Cadbury Delight (Waitrose) By @Cinabar

Sometimes when you are in the biscuit aisle of the supermarket and you see a new product you make an assumption that the item you are putting into your trolley is indeed a packet of biscuits. I may not have read the small print but I did see the picture. I admit I was in a bit of a rush doing a top-up shop and spotted these new Cadbury Delight “biscuits” and couldn’t work out why they didn’t have a “new” label as I hadn’t seen them before. They are new to me and I’m usually quite good at spotting new things, hence the blog.
Anyway that aside I made some hot chocolate, because biscuits need dunking, and I prised off the wrapper. There are seven biscuits in the pack and they are really quite big. For once the biscuits filled the packaging and I was impressed. The biscuits are thick though so I braced myself when I tucked in assuming that it was going to have quite a crunch in these chunky biscuits and then I realised they were very soft, spongey soft and my teeth sank straight through. I had another look at the packet and yes it does state that they are layers of sponge, like a mini cake. I guess this could lead into the debate of is a Jaffa Cake a biscuit or a cake, but even those are found in the biscuit aisle.
So the Cadbury Delights are two layers of vanilla sponge sandwiching chocolate spread and covered in milk chocolate and as the name suggests they are a delight to eat. They was plenty of chocolate and I liked the spongey texture. I might not have been able to dunk them but the just didn’t need it, they were so easy to eat and satisfying. Quite why nobody else (Jaffa Cakes excluded) haven’t put together mini cake style biscuits before is beyond me, I’m buying another packet of these ingenious Cadbury Delight chocolatey treats.

Smashed Avo (@Pret) By @Cinabar

I’ve mentioned on here before that from my age some descriptions of Millennial just about include me, but at the older end of the scale. I have always felt that I identify as Generation X too. Today though I have gone all Millennial and I have just bought Smashed Avo on bread from Pret. Firstly missing the ‘cado part of avocado must be a millennial thing to do, lets just be cool and radically cut back on those lengthy syllables.
This Smashed Avo is a new item from Pret and I had originally gone in for a sandwich but my inner Millennial took over here when I saw the ultimate superfood favoured by this generation. It comes in a box on a seeded gluten free bread which I had to keep flat, and the avo(cado) is topped with red pepper salt and chilli and served with a wedge of lemon.
I have to admit I was worried by all the red powder topping as I thought that this might be too hot from chilli for my taste buds but it was actually very mild, but nicely seasoned. The squeeze of lemon added a nice acidity to the flavour and I found myself really enjoying this. It was a very healthy lunch, with nice fresh flavours that was tasty. I do like avocado, and would defiantly pick this Smashed Avo up again, it make a lovely summer’s lunch. Think that confirms it then, I’m a Millennial.

Poopcorn... Proper Corn - Chocolate Popcorn - tasty but wrong (@NLi10)

I have colleagues, they buy all kinds of nonsense. This is great because I can review the nonsense and get someone else's perspective at the same time.

Here we have pop-corn.  A trendy and delicious snack. And it's made by proper corn who make great things.

This time they added chocolate - what could go wrong?

Hey - this huge bag is only 126 Kcal per serving! How many servings are there here - basically 4.  My colleague ate 90% of this bag solo in one sitting...

It's all natural, it's gluten free and vegetarian.

And it looks like this.

Poopcorn.

Now I understand why they put the white version on the bag.  This doesn't look very Hollywood.

Essentially it's popcorn rolled in cocoa powder, which I'm fine with, but it goes everywhere.  My highly respected college looked like a toddler who'd found a bar of dairy milk while his parent's backs were turned.  And it's odd - I like dark cocoa, but this feels like it needed either a sweet or a salty undertone.  It didn't really seem to have either, just the usual popcorn.

Now - I'd much rather have pretzels than popcorn, and I'm not sure anyone should be eating this in the dark in the cinema (not a date snack), but it's generally OK.  I mean it looks wrong, and it tastes wrong, but essentially if you like both of the things then you'll like this.  Maybe not three and a half portions worth of like - but you'll finish the bag eventually.

I'll stick to the Worcester sauce flavour ones as a rare treat, and binge on the breads instead.

Lucky Jack American Pale Ale (DiscoverBrew) By @SpectreUK

What can I say about Lucky Jack? It's an American Pale Ale, and was brewed in Norway. This seems like a lucky beer. Mainly because of the name, but also because it was the only beer in date in the half dozen prize box I won from Discover Brew, or Discover-Disappointment-Brew, as I've now dubbed them. I'm glad it was Lucky Jack though. I need all the luck I can get these days. I overdid it in the gym this last week and hit more snakes than ladders in my quest to rehabilitate my knee and my old shoulder injury. Amongst other things, this has not been a lucky week at all. However, you have to roll with the punches somehow and get back up fighting, otherwise you get dragged down further. So I get up. I dust myself off. I try again.

So Lucky Jack is an American Pale Ale. It's 4.7% volume. On opening it didn't explode all over the place and get tipped down the sink like the out of date beers in the Discover-Disappointment-Brew box. It didn't exactly fizz either, which brought a moment of apprehension. Was this a dead beer? It certainly smelt mainly of herbal hops, with notes of sweet pale and barley malts. I noticed while I was typing that this beer had been slowly and quietly gurgling out of the top of the can on it's own and onto the kitchen surface. Not a lucky start.

On pouring it was a lot more fizzy than it first made out and froth filled my glass. Deep gold and fairly murky, this Lucky Jack has a bitter herbal hop taste to begin with. This hoppy flavour merges with the pale malts and malted barley in the beer, leaving it with a sweet hoppy flavour into the aftertaste. It's certainly very tasty. Hopefully Lucky Jack will bring me some luck next week. Although I feel that I should rub the can now or something…?

Ritter Sport Cocoa Selection Nicaragua (Ocado) By @Cinabar

One of my favourite chocolate bars of all time is Ritter Sport Peppermint, and Ritter is a brand I really love. Dark chocolate is very much on trend for 2019, with lots of ordinary milk chocolate bars bringing out darker “dark milk” editions. Ritter Sport have gone with single origins cocoas in a selection of strengths of dark chocolate. First up is this Ritter Sport Cocoa Selection Nicaragua in 61% cocoa. The bar is brightly packaged in a yellow and turquoise with a cocoa pod on the front.The cubes inside are all embossed with the Ritter Sport logo and do look quite dark.
The pieces broke with a sharp snap and I gave one a try and was really quite taken aback by the flavour. The taste on this bar was rich and not too bitter. There is a pleasing sharpness from the cocoa which is immediately tamed by the a well balanced does of sweetness. The chocolate isn’t thick on the palate it leaves a lovely clean crisps feel that makes you reach for another piece. It is one of the silkiest chocolates I have tried and the balance of tastes is just spot on. Not too sweet, not too bitter I think this Ritter Sport Cocoa Selection Nicaragua might be my ideal dark chocolate. I am just loving how smooth this chocolate is. After this fab bar I am looking forward to trying the others in Ritter Sports Single Origin Cocoa range.