Cadbury Pots of Joy, Creme Egg

The diet could only last so long, you know.

Well, okay, I am still dieting, but I've reintroduced some joy into my life. Namely, a pot of joy. Get it? Ah, you get it.

I love Creme Eggs, I think they're the UK's single greatest export...single greatest export. I know exactly what I'm saying. So when I saw these at my lunch break at work, I braved the jeers & taunts of my co-workers and bought them - 'screw the diet' I was heard to say by the other Pots of Joy. That's what I call my co-workers, of course.

Described as being made with Cadbury's melted chocolate and having a 'fondant layer', I was assuming this was going to mostly be a chocolate pudding. It's funny, I think the Pots of Joy got a lot of good reviews around the web but the chocolate & caramel varieties left me a little bored. I think chocolate pudding is so commonplace in America it would be very hard to get one of us types excited about it. In the US, you can get literally dozens of different flavors of pudding, 24 hours a day. Here is an example of just what Jello currently has in the refrigerated section. Stuff like birthday cake, Oreo 'dirt cups', and s'mores is common place. So yeah, it just didn't light my world on fire when I saw that Cadbury was making chocolate pudding. Sure, it was good, but pudding is just about the world's most boring dessert - especially when it isn't warm and homemade with a skin on top. Mmm, pudding skin.

All that being said, the white chocolate one was really nice - mostly because that's a flavor you don't often get with pudding. However, you never get Creme Egg flavor in a pudding, so I was quite pumped.

Opening it up, it did smell quite chocolatey & looked like a plain ol' chocolate pudding. I was curious if the yellow and white yolk of the fondant was going to translate.

And it did! It looked really cool, but I was trying to balance my expensive new camera and hold a spoon near it at the same time, so consider this an action shot. Post action. On the plus side, no chocolate on my camera, even though I'm really stupid!

The chocolate layer was about 1/4 of the pot, and tasted like a pretty nice chocolate pudding. I dunno, I'm not a big 'cold chocolate' person. I don't even like chocolate ice cream that much. It tasted fine, just like a Rolo dessert or something, but I was happy to dispense of it quickly and get to the creme layer...the fondant layer.

I was really wondering how it was going to taste like the inside of a creme egg, considering the inside of a creme egg just tastes like thickened sugar syrup. Well, it tastes like that but cold. It's really accurate, and it's quite nice! I recommend eating the entire chocolate layer first, and then savoring the sweet fondant layer since the taste is quite a bit more delicate. The texture is smooth & not at all grainy.

Kev of Kev's Snack Reviews tried this one as well, so take a look at his review too! I think we felt about the same way.

Is it better than the Creme Egg ice creams that come out around this time? No. Is it better than Creme Eggs themselves? No. Is it better than regular pudding? Totally - and it's worth trying if you are a fan of Creme Eggs and/or novelty products.

Chai Tea Roundup

Oh, January. I'm dieting like most all human beings on Earth, and so far it's going well. I've cut out candy (boo) chocolate (hiss) and fatty meals (scream). Basically, I'm eating soup & oatmeal. I'm sort of taking the attitude that my jaw has been broken, and I can't have anything besides liquid. What do people who aren't gluttonous creeps eat daily, anyway? All I ever manage to think of is soup.

Luckily chai lattes don't require chewing, and even though I know calorie-wise they're not particularly low, I'm getting small ones and it is my one treat every couple of days. So sue me.

 I've tried a lot of the chain coffee shop ones already, but I was looking forward to testing a couple from other spots around East London where I work. I'll continue trying new ones, but here are a couple from some great stops around Old Street. Not all coffee shops do chai lattes - for instance I don't think they do them at Shoreditch Grind - but I'll be reviewing the ones that do until I can eat food again.

Fix Coffee, Whitecross St -  No picture, but it was a charmingly plain white cup with the word 'Chai' written on it. Nothing much to say about the visuals, but what does that matter with a drink I'm just going to splat a lid on and suck down within minutes anyway?

The texture for Fix's chai latte was superb. Smooth and velvety, without much foamy milk. I like the foamy milk, don't get me wrong, but when you're getting small lattes you really want to feel like it's a drink and not just the leftover fuzz of a milkshake.  Flavor wise it was more sweet than spicy, which was surprising considering it wasn't labelled as a 'vanilla' chai. I really loved it though! Since it was so smooth & thick, it felt particularly 'indulgent' and made me feel more guilty than usual about drinking so much sugar-infused tea milk while I am supposed to be dieting. Hey, the weight is coming off.

