Kev's Snack Reviews

I've always been partial to Côte d'Or chocolates, even though they're a rare find in the UK. I've only ever seen them on market stalls selling discounted European stuff, and that's exactly where I spotted this Côte d'Or dark chocolate with almonds recently. It was a mere 99p for 200g - bargain! It's described as "high quality plain chocolate with whole almonds" and contains 46% cocoa solids. Not particularly high for dark chocolate, but acceptable for "plain" or "semisweet" chocolate I suppose. It's made by Mondelez Belgium. The bar is very thick with interesting shaped chunks, each one with the Côte d'Or elephant logo printed on. I really do love the feel of Côte d'Or bars, they're a lot more substantial than what Cadbury bars have now become! There were plenty of almond pieces distributed throughout the bar, but it didn't smell particularly appetising, I suspect it may have suffered somewh...

I love Heron Frozen Foods, they always have such an interesting range of products that aren't always found in supermarkets, and they're cheap to boot. Woo!  I haven't seen this new ice cream stick from Haagen Dazs in any supermarkets yet, so I'm not sure where Heron are sourcing it from, but at 39p I really couldn't refuse. There was also a Cookies & Cream variety that I couldn't try due to gluten (boo!).  The stick comes wrapped in plastic in its own box. Very fancy! The ice cream is a simple vanilla Haagen Dazs ice cream, coated in milk chocolate with pieces of almond as well as crunchy rice pieces. And it was dee-licious! By the time I got this home it was the perfect temperature for eating, the ice cream was soft and melt in the mouth with a lovely vanilla creaminess. The milk chocolate coating added to the deliciousness, it was creamy and good quality, with the almond and rice crisps adding a tasty crunch. This ice cream was a d...

I was recently contacted by Halusky , an import foods company specializing in Czech and Slokak products, who are releasing a new range of wafers called Lusette in the UK. I've seen a lot of their products in local stores before, so I was excited about this, only one problem: I can't eat gluten! So todays review is based on opinions of a friend who tried these wafers on my behalf. Lusette Nougat:  The above pictured bar contains some type of nougat Creme filling, which is slightly chewy and very creamy, working well against the crunchy wafers and creamy milk chocolate. A bit different for a wafer bar and very tasty with a cup of coffee! Lusette Chocolate:  This variety has a very rich and dense chocolate Creme filling, making it very satisfying and almost like a dessert in itself. Very tasty! Again, perfect with coffee. Lusette Platinum:  This wafer contains chopped nuts mixed into the chocolate coating and filling, giving it a lovely crunch and making ...

I'm secretly quite a fan of Nakd bars...not only are they gluten free (a biggie for me!), they're dairy free, vegan and refined-sugar free to boot. Woo! Sadly they're not nut-free, so those who go pop from nuts step away now! I do have issues with nuts myself, particularly macadamias, but lately I seem to be doing ok with the lesser nuts. Nakd bars are predominantly a mixture of cashews and dates, which touch wood I am ok with thus far.  I've been after this Pecan Pie Bar ever since I first noticed it...I do love pecan nuts especially combined with sweeter flavours, and I wondered how Nakd might recreate pecan pie in bar form. I spotted this along with the Cocoa Mint variety in Waitrose so couldn't resist snapping up both! (Stay tuned for a review of Cocoa Mint).  This bar contains a mixture of dates, pecans and almonds, and nothing else. I kinda expected the addition of a flavouring such as cinnamon or cloves, since pumpkin pie would traditionally ...

After Easter, Tesco reduced a boatload of their Easter eggs and amongst them were these Tesco Honey Caramel Chocolates. I've been curious about them ever since I saw them, but with an RRP of £4 I decided not to bother! Luckily these were reduced to just £1 so I couldn't say no to that! They're described as "Honey flavoured smooth caramel in a yellow shell with dark chocolate decoration". I think the yellow shell is meant to be some type of white chocolate although it doesn't state specifically on the ingredients. When I bit into one of these I was amazed at just how strong the honey flavour was...it was like eating pure honey rather than caramel! I didn't enjoy it to be honest, I was expecting more emphasis on the caramel with an aftertaste of honey, but the honey was forefront in the flavour here. Just too intense for me. Overall, I'm glad I didn't pay £4 to try these but even at £1 they're not something I'd try again. They...

