Mozart Chocolade Classic Milk (Reber)

Brand: Reber

Calories: 570 a bar

Calories per gram: 5.7 (eek)
Price: $5.99
Where I found it: University of... alright, I think you can guess where by now

Where you can find it: They seem to be everywhere on the internet, but Amazon's pretty reliable

*low whistle* This is a gorgeous, gorgeous box, folks.  Others may find it granny-ish and therefore repel them, but I'm a band geek and this classic, ornate design appealed to me.  Not only that, it somehow had ties to a long-deceased Austrian composer, whose a handful of horn concertos out of his hundreds of works I truly appreciate! (I'm not a big Mozart fan--Mahler, baby.  MAHLER.)

It makes me wonder if there was ever a Mahler bar to be created, its taste would be some sort of classy insanity.  Shards of spice stabbing you from all directions, with a gentle, sweet rush of milk, and triumphant rays of honey and candied ginger, and yet the entire experience would have a shroud of dark, mysterious bitterness.  That would taste awful but, at the same time, AWESOME.

Ahem, to this bar!  I opened it up and, woow.  This is some classy shiz.

I like how in the corner of the box, it makes sure to point out: "freshly sealed in gold foil".  But, really--it feels cheap.  Yes, it's gold foil, but also, why on Earth did they have to include that?  Now at this point I hoped it wasn't some downgraded tourist consumer fare, but only taste can come down to that.

I opened the foil, and it was pleasant that it didn't have to be ripped.  The seal opened up easily and it revealed the pieces of chocolate.

 

Splendid!  I can eat chocolate and marzipan and Mozart's head!   While I was impressed with the detailed engraving, I was not so with the speckles on the chocolate.  I'm not an expert, but it leads me to believe the chocolate isn't smooth, and in a way, shouted, "I'm factory made!  Look at me!"

The smell of this bar is incredibly, incredibly... sweet.  It also smelled like creamy ice cream!  But this sweetness had a character that I couldn't explain--it was a sort of artificial strawberry with a nutty hint, and at the same time, buttery.  Then I realized if I took in the smell a bit longer, it was pistachio, and that amazed me!  I've eaten pistachios and I know what they smelled like, but wow--this was some really strong pistachio.  I can't tell if the smell was very strong pistachio or just artificial pistachio, but looking at the ingredients:

Sugar, cocoa butter, whole milk power, hazelnuts, almonds, cocoa mass, contains 2% or less of: cream powder, water, butterfat, sorbitol, invert sugar syrup, pistachio kernels, invertase, soya lecithin, flavouring (wtf?), rum, alcohol.

It was the real deal.  Perhaps the extremely strong sweetness scent came from sorbitol and sugar syrup and rum.  It seems German chocolates enjoy their sugar.

With the smell, I was anticipating favorably of the taste!  I took a bite of a piece.

Unlike the picture, there was no gooey, oozing hazelnut praline, and the pistachio marzipan wasn't neon green (which is a good thing).  Similar to the other German chocolates I reviewed on MMM, CARBS, though, SUGAR!  SUGAR!  It's nearly as much or perhaps more sugary than the Casali Schoko-Orangen, but somehow I didn't mind so much, since there was quite a few dimensions to a piece of this bar.

The pistachio is certainly, absolutely, overpowering.  And again, I can't even tell if it was the taste of extremely strong pistachio, or the molasses of the rum, or what, but it was prominent in every single bite of this bar.  I've never drunk rum (I'm under 21), so perhaps I'll never know.  But as I said before, it tasted like an extremely sweet fruity flavor--yes, that was what I was thinking of the entire time, fruity fruity fruity, and smelled as such--and then the milk chocolate fought to stay on.

I feel the milk chocolate is a sad underdog of this bar, because it was damn tasty.  It was smooth, had a soft bite, and had a fatty, rich, milky body, but unfortunately, lost in the battles of the crazy nutty, alcohol-y jungles of this bar.  If the milk chocolate had a stronger role, I would have probably devoured all 15 pieces of the cartridge (and not regret it as I sweat buckets over the elliptical).

As if the strong pistachio and substantial milk chocolate were not enough--wait, there's more!  There is hazelnut praline with almonds, and, my goodness.  If only each of these were made with the rich milk chocolate!  If you pushed aside the brute flavor of the rum-pistachio-whatever it is, you could taste the hazelnut and almond mingling subtly with each other.  It's very, very subtle, but delicious once you find it.

Regardless of Mozart Chocolade pushing its boundaries onto saccharin, I couldn't eat just one piece, and threw all abandon out the window, and consumed three.  I blame the butterfat.

Icewine Chocolate Fudge (Heart Industries)

Brand: Heart Industries

Calories: 90 a piece

Calories per gram: 4.3

Price: $3.99

Where I found it: Canada

Where you can find it: Any freakin' souvenir/tourist shop in Canada

Before someone complains about my crappy photo-taking skills, I'll make it a point that this stuff is EXPENSIVE.  Found on the shelves and overpriced candy piles in just about every tourist store--from the average souvenir stop to "Italian" gelato businesses--in Canada, Icewine Chocolate Fudge is up there with maple products to distinguish the United States and its northern neighbor.

