Sondey Milk & Hazelnut Wafer Sandwich (imitation Knoppers!) [@NLi10]

 

Hey - this looks familiar! I love the Knoppers bars, always have done since the 90s. Lidl have a whole dozen of these for £2.30 and that’s pretty cheap - let’s see how they shape up.

That’s a chunk of snacks.

That’s a decent slab of chocolate too.

So this has lots of lovely layers, wafer, hazelnut spread, crunchy bits and goodness.

But is it a Knoppers? No. It’s closer than I thought though. The general satisfaction level of eating one of these is about that of eating half a Knoppers, but if you ate two it’d be far too dry. This said, at the price they are selling these for it can be a regular snack instead of a rare treat.

I’m all for more Eurosnacks appearing on our shelves - it’s a lot cheaper than hopping on a train. Let’s see what else appears!

Huel Bar - Peanut Butter (@NLi10)

I'm a big fan of Huel.  It's my default lunch now it's got colder (the grain works well as I don't have to leave the office), and I'll even sneak in a shake now and then.

So last time I reordered I added a couple of bars as a treat.

These are an approved snack for the meal plan, and I guess more towards the fitness and weight-loss side of the cult, rather than the not having to eat hospital sandwiches or go out in a cold pandemic side which I am more interested in.

Really doesn't look that appetising.  Reminds me of the original protein bars before people figured out that drinking whey was much more pleasing.

And it's just as dry and unexciting as I remember those being.  I'd have thought technology would have moved on, but it's still just designed for power-lifters who need all food to taste like a punishment.

So disappointing I've never even considered eating the 2nd bar, I'll save it for a long walk when I'm desperate for sustenance - and have access to water to offset the dryness.

Not one I can recommend at all!

 

Whole Earth Organic No Caf Coffee Alternative (@NLi10)

I drink coffee but it's maybe once a month.  Near the end of last winter I added this to a Holland & Barrett order to round up the postage, or to get one of their crazy offers.  The weather was just getting warmer so I left it in the cupboard.  Now I need warm drinks again, and I can't possibly drink any more caffeine without pinging off the walls.

This is basically somewhere between Coffee and Horliks - being a deep malty drink.

It looks fairly Eco - and it's been around a while

It's pretty easy to make and they don't add sugar so you get to choose.

And it's reasonably healthy with no added vegans.

They correctly assessed that the best part of coffee is cracking the seal on a new jar

And it looks the same

well maybe a bit bubblier, and the smell is not that of normal coffee

But it makes a nice cup for the afternoon - or for in the middle of the night when you can't sleep.

Well recommended - I should have opened it sooner!

Maryland Cookies: Chocolate Cookie Bars (Asda) By @Cinabar

These Maryland Cookies - Chocolate Cookie Bars are one of those products that are ‘new’ but aren’t labelled as such. I can never quite work out the logic of this, if I had launched a new product I’d want to share the excitement and I’d be proud to put the word ‘New’ on the pack in big letters. Perhaps they want that familiar brand “of course this has always been available” feel. As someone who stares far more than they should at the biscuit aisle in the supermarket I can confirm that these are a new release.

The pack contains 8 individually wrapped biscuits, coated in milk chocolate and they are just 96 calories each. This means that these biscuits are an excellent idea for a lunch box treat or for portion control any time.
I unwrapped my first biscuit and realised that the chocolate coating all the way round made these a little melty on the fingers. The biscuits are chunky oblong and quite thick which meant I didn’t feel right dunking them, I practically always dunk biscuits but these were in too much of a chocolate bar shape.
The chocolate on the outside is nice and the biscuit flavour was flavoursome. They tasted wholesome and chocolatey and were a nice treat. The biscuits being thicker meant they had a good crunch and one was an enjoyable snack. There isn’t anything ground breaking here, but the Maryland Cookies - Chocolate Cookie Bars were a nice afternoon treat. I think I prefer a regular biscuit, just because I like to dunk, and these were a bit awkward for that.

TREK - Protein Flapjack (by @NLi10)

When out wandering the wilds of England it's wise to take something a little bit more sustaining with you. I spotted these in the new section on the Ocado app and figured I'd give them a try.

I'm sure we've had TREK bars before but these are flapjacks not cereal bars, and with 9g of protein too it can certainly help with all that muscle growth from climbing hills. Or in our case sitting around in an office. I don't really have any walks planned at the moment so we just tried them out.

They are described as delicious, filling, nourishing and real - at least one of which is hopefully true. We've not reviewed many imaginary snacks so far!

It's also vegan and gluten free which is good to know (even if it should hopefully be obvious from the ingredients you'd be surprised what gets snuck into food).

At first glance it seems a bit skimpy on the chocolate, but it's nicely strong stuff so you get the flavour if not a thick soft topping.  The underside is a little bit like a cross between a cereal bar and a flapjack and doesn't have much moist softness. The flavour is decent, but the whole thing is maybe a little unsatisfying.

The coconut version is essentially the same, but with added coconut. The review group generally preferred the flavour of this one but we all agreed that it just didn't fill the gap. 

I think that as a snack these are ok, but if I was to take something on a walk with me I'd want it to be more substantial.

Devonvale - Rhubarb Crumble bar (@NLi10)

Our hospital has a lot of little charity shops that sell snacks - some more hidden than others.  One of my favourites has a tendency to grab a few unusual things that I can pick up. It's here that the Burts Lentil waves came from. 

This time they had a range of Devonvale fruit crumble bars which I hadn't seen before so I decided to try. I went for rhubarb as it would be my first choice of a real crumble. I don't think it made a massive difference to the flavour - maybe a hint of ginger in the sweetness - as the crumble itself was the main flavour.

And boy did the top crumble. It went everywhere! Not great for eating at your desk, and the local pigeons will love you if you eat this outside. The base was a little more stable and helped but every bite was a shower of crumbs.

That said - for 55p it did the job and I'll probably try more in the range. My Friday lunchtime Pepsi and a chat routine usually involves a luscious dark choc bounty, but while these are about I may have a few.