Fix itself had a really nice vibe, a good mix of people & very friendly staff. I just did takeaway, but I appreciate a coffee shop where I don't feel underdressed or otherwise lame. I'm sure Fix has great coffee, and if I can get there in the morning I might try an actual latte latte. Also worth noting that they had frappe-type drinks (both coffee and non-coffee) iced drinks, and lots of pastries (including a possible Rinkoff crodough sighting!). I'll be coming back to Fix, and I'm really looking forward to not being on my diet anymore so I can try some of the baked goods and a Count Chocula drink...whatever it is. I support all of the good Count's endeavors & forms.

Ozone - I really like Ozone - always very busy with all kinds of people sitting around, and really friendly service. This is the chai latte I get most frequently. There are two varieties, spicy and vanilla. The vanilla is delicately sweet with a sort of custard-y vanilla taste. The spicy is just that - spicy. Doesn't seem any more spicy than the vanilla, just less sweet. Nice, but I've got a sweet tooth so I often go with the added sugar of the vanilla.

 The texture is a bit foamier than Fix, so it goes much quicker - but the taste is nicer - slightly more complex than Fix, and not as sweet.

You'll notice that the drinks are served in smaller cups at Ozone than they are at some other independent coffee shops - and certainly tiny compared to massive Starbucks & Costa cups - but I've never found this to be much of a problem. There is only one size advertised at Ozone, and while I'm certain I've seen people request bigger takeaway cups I've never asked myself.

The food at Ozone is also quite good, with baked stuff up by the counter that is constantly laughing at me now that I'm dieting. Before, we were good friends. The brownies are really, really good & all the cakes and croissants are top drawer.

On top of all their coffee and baked goods, Ozone serves lunch & big hot breakfasts. I came here for my work birthday lunch and had a order of fries and a banana milkshake (hey, it was my birthday) and it was delicious. Mid-thick shake, so still slurpable through a straw, and crisp-outside soft-inside salty fries. Some of the nicest fries I've had since moving to the UK, and they even boxed the rest up for me.

I'm a huge fan of both of these places, and I'm glad to still be able to indulge in a sweet drink in the morning. Do you have any suggestions for places to get great chai lattes?

Market Pantry, Pumpkin Cheesecake Creme Sandwich Cookies

I've been in America for a few weeks now - so sorry for the lack of posts!

To make up for it, I've got a new camera...well, not just to make up for not posting on this blog, it was more of a Christmas present than a 'make-up-to-your-blog-readers' present...but hey, good nonetheless right?

So I picked these up right before Christmas, and while they're definitely more of a fall treat than a holiday treat they're still pretty seasonal and definitely special for the USA. Can you imagine Tesco having pumpkin cheesecake sandwich cookies? Not likely - and that's sad.

I like this new camera a lot, I would've never been able to get a picture like that previously. There is a bit of a texture problem with these, at least in my opinion - the cookies themselves are extremely crunchy like gingersnaps. Actually, they're quite a bit like gingersnaps in taste as well - spicy, but less ginger and heat and more nutmeg and sweet.

The cream filling is nice, a bit thicker and stickier than Oreo cream, and tasting quite a bit like lemon - more tangy than actual cheesecake, but when eaten alongside the spicy cookie it makes a nice approximation of cheesecake with a gingersnap crust. Not much pumpkin, really - but that is kind of part & parcel of most 'pumpkin' flavored goods. It just means pie spices.

Over all, these cookies were pretty nice, but not the exact 'pumpkin cheesecake' experience I was hoping for. The cream was just a bit too tangy for the taste to be right, and the cookies were a bit too crunchy for the texture to be perfect. I'll finish up the box, but a Christmas miracle these weren't.

Hope you're all having a lovely holiday, and I'll be back to regular posting soon!

Japanese BBQ Cheetos

sweet at first kinda smoky oniony beefy not at all like american bbq chips like nik naks rib n saucy flavor but less savoury not salty

Back again with another Japanese Cheeto review! This one is a bit more esoteric than the Cheeseburger Cheetos, kinda on the level of Avocado Salad, but way less weird than Mentai Mayo.

Japanese Barbecue Cheetos, or 'BBQ Taste' Cheetos, are not what I would've expected as an American from barbecue flavors. In the US, when a chip is flavored like barbecue, that means it tastes just like BBQ sauce - not like meat, or charcoal, or anything other than sauce. That suits me just fine, because it's both what I grew up with, and a delicious tasty treat.

