Kev's Snack Reviews

Since I've been finding so many downright odd and unusual snacks lately, I thought I'd do a quick roundup of them all. Some of them I shall not be reviewing - ever - so you'll have to live in wonder as to how they might taste! First up is this Scorpion Vodka - whoever thought this was a good idea is obviously a few pints short of a brewery; who is going to buy this? More to the point - why spoil perfectly good alcohol?! As if putting scorpions in vodka wasn't bad enough someone also thought it a good idea to put them in slabs of toffee. Behold this Toffee Scorpion Candy : Again - why ruin perfectly good toffee (at least I'm assuming it is) with scorpions? Moving swiftly on...you can now experience "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!" for yourself with these BBQ Flavour Worm Crisps !: I imagine these are more popular than the scorpions but they're still not something I would ever eat without being paid a LOT of money! And now ...

When I heard about the new Summer Limited Edition Panna Cotta bars from Moser Roth I just had to find my nearest Aldi and track them down. I'm always moaning about the lack of interesting chocolate varieties we get from UK manufacturers so I was all the more excited to try these! The Limited Edition range comes in Blueberry, Raspberry and Passionfruit varities. I chose Blueberry and Passionfruit, although in hindsight wish I'd bought the Raspberry flavour too! The bars are described as "Milk chocolate with a lightly whipped creamy mousse, topped with a passion fruit flavoured filling". They're unique in that rather than being a single large block, the pack is comprised of 5 individually wrapped bars. This is a great idea because each one is the perfect size to savour all to yourself, plus the quality is so good that a single bar is really satisfying. Each bar can be split into 4 pieces and has a layer of panna cotta mousse at the bottom, with th...

Whilst in M&S recently I spotted the "New" label on these Percy Pigs and put them in my basket without realizing they aren't really all that new; they're a mixture of Percy Pig, Penny Pig and "strawberry hearts" sweets all in the same bag.   If you've tried Penny Pig sweets before you'll know they are similar to Percy Pigs but with a lemon flavour. They're nice, but nowhere near as good as the original Percy Pigs in my opinion. The Percy Pigs themselves tasted as good as always, with a lovely thick chewy texture and a delicious addictive fruity taste. The "strawberry hearts" were a bit non-descript, they tasted a bit like Percy Pigs but with a less intense fruity flavour.  Overall, if you like both Percy Pig and Penny Pig sweets these are a nice mixture of the two - with some extra strawberry heart sweets thrown in - but personally I think it's better to get either one or the other individually.  According to ...

Whilst in Home Bargains recently I came across 16g sachets of these Fruittella Pixels for the very low price of 12p (or thereabouts). Like lots of cheap stuff sold at Home Bargains I thought "why not?" and added them to my basket. The name intrigued me too, because Pixels seems a bit of an old-school kind of name for a sweet product. Nowadays it's all " LOL Drinks ", " iGums ", " Jellicons " and whatnot. The sweets are little block-shaped fruity chews to fit with the name, which is a nice idea. There's a picture on the wrapper showing an X made from them so I had a go at making one myself: I'm not sure how it ended up looking like a cross...maybe divine intervention was at work! They tasted a bit similar to Skittles, with similar flavours and a similar chewy texture, but much weaker in flavour. And because of their tiny size they were kinda annoying because you have to eat more to feel like you're eating something...

Today's post is a quick roundup of some interesting snacks I've seen in shops recently but didn't buy. This happens quite often as there's always something new, weird or imported popping up in my local shops, but it's not practical to review them all, as much as I'd like to! First up are these "Bubble Bars" which I spotted in both Poundzone and B&M Bargains. There's a milk chocolate and white chocolate version. Can you say "Aero knockoff"?!    Next up are these Lyle's Golden Syrup ice cream cones, which I spotted in a discount frozen food store called Heron Foods. I'm not sure if they're available in supermarkets or not. They're described as "Crisp biscuit cones with golden syrup ice cream and Lyle's golden syrup". Sounds delicious! In the same store I also spotted these Coco Pops Chocos. I'm not really sure if they're new, limited edition or imported as I don't keep up with cerea...

