Kev's Snack Reviews

Just a quick review for this one since we are approaching Christmas day fast now...I was sent this some time back by M&S PR along with other festive M&S treats and meant to do a review, but got side-tracked! (as often happens). It's classic M&S sweet milk chocolate, good quality and smooth, filled with a tasty salted caramel filling. It's gooey, buttery and has a nice level of salt to sweet flavours. Better quality than the likes of Cadbury caramel and highly recommend as a festive snack - especially once the post Christmas price reductuons start! Hope you all have a lovely Christmas filled with the tastiest of snacks - do keep an eye on my Instagram page for the latest! :)

I recently spotted a new Winter Blend coffee from Asda's Extra Special range, and the description sounded rather intriguing indeed: "Capture the magic of Christmas with a delightful collection of the finest beans sourced from East Africa and Latin America. Subtle Winter Spices sparkle against a deep, velvety dark roast, crackling with hints of toasted nuts and dark chocolate". Sounds pretty special right? This costs £2.75 for a 227g pack. I made it as directed in my cafetiere and of course drank it from my special piggy mug - no coffee would be complete for me without a pigs behind staring back at me, haha! I wasn't expecting this to taste of festive spice or anything too fancy, because these "special" coffees never really do, but to my surprise it was rather good! Definitely not just an average coffee and there were some fruity and spicy notes in there. It's not christmas spice flavour but they've clearly used a different blend of coffee beans

Today's review is rather festive since we are fast entering the Christmas holiday period, it's for a brand I've always loved but don't buy unless it's a special occasion due to the price. Teapigs! Teapigs are well known for their "biodegradable tea temples" and have won Great Taste awards for their range - this particular flavour has won a 2016 Great Taste award. Costing £4.15 for 15 tea temples these contain a mixture of red rooibos tea, natural flavourings, orange peel, ginkgo leaves, orange blossom, cinnamon, ginseng, cloves and safflower petals. They're made in a factory that handles nuts. The instructions advise brewing for 3-5 minutes with water at 100c. But as usual I didn't really pay attention to this and left the bag in my cup for a much stronger drink! The tea is very nice and warming, and not too strongly spicy but gentle and subtle. Almost too subtle for my liking actually. Most of the spicy flavours are in the aftertaste which

It's nice to see the range of dairy free/vegan chocolate options expanding in the UK, with the likes of Waitrose , Ombar and others making some respectable options, and so it seems fitting that health food store Holland and Barrett have created their own range. They are now selling Organic Pumpkin Spice and Gingerbread dark chocolates, which come in 100g blocks and cost £3. A bit too pricey if you ask me, but nevertheless I was curious enough to give this a try when I spotted it - it's made with 58% cocoa solids and contains gluten free ginger cookie pieces. Opening the wrapper it certainly had a pleasant ginger aroma that reminded me of dark chocolate gingers.  The cookie pieces are clearly visible within the chocolate and pretty evenly dispersed. Taking a bite they're very evident and nice and crunchy. The chocolate is pretty smooth and sweet, which surprised me as usually chocolate with this percent of cocoa can be a little bitter. It's clearly of good quality a

A big thankyou to Mr Beans Coffee (no, not the comedy character!) for sending me a sample of their freshly roasted coffee to review recently. I'm a fan of quality coffee - the stronger the better  especially when it's made in a cafetiere, so I was super excited to try this! I was given advice on how to brew it for the perfect cuppa beforehand, and the coffee arrived freshly ground within a day through the post. Top marks for service! The coffee comes in a sealed packet, and opening it revealed a fresh coffee scent...there's no better smell in the morning is there?! This particular coffee is the Brazilian Twister, a unique blend of Arabica coffee originating from Peru. I used two large spoonfuls in my cafetiere and filled it with hot water. The aroma was great - definitely fresh and good quality in comparison to supermarket brands. The taste was great too - flavoursome, fresh and slightly malty with a hint of fruitiness. No traces of chemical taste like you ge

I'm a quite the fan of plantain chips, and often buy the various flavoured varieties now available from the likes of Tesco and Morrisons, such as spicy, garlic etc. They're usually found in the World Foods sections, so it's nice to see Tesco bringing them more into the mainstream under their Tesco Finest brand. I assumed these were part of their Christmas range but they're situated amongst the other "posh" bags of crisps rather than in the Christmas aisle, so I'm guessing they must be permanent. They cost £1.25 for a 125g bag, are hand cooked, suitable for vegans and made with plantain, sunflower oil and sea salt. Opening the bag, the crisps are in a range of shapes, from the more rounded part of a plantain - which looks like regular potato crisps - to the longer part, which looks like thin strips. They're pretty tasty, but I found them inferior to the other bands of plantain crisps on the market. They're a little oily, probably due to th

