Cadbury Dairy Milk - The Raspberry Shortcake (Poundland) By @Cinabar

Cadbury have released three new Dairy Milk chocolate bars, the idea is that the public taste each one and then can vote for their favourite which will stay for sale. You had me the moment they said new chocolate, I’m looking forward to trying them. Weirdly these bars are first to appear in Poundland, where I found all three at the till. The lady serving me said that this Cadbury Dairy Milk - The Raspberry Shortcake was her favourite so I think it is a good place for me to start. I have to admit I love the sound of this chocolate, it is so very summery.

I opened up the Cadbury Dairy Milk The Raspberry Shortcake bar and it looked from the top like a regular Dairy Milk bar, but the underside showed an uneven surface where all the goodies were packed in. These were even more apparent when I broke a strip of the chocolate off.

The bar has the classic thick melt of Dairy Milk, rich and sweet. The chocolate is the most dominant flavour. I love the added texture from the crunchy pieces, I am a fan of texture, however the crispy bits were flavourless. There wasn’t enough of the raspberry bits, which were freeze dried, and as such they only add a delicate hint of fruity flavour. Dairy Milk is a strong chocolate and it is does over power the fruitiness a bit too much. Some cubes of chocolate you could barely taste the raspberry at all. I think this bar Cadbury Dairy Milk The Raspberry Shortcake was a lovely concept but poorly executed, the raspberry should have been a strong zingy flavour not lost in an ocean of sweet thick chocolate.

Mornflake - Chocolatey Squares from the corner shop (@NLi10)

While Kellogg's Krave is probably the most famous pocket cereal (well apart from Dreamies - the identical cat treat) we've learnt that the Asda own brand is actually the better version (and cheaper).  They have tweaked that so it's not quite as good, but it's still the market leader.  When we spotted another imitation in the corner shop I decided to jump in.

Really we should have used the purple boxed chocolate Krave to compare to, but this will suffice.

12 bowls is unlikely :)  4 is more realistic.  They look like slightly larger Krave, and have very similar texture and taste - but maybe the chocolate doesn't have that luxury feel.

And they are OK - nothing too special. Not cheap enough to stock up on, and certainly not as compulsive as the Asda brand version.  They are still a lot cheaper than Krave, and I ended up mixing these with things like Shreddies so that they went a lot further and added a chocolate smile to ordinary staple cereals.

Worth a pick up, but not worth hunting for especially.

Nitro Milk Stout (Discover Brew) By @SpectreUK

For some reason my brain has started to think that stouts should be written about in Autumn and Winter time. I have no idea why, as I enjoy a good stout washing down a juicy steak anytime of the year, especially in barbecue season. It may be a little cold and grey and wet most of the time outside at the moment, but barbecue season is very much on the way.

Looking at this can I realised I've never drank an American stout. This Nitro Milk Stout was produced by the Left Hand Brewing Company in Colorado, USA. At 6% volume it's a stronger ABV than I'm used to in a stout, but that certainly won't dissuade me! I don't have a steak at hand unfortunately, but this milk stout sounds like it needs to be savoured on its own. Made with Rocky Mountain water, malted barley, flaked oats and hops, it's sported as being "super smooth with soft roasting and Mocha notes".

The can was so hard before opening it, I held it over the sink in case it exploded on opening. I see why they call it Nitro. On popping the can there was the loudest crack and fizz I believe I've heard from any beer. Yet no stout was lost during the writing of this blog. That makes me happy. I hate it when any beer goes all over the place on opening a bottle or can. It's mine to drink and savour, not to lose precious drops on the floor or down the sink.

As with any stout I let it settle in the glass for a while after pouring. There was a smooth dark creamy head. Staring at the black stout made my mouth water. I could smell roasted chocolate malt, and those coffee undertones mentioned on the can. On taste this luscious milk stout tastes anything but fast and furious. There is a roasted chocolate malt sweetness and then coffee at the back of the flavour, the herbal hops barely touched my tastebuds, but their bitterness was there, just underneath all that velvety smooth creamy milk stout. Ah, another can please… this one didn't last as long as I'd hoped it would.

Moser Roth - Columbian Dark Chocolate: Quinoa and Orange (Aldi) By @Cinabar

I spotted these portion sized Moser Roth Columbian Dark Chocolate with Quinoa and Orange bars by the till in Aldi. They put them there to be an impulse buy and it totally worked, despite the lengthy posh name. I think one of the the tests of being middle class is the ability to pronounce quinoa correctly, I’m woking on it. :-D
Anyway the back of the packet explains that this a sugar free dark chocolate bar, and the quinoa is in the form of “puffed quinoa”. There are three pieces of chocolate inside all neatly marked up with the Moser Roth brand, and on the back you can see all the crispy quinoa pieces.

I gave the chocolate a try and found that it had a thicker melt than expected and a softer snap when I broke the first piece off. The flavour of the dark chocolate was very enjoyable, it was flavoursome, smooth and rich. The orange was present but was far too mild for my taste buds. Orange should be a zingy in your face flavour, this was a pleasant background flavour. The puffed quinoa adds some texture but wasn’t quite as crispy as I would have liked. It also went a little soggy, and wasn’t as crispy as rice crispy bits. I found myself thinking the chocolate on its own was very good but the added ingredients just weren’t as exciting as they sounded. For those wondering I have to stop myself saying ‘quin-oa’, and remind myself of the secret code that mean those letters are actually pronounced ’keen-wah’. It is a bit like trying to work out how the letters of the name Siobhan make any sense to that pronunciation.

Domino's 2-4-Tuesdays - Catalan Chicken & Chorizo Pizza (by @NLi10)

We like Pizza, we like special offers.  So - last Tuesday we decided to do Domino's Two For Tuesday and get two pizzas delivered for the price of one! I mean it's still £19 which seems a lot, but we did go for the large ones.  I chose the Catalan Chicken & Chorizo which has lots of chicken, with a sour cream and paprika drizzle on top - but will it look like it's photo?

We had a starter of those Iberian Olives we reviewed the other week - while a little squishy and very oily then are very nice!  I'd still prefer them without stones.

And in a reasonable amount of time they arrived!

And looked like this!

That's close enough to the picture for a thumbs up from me.  The flavours were great and while I thought it may be too much for one it wasn't. I even had a pudding too.

You could taste the chicken and the textures were quite fun too.  The Chorizo was thick enough that I belived they hadn't just slipped cheaper peproni on there and the Italian base was pretty classy too.

All in all I'm happy for £9.50 each delivered and this may tempt me away from our usual Papa Johns more often than I'd thought.