift (but you can get them at JBox)
Price: $1.75
Size: 50 grams
Calories per ounce: unknown
Type: Sour Hard Gummi

My blogging buddy, Lisa, sent this to me. She didn’t pick it up in Japan, she got it in New York, which makes the trip it’s taken extra special.

They look like little incense cones, little hard cones covered in a salty, sour powder. I wasn’t quite sure what they were, as the package is in Japanese, but what I could glean from the package was that these were sour. (I’m not quite sure what the female schmoo thing is on the front, but she sure is cute.)

They smell like cola, which is an odd smell in and of itself, really. The gummy isn’t really gummy either, it’s a hard little piece that’s not quite hard enough to be considered hard candy. Pop one in your mouth and you pucker. There’s no way to not describe these as incredibly sour. The flavor of the sour is a bit lemony but a little salty too. Then that subsides and you get the cola flavor and a little hard gummy bit. Then you want another one. They took a little getting used to, but with a lot of the extreme candies, they’re rather addictive.

They remind me a lot of the So Wonderful Lemon Drops I tried months ago. I think I might pick up the grape ones sometime, but for now, cola is a great choice for a sour treat. I have to say that eating to many will eventually burn the tongue. And give you a tummy ache. But I’ve found that to be true with most foods.

Rating - 7 out of 10

Name: Extra Dark with Cranberries and Macadamias
Brand: Hershey’s
Place Purchased: Target
Price: $1.89
Size: 3.52 ounces
Calories per ounce: 150
Type: Chocolate/Nuts

It took me a long time to actually like Hershey’s milk chocolate. I was never fond of their Special Dark, but I ate it quite a bit when I was younger because it was often the only dark chocolate I could get my hands on easily. Sometimes a girl just needs dark chocolate. Call it medication.

I was curious when I saw this at Target a couple of weeks ago. I know that all the major chocolate companies are into this whole “chocolate as a health food thing” (which by the way, I’ve been saying for about twenty years) so it’s only natural that they start packaging stuff with that sort of market in mind.

If I were to create the ideal fruit and nut bar, I would definitely start with dark chocolate and cranberries are a good choice. I think I’d prefer cashews or pecans over macadamias (especially if we’re going healthy - pecans have a load of good stuff in them). Check out the site I link to up there, they talk about the benefit of antioxidants, which can be found in many fruits (especially dried ones), wine, tea and of course chocolate.

The bar itself was nice. A good woodsy flavor, the nuts were barely perceptible for me as a flavor but added good texture. The cranberries were a good tart, chewy snap. The chocolate was crisp, not bitter with a decent creamy melty quality and good flavor. Not the best chocolate I’ve ever had, but if this were as available as a regular Hershey bar, I’d probably pick it up as a less-sweet snack with 60% cocoa solids. The price is just right as well, a good value for less than $2.

Rating - 8 out of 10

Name: Lemon Lakritsi
Brand: Fazer
Place Purchased: gift
Price: unknown
Size: 20 grams
Calories per ounce: unknown
Type: Licorice

One of the best things to come out of doing the candy blog is meeting other folks all over the world and having folks give me candy! Who knew that getting candy from strangers was as easy as spending hundreds of hours documenting your obsession on theinternets ! Last week I got a package from Anne all the way from Sweden. She included some spiced truffle Dala horses, which I promptly ate without photographing, but she also sent some other cool things. The first of which is this lemon licorice:

It’s a tube of soft molasses style licorice with a lemon fondant center. Mmmm.

It’s hard to describe how well the flavors go together. They’re both rather woodsy, aromatic flavors. The bite of the molasses (treacle) in the licorice and the intense sweetness and lingering coolness of the licorice goes well with the zesty, mellow essence of the lemon.

I didn’t understand the little face on the package until I opened it and cut the licorice piece in half ... that’s what it looks like. A glossy black licorice piece with the lighter reddish licorice inside and then the lemon cream. Like an emoticon!