I'm not usually one to shop at Iceland, even though there's quite a few stores near to me, but when I started seeing pics of all the new fancy limited edition Ice Creams they're doing on Instagram I thought it about time I pay a visit. They've recently introduced the interesting sounding Banoffee Majestics , Limoncello, Amaretto, Liquorice & Blackcurrant varieties, plus some Bubblegum & Candy Floss Lollies . When I visited I decided to play it safe, since I've never tried Majestics before (they're basically a cheaper version of Magnum) and went for this Blueberry Swirl variety rather than try the whole range! These cost £1.50 for 4x70g ice cream sticks, which are described as "White Chocolate flavoured ice cream Lollies with a blueberry flavour sauce swirl, coated in Belgian White chocolate and freeze dried blueberry pieces". As fancy and unique as these sounded, I can't say they lived up to their promise. The White chocolate ...

I was rather excited when I first saw these new Strawberries & Creme Pots of Joy, I used to enjoy the Dairy Milk Strawberries & Creme bar Cadbury started doing a few years back every Summer. But after trying these, I realised I've essentially already had them before...they're pretty much the same thing as the Cadbury Roses Strawberry Dream Pots of Joy Cadbury did a few years back, and which I've reviewed. So does this rebranded version differ at all? Let's find out! These do actually seem a tad different from the Roses Strawberry Dream Pots of Joy, rather than just having one layer of fondant, they have a layer of strawberry fondant as well as a layer of plain fondant. Also these contain "melted Cadbury milk chocolate" rather than Dairy Milk, so they're not quite the same as the Strawberries & Creme Dairy Milk bar either. They tasted very nice, chocolatey and sweet with a decent strawberry fondant flavour and made for a good dessert aft...

I'm lucky to have a Fenwicks store nearby, they do some pretty interesting and unique chocolate bars you'd never see anywhere else...such as this Compartes Chocolatier Let Them Eat Cake Bar (reviewed by Lot-O-Choc), Donuts & Coffee , The Chocolate Smiths range, plus many other artisan bars. Trouble is, they all cost a small fortune! Sometimes though they reduce the price when they're close to the sell by date...and it was just by chance that I popped in one day when these Nelleulla Rhubarb Strawberry bars were reduced to £1.50 (they're usually around £5!) I snapped one up immediately!  The bar is quite elaborately packaged...it comes in triangular cardboard sleeves as well as plastic wrap and a cardboard tray. The tag line is "Chocolate from the forest" and the bar comprises of white chocolate with dried rhubarb and strawberry, topped with rhubarb and strawberry pieces. Apparently "The Northern maidens harvest them and set them in white ...

All the posh supermarkets seem to be upping their game in the chocolate stakes recently, we've had a boatload of fancy new snacks from M&S, but now Waitrose have stepped into the ring with some new bars in their own label range. The one I went for was this White Chocolate with Matcha Tea & Pistachio, but there's also another new variety that contains Wafer and Caramel - sadly I couldn't try it as it contains gluten :( The bar is described as "Roasted Pistachio pieces and green matcha tea in vanilla-rich white chocolate" and cost around £1.60 for an 85g bar. Not bad for posh chocolate! It's been years since I've had white chocolate flavoured with green tea, so I was a little weary as to how this might turn out. Thankfully, it was very tasty! The pistachios dominate the flavour, bringing a lovely nutty, almost floral edge to the bar, with the green tea bringing a slightly sharper aftertaste. All of this works very well against the creamy...

So, I'm back on the sugar-free train again, but that doesn't mean I don't have lots of sugar-coated reviews to keep everyone happy in the meantime! As my snacking pal Lucy so helpfully pointed out on Instgram, these Nut Clusters do indeed have the word SUGAR printed in capitals, just in case anyone should mistake them for a healthy snack. Thanks for making it so clear, M&S! I've wanted to try these since I first saw them, but the £2.50 price tag kept putting me off. Eventually I caved, as I so often do with snack products I'm curious about! For £2.50 you get 120g, which doesn't seem like much. The description reads "Roasted almonds, peanuts and cashew nuts in glucose syrup, sugar and sea salt". The clusters have clearly been cut into squares, but as you can see in the pics one has stayed as a rectangle...the [machinery] force was not strong with this one! ;)  The clusters are very crunchy, with the perfect balance of sweet and s...

