Terry’s [Smooth & Creamy] Milk Chocolate (99p Store)

Terry’s used to be a big brand of chocolate manufacturers here in the UK, but alas its stock seems to have reduced over the years and now comprise mainly of the Chocolate Orange range and the All Gold boxes. The reduction of items seems to have followed the closure of the site in York which occurred after the Kraft takeover. It was quite a surprise when one reader DavidH said that he had found a bar of regular milk chocolate from this company as this isn’t a readily available product, and then he very kindly sent me some too for me to try.
The chocolate is in a big bar, with lovely sweet aromas. The chocolate breaks easily, and isn’t overly brittle. It melts nicely on the tongue and seems to remain quite thick on the palette. There are nice rich flavours from the cocoa and a good hint of sweetness too, although this bar isn’t as creamy as Dairy Milk for example. I found the bar to be easy to eat, and the texture made it feel sort of soothing. A lovely bar of chocolate, and it would be lovely to see some more activity from the brand.
Dearest Kraft, please can we have some more Terry’s chocolate products? If you wanted to get onto the nostalgia bandwagon Terry’s Pyramint and Terry’s 1767 would be fantastic!
Also I can’t really finish this without a big thank you to DavidH for finding this bar, and for sending it – it’s much appreciated! :-)

Quorn Vegetarian Frankfurters [by Nli10] (Asda)

I like meat. My fiancee is vegetarian. I tend to do the cooking. This combination means that I tend to want to find a few more exciting things to add to recipies to spice up meal time. I managed to convince her that quorn can be nice when cooked correctly with a good sauce, as bad quorn can be mushy and bland. I really like herta frankfurters. You get 100g of pasta, put in a pan with water and bring to the boil. Add 5 frankfurters with a few cuts to make them explode out and go back to the xbox for 10 min. Drain and add sauce and leafy greens and you have a propper meal with no effort. I did the same with the quorn frankfurters, the only difference being that you get 4 sausages in a pack to share instead of 10 and we had smiles instead of pasta. This seemed stingy when cooking but on eating this was ample. They were really really firm and massivly filling. It's like vegetarians didn't realise that even the best sausages aren't solid meat. My fiancee managed half a sausage before giving up due to their general texture and taste being alien to her veggie stomach. I ate the remaining but it sat really heavily and I didn't enjoy it. I love quorn but they are at their best when not copying meat dishes directly and just being influenced by them.

by Nli10

Scottish Haggis Flavour Walkers Crisps and Scottish Ale [By Spectre]

Just wanted to start this post with a big thank you to Dreich who very kindly sent the Haggis crisps over to us and made this possible. Thank you for sending them and for your continued support, it is really appreciated :-)

Beer and crisps is one of my favourite snacks during a film. So whilst watching the rather long winded, over in-depth and faintly boring Watchmen, I cracked open a few beers to numb the pain and a bag of Haggis flavoured crisps. I’m sure Haggis is a food that has brought dread to many a table in the past. It could be just the concept of mixing ingredients such as; a lamb’s heart and lungs, beef or lamb trimmings, fat and lean, onions, oatmeal, coriander, mace, nutmeg and stock from the lungs and trimmings, all wrapped in a sheep's stomach or ox cecum, that could make the sturdiest of eaters heave. However, I like Black Pudding, and the concept of that is pretty grim. Besides, these are only crisps, so I put the bucket away before opening, but positioned myself nearby Cinabar’s kitchen sink just in case. The crisps have a herby chicken smell about them, that doesn’t seem to marry up with the afore mentioned ingredients. They have the same kind of taste, and I’ve been assured they don’t taste of Haggis. I couldn’t tell whether to be disappointed about that or not, but was slightly distracted by Cinabar’s eyes burning into me when I dropped the crisps in favour of watching Silk Spectre get her jollies out for a particularly energetic scene. The crisps are reminiscent of an old sausage flavour that Walkers brought out a few years back and then discontinued. I’ve been told Haggis doesn’t taste bad, rather like a spicy / herby sausage flavour. Just these crisps don’t taste like Haggis, or the German Bratwurst flavour, or like Black Pudding for that matter.
The beer I chose to gulp down with these inauthentic flavoured crisps was a Scottish Ale. Not just any Scottish Ale either, so I’ve been assured, but THE Scottish Ale. This beer is brewed with thistle for some crazy reason. If that’s not enough, the mad Scottish brewers have mixed in ginger and chocolate! The beer has a sweet smell about it, which explains the chocolate. I’ve never eaten a thistle, and suspect not many people have, but there is a plant type taste to start with when drinking this beer. The plant taste is then replaced by the ginger and chocolate, which stays in the mouth for a long drawn out aftertaste. This doesn’t help when you’re eating meaty crisps at the same time. The savoury really does bring out the ginger and chocolate in this strong beer. This should be considered as more of a pudding beer, whereas I was simply eating the wrong thing with it. It is suggested that this beer should be served best with an apple pie (and custard?), which doesn’t sound typically Scottish. I was happy to finish off the crisps in favour of this sweet and healthy tasting beer. Then I remember saying at one point, “is this movie actually going anywhere?” this was just before the bad guy was finally revealed and something actually happened. Sadly it didn’t involve Silk Spectre’s jollies.

By Spectre

New McVities Digestives Medley Bars (Sainsbury’s)

Mcvities, famed for their lovely range of biscuits, have decided to branch out and enter the cereal bar market. I like my cereal bars, I eat one almost every day for breakfast with my morning coffee, so am always pleased to see a new variety on the shelves.
These particular bars are the Mcvities Digestive biscuit edition, but also contains hazelnuts, chocolate and cereals. They feel like quite a substantial bar when you are eating them, they are firm, with a varied texture, and sweet wholesome flavours. Each of the ingredients can be picked out nicely, the hazelnuts being a particularly nice treat. Over all each bar is sweet and tasty, and has the distinct taste of yummy Digestive biscuits through and through. The chocolate is at a nice level, very much present, but it doesn’t over power the other tastes. These are lovely, I will certainly get them again and I am on the lookout for the other Hobnobs variety – can’t wait!!!

Adnam’s East Green Carbon Neutral Beer from the Coast [by Spectre] [Sole Bay Brewery] (Tesco)

This is a blonde beer we picked up in a supermarket in North Wales on holiday just outside of Caernarfon. What stole my eye from the start were the carbon friendly claims on the lighter weight bottle. Adnams are members of CRED-UK, for Carbon reduction and were the Carbon Trust Innovation Winner of 2007. The beer is brewed in a new carbon friendly brewery and the hops are grown nearby. On first taste I noticed how clean and fresh the beer tasted. It had an almost mineral water pure feel, with no bitterness, and no bite. At 4.3% volume you’d think it would have a slight kick at best. Whilst drinking this beer I felt like I was drinking something that was good for me, as well as for the environment. I can see this beer being at home in a spa. After relaxing in the steam room or sauna you could have a good swig before retiring to the Jacuzzi. Not sure it would go down in a working men’s pub though. “I’ll have a bottle of your finest Green Carbon Neutral, Darlin’. No, no a tall glass will do jolly nicely…”

by Spectre