Tag: Nestle

Michael

Coffee Crisp – A Tasty, if Somewhat Boring Candy Bar

Candy Bars

Coffee Crisp is another one of those bars that, though not particularly exciting, certainly has its place. Though I should mention that its motto (“makes a nice light snack”) is a tad misleading – it’s about the same as any other candy bar as far as its fat content and calorie count goes. Not that I particularly care – my philosophy is that generally, if you want something low in fat/calories, you probably shouldn’t be eating candy in the first place. But if you’re buying this because you think it’s somehow less fattening than other candy bars, you are out of luck.

Coffee Crisp

Speaking of misleading, the name Coffee Crisp is probably also a bit of a misnomer. Not that this doesn’t taste of coffee at all, but the coffee taste here is quite subtle. The “crisp” part of the title, however, is right on the money – the bar is filled to the brim with crispy wafers.

Basically, Coffee Crisp consists of several layers of wafer, with a filling that is sweet and slightly crumbly. The whole thing is coated in a somewhat negligible coating of milk chocolate. The aforementioned coffee taste is really more of an aftertaste – the first thing that hits you when you’re eating this bar is the sweetness; the coffee taste takes a while to kick in.

Coffee Crisp

So yes, this is a good bar – even if it doesn’t taste much like coffee.

3 out of 4

Manufactured by: Nestle
Calories (50 g bar): 260

Michael

Crunch Crisp – An Uninspired Twist on a Classic Bar

Candy Bars

There was a time, a few years back, when new candy bars were a fairly regular occurrence. It was always exciting to walk into the store and see a brand new candy bar you’ve never heard of before. I guess at some point the candy manufacturers realized that they could make more money by releasing variations on existing bars rather than introduce something completely new. So now whenever there’s a new bar, it’s always some twist on a currently available candy, no matter how tenuous the connection is with the original product.

Crunch Crisp

The original Crunch bar, containing milk chocolate and puffed rice, is a classic. Crunch Crisp adds wafers filled with “chocolate crème” to the mix, and replaces the milk chocolate with fake chocolate (i.e. the dreaded mockolate). I generally don’t mind when a candy bar like this is coated with mockolate; it’s not exactly my preference, but there’s usually not a whole lot of it, and it tends to take a backseat to the other ingredients.

The mockolate here doesn’t necessarily hurt the bar, but it certainly doesn’t help it either. The main problem with this bar is that it doesn’t really taste like anything. It has an amorphous sweetness, but none of the ingredients really contribute any particular flavour – the wafers and puffed rice add crispiness but don’t taste like much, and the chocolate crème is sweet without having a strong chocolate flavour. The whole thing is covered in mockolate, which is also lacking in the taste department, and of course has that slightly waxy texture all mockolate tends to have.

Crunch Crisp

That’s not to say that this is a horrible bar, simply one that epitomizes the word “meh.” If there’s one lying around, I guess I’ll eat it, but it’s not something that I’m going to be running to the store to buy again.

2.5 out of 4

Manufactured by: Nestle
Calories (49.3 g bar): 240

Michael

Lion – Crispy, Chewy, and Delicious

Candy Bars

This is another British bar that I purchased at the import store I mentioned in my Time Out review. This one’s called Lion, and it’s essentially a denser version of a Mr. Big bar (which, I suppose, will mean little to most Americans as neither bar is available in the States, as far as I’m aware). Basically, it’s a filled wafer, topped with a rather thick layer of chewy caramel, and coated with milk chocolate and bits of crispy puffed rice.

Lion

It’s good. The caramel is very chewy – it takes a while to fully chew, even after the other stuff is long gone. This gives the bar a satisfying richness. It helps that the caramel is surprisingly subtle, and not very sweet at all (by candy bar standards, at least). The whole bar is actually a bit less sweet than the usual American offering. The crispy rice and wafers provide a nice contrast to the soft caramel, making the bar texturally interesting. The wafer adds some sweetness to the bar, as well as the usual mildly wheaty/wafery taste (What’s that you say? “Wafery” isn’t a word? Sure it is! Don’t look it up, though. Just take my word for it).

Lion

I think I might prefer Lion to Mr. Big, as it seems to have a bit more substance, though I’d have to try a Mr. Big again to be sure. It’s definitely a shame that this isn’t available in North America outside of specialty stores.

3 out of 4

Manufactured by: Nestle
Calories (55 g bar): 277

Michael

Big Turk – An Odd Mixture of Gummy Candy and Chocolate

Candy Bars

This has always been a candy that, alongside stuff like Eat More and Bridge Mixture, I can’t say I fully understand. It’s one of those things you never actually see anyone eat, but always seems to be in there with the rest of the candy bars at the store. So who’s buying these? Older people, I guess? The packaging proudly proclaims that it’s low in fat (with “60% less fat than the average chocolate bar”) so I suppose that it might appeal to dieters or people who are trying to cut down.

This is actually only the second time in my life that I’ve eaten a Big Turk; it definitely isn’t one of the first bars you go for when you’re a kid, but once you realize that you’ve tried everything else at the store, you start wanting to try something new – even if it looks suspiciously unappealing. Well, the kid version of me took a couple of bites, deemed this completely inedible and never looked back.

Big Turk

This definitely isn’t quite as bad as I remember it being – I think part of the reason I hated it so much as a kid was the shock of finding gummy candy inside of a chocolate bar, which still seems incongruous to me, but which completely horrified me when I took my first bite, completely unprepared for what lay within (the wrapper in no way indicates that’s it’s gummy candy inside there, and if you’re a kid and you have no idea what Turkish Delight is, you’re in for quite a surprise). This time around, knowing what it was, I didn’t find it to be offensively bad, but I don’t think I’ll be running out to buy another one anytime soon.

In case it’s not clear from the picture, the Big Turk consists solely of a piece of gummy candy coated in milk chocolate. The gummy is extremely chewy, and is of the sticks-to-your-teeth variety. I’m not sure what the flavour is supposed to be; there’s no indication on the packaging, and the ingredients list yields no clues other than the presence of citric acid. There is a mild tartness to it, but other than that it just has a generic fruity/gummy flavour. The milk chocolate is fine, but not necessarily the best accompaniment to the fruity candy.

Big Turk

I think this is essentially just a case of two good things that shouldn’t go together. I like chocolate, and I like gummy candy, but cram the two together and I’m not so sure you have a winner.

2 out of 4

Manufactured by: Nestle
Calories (60 g bar): 230