When I first saw this new product in M&S's Spirit of Summer range I was very excited..."pineapple and white chocolate, what a unique combination!", I thought. Until I read the small print, and my excitement turned to sadness. That's because not only does this contain interesting additions such as coconut and popping candy...but chilli too. Urgh! What were M&S thinking, ruining an otherwise tasty product with chilli?! I point blank refused to buy it. Then a few days passed...my curiosity started nagging at me...someone on Instagram said it doesn't taste too bad...so finally I decided I had to try it, if only to find out what pineapple, chilli, coconut, popping candy and white chocolate would taste like mixed together. And I'm glad I did! Although this wasn't as great as it could have been because of the chilli...it's still a very tasty and moreish snack! The pineapple chunks are all differently sized, there was a nice mix of both ...

I would dedicate this review to a certain nutty snacks pal...she knows who she is...if it weren't for the fact she can't eat peanuts without going pop. Also M&S have already named a bar after her, The Crazy One , so I guess I'll have to dedicate this one to moi!  This bar cost arond 75p and is described as "Milk chocolate with a layer of soft chocolate fudge (28%), a crunchy centre with salted peanuts (22%) and peanut butter (6%)".  For comparison sake I would say this is somewhat similar to a Reese's Nutrageous, but an inferior version. I couldn't really detect any peanut butter as such, but I could definitely taste the salted peanuts. What I didn't like too much about this bar was the fudge filling, it didn't seem quite right somehow, all I could really taste was sweetness with some salted nuts thrown in. The peanut butter seemed a bit lost in everything else. It's a nice enough bar don't get me wrong, but not qui...

When I first spotted this new Haagen Dazs variety in the shops I was very tempted to try it, however as it was always at full price I never bothered. Luckily though, it recently appeared in my local Heron Frozen Foods store for only £1.29...bargain!  It's a simple combination of berry flavoured ice cream with a swirl of berry sauce. I let it soften up a bit before serving, as Haagen Dazs is always rock solid when you first remove it from the tub!  As much as I love Haagen Dazs ice cream, I have to say I can see why this has ended up in a discount store...it's just not as great as the other fantastic flavours they do. It's creamy and indulgent of course, but I felt the richness of the ice cream overpowered any subtle fruity flavours. The Berry sauce was nice but there wasn't enough of it really.  Overall, as good quality as this ice cream is I don't think it's one that will be around for much longer, there's just so many other nicer H...

Winner of the most pointless new product of the year goes to...Walkers Crisps Tear 'N Share! Yes, Walkers have done what so many companies do when sales fall and have repackaged an existing product in a new format for a different "occasion", so they can slap a "new" label on it.  These Walkers Tear N Share are in a bag that also supposedly doubles up as a bowl, and contain Walkers Thicker Cut crisps. When I opened the bag I was puzzled as to what was so different, it didn't look like much of a "bowl" to me, just a regular old bag of crisps!  Apparently, according to the wrapper I'd opened it wrong, so I opened it from the other side to see if it looked any more like a bowl. No luck!: It was a bit easier to keep it upright though, if you should choose to share these crisps with friends. Because maybe your friends are too stupid to hold a "regular" bag of crisps without dropping them!  The crisps tasted like...

Recently some new Eat Natural bars appeared in my local Tesco Express, I've never been a fan of their bars to be honest as I find them rather sugary and unhealthy for a "natural" snack bar, but it seems they have upped their game and reduced the sugar whilst increasing the protein content. Always a good thing in my book! They're also wheat, dairy and gluten-free so are suitable for us folks with various intolerances as well as being vegetarian. Yay! For £2 you get three 45g bars, which I must admit I thought was a bit steep. But you have to pay for your health, I guess! The bars smelled nice and peanutty with a hint of maple syrup. They were kind of sticky, but not overly so, they still held their shape despite my warm hands. They tasted pretty decent! Not too hard and not too chewy, not too sweet, with just the right amount of maple flavour and crunchy nuttiness. They were very filling and satisfying, I didn't feel the need to eat another after ...