Chocolate Reviews» Nestlé

Chocolate News Bits and Bobs

Lee — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 12:51:36 +0000

Here’s a quick chocolate news round-up before the big match tonight.

There’s much ado about food labelling. Whenever I review chocolate I always try and have a look at what sort of information the manufacturer gives about the nutritional contents of the chocolate. But I understant that small producers such as Red Star just can’t afford to get all of their differing chocolate bars assessed. There is one up-side however. David Zimmer, secretary general of Caobisco wories that such requirements would hinder investment and product development in the chocolate industry. And I’m inclined to agree. I just love finding and trying the chocolates from home-based chocolatiers. I’d much prefer that they’re protected in any new legislation. And that’s the potential end of Nutella.

I could easily munch through a load of Divine Dark chocolate and am glad to see that they’ll be launching a 85% dark chocolate bar to coincide with Chocolate Week (11th – 17th September). The bar will be exclusivley avaliable at Tesco for £1.69 for a 100g bar. I hope the lovely people don’t forget me on the samples list

I can’t stop thinking of trying I’ve not seen before. So when I heard about a new chocolate shop in Bristol called A Bar of Chocolate I just had to take a peek. Apart from the usual suspects there are some chocolate bars from Meybona and Ko-Koá. I’ve currently got about 100 bars in the reviews line. So they may have to wait for a while. Has anyone else tried them? You can find out more about the owners Wesley and Toni Thorne in the This Is Bristol article.

And whilst the little ones work hard to succeed, the big ‘ole Nestle is having trouble with staff who have rejected a 1% pay offer Confectionary News reports.

And a women in Blackburn, Lancashire didn’t find four thousand holes, but a moth in some chocolate. I wonder if they tasted like the chocolate covered bugs I reviewed earlier this year?

Image © love♡janine

Nestle Smarties Mini Eggs

Lee — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:42:00 +0000

I just had a packet of these hanging around. Ok, I lie. I had these Smarties Mini Eggs last year and thought they were pretty damn good so I thought I’d just munch them and see if there were any different to last year?

Well from the look of them, they’re exactly the same. The packaging is identical and the size, shape and flavour are just the same. They’re still large compared to traditional smarties all though they’re less saccharine and more mellow.

There’s still the same great crunch when you bite into them and the wonderful variety of flavours depending on which colour you have – they are nice. But, I’m afraid, not as nice as the Cadbury’s Mini Eggs which are just out of this world (for a cheap Easter treat – they’re not real chocolate remember).

Is it me, though? Don’t all mini eggs taste great with a cup of tea after a hard day at work? I think these are a great treat to nibble on after you’ve had your tea/dinner and are just vegging out.

Overall nice, but not the real deal.

Quick Rating:

Overall: 70% – nice but not as good as the Cadbury’s Mini eggs

Where To Buy The Nestle Smarties Mini Eggs

Most supermarkets I’d expect
Chocolate Buttons – 1 bag for £1.10 or 12 bag box for £10.65

Nutritional Information:

Rolo Easter Eggs

Lee — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:56:00 +0000

We go from the sublime to the naff. I last reviewed the Rolo Easter Egg a couple of years ago and it essentially hasn’t changed. The Rolos are the same, and so is the thin, bland and totally uninteresting chocolate egg.

I know I shouldn’t be overly critical of this £2 egg. It does exactly what its supposed to. The whole purpose of this egg is to give your nieces and nephews that you don’t like something at Easter. Why do I say that? Well you can get far better Easter eggs from Hotel Chocolat or Thorntons or some hugely imaginative ones from Rococo Chocolates that would give a whole load more satisfaction than this egg. I’m sorry.

The issue with these chocolate shops though, is that its doubtful you’ll manage to get 224g of chocolate for a couple of quid – here you can, and you won’t have to pay for postage from your local supermarket if you get them from there. However, there is one good thing about the Rolo Easter egg and that is that they don’t use any plastic. In the few years I’ve been reviewing Easter eggs I’ve seen a massive reduction in the amount of hard to recycle materials used in the packaging of Easter eggs. This is a massive step forward. Now its just down to us to actually do the recycling.

I do love how when you open up the outer box you’re met with a “basket” inside which houses the two tubes of rolos and one fairly decent sized chocolate egg. Its just a shame the quality of the chocolate isn’t that great.

But one mustn’t grumble. You do get a fair amount for your £2.

Well, saying that, the chocolate is very thin. Each egg shell would be 3mm maximum which is nothing when you compare it to the Your Eggsellency Easter egg which is amazingly thick! Some Easter eggs would make you feel that you just couldn’t consume any more chocolate when you’ve finished it. I doubt you’d get this feeling with the Rolo Easter egg. The only sensation that I feel that you could have is that you’d just want some decent chocolate.

Not even the Rolos hold the same degree of satisfaction as they did in my youth. They’re average. Just that, average.