That isn't to say that this fudge isn't delicious, though.  You know what, screw maple!  And screw the fact that this product has "TOURIST BAIT" written all over it, because I am LOVING.  THIS.  STUFF.  I'm surprised that no one has said anything about Icewine Chocolate Fudge, but at the same time Canada isn't a magnet for tourism anyway.  Admittedly, I've never had fudge before, so I'm not one to run to for a good opinion on quality fudge. 

One of the pieces of fudge is small.  It's only 2.5 X 1 inch of icewine goodness, but without a doubt worth the 90 calories.  It doesn't leave your finger moist with oil or grease or--well, shininess.  You do have to watch for smearing your fingers, though.  

The fudge has an easy give (as I guess all fudge do), and the icewine smacks you before the chocolate does.  Before eating this, I had no clue what icewine was--until the unmistakable, sweet, fruity nectar that must be icewine stepped forward and proclaimed, "GOD DAMMIT, I'M FROM CANADA!"

Icewine is an easy flavor to describe because it's loud and proud.  It's strawberries and raspberries and grapes blended all together, with shots of steroids because damn, this stuff is not subtle.  If you let the taste slide over the back of your tongue, there's a slight wine taste that's as satisfying as savory.  As someone who usually finds things too sweet, this fudge was pushing it, but I was enjoying the stretch.  In fact, the sweetness is characteristic of icewine, and without it the fudge would not have much character.  

As for the chocolate, it was some above-average chocolate, and I have to commend this fudge for at least using real cocoa (and "Belgian milk chocolate" as the ingredients state).  Certainly if mockolate was utilized, it wouldn't have been nearly the same and the icewine would taste merely cheap.

How I like to enjoy my icewine fudge?  I split one piece in half, and slowly nibble on it as I think and ponder about things.  Then I take the second half and repeat.  And once it's gone, I feel satisfied, yet eagerly await the next time.

Ritter Sport Cornflakes (Ritter Sport)

Brand: Ritter Sport

Calories: 506 (bar)

Calories per gram: 5.1

Price: $3.50

Where I found it: Pepper's Grocery (in Victoria, Canada)

Where you can find it: Apparently, everywhere

Again, this isn't my photo.  This time, instead of me eating it all, it was unceremoniously melted during the trip back to California, and it resembles a pile of crumpled muffins.  And besides, German is cool!  (I'm a Germanophile as I guess you will soon realize.)

I honestly had funny imaginings about Ritter Sport Cornflakes.  Was it a clump of Kellogg's Cornflakes sandwiched between two blocks of milky chocolate?  If you broke off a piece, would shards of corn flake fly everywhere?  

Nope, I'm going to save you some time and say that it's a Crunch bar (similar to Theo's Bread & Chocolate), except with much better milk chocolate.  Of course, due to Ritter Sport's quality and price, the chocolate had better be tastier than the average Crunch bar, or else there's going to be some rioting led by a tiny girl in San Jose.

I was unimpressed.  The milk chocolate was good, of course, but dammit, it was a bit too sweet and in essence, I was eating a fancy-ass Crunch bar.

Mo's Bacon Bar (Vosges)

 Brand: Vosges

Calories: 80

Calories per gram: 5.7

Price: ??? (It's expensive is all I know.)

Where I found it: University of Washington Bookstore

Where you can find it: Vosges website

I'm not a fan of bacon.  Nor am I a fan of milk chocolate, thought I upon seeing this bar on the shelves of the University of Washington's bookstore.  But dammit, how often do I find bacon and dairy mixed together?!  I ought to try this decadent blasphemy before some rabid Jewish (read: not Jewish rabbi) person whacks me with a Kosher cookbook.

It's a cute, itty-bitty bar that clocks in at only 14g.  I can eat the entire "bar" for only 80 calories and feel satisfied.  (Alright, so it's just portion control.  Still, bravo, Vosges.)

Opening the bar out of its foil wrapper, the smell that hit me was BACON.  BACON, BACON.  The sweet smell of milk chocolate cradled the BACON like a hefty mother's arms around her brawny son's muscles.  I've worked in a deli and I know what bacon smells like.  And this chocolate smells like BACON.

Okay, I'm overexaggerating, but a sort of wonder I had before eating Mo's Bacon Bar was just how strong the bacon taste/smell was.  It's the real deal, folks.

Finally sinking my teeth into the bar was wonderful, sweet satisfaction.  The milk chocolate wasn't of the cheap, crappy quality you would find in some leftover Cadbury's wholesale, but surprisingly worked with the bacon.  And the bacon's savory taste wasn't too strong to overpower the chocolate, but lingered pleasantly in my mouth, just for me to take another bite and relive it all over again.

Eating Mo's Bacon Bar was, well without any better word to describe it, interesting. There's little bacon bits scattered around the bar, but you wouldn't have to chew it, and so it was not distracting (EpicMealTime would be proud).  It tasted good, I can say that.  But I just found it too sweet, and a more subtle, clever variety of dark chocolate would have worked better with the bacon.  There is a dark chocolate bacon bar, but I have no clue if I'll ever get my hands on that.  Heh.

Here are the ingredients:

Deep milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, dry whole milk powder, cocoa mass, soy lecithin-an emulsifier, vanilla), 10% uncured bacon (pork, water, sea salt, raw sugar, white pepper, dry juniper berries, celery juice, lactic acid-start culture), salt, Milk chocolate (45%) contains: 37% cocoa solids minimum, 15% milk solids minimum.

 Dry juniper berries?  Celery juice?  Talk about an omnivore's bar :P