Whilst in Poundworld recently, I spotted these Walkers Chocolate Raisin Eggs. I've never seen or heard of crunchy coated chocolate raisins before so I just had to give them a try. They are pretty much like a mashup between a Chocolate Raisin and a Cadbury Mini Egg - each chocolate raisin is coated in a crisp sugar shell, although they were a bit too small to be classed as "eggs" in my opinion. They carry the logo "Walkers Chocolates of London since 1963", but are made in Birmingham. Seems a bit like false advertising to me! I have to be honest and say the quality of the chocolate wasn't all that great, it was very sweet and sugary and the sort of thing you would expect to find in a pound shop really. The raisins themselves weren't great quality either. But despite this, I rather enjoyed them! The contrast in texture between the soft raisins with the crunchy shell was oddly addictive and I couldn't help munching on far too many despite the s...

Whilst looking at the chocolates in my local European import store recently I spied this bar of Wedel Pierrot. It caught my attention because of the vibrant packaging and also the jesters hat. After a bit of online research it seems that it's to represent a pantomine character called Pierrot . The bar is comprised of milk chocolate with a peanut praline filling and chopped peanuts. I was looking forward to tasting it because I love the combination of peanuts and chocolate, it's so moreish! And indeed it tasted amazing. The peanut praline was super creamy and with a moreish nutty taste, and was so addictive I demolished most of the bar in one go (peanut butter has a similar effect on me!). The chopped peanut pieces added to the moreishness, giving the bar a delicious crunch. Overall, a delicious bar of chocolate which I would definitely buy again. If you like praline and peanuts, I would recommend having a look for this bar in your local import store. I notice...

Perhaps to a cash-in on the recent "summer flavours" trend in confectionery, Nestlé Rowntree's have released this new Tropical variety of Fruit Pastilles. I was surprised to see these in Asda recently since they haven't been advertised and there's been no press release for them - they've just been plonked onto shelves with no warning. The flavours are lime, pineapple, cherry and melon. Not the most exciting combination of "tropical" flavours, in my opinion. Lime is a bog-standard flavour for many varieties of sweets anyway so how it qualifies as "tropical" is a new one on me. Cherry also doesn't strike me as particularly "tropical", infact it's a staple regular flavour for many sweets brands. Taste-wise I thought the pastilles were quite boring and pointless, and not all that different to how I remember regular Fruit Pastilles tasting, to be honest. They were very sugary, and even though they contain 25% fruit j...

When I bought this "Swiss Milk Chocolate with Pistachio" bar from Sainsbury's recently I wasn't expecting much. I don't know why but I always assume most supermarket brand chocolates are much poorer versions of what companies such as Lindt produce, but at a cheaper price. The only difference that piqued my curiosity with this bar was the fact it contains pistachio, which is an uncommon flavour amongst most mainstream chocolates. Opening the wrapper, it looked rather plain and unassuming, although smelled very nutty and delicious. Cutting into it revealed something a bit more exciting. Each blocked contained a whole pistachio atop a layer of pistachio praline cream: It tasted very delicious. The chocolate was smooth and rich, and the praline cream was rich, nutty, and very addictive. The crunchiness from the pistachios made it even more so. It did get a little sickly after one two many blocks, but I still enjoyed it a lot. It's probably one f...

Whilst visiting London recently I had the chance to peruse a number of stores we don't get here up North. One of them was 99p Stores, which are cusiously absent in my area, even though we have plenty of Poundlands and Poundzones. After a little research it seems that 99p Stores are part of the same company as "Family Bargains", which we do get here up North, infact many of the European snacks I've reviewed on this blog are from there. I found these limited edition apple and cinnamon Joe wafers in the Camden 99p Store. They're Romanian in origin and described as "Crispy mini wafers with milk cream with apple and cinnamon taste". Taste-wise I'm sorry to say they weren't that great. They tasted a bit cheap and were quite crumbly and powdery, although the apple and cinnamon flavour was interesting. They were a bit like Pink Wafers but with apple and cinnamon flavour cream, cut up into little cubes. They were okay but not something I would ...

After reading this article about Fruittella Magics I was intrigued. Apparently they have been out before, although I was never aware of them the first time so I decided I had to try them this time around. They've been brought out to cash-in on the trend for "flavour changing" sweets, such as Skittles Crazy Cores ( reviewed here by Grocery Gems), Starburst Flavour Morphs etc. The first thing to note is the packaging. It looks a bit...outdated. If Fruittella are trying to appeal to a modern audience I think they made a mistake here, as the packaging is nowhere near as eye-catching as Starburst or Skittles. Packaging aside it's the taste that counts, and luckily they tasted very nice. They were very fruity and chewy and the texture was just perfect. As promised the orange turned to strawberry and the raspberry turned to lemon. It was quite a subtle change but definitely noticeable, and made for a pleasant flavour experience. They're far nicer than Skit...