A quick rating here as I’m not inclined to try and convince anyone to buy them. If you’re pushing me, I’ll give them a 40% – now time to go back to my fudge and bring back a chocolaty smile I’d lost in the process of doing this review.

Where To Buy The Rolo Easter Egg

Chocolate Buttons – 6 for £21.90
Chocolate Buttons – 90 for £275.85

Nutritional Information:

Nestle Extra Fine Dark Chocolate

Lee — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:38:00 +0000

I don’t have a great perception of Nestle. I think its because I only really taste their Easter eggs aimed at children – which aren’t the greatest in the world. But I was actually very surprised with their Extra Fine Dark Chocolate Bar.

There is one surprise, however. Its that it tastes much darker than the 52% minimum that I had to search the bar with a squint in my eye to find out. It’s a Frankenstein of a bar. It just doesn’t know what it wants to be. It tastes dark, wooden, musty and reminds me of a Spanish butchers – I know!!!

I found the bar in a Polish pound shop along with the Turrón Crujiente-Calidad Suprema Negro

and I can’t find it anywhere on the Internet, nor have I seen it in any shop so I think the chances of finding it anywhere are very slim. That might actually be a good thing.

The bar is sweet, which belies its “extra fine dark chocolate”. I wouldn’t try this bar again as if I wanted to buy some dark chocolate I’d try can buy much better ones online or if I’m out in town I could even try some Bournville.

Rating:

Taste: 55% – its ok but too sweet and wooden.

Texture: 70% – I couldn’t really fault it too much, just that the melt was a bit average.

Appearance: 55% – they didn’t try too hard!

Nutritional Information: 65% – its there, but too small.

Price: 80% – At £1 for two bars it was pretty good.

Overall: 65%

Nestle Butterfinger

Lee — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:44:00 +0000

I’m shocked the Nestle Butterfinger has its own website purely because I almost didn’t review this bar because the aroma was extremely salty and sickly. But out of a sense of duty I’m giving it a go!

The packaging looks appealing enough and its even got a cool description “crispety, crunchety, peanut-buttery!” and I’m sure that’ll get many people’s mouths drooling. For me it gives me a nervous feeling like I’m just about to jump out of an aeroplane with Mr McClumsy having packed my parachute!

To me this is just an oblong version of Resse’s Cups. They’re exceptionally salty, completely unpalatable and probably one of the most disgusting chocolate bars I’ve ever tasted! I have absolutely no idea how much I paid for this bar, but I wouldn’t finish it off if I was paid several thousand pounds.

Next!

Rating 5% – I liked the wrapping and the website.

You can get it from American Sweets for 95p.

Mini Nestle Smarties Shakers

Lee — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 18:29:00 +0000

Well its normally very hard to get excited about Nestle chocolate and following on from my encounters with some unusual chocolate such as Kshocolat White Chocolate Lemon & Pepper, Peter Paul Almond Joy, Fruit & Spice Chilli Chocolate and Hand Baked Belgian Chocolate Brownies it was a bit of a come down to try this shaker. Well that’s apart from the sugar high I got!

This one came from Handy Candy who do a fantastic assortment of high-street and unique chocolates and only cost £0.49.

So when you bite into the chocolate egg shell you’ll be hit by a very sweet, sugary taste and from trying to read the nutritional information (which was extremely difficult to read), it looks like the chocolate itself is 25% sugar!

On to the mini Smarties. They’re kind of cute, but utterly tasteless, other than that hint of rose-flavoured cardboard – that’s right! I couldn’t really taste anything exciting or chocolaty.

Rating:
Taste: 30% – way too sweet, and the smarties were utterly tasteless
Texture: 50% – typical Nestle chocolate
Price: 40% – quite pricey.
Overall: 40%

If you liked the Mini Nestle Smarties Shakers, you may also like:

* Hershey’s Kassables

Nestle Walnut Whip

Lee — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:34:00 +0000

After reviewing some fine chocolate yesterday with the Amedei Chuao chocolate bar, I thought I’d try something a little less expensive, and it would be fair to say, a lot less delightful.

I bought this Nestle Walnut Whip from Handy Candy and it only cost £0.59 or £2.81 for for from A Quarter Of (£70 each).

I’ve got to admit the packaging is fairly enticing and its good that they say that there’s “only” 174 calories on the front which is about 9% of the recommended daily amount for an adult. However, its 23% of the GDA for sugars and 25% for saturated fats – I don’t think I’ll eat the entire whip now!

When you open the packet you’ll notice the walnut on the top and a very strong aroma of walnuts – surprising that! When you bite the top off you’ll notice the whip/marshmallow concoction inside which is very sweet.

Overall I found it overly sweet which may have been because this one was the vanilla version.

Rating:
Taste: 25% – To sweet
Texture: 25% – nothing special but the whip bit is a bit too sticky for me
Price: 50% – It is cheap but you don’t get a lot:
Overall: 33.3%