It's a bit hard to tell since most of the packaging is made up of some weird advertisement for the Cheetos mobile website X Thomas the Tank Engine, but behind that is a picture of grilled meat that doesn't look like it's covered in sauce. "Zuh?" I was heard to query, "but where's the sauce?"

Apparently, Japanese BBQ means charcoal grilled meat, with a dipping sauce that's mostly soy sauce, rice wine, and other kind of thing and slightly vinegar-y tastes. Not exactly American style barbecue slathered in red sauce.

So the taste really reflected that. In the USA we don't have many beef or otherwise meat flavored chips, but here in the UK I know that is quite classic. My husband likened these to NikNaks Rib 'n' Saucy flavor...never had them, but I appreciate the regionality of the 'n'.

To me, they tasted quite sweet at first (like all of the Japanese Cheetos do, really) but after a few crunches they taste very onion-y, beefy & smokey. Really nice! I can taste the meatiness, for sure - and even the sort of charcoal smoke from being grilled, in the same way you can taste that in a Burger King cheeseburger.

It wasn't like American BBQ, but then again I didn't expect it to be...as it says right there (presumably) Japanese Barbecue.

The taste was way more familiar to my husband than it was to me, I found the meaty and onion-y taste of these really interesting and strange, and quite tasty - while to him, it was quite a bit like these Nik Naks.

NikNaks, for those of you not in the know (such as me) are an English snack quite similar to Cheetos, except they come in every flavor but cheese. Apparently there was a cheese flavor, but for whatever reason it was discontinued. Now it is Lemon 'n' Scampi (huh), Rib 'n' Saucy (wuh), Pickle 'n' Onion (buh), and finally Nice 'n' Spicy (now that I get). So...weird.

What's up with that? When I think about it, I never see people eat Quavers, either - and I really like them, and the other cheesy airy puffs of their ilk. Is artificial cheese flavor just not that well liked here? Is it because it's so much more culturally acceptable to eat literal cheese in Europe? That makes sense, I suppose. Still though, you're missing out. Fake cheese isn't meant to substitute for the real thing, just like beef jerky isn't the same as steak - but the two can coexist peacefully and happily in a family's shopping cart.

Snowy Road Squares

There were so many interesting things in my local Marks & Spencers. Is that it - both plural...both possessive? Hm. Is this why people always say M&S instead?

I rarely shop there, as it's a bit expensive but not necessarily exciting; even more so I used to only pass one on my way home that was always absolutely heaving with people. Now I have one very near my actual  house, and even though the hours are not at all conducive to a person who works (closes at 5 pm, really?) I managed to have a browse over the weekend.

I guess I should've realized that there would be lots of cool Christmas stuff out, but I was still surprised at the amount and how the selection wasn't just like, Jaffa cakes with red middles & Santa shaped chocolate. Oh, there were tons of Santa shaped chocolates, but there was more - much more. I'll be reviewing a few of these things in the coming weeks, but first up is the most exciting and most seasonal:

Snowy Road Squares are white chocolate rocky roads, basically.

And I love rocky road. Sometimes it is bad, like when there are barely any biscuit pieces and virtually no raisin or cherry pieces, but when you get the ratio right it is one of the most perfect desserts ever. I wasn't a fan of a rocky road ice cream in America, so it took me awhile to try the bars here in the UK, but I'm so glad I did.

You can probably tell that this is a good variety to me, as there are lots of visible chunks of cherry - nary a square was missing cherry. The little white chocolate swirl was nice, and did a serviceable job of binding the top bits to the underlayer. The marshmallows were a sweet combination of pink and white, and really blended in nicely with the white chocolate. It did look pretty festive and cute - I guess the cherries can be discarded Santa hats.

In contrast to most rocky road I have tried, there is actually more 'biscuit' than there is chocolate in these - but I'm not complaining.

The taste was just super - if you're in the mood for sweetness. The cherries are sweet and soft like jelly, the biscuit is sweet and crunchy, the white chocolate is sweet and smooth, and finally the marshmallows are also sweet and bouncy.

Now, the best rocky road I ever had was made by my mother in law and had dark chocolate, cherries, and ginger biscuit pieces. It was insanely good, crunchy and not too sweet.

