Pieminister - Moo Pie {by @NLi10} (Ocado)

Welcome back to the Pieminister & Fentimans portion of this blog where I get to try other products in the ranges that I like because technically they are new finds.

This time round though I've made it to the beef end of the pie section, where traditional pies tend to be found. It's not that I don't like beef pies, prior to my Pieminister addiction I was very fond of Asda's Beef pie with puff pastry and always had one of those next to the chicken version in my freezer for when playing on Xbox Live seemed more important than cooking did.

Compared to a lot of the other flavours though this one does seem a little tame - the real ale being the only unfamiliar ingredient, but ale pie is a popular pub favourite. Saying that, this is pretty much a pub Sunday lunch in a pie. Sure you don't get the Yorkshire puddings, but the gravy is there in abundance as can be seen by the mini volcano that came out of the top when I spiked it to check it was cooked through.

As with all the Pieminister varieties you can taste the individual ingredients and there are distinct chunks of everything, especially the meat. If I was out in a pub and got this with chunky chips I wouldn't be disappointed, but sitting at home I think I prefer the previous Pieminister pies I’ve tried. I'm not a massive fan of pub Sunday lunches, and while this recreates the flavours well I'd just be happier with something that did something a little more exciting with the beef.

Saying this is my least favourite Pieminister pie so far is like saying that £10 is my least favourite amount to win on the lottery, it's still an excellent pie that is worth the money and one I will probably eat again.

by @NLi10

Sweet Cred Red Hot Toxic Extreme Sour Candy [By Spectre] (Selfridges)

I like the packaging of these sour sweets. The recyclable plastic toxic waste can has a certain irony. “Red Hot Toxic” in a fire red font on the side of the can, with warnings such as “If you dare” and “Extreme Sour Candy” certainly seemed a challenge. The can also states if you can take one sweet for a minute then you’re an “Extreme Sourhead”, anything below that and apparently you’re a bit of a wimp. So I decided to take up the challenge. I’ve had pretty sour face twisting sweets in the past. These claim to be the “sourest candy on the planet”. Popping open the plastic can I noticed there were four flavours wrapped in various colours. Green for apple flavour, yellow for lemon flavour, red for watermelon flavour (huzzah! No cherry flavour! Regular readers will know I hate cherry flavoured sweets), and blue for blueberry flavour. There was four of each flavour meaning someone somewhere counted them out. I prefer that then having one of one flavour and many of another or missing out on one flavour all together. The colours made sense in my head, which is so often not the case with different flavours of sweets (such as Maynard’s Duos).

Apple flavour
On ripping open the little green packet I noticed that it had another warning on the back “Caution taste buds Extreme Sour Candy”. I laugh in the face of danger. Hah! I popped the sticky green tablet into my mouth and instantly regretted it. Pow! I sat squirming at my desk trying not to swear. There really is an extreme sour hit right from the start with this sweet. It’s like Rita Queen of Speed at Alton Towers; a super fast start turning into a pleasant rollercoaster ride. When the sourness goes the sweet turns into a nice apple experience, but when your teeth break through to the centre of the sweet the sourness returns, not as bad as the first punch in the face, but maybe a couple of loop the loops.

Lemon flavour
Geez! Okay this one really is sour! Gah! Having trouble typing… Unlike the pleasant apple in the background this sweet makes full use of the lemon flavour straight away. I swear I almost fell off my chair. As soon as the Rita sensation hits you it’s gone and you can rest easy for a while to a nice lemon flavour. Then you bite through the crusty outer layer of the sweet and have a decent punch again from the sour centre.

Watermelon flavour
Okay, so I thought the lemon flavour was the sourest, but the watermelon clearly beats it. There is a definite watermelon taste, which I was pleased about. It actually tasted of watermelon, not some dodgy flavouring that some geek in a lab thought might taste like watermelon. On this sweet though, I noticed my tongue was getting sore and the roof of my mouth a little tender. I hastily bit through the outer layer and felt the full force of the watermelon sour. Definitely more sour on the outside and inside than the other two flavours. Roll(er coaster) on the last sweet!

Blueberry flavour
Blueberry is another of those sweet flavours that sweet manufacturers seem to always get wrong. Sweet Cred had done such a good job on the watermelon flavour that I was strangely looking forward to tasting this sweet. However my mouth was sadly not looking forward to it. My tongue was feeling sore in several places and the roof of my mouth raw. I winced a little opening the little blue packet. I couldn’t help thinking this would have made good TV or a You Tube clip for people to giggle at. I stared at the sticky sky blue sweet for a while and finally succumbed to temptation and quashed the fear. Yaaaah! There is a definite blueberry taste, although a little exaggerated. The sourness is definitely extreme, but not as bad (good) as the watermelon flavour. I started to feel the sourness on my lips with this flavour which were slowly going numb. My tongue and inner mouth had given up at this point, and hiding under my desk like a twisty faced moron from my colleagues seemed not to be working anymore either. I bit into the outer coating of the sweet for the final loop the loop and was glad my super sour tasting session was over.

