chocolate-reviews

Schogetten’s Milk Chocolate with Hazelnuts

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 16:10:56 +0100

Found: A gift from Iancu & Mirele, but available at Penny, I believe…
Cost: well that would be rude to ask…but I’ll check Penny!

Guest Critics: Tad, Julie, Zach & Kelly
Situation: Mid-afternoon snackage
Hunger-level: Low

Tad: "It had a nut in it! This is definitely a milk chocolate, but its got some fruity in it. It's fruity."

Julie: "Nutty, Yeah. Oh wait, Just 1 nut. That doesn't count. Pretty superb."

Zach: "It's chocolate. Waxy but good. Can I have another?"

Kelly: "This might be my favorite one yet. There is no fruit, only a delicious, creamy, real milk chocolate, studded with pieces of hazelnuts. Reminiscent of ferrero rocher in flavor, though not in texture. And I might need to eat another piece."

Editor's Commentary: This is a delightful example of a nutty milk chocolate that works! Although probably not as inexpensive as many of our other possibilities, it is a good, solid chocolate with a great taste and no funky fruitiness to ruin the after taste! It went in one sitting, so the backpack review is unnecessary. But it comes in little individual pieces (18 of them!) and is easy to eat, pretty, and tasty!

Recommended method: Place a piece of this lovely chocolate on your tongue and allow it to melt slightly. When it has melted down by a layer or two of milk chocolate goodness, then the texture and proportion of hazelnut-to-chocolate is at its best and should be chewed slowly with lots of smiles.

Kandia’s Crema Tiramisu

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 15:40:17 +0100

Found at: Penny Market, Lupeni
Cost: .95 lei

Guest Critics: Kelly, Julie, Alice, Tad & Zach
Situation: Post-lunch test
Hunger level: Very low

Notes: We’ve hit a new latest & greatest in chocolate-review technology – Recordings of responses transcribed to the review for more complete evaluation options! Pretty neat!

Alice: “The inside flavor goo is pretty good, but the outside surrounding chocolate supporting the goo lacks. A little to be desired. It’s better than the other one but…hmmm… still kinda the sixlets taste.”
Julie: “Whoooa! Ummmm…”
Zach: “Mocha cappuccino.”

Kelly: “Well, first of all, let me begin by describing the appearance of this piece. Im a little confused because the brand says it’s Kandia and the bar says Bucuri and I don’t know what that means. …The texture of the inside is a little weird. (“Yours says Kandia. Mine was an outlier.”) Mmmm, but its good. Definitely better than the strawberry.”

Tad: “You have to know that I’ve been eating pumpkin seeds before tasting this chocolate. But I’ll do it anyway. It popped. I don’t even know how to describe chocolate. But it’s pretty good. Its got an after-taste of coffee.”

Editor’s commentary: Sticky, and perhaps overly sweet, but much closer to a real chocolate than I have found for under 1 lei in another brand (possible exception: Sonata’s Cappuccino chocolate). I enjoyed this one quite a bit, and wouldn’t be sorry to taste it again, but perhaps won’t make it a part of my To-go collection for home…Coming soon: Schogetten Milk Chocolate with Hazelnuts (a gift from my host siblings who just returned from a trip to Italy).

PS. this is what happens when you carry it home in your backpack...bad plan.

Sonata’s Ciocolata cu Arahida (Chocolate with peanuts)

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 15:33:06 +0100

Found at: Plus in Lupeni
Cost: .79 Lei

Guest critics: Kelly, Julie, Alice, Tad & Zach
Situation: Mid-morning snack
Hunger level: Low

Zach: “It tastes fake.”

Julie: “Ummm…Yum” (Pre-taste.) “It sustains a chocolate craving.” (post-taste)

Tad & Alice: “It doesn’t taste like chocolate!”

Kelly: “As is typical with Sonata Brand, the taste is artificial and the texture is waxy. The taste is almost fruity, reminiscent of those Sixlets. This chocolate peanut bar also has a surprising lack of peanuts! I want a piece with a peanut! The raisin one was like that too.”

