Harry Brompton's British Lemon & Lime Iced Tea [@NLi10]

 

English garden centres are great - perfectly designed playgrounds for the older person to be tempted into buying luxury garden furniture, brightly coloured plants - and in this case expensive bottled water.

It feels a lot more justified when someone's though to turn the water into tea.  I was saving this for the weather to get hot again, but alas it's winter again now so might as well have it as an evening refresher.

Theres a wide variety, hipster-dads are a great target market.  The coffee isn't really my thing so I chose one of the many flavoured teas - deciding that lemon and lime was a safe bet.

They also had these soft drink cans with gravy and curry sauce in which looked excellent but I forgot to get my partner to select one so those will be grabbed next time.

And at home it all seems pretty normal. It's just an iced tea that is British (made with Kenyan tea, just brewed here) and contains one cup of tea's worth of caffeine per bottle - which is decent really.

They've put a little sugar in which is always odd as most people will want to add their own to taste in the real world - and then they've topped it off with sweetener just to make sure that it truly attempts to appeal to everyone and no-one at the same time.  If you've met anyone who in the real world puts both sugar and sweetener in their tea then let us know.  Just choose one (or preferably neither) and stick with it!

As a result the flavour is a bit all over the place, I'm not sure if it's the lime that makes it odd, or the sweetener profile.  The tea was never going to be strong enough for my taste - but the flavour is present and pleasant so rescues it a little.

As a nice little pick-me-up then its fine enough, but it's not destined to become a British classic.  

Either dump all the sweeteners (official and artificial) and let us sort that out at home, or go full sweetener so people can have it as a calorie free option.

I still might try the red fruit version another week though!

M&S Caramel, Shortbread & Chocolate Crispies Milk Choc Bar (Ocado) By @SpectreUK

I fancy being indulgent tonight. I had a night on Sunday I'd rather forget, or rather a tyre blowout in a city centre on the way home, which ended up with me soaked with rain, covered in oil and muck, and with a busted lip from slipping trying to dislodge a troublesome locking nut on a front wheel that had a bullet sized hole in the side of it. I don't know what I hit or what hit me, but I came off worse, that's for sure.

Marks and Spencer's Food Hall is a good place to find indulgent foodstuffs. This M&S Caramel, Shortbread & Chocolate Crispies Milk Chocolate Bar sounds like heaven in a heavy 180g chocolate bar for pudding. I've eaten less on the good for me stuff today so I can fit this chocolate bar into my calorie count.

On opening the wrapper there was a caramel chocolate aroma from the heavy milk chocolate bar. On taste there was crunchiness from the shortbread and crispies dotted throughout the bar, and some added caramel sweetness. Melt in the mouth once through the crunch and sheer thickness of the bar, this M&S Caramel, Shortbread & Chocolate Crispies Milk Chocolate Bar was a luscious indulgent treat indeed. Just what I needed after losing a punch up against a punctured tyre.

Information on the wrapper; The 180g bar contained 539 calories per 100g, with 19.2g fat, 51g of sugar, and 0.23g of salt. Please see photograph for the ingredients.

Jammie Dodgers Banana (Iceland) By @Cinabar

It is always fun to find a new flavour of Jammie Dodgers, and these ones are in bright yellow packs and look a bit different. Here we have Jammie Dodgers Banana Edition. This is what I would call an obvious flavour pairing, but I’m more than happy to give them a try. After all, Jammie Dodger’s made Cola Bottles work as a new variety, so there is no reason these shouldn’t work.

I opened up the pack, and the biscuits look like regular Jammie Dodgers except that they have a yellow-orange coloured centre. I gave one of the biscuits a try and have to admit it was a bit disappointing. It wasn’t that banana didn’t work as a flavour; it was that the banana flavour was a bit mild. It almost had a hint of sweetness and the slightest banana flavour, and that was it. 

The biscuits were just pleasantly sweet and not very exciting. I was hoping for a full-on blast of a banana milkshake-like taste, but the reality was so mild I would have struggled to name the flavour without seeing it on the pack. I realise this is because they want to have ‘no nasty stuff', as it says on the front of the pack. These Jammie Dodgers Banana Edition are okay, but not ones I’ll miss when the flavour disappears from the shelves. 

Walkers Roast Chicken and Mayonnaise Crisps (Iceland) By @Cinabar

I take chicken crisps more seriously than most. I, dear readers, am a connoisseur. Chicken crisps are my favourite of all the flavours, and as such, this new offering from Walkers totally caught my eye. Here we have Walkers Roast Chicken and Mayonnaise Crisps.

The first quirk here is the description of the flavour. The picture shows a chicken sandwich, which is significant because with the other new 'sausage sarnie’ flavour, you could really taste the bead. The flavour of these crisps is just Roast Chicken with Mayo; unlike the sausage variety, these crisps are missing the word 'sarnie’ from the title. 

I gave one of the crisps a try, and there was a very definite taste of roast chicken, then there was a little spice like black pepper and a creamy finish from the mayo. These were good, tasty chicken crisps. I still have to say I prefer the usual Walkers Chicken crisps, which I reckon is just because they are my go-to variety. I’m still unclear whether these Walkers Roast Chicken and Mayonnaise Crisps should have a bread flavour mixed in too, which I couldn’t pick up on. I do, however, have no regrets over buying two multipacks of this flavour, as they are really good crisps. 

Gosh - Falafacini - Basil Pesto & V'DUJA [@NLi10]

 We like the Gosh! range of vegan and veggie stuff, so I recommended we got a couple of these when I saw them.

We like Falafel, we like arancini, will we like this combo?

Easy and quick to cook - and 10/30 weekly plant points (which is the far more confusing version of 5-a-day)

And they do look exciting!

But my goodness were they dry!  We needed to put these in a sauce or similar to make them much more appetising.  They tasted great, and had an interesting texture but I could feel the moisture being drained from my soul so it wasn't as enjoyable as I hoped.

But - we had a back-up flavour to try.  Where as the other had delicate pesto flavours, this has a mighty spicy kick instead.

And in preparation I picked up a big tub of the premium humus we like and that helped - but still these would have benefited from a lovely rich sauce!

I can't imagine using these as falafel in a wrap, but as part of a hearty meal (with a large drink on the side) I think we can consider them again.