I believe they use real licorice with this stuff, so be sure not to overindulge. This licorice comes from Finland (not Sweden, where Anne and her amazing all-food blog are) from a company called Fazer ... which many folks may know from their ubiquitous Fazermint. 

Rating - 8 out of 10

UPDATE: 2/5/2007 - Fazer has announced that it will phase out the use of the caricatured face of a black person on their licorice wrappings.

Name: KitKat Orange & Cream
Brand: Hershey’s
Place Purchased: 7-11 (Hollywood)
Price: $.85
Size: 1.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 147
Type: White Chocolate/Cookie

I think Hershey introduced these first for Halloween in miniatures. I shyed away from them then because I didn’t really want to buy 14 ounces of something I might detest. (Well, I suppose I could have given them to the kiddies.) I’m glad I restrained myself and waited for the full sized bar.

First, the bar looks weird. It’s a creepy orange, like a bad jell-o mold or maybe I’m associating it with hospitals (I can’t figure why). It smells like a cross between orange sherbet and aspergum. Very sweet and oddly artificially orange.

The taste isn’t bad. The white chocolate is infused with orange flavor which diffuses what is often a “too sweet” taste for white chocolate. The crisp of the cookie part is nice and balances well, good texture and crunch and it adds a bit of vanilla hit to the whole escapade. I’m pleased to see that Hershey is using real cocoa butter for their white chocolate instead of trans fats but it’s just not my style of a bar. I can see other folks liking it - it has a good texture and smoothness.

I have higher hopes for the mint bar (I hope to get to that next week) and if you’re really into orange and chocolate, go the extra mile to get a hold of the Candian/Euro Orange KitKat. You can see all the KitKats I’ve reviewed so far here.

Rating - 5 out of 10

Name: Revels
Brand: Masterfoods
Place Purchased: Sainsbury’s (West Los Angeles)
Price: $1.29
Size: 35 grams
Calories per ounce: no info
Type: Chocolate/Caramel/Malt

Made by the same company that makes Malteasers, I thought this would something like bridge mix. And it is, except it’s all milk chocolate. Inside the package are an assortment of little chocolate coated spheres. The largest ones are Malteasers, which I rather like. There are also some little dense disks of pure milk chocolate and some chocolate covered raisins. After that it gets a little more curious. There are what I have to assume are caramels but they’re so hard, I didn’t dare try to eat them. The package also mentions two other surprise items: coffee and orange. I think I found the coffee one, which was a crumbly center with a light coffee taste to it. I don’t think I got an orange one.

The chocolate is milky but not creamy. Sweet but not chocolatey. The chocolate is good for the malt because it’s such a strong flavor itself, but for the rest of the mix, it’s rather cheap tasting. And the fact that you only get 35 grams (1.2 ounces) is pretty sad, too when you consider that M&Ms come in 1.7 ounce packages.

I will avoid this little packet as much as possible in the future.

More reading: Review Center & Doo Yoo Review - they all seem to like the, so it must be me or a bad bag or something.

Rating - 4 out of 10

Name: Awesome Nut & Chew Bar
Brand: See’s
Place Purchased: See’s (Glendale Galleria)
Price: $1.50
Size: 1.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 150
Type: Chocolate/Nuts

If you’ve ever had a box of Nuts & Chews from See’s or gone into the store and selected the Dark Nougat, you’ve pretty much had this bar. It’s a dense, chewy honey nougat with almonds covered in dark chocolate. I was reading the November issue of Los Angeles magazine, where they explain this new candy bar. Apparently the staff at See’s had been making these candy bars for quite some time, for their own enjoyment. I guess the See’s higher-ups decided the rest of us might enjoy them. (They’ve been selling the Scotchmallows in milk chocolate for as long as I can remember and to good success as far as I can tell.) The story should be up on their website next month, I’ll link to it then, as it was a great article.

The Dark Nougat has always been one of my favorite See’s candies and I often picked them up when I was at the mall.

This is a beautiful looking bar. Long and with glossy dark ripples of chocolate enrobement. It smells wonderful, chocolatey with a touch of honey. It’s jam packed with almonds. Crunchy, smooth, chewy and sweet with a good pop of semi-sweet chocolate.

