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Monday, May 8, 2006
Dolfin: Anise and Red PepperFor a long time I was looking for the Dolfin chocolate in two flavors - Green Aniseed and Red Peppercorn. I finally gave up on finding them in stores (and believe me, I’ve been to a lot of stores) and ordered online from Chocosphere (I recommend them). Both bars are dark chocolate (52% cacao) and feature more savory flavors than many other bars. I like the packaging because I know I’m not going to be able to finish a bar quickly and it enables me to save it and keep it fresh. A L’Anis Vert - Dark Chocolate with Green Aniseed - I happen to love the combination of anise/licorice and chocolate. Anise is generally a milder flavor than licorice. In fact, it’s more of the licorice flavor without the sweetness. It’s mellow and woodsy with a little floral note to it. The anise also seems to bring out the vanilla notes in this chocolate. The bar is studded with aniseeds, which is sometimes a little clumsy as they can be quite fibery and crunchy. The anise flavor permeates the chocolate, so the flavor goes through and through with bursts of it around the seeds. I know that the concept behind the Dolfin bars is that the spice or fruit is actually in there, but I might prefer just the flavor. I felt the same way about the mint bar I tried last year. Au Poivre Rose - Dark Chocolate with Pink Peppercorn - this bar smells wonderfully peppery and slightly sweet. The chocolate is smooth, dark and has a slight bitter edge. There’s a slight burn to the whole thing and of course the mild hints of peppercorn throughout. The bar is also studded with peppercorns which give the bar a little crunch like a nibby bar with a spicy bite. It’s never unpleasantly hot though. It reminds me of carnations which always have that wonderful sweet spicy smell to them. This one is definitely a winner in my book, but what’s fun is having them together. It’s a good flavor combination as they’re both woodsy, spicy flavors. I still prefer the chocolate from Dagoba but they don’t really have these flavor combinations, so it’ll never be an apples to apples comparison. The best indication of tastiness when eating more than one bar is which one is finished first. The Red Peppercorn won by three sections.
POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:02 am Friday, May 5, 2006
Boyer SmoothieNow that I’ve eaten a dozen Reese’s products, I thought I needed a change. So I had a Boyer Smoothie. Boyer is based in Altoona, Pennsylvania and may be somewhat of a regional brand. I don’t see them out in Los Angeles, but they’re not hard to find once you get to the east coast or midwest. I’m not sure I’ve ever had it before; it’s even odder now that I’ve had this cup. All this time I was expecting something called the Smoothie to be like a Buckeye (which is an ultrasmooth peanut butter filling in milk chocolate). They’re described as, “Creamy peanut butter covered with butterscotch.” Not only that, they’re chunky! The “butterscotch” coating is kind of like an overly sweet white chocolate and it’s studded with chopped peanuts, so it pretty much tastes like peanut butter fudge. The peanut butter filling is much like the Reese’s filling, it has a nice salty hit to it and is slightly crumbly. But the whole thing had this sickly sweet smell to it. I guess if you’re allergic to chocolate, this might be the peanut butter cup for you. It’s just not for me. I want something else to play off the peanut butter, chocolate is a good companion as is coconut like in the Chick-o-Stick or the Peanut Butter Ginger Chews. As Boyer products go, I think I’ll stick with the Mallo Cup.
POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:53 am Thursday, May 4, 2006
BalistoThis has to be one of the oddest “candy bars” I’ve tried in a long time. Balisto is a Muesli Mix bar. For those of you not familiar with Muesli, it’s like granola - a mix of whole grains. The same friend, Matt, who brought me the Caffarel Guanduia also included this in the package of European candy goodies. This bar was kind of like a Twix ... well, not really. There’s a cookie base, but the cookie isn’t tender and flaky, instead it’s kind of grainy and has a distinct oats and wheat flavor. In fact, it tastes just like a hay bale smells. On top of the cookie is a stripe of cream that had raisins in it every once in a while. The whole thing is covered in milk chocolate. It’s not bad, but it definitely doesn’t feel like a treat. It feels like a rock in my stomach. The wholesomeness of it is just too much for me! I can’t stop chewing the little chewy bits of grain in it! The label also mentioned hazelnuts, but I didn’t find anything particularly hazelnutty. It seems like a really unlikely bar for Mars to put out, even for Europe, but hey, they’re the big successful candy corporation, not me. I’m sure this bar has its fans, so if you’re one of them, maybe you could explain it to me. As for the healthy part of this bar, the second ingredient is hydrogenated vegetable oils ... you decide.
POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:23 am Wednesday, May 3, 2006
Trader Joe’s Chocolate Covered Banana ChipsI do love banana chips, but I gave up eating them quite a while back when I realized how much fat they had in them. I’m not saying fat is a bad thing, but somehow I figured a piece of chocolate was probably better for me than a banana chip. Enter the Milk Chocolate Covered Banana Chip. They’re not the most appealing looking treat, in fact, if you put these in a bowl and offered them to me, I’d probably decline. They look kind of like deformed chocolate ears. (I’m not sure, for the record, that I’d want to eat candy that looks like perfectly formed chocolate ears either.) I don’t know what possessed me to buy these, but I am glad I did. It took a few bites to get used to them. The chips themselves aren’t quite crisp, they have a little oily bite to them, but it goes oh, so well with the mild milk chocolate coating. The banana chip is thin and has that extra banana punch to it, the milk chocolate is super sweet but balanced by the cracker qualities of the chip. The chips also have this strange “cool” feeling on the tongue that just makes me want to keep eating them. What’s even better was the price. At $1.69 for 10 ounces, it’s not bad at all for a chocolatey treat. Don’t kid yourself that chocolate covered dried fruit is in any way good for you - one serving of this has half your day’s ration of saturated fat ... and um, I’m not sure how many servings is in half the tub, but I think I’m on a restricted diet for the rest of the week to make up for this. After all, candy is a sometimes food.
POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:09 am Tuesday, May 2, 2006
Fairway NYCI talk about Trader Joe’s a lot as a candy source; the store opening in Manhattan was big news. But on my trip to NYC, I found that they already have an extraordinary store, Fairway. We pretty much stumbled upon the market while walking back from the Upper West Side to our hotel in Times Square. Like Trader Joe’s the store focuses on more gourmet, upscale or wholesome fare, with many items sold with their private label but at super-delicious prices. The best part, of course, was their candy section. They had a huge aisle of pre-packaged bulk nuts and panned chocolate goods, most of which made by Koppers. The first thing that caught my eye were these little M&M sized dark chocolate goodies called Cayenne Pepper Savory. It was just what I was looking for all these years, a peppered chocolate in easy to eat morsels. But when they say Cayenne Pepper, they really mean it. It’s far too spicy for comfort. I might try putting them in cookies or something, but it’s too bad, the chocolate is really nice, but the afterburn is serious. ($5.99/lb) Of course I have a hard time believing that they really were that hot, so after a couple of days I try another one. Same result ... whoo! I don’t know, it’s growing on me. This was by far the best of the Koppers finds. It’s little cubes of dried apricot covered in dark chocolate. So simple. The chocolate has a nice smoky, dark bite. It’s sweet but doesn’t overpower the natural sweetness and tart chewy bite of the apricot. It’s nice to find an affordable version of the glace apricots that I’ve seen at the upscale chocolatiers. Of course these don’t replace them, but they’re portable and high quality. ($5.99/lb) Oh, I had such high hopes. Look at them, they’re gorgeous! Dark and glossy and sweet smelling. But there’s something so wrong about the taste and even though I’ve been sampling these for weeks, I can’t quite put my finger on it. They chocolate is sweet, but bitter. Smooth but a little waxy and it has this odd dairy taste to it, even though it’s dark chocolate. The malted center is not really malty or maybe the chocolate is overpowering it. I was just so disappointed. ($4.99/lb) And here’s the big secret - Fairway sells Lake Champlain! Only it’s their house brand and it’s far cheaper. I picked up two 5 Star Bars and they were only $2.19 each! I picked up the Caramel one, just to make sure the Fairway house brand was truly the same as the Lake Champlain, and I also got this one, the Fruit & Nut Bar. This stunning 2 ounce brick ‘o chocolate is dark chocolate on the outside, filled with a hazelnut praline (think Caffarel’s Guanduia) studded with pecans and dried cherries. Now I know I say that I don’t like cherry flavored things, but I have no problem at all with the real ones. This bar was really nice, the dark chocolate was bold and reigned in the thick flavor of the hazelnut praline quite nicely. The nuts weren’t as numerous as I’d hoped, but the bite of the sour cherries and the chewy texture was a nice mix. I do like the inventiveness of mixing pecans and hazelnuts - two sadly neglected nuts in American candybars. Of the two that I’ve had now, I still prefer the Caramel bar, but this one is certainly interesting and I’m wondering how it compares to the 5-Star Hazelnut bar. Fairway had a large selection of candies, both in their own packaged bulk items like the Koppers, upscale brands like Scharffen Berger and Valrhona. I also saw a huge variety of imported candies like European brands like Cadbury and Nestle (not the American versions). Related CandiesPOSTED BY Cybele AT 10:26 am New York City • Review • Koppers • Lake Champlain • Chocolate • Malt • Nuts • 8-Tasty • United States • Shopping • Page 502 of 584 pages ‹ First < 500 501 502 503 504 > Last › |
Meticulously photographed and documented reviews of candy from around the world. And the occasional other sweet adventures. Open your mouth, expand your mind.
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