On the other hand, I love white chocolate and 'very sweet' things most of the time, so this goes right up there as my 2nd favorite rocky road. The only improvement that I think could be made to this is ginger biscuit pieces rather than the sort of plain, buttery biscuit that are in these. It would just add a nice bit of heat and contrast to what is otherwise purely sugar in various textural forms. Again, not that I'm complaining.

Get on it, Marks and/or Spencers.

Mentai Mayo Cheetos

Another weekend, another odd Japanese Cheeto flavor. Previously I've reviewed Cheeseburger Cheetos, and Avocado Salad Cheetos - two foods that I have eaten in non-Cheeto form.

This time though, it's a Cheeto of a different stripe: rather than being a Japanese Cheeto flavored with a traditionally Western flavor, it's a Japanese Cheeto flavored with food that probably isn't known by a sizable portion of my old high school...Mentaiko Mayo.

"Zuh?" You might be asking - or you're way more cultured than me and you're all like, "Creamy Steaks, you big dumby! Mentaiko Mayo is cod roe mixed with mayonnaise...wait a minute, do you not know what cod roe is? Egg mass, dumbass" you'd say, proud of both your cultural reference, rhymes, and knowledge. Well, aren't you cool - I actually ate these Cheetos though, and that's got to count for something in this world.

I suppose the little red dots are meant to look like flecks of roe - pretty cool.

Upon opening, these smelled like smoky bacon chips. I was worried they would smell like fish (one of my top Worst Smells) but luckily it was just artificial smoke & bacon. Weird, but not disgusting. I do hate the taste of bacon chips though, so I was apprehensive.

I've never eaten cod roe before & mayonnaise isn't so high on my list of Top Foods either - so I wasn't sure what to expect from these especially since they smelled like bacon.

The first taste was kind of tangy and buttery like mayonnaise - since I don't make a habit of eating mayonnaise without any sort of accompaniment I can't say if it tasted exactly mayo, but it had the same tangy zip.

As for cod roe, like I said I've never had it, but as I continued I had a flavor that must've been the mimic of cod roe. They tasted quite creamy, with just a hint of a seafood taste - similar to scampi/lobster/fried shrimp...the very best kind of fishy taste. There was still that little bit of tang, like mayo but almost like lemon on a lobster.

Now, all this is of course on a crisp-ity crunch-ity Cheeto, and not a delicious melting fleshy lobster; so lobstermen around the world, your job is not in danger. Thanks for all that dangerous fishing, by the way.

Would I get these again? Probably not, because even though the taste was pretty good even I have to draw the line at some point...some foods are not meant to be crunchy, and lobster/fish & mayo are some of them. In the grand scheme of things, these are some of the weirdest Cheetos I've come across (barring the as-of-yet reviewed Pepsi Cheetos) and they taste pretty nice, so if you were hosting a dinner party dedicated to weird flavors (a party theme I highly recommend) these would be a great appetizer.

Russell Stover Red Velvet Santa

I'm glad I've came around to Russell Stover, elsewise I might've never even heard of this Red Velvet Santa.

Red Velvet makes so much sense with Santa, even though I've never thought to put the two together...I mean, what fabric do you think that suit is made of, polyester? Get real, no way that would keep out the cold. Santa's a velvet man if I've ever seen one...and I have. It's Santa. Santa is the velvet man.

So, he's not looking too different in this package, he's still your classic white-bearded Saint Nick, Teddy Bear in tow. No indication of what the chocolate is going to be like, but since it says 'Red Velvet Santa' I presume it will be Santa-ish in shape.

Doesn't look like Santa at all. Maybe it's meant to be his beard. I can kind of see that...Also, a chocolate beard seems thematically appropriate for Santa - just his style.

Very nice vivid pinky-red color, and the texture seemed quite thick like refrigerated cookie dough. It didn't smell like anything, not even like chocolate.

The texture was thick, and only slightly grainy. It was like refrigerated dough.

It's coated in dark chocolate, which is a really good thing because the inside is basically cake mix with white chocolate and sugar. It tastes like cake mix & white chocolate, but funny enough much less strong or artificial than I would've guessed. That was the way it was for the Caramel Apple Big Bite, as well. It tasted like a cake pop, sort of, coated in dark chocolate. It was nice, but it was sort of missing the part of red velvet cake that makes it very special - the cream cheese frosting.

It could've used a bit of a tang to the inside - that would've been better. As it stands, it kinda tasted like a vanilla-centered dark chocolate truffle. I wouldn't have guessed red velvet, or even cake, really. I'd totally eat it again, but it was just a basic kinda chocolate, really - sort of disappointing!