Editor’s commentary: I was in a chocolate mood (when am I not?), but still objective enough to feel that this bar left much to be desired. As Kelly stated, the texture had the typical Sonata waxiness…not a pleasing trait in a straight-up large bar of chocolate! I remember liking sixlets, back in the day (which, again, Kelly was right on with the flavor judgment!), but the novelty of a bag of Sixlets transitions poorly to a chocolate bar…especially one which claims to contain actual peanuts!

Recommendation: Skip this particular Sonata offering…unless the other options are cherry and strawberry!

A big bad chocolate and homework event

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 08:13:20 +0100

This afternoon, after classes, Kelly and I ran a few errands around Lupeni. Several of these errands ended up including chocolate purchases.

We both needed language study time, and what better way to bribe yourself to do homework than by offering chocolate?

The flavors we tested out and our thoughts:

Arista's Cherry

Marit: "It tastes cinnamon-y. Like cherry pie!"
Kelly: "It tastes like real cherries!"

(From Julie and Zach, eating the leftovers...
Zach: "Christmas!"
Julie: "Its like a fake cranberry Thanksgiving.")


Sonata Cherry
(for comparison, of course!)

Marit: "Ewwww!!!"
Kelly: "It tastes like pepto-bismal."

(Zach: "Christmas"
Julie: "Fake cherry vitamin chews!")



Sonata Strawberry
(If Cherry is bad, then strawberry must be better, right?)

Marit: "I'm giving the rest of this to Zach."
Kelly: "The (Sonata) cherry could be good if you didn't compare it to the other one. This is just bad."

(Zach: "Tastes like Strawberry chocolate."

Julie: "Oh my gosh, ummm…someone ate strawberry & threw it up and stuck it in chocolate, that’s what it is.")

And finally...

Sonata Raisin
(Who puts raisins in chocolate?? Seriously. And who would buy that? Gross!)

Marit: "Weird. But not bad. But I guess I didn't get any raisins..."
Kelly: "This one is good!" "Hey, I want a piece with raisins!"

(Zach: "It's alright..."
Julie: "Tastes like chocolate.")

So, all in all, a successful chocolate evaluation...and we know what to NEVER purchase again!

Oh, and for the record, we did in fact accomplish a good amount of homework in between chocolate bars...

Final Impressions: I think I'll be sticking to my fruit-free chocolate policy, in future. Except for the purposes of research, of course. =)

...And Zach finished off the rest of the chocolate. =)

Arista Chocolate

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 16:59:31 +0100

Cost: .98 Lei
Found at: Penny Market, Lupeni
Variety: Not quite sure...Kelly bought it.
*Cherry

Thoughts: Cinnamon-ish tinge...like a Cherry pie. Delightful!

Sonata Chocolate

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 17:04:53 +0100

Kandia Chocolate

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 16:11:28 +0100

Cost: about 1.5 Lei (50 cents, approx.)

Found at: Penny Market, Lupeni

Variety: Limited but some are great!

*Tiramisu Creme = AMAZING!

*Dark Cacao (55% and great with peanut butter!)

Some random fruit-cremes that look iffy.

Milk chocolate

Milka Chocolate

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 16:07:32 +0100

Cost: 3.5-5 Lei/bar ($1.00-$1.50).

Variety: Immense! I'll star (*) them as I taste them and note the best flavors!

*Alpine Milk (plain ol' amazing Milk Chocolate)

*Alpine Milk Caramel (double-filled)

Chocolate Cream

Milk Daim (Crunchy pieces)

*Happy Cows (chocolate with white chocolate drops)

Hazelnut

*Mint (Zach can tell you how great this one is!)

*Popping candies (Pop-rocks chocolate -- AWESOME!)

Thoughts: FANTASTIC! If you could get this sort of chocolate for this sort of price in the US, it would become the next big thing in the chocolate world there, also.