One Earth Shop - Digbeth, Birmingham - Doves Farm Rice Bars [by @NLi10]

The other day I was exploring around by our favourite cyber cafe and remembered about the veggie cafe round the corner.  This appeared to have closed for the day, but next to it was a small shop I'd never really spotted before called the One Earth Shop.  This is my favourite kind of place as it sells small things that you don't tend to see on the high street.  

Naturally I took home a small haul, the highlights of which are below!  I also had a small, lovely muffin that I ate before I took a picture.  What a shame - have to go back to review those...

Couscous is couscous. The jar is Pesto which will be tried shortly.  The crisps may be eaten today.  What we did get around to was the Doves Farm Crispy Chocolate & Rice bars.

We took these to see Iron Man 3 at the IMAX.  They didn't make it to the end of the film, but they enjoyed the bits they saw.  They are like a super-deluxe version of the Rice-Crispy Squares that are frequently advertised in amusing ways.  These however are not sickly sweet and are really much nicer. I think that it's a more grown-up take on the whole idea.  As I got 5 in the box they may come out for a walk today too.  They are great for just sticking in a pocket as they can't melt and crushing them really doesn't matter.


I'm sure I'll make it back to the shop on the rare occasion I'm just around the corner and it's still open.  Maybe you have a little local shop you've never noticed (this one has been there since 1990!) that is full of treasures but you've never been in too.

Mini Babybel Goat’s Variety (Waitrose) [By @SpectreUK]

I have a pretty healthy lunch at work. I always take a packed lunch with me, which I may have mentioned before (many moons ago) consists of a banana, an apple, a bag of crisps, a tomato, a yoghurt, and a meaty sandwich filled with either ham, beef or chicken slices. I also like a small piece of cheese in my lunchbox. Amongst the variety of different mini cheeses I eat I’ve always been partial to Babybel. Cinabar picked up these Goat’s Variety Babybel in the local supermarket for me to try. She knows I like Goat’s cheese and I knew that these would be pretty safe in the fridge as no one else in the house likes it. There were six cheeses in the pack at 20g each. The ingredients had no colours or artificial flavours and included; cheese from cow’s milk, fresh goat cheese (10%), water, natural flavouring and the preservative: potassium sorbate. At 65 calories per Babybel, with 5.4g of fat and only traces of sugar and made from pasteurised milk, these Babybels sounded pretty healthy. I unwrapped the packaging to find a green outer shell instead of the usual bright red one. The cheese had a mild goat cheese smell with a mild goat cheese flavour. I enjoyed the Goat’s Variety Babybel and found it flavoursome, but certainly not overpowering. Having said that this cheese had the aftertaste of goat cheese, and like any strong cheese it makes your mouth smack for a short time in a kind of sweaty old leather boot way. I wouldn’t recommend any close quarters business meetings at work after lunching on this cheese, and don’t expect a kiss from the secretary either or one from your partner if they pop into work mid afternoon to try and catch you!

By Spectre

McCoys – New Jacket Potato Crisps – Melted Cheese & Bacon (Waitrose) [By @cinabar]

This is the second bag I’ve tried from the new Jacket Potato range from McCoy’s, the first being the Chilli Con Carne. It strikes me that cheese and bacon isn’t a jacket potato topping I’ve ever actually tried. I’ve had beans and cheese, tuna and cheese and a multitude of others with cheese, but not bacon. I guess it just seems a bit odd putting a rasher on top of the jacket potato? Or are you supped to dice it and then mix it with cheese? Don’t get me wrong, if a cheese and bacon sandwich is on offer consider me in! Oh well – I’ got stuck into the crisps anyway.
There isn’t much aroma to the crisps, just a slightly salty smell. The flavour on the other hand, is much more impressive. The thick cut ridged crisps, have loads of seasoning, and when you tuck in you can really tell! The seasoning is distributed unevenly, but that’s okay as the mix of flavours actually works in its favour. On one side some of the crisps have a strong salty meaty bacon taste and other have a musty strong cheddar cheese flavour. A lot are a mix though, and the two tastes do work wonderfully together and make an excellent moreish bag of crisps.
McCoys just know what they are doing! I can’t wait to try the sour cream and jalapeno, which is the only flavour in the new range I haven’t yet tried.

By Cinabar

Ben & Jerry's Core Range - Blonde Brownie and Peanut Butter Me Up [by @NLi10]

Today we continue our dash through the Ben & Jerry's Core range (2013 Editions!) with two more varieties.

First up we have the Blondie Brownies.  This has a salted caramel core, with two colours of ice-cream with the brownies (or blondies) hidden inside the ice-cream as little chunks.  I wasn't over impressed with this.  It seemed a little ordinary, and as I'm not a massive caramel fan (but love brownies) I mostly ate around the edges and not the centre.

We still have the other half a tub of this to finish so maybe I'll get more enthused as summer approaches.  I guess I just like the fruiter cores!

Not sure what happened with the picture - I took two and must have deleted the good one!

Next we have Peanut Butter Me Up - which is essentially peanut butter and Jam (jelly if you are from the USA), and has mini peanut butter cups hiding in it!

While Ms NLi10 was busy digging out the salted caramel from the last one I was happy to be eating the peanut butter and fruity jam and hunting for the most intact choc bits for pictures.  I did like this one, but not as much as the Berry White variety (I'd even pay cinema prices for that one!).  The peanut butter had an odd aftertaste to it that I wasn't expecting, and almost tasted 'wrong' in this context.  As we'd been trying lots of flavours on the same day I put it down to a bad combo and figured we'd have to just have one tub at a time in future.

There are no bad flavours in the core range, but I think it's jus that some variations excited me more than others.  If I found one of these in the freezer then it would get eaten. It's as simple as that (but the fruitier ones would get eaten first!)

Blue Moon (Tesco) [By @SpectreUK]

This Blue Moon wheat beer was produced by the Blue Moon Brewing Company, In Toronto, Canada. The brewery was established in 1995 in Denver, Colorado. 5.4% volume and served in a 355ml bottle, this unfiltered wheat beer was brewed and spiced in the traditional Belgian way. The wheat beer was brewed with oats and spiced with orange and coriander, which reminds me of the Orange and Coriander beer from M&S I love to drink in the summertime when eating a decent sized salmon steak. The label suggested drinking it with an orange slice as garnish, but as I didn’t have any to hand, or unfortunately salmon steaks, I decided to enjoy this beer on its own. There was a mix of barley, wheat and yeast in the initial smell, overshadowed by a strong spicy orange and coriander aroma. On drinking there was a wheat and barley flavour to start with that was arrogantly brushed aside with a brutish hoppy bitterness, which smoothed out to the meatiness from the oats and a strong spicy orange taste with hints of coriander. There was a heavy orange and oats aftertaste. I thought this was a very tasty wheat beer and look forward to picking up some bottles in the future to drink with fishy meals. Roll on the summer!

By Spectre