By Spectre

Anyone for a sweet? I have three sweets left of each Red Hot Toxic flavour. Follow us on Twitter for a competition to win them – coming very soon.

Cadbury Wishes [Make-A-Wish]

I would very much like to believe that this is not an early sighting of a Christmas product. The only reason I suspect it might be is because of its shape, and I will try to believe that something star shaped doesn’t necessarily have to be seasonal. Heck we haven’t even had Halloween yet!
Some of the profits from this chocolate star go to the Make A Wish charity, which give this chocolate a feel good factor. If you needed further uplifting, each chocolate is also inscribed with a Fortune Cookie style positive phrase, which is quite sweet too.
Inside this pretty but solid feeling chocolate star are two layers, one of bubbly aerated dairy milk and one of a smooth chocolate truffle. The shape of the star make it a little difficult to approach, but once you do bite it, the shape and textures make it feel really substantial and fun to eat. The two layers make it seem quite filling and it certainly supplies a very decent chocolate hit. I love Aero / Wispa etc, and this too has that lovely feeling of biting into something solid, that ‘just gives’ when your teeth sink in. The truffle is quite cool and silky but tastes practically identical to the rest of the product, but the mix in textures works really well. Essentially if you like Dairy Milk you will love this, it’s a bit different both in terms of shape and filling but will more than satisfy any chocolate craving!

Fentimans Dandelion & Burdock {by @NLi10} (Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Edwardian Tea Room)

I like museums. I'm a recovering Archaeologist, having done my degree in that subject but moved away from this into areas that actually enable me to afford food. On a recent summer trip to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (or as all the cool kids call it BMAG) I dragged my other half into the cafe with the promise of tea and a taste of their legendary carrot cake. The options for drinks were quite varied, but I fancied a Fentimans and I decided to try one of the flavours that I hadn't been brave enough to try before. Out of Ginger Beer and Dandelion & Burdock I chose the latter.

I'm not sure on the history of this particular taste combination - in fact I wasn't that sure what a burdock is. Wiki tells me that it's a kind of thistle, which in hindsight may have pushed me towards the ginger beer. Dandelions are also a plant that is considered a weed by most people, so I was curious to find out exactly why us mad English people decided to drink this. Turns out (wiki again) that the drink is made from the roots of the plant, and when fermented is naturally fizzy - which would have been quite exciting in the late 13th Century when it was said to have been first drunk.

Taste wise the biggest shock is that it's really similar to Dr. Pepper. It's a lot less sweet, but I think that may be the difference between Fentimans and Coca Cola as their respective flagship colas are different in sweetness too. After the initial shock that it actually does taste like plants it's pretty drinkable. There is a certain medicinal quality to the flavour and I don't think that this is as widely appealing as most of the other flavours. As the taste is quite strong it’s not really one to drink with a hot meal but as part of a packed lunch or a picnic hamper I think it would go quite well.

After lunch we left the cafe and wondered off to explore more of the BMAG which currently houses most of the Saxon Gold exhibit, a Steve McCurry photo exhibition and lots of other exciting things like Pre-Raphelite paintings. Worth popping in just for the cafe anyway (free entry) if you happen to fancy a break from the chaos of Birmingham city centre and the temptations of the Cyber-Candy store, but be warned you probably will end up having a quick look round.

by @NLi10

Stockholm - Fine Festival Beer [By Spectre] (IKEA)

I must admit I do enjoy a trip to IKEA. It has a wide variation of products with tables, cupboards, sofa-beds, chairs, rugs and... okay, okay... you got me, I'm lying, it's for the meatballs! Those sauce covered meaty balls of love are simply to die for. I always have to have the large portion, with sauce, jam and chips to dip. The second best part is leaving IKEA. I know that sounds cruel, but the shop is a winding maze of stuff that doesn't quite fit together properly and you'd either never want, never make, never be able to make or wouldn't have a place in the house to put it in. After piling a flat packed super heavy desk and a wardrobe on a trolley and muddling through the self checkout we came across my third favourite part - the food shop. I always like to pick up a few beers there and noticed this nice little can of Swedish brew. Fine Festival Beer sounded like a treat. The beer is from the Krönleins Brewery, which was founded in 1836 by Anders Julius Appeltofft and was taken over by Anders Krönlein in 1920. It has been a family business ever since and has famous exports such as Three Hearts beer. On opening the 330ml can I poured the golden liquid into a glass and took a good swig. This lager has a sweet taste to start with, which is light on the taste buds, moving to a refreshing bite and bitter aftertaste on the back of the tongue. You can taste the strength in the beer, but it's pleasurable to drink and at 5.3% volume, one after another could creep up on you pretty quickly. You revel in the beer as you drink it; it's not too bubbly like some lagers and you just want more and more. I can certainly understand why the Swedish would want to celebrate festivals with this beer and I instantly regretted buying just the one. Next time I go to IKEA for meatballs and try to avoid getting lost in the maze of miscellanea, I'll definitely have to pick up some more of these cans.

By Spectre