Whilst in Family Bargains recently I came across these Sperlari Granperle pralines. Family Bargains always seem to sell obscure European branded chocolates, such as the LaCasa Pineapple Praline and Pergale Coconut Centres I've reviewed previously. These Sperlari pralines caught my attention because they look a bit like Lindor truffles, and indeed they were very similar! They're basically ball shaped truffles that contain different fillings. There were three different varieties at Family Bargains but I went for Milk Chocolate with gianduja and caramel crisp, and Dark chocolate with almond cream and nougat. Milk Chocolate Gianduja and Caramel: Sperlari  Granperle Milk & Caramel These are milk chocolate truffle balls that contain a gianduja hazelnut cream centre with crunchy caramel pieces, and they were delicious! The chocolate tasted very creamy and quite similar to Lindt, but not quite as rich. The gianduja filling was creamy and nutty, and the crunchy car...

I'm a big fan of Magnum ice creams - the white chocolate ones in particular, so when I saw this strawberry and white variety recently at Morrisons I couldn't resist giving them a try. It was a hot sunny day too which made them all the more tempting. For £1.75 you get 4 white chocolate Magnums, described as "Strawberry Ice Cream swirled with a Strawberry Sauce (13%) coated with White Chocolate (23%)". I shared these with a friend and we both managed to get through 2 ice creams each as they were so tasty! The white chocolate was thick and had a lovely creamy vanilla-hinted flavour, whilst the strawberry ice cream had a lovely refreshing strawberry taste. The sauce was nice and zingy and gave the ice cream an extra fruity kick. The flavours contrasted perfectly with the creamy white chocolate and made for a very indulgent ice cream. Overall I think these Strawberry & White Magnums are a delicious creamy treat and are perfect for the Summer weather....

As well as Tangfastics with watermelon slices , Haribo have also launched these new Limited Edition Starmix with "Blue'Bear'ies" as part of their "Flavours of Summer" range. They are basically regular Starmix jelly sweets with the addition of blueberry flavoured gummy bears, hence the terrible "blue'bear'ies" pun. Whilst the addition of watermelon slices was a great idea for Tangfastics, unfortunately blueberry flavoured gummy bears isn't quite so exciting for Starmix. The bears have quite an artificial blueberry flavour which I didn't find particularly tasty. I don't really understand why they went for blueberry as a flavour, to be honest - it's a flavour that's hard to get right in sweets and doesn't strike me as particularly "summery". I think passionfruit or mango would've tasted nicer and fit the summer theme much better. Maybe Haribo just  really wanted to use the word "blue'...

Whilst at Poundland recently I spotted these Haribo Smurfs Jellies. After looking them up online I found that they're to tie-in with the Smurfs 2 film due out next month, which is news to me as I never realized there was even a first Smurfs film! The jellies are in shapes of all the popular Smurfs characters such as Smurfette, Papa Smurf, Gutsy, Brainy and Grouchy. They come in raspberry, strawberry and lemon flavours. I was expecting them to taste similar to other sweets in Haribo's range such as Starmix, but to my surprise they had their own unique taste which was very fruity. They reminded me of the original Haribo Gummy Bears but were fruitier and more addictive. I can't quite place what it is that made them so addictive but they really were! Overall these are a nice spinoff from Haribo and I would definitely buy them again. Along with the new Haribo Tangfastics with watermelon slices they make a nice new addition to the Haribo range. Stay tuned for ...

Continuing with their endless new product creations , Cadbury have now come up with this "Summer Limited Edition" Strawberries and Creme Dairy Milk bar. I found this at Morrisons (as well as the new Cadbury Crunchums ) for £1. I was very excited because a new Dairy Milk flavour is always a special occasion in my book! The bar is described as "Milk chocolate with a yoghurt and strawberry filling" and comes in a 120g block. Opening the wrapper I was met with the familiar smell of Dairy Milk chocolate, as well as an undercurrent of fruity strawberries. I couldn't wait to get stuck in!  Taste-wise it was lovely. The Dairy Milk chocolate was as tasty as you would expect, and the strawberry filling was super smooth and creamy. The strawberry flavour itself was refreshing and realistic, and there was a slight tanginess from the yogurt which brought an extra dimension to the flavour. Overall this bar was moreish yet surprisingly filling - it didn'...