This Drink IS Metal - Robinsons Mandalorian & Grogu Beskar Berry Blend Squash [@NLi10]

 My partner got some discount squash because she'd 'never seen a grey drink before'.  And she was right - this is an odd one.

Look - there is Mando - with his hat on of course. And Grogu's name is on there too.  But why is it flavoured after a fictional metal?

This is the old sparkleberry J2O mix turned up to max - it shimmers and shifts like mercury

Double pic to hopefully show this.

Diluted it's harder to see.  You have to shake it first as the flavour floats and the metal sinks but if you do you end up with a nice mix like this.  A metallic grey that TVs struggle to do justice.

It does settle into a more cloudy grey eventually, but what is it like?

It's a vague fruity berry flavour.  Maybe a mix of citrus and berries.  I'll have to look at the ingredients for clues.

It's very nice though, and just crazy enough that it's interesting.  No idea how they'd ever tie this mix in to other brands (terminator maybe?) but hopefully I can sneak some more in before it returns to it's home planet.

Wotsits Golden Balls Smokin’ Cheese (Ocado) By @SpectreUK

FIFA World Cup 2026 has now started. With matches in three different countries; USA, Mexico, and Canada, it should be quite a show. I don’t know which country you are supporting, however, I hope your teams do well. I might catch the odd match here and there if I stay up late.

Walkers have brought out these Wotsits Golden Balls Smokin’ Cheese as a limited edition for over the football season. On opening the bag there was indeed a smoky cheesy aroma from the golden football shaped maize balls inside.

These Wotsits Golden Balls Smokin’ Cheese were super crunchy. Cinabar certainly loved their crunchy texture, whereas I focussed on the smokiness of the cheese flavour, which was a great deal different from the original Wotsits.

If you want a very crunchy snack to share with your friends and family whilst watching the matches, these Wotsits Golden Balls Smokin’ Cheese could be perfect for you.

Information on the bag; The 130g bag contained 526 calories per 100g, with 28g of fat, 6.6g of sugars, and 1.7g of salt. Suitable for Vegetarians, please see photograph for the ingredients.

Bonne Maman Pear and Chocolate Mousse (Ocado) By @Cinabar

Today I fancied a bit of a chocolatey treat after lunch and decided to pick a Bonne Maman Pear and Chocolate Mousse from the fridge. I think pear is one of those flavours that is underrepresented in desserts, and this reminded me of a dessert my mum used to make called Pears Belle Hélène, which combines poached pear, ice cream and hot chocolate sauce. It definitely deserves to come back into fashion.

This is a much simpler affair, consisting of a creamy pear mousse topped with a layer of chocolate sauce. When I opened the pot, I could see it had been shaken up a bit during the online grocery delivery, so the layers were not quite as neat as intended.

I tried the chocolate sauce first. It was pleasant, with plenty of chocolate flavour and a good level of sweetness. Then I sampled the pear mousse, which had a mild, lightly sweet and refreshing pear taste. There were pear pieces too for texture. Combined with the chocolate sauce the pear mousse gained a little extra sweetness and the two flavours worked well together.

It made for a nice lunchtime treat, although it definitely left me craving a proper Pears Belle Hélène. Perhaps that's a project for the weekend.

KFC Summer - New Upgrades to Meals, Dirty Chips & Kwench Krush [@NLi10]

 We had a late lunch this week - and a movie at 4pm so dinner would be late - so I went larger than large and had a full box meal.  What have I let myself in for!

It doesn't look so bad here.

But - I upgraded the fries to 'dirty loaded' and the drink to 'Krush' which is essentially a bubble tea pop thing

The important detail here is that it's 1566 Kcal, which is generally considered a large lunch.

And nearly £15 which is officially too much for fast food lunch.

I'm a fan of the 'Supercharger' dip which I usually get donated by my friend too, but here I had my own - and the chips had three colours of sauce - but also oddly popcorn chicken too.

I added in my own popcorn chicken from the meal to use all the sauce and dipped in the one solo fillet you get too.  I even had a little tub of beans to eat with them. This part of the meal was a hit - even the sadness of popcorn chicken couldn't ruin these wonderfully saucy fries.  This was the highlight - get this £2 upgrade and ignore all previous instructions.  They are £4 solo, the charger dip is 60p and small beans is a mad £2.

The cherry refresh Krush has a lovely flavour with the lemonade base, and the popping bits were decent quality - and then - it was gone!

You can't tell that well here, but the cup was 60% ice.  And not crushed ice like a slush puppy, but hard solid useless ice.  Your large drink is actually a small cup.  And with a saucy salty meal - that's not enough.  Luckily I had some water with me but for £1.50 extra on top of a normal drink this is a mugging in fruit form.  Stick to the Lipton tea options and hold the ice.  Actually - I wonder if you can hold the ice on a solo order of this and actually get a drink?  Just checked on the app - sadly no.  

Oddly these are only 10p more than the large drinks in the solo app, so the upgrade prices of 1.50 must be vs the regular size one.  It's still a £1 upgrade on the large which is evil.

After finishing all the sides I eventually made it to the sad burger, who hadn't had any innovations so was merely fine.  Honestly - I didn't need it but ate it anyway as it was there.

Overall then - I think you could build your own meal quite successfully without it costing £15.  You'd want some kind of wrap or fillet & dip, and the Dirty Fries and a drink that isn't a solid.  Even that version of the Twister Wrap box meal comes out at £12 though!  Without the beans and bonus fillet it's £10 and a more reasonable 1000 Kcal...  

Outland West Coast IPA (Tesco) By @SpectreUK

Pizza night tonight. I hadn’t been all that keen on pizza for sometime, after they took Carne Amanti off the menu at Pizza Hut. However, we now have something meaty, sharing half a pizza each, with a fried egg on each quarter and a jacket potato with beans and cheese on top.

I like a beer with my tasty pizza meal. So, I thought I’d try this Outland West Coast IPA from Hall & Woodhouse, in Dorset. This 5% in volume India Pale Ale has Amarillo, Cascade and Mosaic hops for a citrus bitterness with all those Pale malts.

There was a citrus hop aroma on opening the can, followed by sweet malted barley. This deep bronze, almost brown IPA had a flavoursome sweet biscuit Pale malty goodness throughout its taste, with an initial citrus bite, followed by warming spice and hints of pine, and a little earthiness into the aftertaste. Yum. Perfect with my pizza dinner.