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.

Alpro - plant based Ice-cream and how to make it zing! (@NLi10)

Vegan ice-cream is one of those things that feels like it shouldn't work, but totally does.  After all there are lots of things you can freeze like fruits and berries that work really well, why should it only be dairy?  Gellato is a very good example of this.

Here we have an oddity - an iced desert that has been in our freezer for ages without being touched.

I'm not sure why this combination of Hazelnut & Chocolate from Alpro (who make the white stuff I pour on my cornflakes) just didn't seem as appealing at home as it did on the Ocado website.

Opening it up it looks fine - like cheap chocolate ice-cream, with very little Pizzazz.  But what is that conveniently in shot? Flipz are pretzels covered in chocolate - can the addition of (also vegan) chocolate and salt make this a little more exciting?

Of course it can!  I mean you could just add chocolate chips, but this is basically a whole (mini) desert.  Now I'm going to have to attempt to keep these snacks in stock so I can offer people a choice of toppings with their desert - such a hardship.

The not ice-cream is actually quite nice, the flavour is both nutty and chocolatey - like the brown Cornetto used to be - and the texture is firm if not quite as airy as the real thing is.  I guess you get more for your money this way.  Add some kind of topping and this is as good as any other brand to me - dairy or non.  Will see how quickly this goes down once the weather picks up again.

Street Food Teriyaki Crisps (@DegustaboxUK) By @SpectreUK

I like to watch a lot of food and travel programmes on the TV. I like to see people in far off places I'll probably never go to eating food I'll possibly never try. Of course we have lots of diverse restaurants in the UK, so I can always dabble. For instance there's a Vietnamese restaurant in Grand Central Station, in Birmingham, I like to go to on the odd occasion. The street food in those far off places on the TV, even in any market here always looks inviting, but my weak tummy only lets me browse and maybe have a sniff rather than full on eating anything.

London Flavours have brought out these Street Food Teriyaki flavoured potato crisps. They sound a good alternative snack to actual street food. I can get the flavours of Teriyaki I always love and am used to from various restaurants in a packet of crisps. On opening the packet there was that unmistakable blend of soy and ginger from the Teriyaki seasoning. On taste the greedy side of me was instantly glad that these Street Food Teriyaki flavoured crisps came in a 40g packet. There's a sweetness that hit my tastebuds first from the muscovado sugar and molasses, then there's a tastiness from the garlic in the ingredients and towards the aftertaste there's a decent salty bite. These crisps do have a Teriyaki flavour running almost right through them, however there's a heavy flavour of garlic added in the middle and that unusual saltiness towards the end, reminding me that I'm eating potato crisps. They're certainly very tasty though and I'd enjoy them again.

Information on the packet;
The 40g packet contains 507 calories, with 27g of fat per 100g, 3.2g of sugar, and 0.85g of salt. These crisps are gluten free and Vegan friendly. Please see photograph for ingredients.

Mavericks Orang-Utang Poppin’ Corn (Sainsburys) By @Cinabar

This strange sounding snack called Mavericks Orang-Utang Poppin’ Corn caught my eye on a promotional strip on the end of an aisle in Sainsbury’s. I had actually been in a bit of a rush and didn’t take that much note of what I was buying, a new make and flavour of popcorn I assumed.

Once home I looked at the bag in a bit more detail and realised that although these are described as “Poppin’ Corn” the image on the bag didn’t quite look like normal popcorn, more like Wotsits. I was impressed that the bag only had 50 calories and what seemed to be quite a bit of contents. I tried one and they didn’t work for me. The Mavericks Orang-Utang Poppin’ Corn are very light and dissolve into almost nothing quite quickly. I am a big fan of texture and felt that this was lacking for my tastes. The flavour varied from plain and almost nothing more than the maize to weirdly sharp and sour, like a very zingy glass of orange juice that you wouldn’t want to drink. They were mostly quite plain but the odd sour one wasn’t really any better. I ate a few, but I got through less than a quarter of the bag before I decided they weren’t for me. I thought if I persisted I might get used them, but I think they might be a bit of an acquired taste. Fair play to Mavericks for trying something different and for bringing out such a low calorie snack, I’m sure there are people that love them too.

Chicken Katsu Sando (Marks and Spencer) By @Cinabar

I went into Marks and Spencer to pick up a packaged sandwich and I saw a man dithering by the counter. He was looking at the Vindaloo sandwich Marks’s has brought out and wasalmost wanting to but it. There was a warning in the background stating “is this the hottest sandwich in the world?” And he couldn’t deiced if he wanted to go there. I mention this because I was in the same place, the novelty of a super hot sandwich is exciting, not being able to eat my own lunch less so. Marks and Spencer have brought out a new range of ‘street food’ inspired sandwiches and this ultra hot vindaloo one was in that range. I know my limits so picked up this rather lovely sounding Chicken Katsu Sando, also in the range, the other man eventually did the same. I know I can’t handle too much heat, but I may pick up the Vindaloo edition for an unsuspecting Spectre at some point…
Anyway my Chicken Katsu Sando sounded much more my thing. Chicken Katsu curry is a Japanese dish usually consisting of chicken in breadcrumbs with a mild curry sauce poured over the top. It is my favourite dish in Wagamamas if you are looking to try it.

I had a peek inside my sandwich before tucking in and it was very green. The sandwich has in it a green cabbage coleslaw that was dominating the colour, but the chicken looked pleasingly meaty underneath. I gave it a try and thoroughly enjoyed the taste and texture. The chicken shone through, as did the creamy curry sauce and the texture from the slaw was spot on. The texture was satisfying to munch on and the creamy curry taste was perfect for a sandwich. Seriously I’ll be buying this sandwich again very happily. It is a nice mix of new flavours, and I hope their other ‘street food’ range of sandwiches are as good. I’m happy I chose the right sandwich for me. However if you have been brave enough to try the new Marks and Spencer Vindaloo sandwich do let me know how you got on? I might work up the courage of somebody tells me it isn’t too hot…