Kev's Snack Reviews

I was very excited to find this bar of Milka Lila Pause recently. I've always had a soft spot for Milka chocolates, having been to Germany and trying many different bars from their range in the past. So whenever I see a new Milka product it always brings back happy memories. Unfortunately, I keep having bad experiences with them. The Milka raspberry cream was far too sweet, as were the Christmas Minis , plus I have an upcoming Milka review that was also a disappointment. Onto the Lila Pause. This bar comprises of a bubbly strawberry filling and crispy rice pieces. When I opened the wrapper I was met with a strong smell of artificial strawberry, kind of like Nesquik powder. It wasn't that appetizing. The chocolate coating the bar didn't smell as creamy as Milka usually does either. Biting into the bar, my suspicions were confirmed - the whole thing was very cheap, artificial tasting, and overly sweet. The rice crispies tasted stale, as did the rest of the bar.

Here we have the Laima Christmas Chocolate bar which is described as a "dark chocolate bar with apple-toffee crisps". I found it in my local Polish store for £1.10.  I wasn't all that excited about the prospect of this to be honest as I've never been a fan of chocolate containing crunchy toffee pieces. They usually add a bit of sweetness and crunch but no real flavour. And that was exactly the case with this bar. The chocolate tasted like a standard 50% cocoa dark chocolate - nothing groundbreaking, but pleasant nonetheless. The "apple-toffee crisps" added a bit of crunch and a vague hint of fruitiness to the chocolate. Overall it was nice enough, but could have been much better. There wasn't a strong enough taste of either apple or toffee for my liking, and nothing to distinguish this bar as being particularly "christmassy". This is the first chocolate bar I've tried containing apple flavour, as far as I can recall. I'm

Here we have the Gubor Winter Apfel, which I discovered on a shopping trip to TK Maxx recently. They sell an array of interesting European chocolates there but this caught my eye as it looks similar to Terry's Chocolate Orange . But because of the name "Winter Apfel" I thought it might be apple flavoured. How cool would that be?! Unfortunately, it isn't. Boo hoo! In reality it is "Finest milk chocolate with hazelnut and gingerbread flavour" in the shape of an apple, and is made by German company Gubor .  I loved the presentation of this. It comes in a little box similar to chocolate orange, but once opened it fans out: Looks cool, huh? It also has a little "apple leaf" decoration in the top of the "apple". For some reason this brought out the kid in me, I love novelty stuff like this! :) When I removed the wrapper I found this isn't a "solid" chocolate that needs slamming on a hard surface to break it up, like

"Sssh!" says Santa There're been a lot of chocolate santas appearing in discount stores lately; I've seen the white chocolate Boci one I reviewed a while ago, some popping candy ones, and this Milka Zartherb (bittersweet) chocolate santa. I was a bit confused what zartherb meant at first, I presumed it was the equivalent of "plain" chocolate we get here in the UK. But it's actually a darker version of milk chocolate, with 45% cocoa solids. Santa strips off... Compared to the Boci Santa , this Milka Santa is delicious. The chocolate has that distinctive creamy Milka taste, but is a lot richer than usual, giving it more flavour depth. I much prefer this rich type of milk chocolate over lower cocoa chocolates like Dairy Milk. It's by no means the best ever but for £1 it's a pretty good bargain. Santa got smashed. Well, it is Christmas! Overall, a very delicious bittersweet chocolate santa which I would happily recommend. Have you tr

A big thankyou to Katherine from Grocery Gems who kindly sent me this Frey Chocobloc Air recently. Being a fan of the company I was very excited to try it! This is a very unique chocolate bar, like a cross between an Aero and a Toblerone. The chocolate had a nice familiar "swiss" taste (if you've eaten swiss chocolate before you'll know what I mean) with a strong honey flavour. I felt the honey was a bit overdone to be honest, as it really dominated the chocolate, making it very sweet. The almond nougat pieces gave a nice crunch which contrasted nicely with the soft bubbly chocolate. I love the shape of the bar, it's less "blocky" than Toblerone and breaks off into nice little pieces. Overall I would say this is a very unique bar, and definitely worth a try if you see it (I believe Katherine found these in a 99p store). It makes a nice change from the norm, and I think it's a great idea from Frey to mix bubbly Aero-style chocolate with what

I recently ordered this bar of "Lindt Edelbitter Mousse Blueberry & Lavender" from ebay, as I fancied trying something a little new. I'm tired of the uninspired chocolate combinations we get in the UK so this was right up my street. And surprisingly it didn't taste as unusual as you might expect. The dark chocolate was very rich (70% cocoa) and gave a nice chocolatey hit, but it was the blueberry filling that really brought this bar to life. It was fruity and sweet but not overly so. The lavender was more of a faint background taste, which gave the blueberry a pleasant floral flavour. It was a lot nicer than I expected. The mousse component didn't really bring much to the bar, it was a bit too firm and tasted too similar to the chocolate coating. There's more varieties in the "Edelbitter Mousse" range such as Cranberry and Mango, which I would love to try some day, but I'm not sure I'd pay the high import prices again any time

We're at that time of year when marzipan seems to be popping up in every shop, so I thought I'd review this Alpia marzipan bar I found in Home Bargains. I'm more curious about the brand itself than the marzipan, because, well, what can you say about marzipan? Most of it tastes the same unless it's the good quality stuff from the likes of Niederegger . So I'm not sure what to say about this Alpia marzipan bar other than it tasted "nice". Nothing amazing, nothing awful, just nice. It had a basic 50% cocoa dark chocolate shell with a standard marzipan filling inside. At 39p for 100g, it's certainly nothing to be sniffed at. I google-translated "edel-marzipan" and apparently it means "noble marzipan". I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean. Is this is a wise variety of marzipan that looks down on all other marzipan? Is this marzipan fit for royalty? Your guess is as good as mine. Alpia is a German brand and I'm c

When I heard about this new product from Marks & Spencer on Twitter I knew I had to seek it out. I've always had a sweet tooth and enjoy white chocolate when it's of a decent quality. I can say that if you have a sweet tooth then you will LOVE this! It's a lot creamier than I expected, and is extremely rich as it contains double cream as well as white chocolate. You're supposed to heat the sauce for 15 seconds in the microwave, but I scooped it straight from the jar and ate it as it was - I'm sure Nigella would approve! This would probably be great poured over puddings or icecream (as it's meant to be), although I haven't tried either yet. There's also a salted caramel version which I'm hoping to try at some point, as well as chocolate truffle. They're £2.99 a jar which sure ain't cheap, but then this is M&S quality we're talking about... I would recommend this if you have a sweet tooth or if you're a white chocolate