New Lindt Lindor Orange Bar (Sainsburys) By @Cinabar

This was in the “impulse buy” section of the supermarket, on the end of an aisle very near the tills. I don’t need much encouragement to impulse buy anything, they had me at “New”. I am big fan of the Lindt Lindor chocolates, and love having them at Christmas. The orange bar looked like a fab treat, without the need to buy a box full of chocolates.
Being a long thin bar it felt a little fragile, and by the time it had made its journey home (via shopping bags in the back of the car) it had unsurprisingly broken in two. There wasn’t any card under the bar to protect it, but it was still in a very edible format so I guess it doesn’t matter. The first thing I did was broke a chunk off anyway.
I don’t know if it was my imagination but the filling in the bar felt much more runny than what you would expect in the Lindor balls. It was wasn’t oozing all over the place by any means but it felt softer and a step nearer to being liquid. I don’t think this is just because the weather is warmer, as the outside chocolate was still firm.
The taste was lovely, the milk chocolate was rich and full of flavour and the balance of the orange was spot on. Sweet and smooth and fruity, citrus and chocolate do work well together. The best part though was that the bar still had that wonderful silkiness I associate with Lindor. this made it feel luxurious and special, and a proper treat with my afternoon coffee. Definitely a bar I’ll be picking up again.

Pumpkin Spiced Late Muller Fruit Corner (by @NLi10)

Occasionally we find things for review that don't really conform with what is expected of a product in that category.  After a race that a friend participated in they gave out the usual freebies, and for some reason a bunch of these yougurts.  Considering it was probably around April (I've had these pictures for a while) a Pumpkin Spiced Late Muller Fruit Corner was not what the participants were expecting, and a tray of them made it to work.  So I took a couple to try.

They look standard enough - its a Muller fruit corner after all and these things are now an institution. You get a yougurt, sometimes with two layers, and then you get some jam, and you mix them.

Here we see that the yougurt is a funny colour, and the pumpkin is a little more ominous than your typical raspberry jam.  Also - it smells like a Halloween style treat, but thats probably the psychology of anything that contains pumpkin.

Essentially this is coffee, spices and pumpkin - none of which should be going anywhere near yougurt and possibly only one at a time in the pudding section of a meal.  The whole combination is odd, it's both too strongly flavoured but they all seem to cancel out making the resulting sticky paste very sweet and non-descript. I wasn't a fan. 

THe second yougurt was eaten by a colleague who seeemed to get through it OK but admitted that he'd rather have had a normal one.

The main reason for bothering to review this though is the interesting possibility it throws up.  Coffee yougurts exist, but are for crazy people.  Pumpkin yougurts are probably fine but not in this form.  Spicy yougurt though is an interesting thing.  You see I live in a very Asian area (and love it) and smart people use the yogurt to cool the spices - and this got me thinking.

We have two potential options here - both using fairly plain yougurt - but with the corner being the excitement.

 The first idea is very straight forwards - you try and emulate the classic Asian starter of the poppadom and dips, only we get a huge yougurt and a little spicy mango or the red stuff dip too.  Not sure how theye'd give us popadom too. 

The other idea is that we stick a spicy Bombay mix in the corner  - and its this one I love. There used to be a lot of more childish corners with little chocolate balls next to them and I think that this would go well with that style.

Muller Spice Starter corners, where you get to eat your yougurt before your sandwiches and not feel guilty about it. Call me Muller, lets do business. Maybe I'll have to mock one up.

Vital IPA Beer (Honestbrew) By @SpectreUK

I've been watching Wimbledon Women's Tennis all afternoon after a good session at the gym this morning, and there's nothing like a cold beer to watch it with. This Vital IPA was brewed by the Victory Brewing Company in Pennsylvania. It was very kindly sent to us by Honestbrew. This 6.5% volume IPA is a concoction of American hops and german malts. I did watch the end of a match between an American lady and a German lady, which was very well fought.

I have to agree with the label, as the aroma from the open 330ml can was fresh and crisp, with fruity hop notes. This glowing blonde beer has an invigorating bitterness to start with cutting away at the tastebuds with a flourish of fruitiness following, with sweetness from the malts to finish. This is certainly a perfect refreshing cold beer for hot summer afternoons in front of the television watching a favourite sport.

Degusta Box June 2017 (@DegustaboxUK) By @Cinabar

We had been away for a few days and came back to our Degusta delivery for June. This is our monthly food subscription box, where you get a delivery of new and interesting food/snacks and drinks for a set monthly price. This Degusta box was an edition with summer in mind, and came with summer themed sweets and barbecue seasonings, all ready to use in the sunshine.

In terms of sauces we received a Chilli and Coconut Sauce, which is Brazilian. It suggests cooking this with chicken, and I can’t wait to experiment. I don’t know much about Brazilian cooking flavours, so I’m interested to investigate. We also had the seasonings to make pulled chicken and spicy buffalo wings. Both of these sound like they would be fun to cook, and of course fun to eat.

Now that I’m getting used to Degusta boxes I’m spotting themes, like they always seem to have some interesting sweets. They have the new ones from Haribo which are the Summer Frenzy editions, the ice cream flavours in the sours look particularly good! On a healthier note there are some mango pieces in yoghurt which I will take to work to snack on.

Biscuit wise we have one box of savoury and one of sweet. I’ve had Walkers shortbread before, but the dog shape biscuits look super cute. I’m intrigued by the Original O’s and I’m looking forward to trying those out. Cumin and Sesame sounds like an interesting combination.

One thing is for sure I don’t need to buy muesli or granola any more, Degusta have provided a box each month. I’m looking forward to trying out this apple and peanut variety, and it will be the first experience of the make Spoon which as it is new to me.

Finally there was an excellent selection of drinks in this box, all perfect for handing out around a barbecue. There was cider from Rosie’s Pig flavoured with Damson or Rhubarb. These are creative combinations with cider, and Spectre has tried the rhubarb before and is looking forward to taste testing the damson variety. There are too “energy’ drinks too, but these are mainly fruit based with the energy coming from coffee beans. That is kind of the more mature and much nicer version of those cans of overly sugared caffeine kicks. Finally there is a bottle of alcohol free Sauvignon Blanc from Eisburg. Perfect for the designated driver attending that barbecue!

Many thanks to Degusta for sending us our review edition of the June Degusta box, it was another great box. They were also kind enough to include in it all options for items where normally only one is selected at random.

Yushoi Sna-pea rice sticks (@NLi10)

My partner found these in the Holland & Barrett reduced section - they are made out of peas which is pretty interesting.

The back shows thaT they aren't bad for you, but aren't particularly good for you either.  The texture is similar to that of chipsticks which is cool, in a retro way, and they leave a similar feeling in the mouth.

They also look a little bit green which is fun - and natural too.

They just don't really excite in the same way that most other crisps do. I'd much rather have a normal bag of Chipsticks - or this crisp but with the flavour added. They feel a bit like one step too far, not quit3 unique enough to be their own category and too similar to the much less healthy but nicer version to exist happily.

They call them rice sticks when they are only 8% rice, presumably because pea sticks sounds like a pregnancy test.

The kind of crisp you'd eat half a bag of then forget about, edible but not compulsive.