Fabulous. Mmm. I wish I’d bought more. You can buy them singly or in a box of eight of them for $7.50, which brings them into the price range of plain old Nestle, Mars or Hershey bars. I think these might end up in some Christmas stockings this year.

Rating - 10 out of 10

Related Candies

1. Snickers Rockin’ Nut Road Bar
2. Nutpatch Nougats
3. Valerie Lemon Hazelnut Nougat
4. See’s Scotchmallow Eggs
5. Snickers Almond Dark

Name: Roseberry, Lavender and Xocolatl
Brand: Dagoba
Place Purchased: Wild Oats
Price: $2.79 each
Size: 2 ounces
Calories per ounce: 157
Type: Chocolate

I know it seems strange that I got this on the same trip as the dismal SunDrops, but it’s true. I tried the Dagoba Chai bar last spring and really enjoyed it. That was a milk chocolate bar and I was very interested in the more botanical and spice flavored bars, but alas, Whole Foods does not seem to carry them. So, the trip to Wild Oats was most fortunate in the end. All the bars contain 59% cocoa mass chocolate. It’s extra smooth and very buttery. The chocolate itself isn’t too sweet and is a nice backdrop for the flavor additions.

Roseberry - Dark Chocolate, Raspberries & Rosehips. 59% cocoa mass chocolate. This was not one of the bars I was most interested in, but the concept of rosehips was rather intriguing. I used to try to eat rose hips when I was a kid because I’d heard they were good for you. Though they didn’t really taste very good. This bar has a wonderful fruity and flowery aroma. The raspberries provide a dash of zesty flavor. However, I found the raspberry seeds incredibly annoying. They’re big and when chewing or dissolving such a smooth bar, a big seed was a rather unpleasant finding.

Lavender - Dark Chocolate, Lavender & Blueberries. 59% cocoa mass chocolate. I’ve heard of a few lavender infused chocolates and even tried the New Tree Tranquility bar (which was milk chocolate) and still believed that there would be a better lavender chocolate bar out there. Well, this might be it. I was a little leary of the blueberries in the mix as I thought maybe they’d give the chocolate too much of a fruit punch flavor. Of the three I tried, this was by far my favorite. Where the Roseberry has gritty things in it, this bar is smooth through and through, with little chewy bits of blueberries. The lavender gives the bar a soft essence, a lingering top note that doesn’t overpower the smokey and woodsy flavors of the chocolate itself. Not sticky sweet or cloying, it’s just an incredibly pleasant bar with a good, slightly dry finish.

Xocalatl - dark chocolate, chilies & nibs. 74% cocoa mass chocolate. The darkest of the three bars, this one was much more chocolatey. Not quite as buttery, it still melted quickly and had a very nice flowery note at first, like orange blossoms. That quickly gives way to a peppery heat that sizzles on the tongue as the buttery chocolate melts away and brings out some very woodsy, earthy tones. The finish is slightly dry with some lingering plum notes and of course the warm burn in the throat. The most interesting part of this bar is that it contains no cinnamon. Most of the other “spicy” chocolate bars I’ve tried have cinnamon (and sometimes cloves) in them. What’s cool about this one is that it’s all New World spices (okay, maybe that’s not true ... seems there’s some nutmeg in there).

I am completely in love with Dagoba now and I want to try everything of theirs. However, at $2.79 for a 2 ounce bar, it’s freaking pricey stuff and I don’t plan on buying much of it anytime soon. I’m curious about their single origin line and there are still about 20 bars that I haven’t tried yet. Maybe I’ll splurge via mailorder on one of their tasting kits except for the fact that it’s more expensive on their website than in stores. Sigh. I need a corporate sponsor.

Rating - 9 out of 10

Related Candies

1. Chocolate Hellfire Chip Cookies
2. Chuao ChocoPods
3. Xocoatl 73.5%
4. Green & Black’s Maya Gold
5. Pumpkin Pie