Just a quick review for this Lemon and Juniper Gin Dark Chocolate from Morrisons today. I bought this a while back so no longer have the packaging, but from my notes it's vegan, dairy free and suitable for vegetarians and contains around 52% cocoa solids. I don't believe there was any actual alcohol in the ingredients, although it does of course contain juniper berry and lemon flavorings. (edit: Ingredients list is on Morrisons website). I'm not a huge fan of gin, at least from the little of it that I've tried thus far, so wasn't sure what to expect from this. But it's actually rather pleasant! The taste is more of lemon and citrus, with a hint of the more herby juniper, that works quite well with it. The chocolate is just rich enough and just sweet enough to please fans of both darker chocolate and sweeter chocolate. If you're vegan or dairy free and need some variation in your chocolate choices, this is a great option. It's not something I'd b

A big thankyou to Baboo Gelato for today's review, they kindly sent me some of their Gelato range recently and it's been quite a delightful experience to say the least! Baboo Gelato is handmade award winning ice cream, from Bridport, Dorset and is available from Delis in the Bridport area, although will gradually be expanding as other stores stock them. If you're interested in seeing these please do let local stores know! Baboo use organic milk from a local farm and a lot of the fruit comes from their own rambling garden. It's lower in fat content than traditional ice cream, and more intensely flavoured. The range I was sent had some lovey varieties, there's the super moreish Bah Humbug, based on butter mint sweets, Brandy Gelato which is appropriately boozy, Crystallized Ginger Gelato, Pear Sorbet which has won a Great Taste Award, and an alcoholic Gin and Tonic sorbet. Starting with my absolute favourite from the range - Bah Humbug! This has a festive d

A big thanks to Yeoman Foods for sending me their new Mash Pots range to review recently. I hadn't eaten instant mash in quite a while and didn't know it came in handy pots like this, much less with added flavours. The Yeoman Mash Pot range is all Gluten Free, made from real potatoes, suitable for vegetarians, with no artificial colourings and is ready in 30 seconds. Just what you need for a quick snack! There's 4 flavours - Chicken, Beef, Onion and Cream which should be available from Heron Foods, Home Bargains, The Range and Poundstretcher now. I started with the Chicken variety. Opening the lid revealed the potato granules and herbs - it had an aroma that reminded me of Chicken cup-a-soup. I added hot water as directed, which transformed the mixture pretty quickly into a tasty, buttery mash. I was surprised by just how buttery it tasted actually - the addition of real cream in the ingredients makes a big difference. I don't know how they've achieved

A big thankyou to Booths for sending me one of their Christmas Hampers to review recently. Booths are a company based in Preston specializing in luxury gifts and have quite an impressive range indeed, with everything from wines, coffees, chocolate hampers, alcohol baubles and more. To see the whole range do check out their website:  https://gifts.booths.co.uk/ The hamper they sent me was the Luxury Christmas version, containing a varied selection of everything you could need for Christmas; from Christmas Cake Slices, Scottish Shortbread, Truffles, Coffee, Tea, Mulled Wine and more! The hamper is all packed in a lovely wicker hamper, perfect to re-use for picnics. It's generously filled to protect the contents, with a festive message and a Booths themed bag on top. A nice touch! The hamper is filled with an All Butter Scottish Shortbread assortment, as well as Iced Christmas Cake Slices. Both great quality products, with the shortbread being handmade from real bu

Today's review is for something a bit different, a new type of healthy ice cream featuring ingredient of the moment: avocado! Not just avocado, but that other superfood of the moment  - coconut! Yes they've only gone and mixed the two together to make a healthy, vegan, gluten free, nut free and soya free ice cream! It comes in two varieties: Original and Raw Cacao and is available from ocado.com and Waitrose. Fravocado kindly sent me some samples to review and below are my thoughts on each variety. I'll start with the Raw Cacao because this was the one that divided my opinion most. It's made with Coconut Milk, 15% Avocadoes, Agave Syrup, Coconut Oil, Cacao Powder, Lime Juice, Vanilla Extract, Guar Gum, Xanthan Gum and Salt. Opening the lid, it was super solid; practically a block of ice and even after waiting over half an hour it took a while to become scoopable. Eventually I decided to shave bits off with a spoon and eat it that way - hence the appearance in

As far as Dairy Free/Vegan chocolates go I'm a huge fan of the Waitrose 1 Indian Ocean Coconut Chocolate bar. It's hands down my favourite, it's pretty much like a Lindt Extra Creamy as far as Vegan chocolate is concerned. But when I spotted these mini bars of Coconut "Enjoy" raw chocolate in Asda's Free From section recently I was intrigued to see if they would taste similar - they contain creamed coconut and are described as Milk Chocolate, although have a high cocoa percentage - 65%. They're Organic and made with Peruvian Cacao, costing £1.99, which is a little off-putting for such a small bar but if the quality is good surely it's worth it? The bar comes in ten small squares and has a rich and coconutty aroma. Definitely no average chocolate. The taste surprised me - it's super creamy but also very rich from the high percentage of cocoa. It's a nice balance of flavours, neither being too intense nor too sweet. I wouldn't s