Tesco Finest Ham with Spiced Cola Glaze Crisps (Tesco) By @Cinabar

There isn’t a direct mention on the packet, but I fear these Tesco Finest Ham with Spiced Cola Glaze Crisps might be part of the Christmas range at Tesco. Maybe I’m imagining it, I’d prefer to think of them as an Autumn/Winter seasonal item.
My favourite flavours of crisps are the meaty varieties so I was keen to try these and I loved the sound of the spiced cola glaze as it is just so different. I was only saying the other week that I thought I’d got to the point with trying so many crisps over the years that whatever seemingly new flavour I was given it felt a bit like, “oh that one again”. There are nearly 450 crisps reviews on this site, so I think it is my obsession rather than an uninteresting market! These Tesco Finest Ham with Spiced Cola Glaze Crisps actually excited me, they sounded very different.
We opened the bag and the meaty aroma was very pleasing, it did smell like a Christmas (my bad) ham joint. The crisps are thick cut and quite crunchy, but they are part of the ‘Finest’ range which means they need to be seen to be different. The taste was mostly of juicy ham, and this was a very tasty meat base flavour. The glaze came across as a little sweet, a little spicy and a little smokey. It worked very well and complemented the ham perfectly. These are very good crisps and ones I’ll be buying again, I’m not sure I could have identified the undertones of cola if I’m completely honest, but I’m still glad I piked up the bag.

Doritos Collisions - Habanero and Guacamole (@NLi10)

We don't buy 'chips' all that often, it's more of a sharing thing.  We did pick these up to go with a lunch or two and they were a little bit more interesting than I'd expected.

Doritos Collisions (or Collusions as I'd oddly fixed in my head until writing this) have been around for a good decade now, but this is a new one to me.

It's a fairly standard twist, a hot one and a less hot one (although the dust meant they were both a little spicy).

Are you bold enough to give it a try??!! Well yes - even the spicy ones aren't that spicy.

Obligatory pack shot that makes it look like you don't get many!

I was fairly civilised and had mine with Olive bread with a pastel de nata for afters.  Yum.

And you know - they are fine - they are only Doritos after all.  More interesting than most of the standard flavours though and a nice change for lunch.

Wild Beer Millionaire (Waitrose) By @SpectreUK

I'm sure Delboy and Rodney Trotter, from Only Fools and Horses, would want to have tried this milk stout once they became "Millionaires"! Brewed with lactose, caramel malt, Vairhona cacao nibs, and Cornish Sea Salt, Millionaire is a mix of sweet chocolate and salted caramel. This is a dessert stout that "wraps in you in a velvety cocoon, dresses you in a smart suit and takes you out for a special night on the tiles."

… Having quoted that from the bottle, I'm staying in to watch Strictly Come Dancing tonight. It's such a bright, happy and sparkly TV programme that you feel like you should treat yourself to something special to drink whilst watching it.

On opening the 330ml bottle of this 4.7% volume Millionaire I could smell the sweet roasted chocolate malt, and also slightly worryingly the sea salt at the back of the aroma. I couldn't pick up on the hops in the smell so much, though I presumed them to be more of the herbal variety, but the sea salt was definitely present. On taste the caramel seemed to be completely drowned out by the strong bitter coffee flavour from the chocolate malt, there were some herbal hops, and then the sea salt mixed in overshadowing the other flavours for a pretty odd aftertaste.

It reminded me of the time when my mom through absent mindedness mixed salt in the sugar bowl. My dad and I couldn't work out for ages why our Weetabix tasted so odd every morning. We kept looking at each other saying; "why does this taste so weird!?"

Unfortunately I didn't feel like a Millionaire drinking this beer, it was one of those very rare, almost unheard-of occasions that I tipped a beer away!

Gigantic Mint Buttons (Marks and Spencer) By @Cinabar

These new Gigantic Mint Buttons from Marks and Spencer come with quite a bit of a claim about their size, they didn’t choose the word big, or giant even, they went a stage further and went with gigantic. I have to admit I was expecting disappointment when I opened the bag, I just assumed that the size would be disproportionately smaller than expected, but I’m pleased to report that I smiled and found they were quite a decent size.
I ate the first one whole, I’m not sure why but I can confirm it was fun to try and fit a giant, sorry gigantic, button in my mouth. Sadly though despite theses looking like rather fab Gigantic Mint Buttons what they succeeded on, the size, was not what I needed from the after all. The mint tone was muted which was such a shame. The milk chocolate was decent, it had a thick soothing melting, the flavour was creamy and sweet. There were mint crystals embed in the chocolate and this gave them a light crunchy texture and a nice feel to bite into. The strength of the mint was so very mild though that it was a complete opportunity lost. Mint Aeros, After Eights, Mint Kit Kats in fact every mint UK chocolate bar I can think of out powers these by quite a long way.
So my worry with these Marks and Spencer Gigantic Mint Buttons was about the size but it turns out size really doesn’t matter, flavour on the other hand does.

Visiting Gloucester Services - Pt 2 - Savoury (by @NLi10) @glouc_services

Any holiday is improved by a visit to one of the Westmorland Family Service stations.  It's not so much somewhere to have a quick stop, as a big part of the journey.  They have natural surroundings, and lovely sustainable premises.  And food.  Food worth stopping for.

We stopped on the way back from Cornwall (well - and on the way there...) and here are the sweet  savoury things we ate!

There are lots of veggie pasties.  There are even veggie oggys out there.  This one is a step above both with a 'F' added to the name to signify forest or fresh or farmhouse - i Forget which. 

My partner enjoyed this.  Not sure how it's possible to be more deluxe with veggies - better cheese I guess?

Meat on the other-hand... I'm not great on processed meats - the low quality sausages and pork pies do a number on my stomach.  Proper quality cuts of meat have never been an issue however.  So wonderful crispy sausage rolls like this are great.

They even look appetising uncooked!  If only I had some more meat to eat while it was cooking...

My dad makes amazing pies with real meat in them, but occasionally I treat myself to one of the comercial ones that are almost as good.

It's all real things, with actual meat and fruit textures and flavours as you'd expect, and the pastry is super-deluxe. I'd happily pick these up weekly as a treat if I could, but alas I don't make it to the farm shops as often as I used to.

As I said with the sweet treats I think that these work better as an occasional snack alternative to the everyday versions, but I wouldn't mind getting these just a little more often.