New Barbecue Pulled Pork Subway (@SUBWAYUKIreland) [By @Cinabar]

We quite like to have a Friday lunch time treat and Subway is becoming a popular habit. I’ve tried quite a few things off the menu, and invariably load up the sub with salad and olives to finish it. Spectre likes to add chillies, but that is the magic of Subway, you get to choose every detail. This week I noticed that here was a new variety available, both of us went for it. New Barbecue Pulled Pork, very on trend and pulled pork is becoming very popular. I’ve seen kits to try to make it yourself at home, but so far my experiences of it has always been shop bought.
The first thing to note is that there doesn’t seem to be as much filling visually in our subs as there was compared to the picture on the wall. However all was not lost, because the minute we tried the sub you could tell there was plenty of meat, even if was hidden by the top layer of salad.

The pork was soft, but had enough texture to feel nice, but the flavour was outstanding. The meaty mix was sweet, smokey, and lightly spiced. The barbecue base taste was just spot on. Spectre had been saying that he fancied pork ribs for lunch but that it isn’t so easy in a short lunch break. However he said the flavour from the Subway pretty much matched his expectations and totally fulfilled the craving.The key thing here is that both of us went away thinking we’d have the same sub next week, as we enjoyed them so much!

By Cinabar

Matcha Green Tea Pocky from Japan [by @NLi10]

You may recognise this picture from a previous review where we talked about the meiji product.

Today we move on to the Pocky!

This is done using the deluxe Pocky method of sticking bits of the ingredient to the outside of the sticks and making the flavour much stronger.

and in this case the sticks themselves are green too! Bonus!

While the matcha taste is not as strong as in the Meiji biscuits it's still very noticeable and not just a regular green tea Pocky taste.  The inside bags contain 6 sticks, and there are 4 of these so it's a decent sized package.

The texture and signature Pocky snap are both as you'd expect and while possibly not as morish as the regular flavours I did find myself finishing the first pack and thinking about the others.  They went well with a  cup of regular English tea too!

More of a treat than a standard choice, but a nice present from Japan and something to savour.

John West Infusions Tuna Soy & Ginger flavour [By @SpectreUK]

I do like a tuna sandwich for lunch. It feels healthy and revitalising somehow more than a ham or beef sandwich. I quickly figured that this resealable John West Infusions Tuna Soy & Ginger flavour 80g pot would most likely not require resealing at the end of the sandwich making process. Full and slightly messy it may be, but I do like a doorstep tuna sandwich. There is a garden centre not too far from here (Wolverhampton) that does great big fat tuna sandwiches and I love the place. Anyway, I digress... I've tried a few of these John West Tuna Infusions before and had left this one until last. I couldn't decide whether the often strong spicy ginger ingredient may overpower the tuna or maybe the soy ingredient would calm the ginger down. I guess there was only one way to find out...

On opening the pot I was initially surprised for some reason that I could predominately smell tuna, which sounds kind of dumb, but as I've tried so many ginger flavoured beverages in the past that I've lost count, I expect ginger to burn my nostril hair as soon as I open anything with ginger in it. I dumped most of the contents of the pot on my open sandwich, but saved a little to taste. I was right the second time where I had surmised that the soy would calm the ginger ingredient. There was an initial flavour of tuna which then seemed to do a little jig with the soy and then the ginger tried to cut into the dance. The tuna seemed to disagree with the pairing and told both the soy and the ginger to leave the dance floor, leaving the tuna as Billy No-Mates to do a John Travolta in the aftertaste. A subtle blend of flavours making a light and breezy Summery feeling sandwich. Nice one John West!

Information on the pot;

80g pot per 100g has 204 calories with 0.6g of sugar and 10.9g of fat. Ingredients included; Skipjack Tuna (80%), extra virgin olive oil (10%), rehydrated soy sauce (7%) (water, soybean, wheat, maltodextrin, and salt), ginger, and natural ginger flavouring.

By Spectre

Chocolate Dipping Adventure (@HotelChocolat) [By @Cinabar] #HCHero

Hotel Chocolat are currently celebrating their Hotel Chocolat Heroes, product which are just the best of the best. As part of this opportunity they very kindly sent us one of their products to test out, this Chocolate Dipping Adventure.
This set is very clearly aimed at the dinner party market and is the perfect solution to a fun dessert to share. Inside the box are four tubs of chocolate to melt, and various goodies to dip in. The chocolate seems very solid in the tub but we followed the microwave instructions and they melted perfectly. I checked them part way through and they seemed solid but by the end of the time I was left with hot (but not too hot) liquid chocolate. They can then be placed back in the box they came in, for that after dinner show piece.

Everyone grabbed the neat and tidy wooden tongs provided and we started out on our dipping adventure. Some of the items seem a little strange in the context, for example the chocolate nuts. My initial though was why would you want to dip an already chocolate covered nut into more chocolate. Well let me tell you that more chocolate makes it truly luxurious. It was fun dipping them in the dark and white pots too, to mix things up. I loved the marshmallows, and all the different biscuits type.

The biscuit sticks were plain in flavour but this really showed off the quality of the chocolate in the pots. Dipping the ends in dark chocolate made them look like cute edible match sticks.

The florentines were fun and sticky, and we all enjoyed trying out the chocolate dips with the interesting ingredients. Everything in the box had been carefully chosen and worked beautifully with the chocolate. We also added a tub of strawberries, because that works so well too and there was plenty of chocolate to go around! I was impressed by how long it stayed in liquid form too. It is the perfect after dinner dessert to enjoy socially and chat with while you dip luscious ingredients in melted chocolate. Heaven. This is definitely my Hotel Chocolat Hero product.
If you fancy giving this a try yourself you can enter below, as there is a set avaialble as a prize to one lucky of Foodstuff Finds reader.
Simply fill out the RaffleCopter form below to be in with a chance of winning.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Good Luck!!

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This and more great competition are available at: http://www.theprizefinder.com and www.competitionhunter.com

The Co-Op @CooperativeFood Loved By Us Tapas range [by @NLi10]

In the Co-Op at the weekend I spotted a lovely range of Tapas that I'd thought would be suitable for work lunches.  They could all be microwaved and looked of a decent size.

As it was the weekend I had the first for lunch at home - the Chorizo & Red Pepper stew.  

As I had the luxury of an oven I did it there instead.

And I turned it into a meal with added rice.

While the flavours were quite muted compared to actual tapas in Spain it was a decent flavour with a great mix of ingredients.  I think that the 'serves 2' assumes that you are using all three in the 3 for £6 range in the same meal though as this with the rice was still a little small for an evening meal.

Next up I had the Chicken & Chorizo Paella.  I microwaved this at work, which dried it out a little more than I'd hoped, but the range of bits was still interesting and tasty.  The portion was a bit small again and I was hungry before I left work.  

I haven't had the third in the range yet (meatballs) but I'm guessing it will be of a similar high-quality/small size.  What I'm thinking I will do with the range in future is to choose two complementary pots and eat them together - although this raises the price to £4 a lunch which is more than I'd like.

They all smelt fantastic and turned a few heads at work and it was certainly something to look forwards to at lunch time.  A nice treat - and if you have a partner who likes similar then a fun and easy evening meal for £6 for two people is a bargain.