Ferrero Pocket Espresso To Go

One of the many perks of having both a food review blog and friends who travel, is that said friends are often nice enough to bring back foreign treats for me to review.

My friend Jess, for example, recently got back from an amazing month of studying art in Italy. (Jess will someday be a famous artist -- and when she is, I will be able to brag that she once brought me candy.) While she didn't jump at the chance to put me in her suitcase and smuggle my lame passportless butt out of the country, she did very generously bring me back some tasty offerings.



One of those goodies was this package of Ferrero Pocket Espresso To Go.

Now, I am already a fan of Ferrero Pocket Coffee candies (as opposed to these little mini-drinks). I've never done a review of those myself, but I love them. Cybele did both a review and an "Eat With Your Eyes" post, which you can see here and here.

Anyway, Jess -- being the cool person that she is -- saw these and thought of me.

Both Pocket treats are espresso based and both contain dark chocolate. Where they differ is that while Pocket Coffee is a liquid-filled candy, Pocket Espresso is actually all liquid and is meant to be drunk via the universe's cutest, tiniest straw!



Basically, Pocket Espresso is the world's tiniest coffee pod/juice box type product. Think of those little plastic packets in any diner or fast food joint that contain condiments, and you've got the size and shape. There's no denying that I love this product based on its packaging alone...but as we all know, the really important question this is: how does it taste?

I can understand why the pods are so tiny -- it's a small package, but it packs a BIG caffeine punch! The texture of the liquid is somewhere between actual espresso and chocolate syrup. It's not as thick as syrup, but not at the same time it's not as thin as coffee.



Tastewise: Again, that same comparison works pretty well. It's got that deep, dark roasted flavor that, while not as complex as a good espresso, is as good as one could ever hope that a coffee-flavored candy would get. Complementing the coffee is dark chocolate. It's a little woodsy, and not terribly sweet.

Let me tell you, these things may sound kind of odd but they were really good. I think the portion was perfect -- if it was any bigger, you'd probably be bouncing off the wall. If I had more of these, I would have liked to have tried chilling one (although I wonder if it would have caused it to thicken too much to suck out through the straw). And I think it would be killer poured over ice cream.

Like most things Italian, I have to say this was pretty awesome! (OK, I will grant you I am biased to all things Italian.)



PURCHASED FROM:
Gift from my super cool friend Jess.

CALORIES:
47 calories per pod.

ADDITIONAL INFO:
Does not appear to be available in the United States...but who knows, maybe you'll get lucky and find it at an import shop. As the label is entirely in Italian and my Italian sucks, I am unsure if this contains any possible allergens.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
ferrero.com

Kinder bueno

I have to give thanks to Jim over at Jim's Chocolate Mission for inspiring me to want to try these.
Jim has reviewed both the regular Kinder bueno and the Kinder bueno White and he made the hazelnut filling sound like something that sound definitely not be missed. So when I saw the bar at my Italian grocery today I had to pick it up.

The bueno is made up of two fingers that are about the size of a slightly wider Twix bar. Bonus point's to Kinder for having the fingers individually wrapped inside the foil. The fingers are made up of 4 squat segments of lightly chocolate coated goodness. As far as I could tell it was a milk chocolate- the label on my bar being entirely in Polish didn't exactly help me a lot. Hiding inside of the extremely sweet chocolate is crispy wafer shell that surrounds a dollop of hazelnut creme. I don't know if my bar was just really fresh but I have got to say that the wafer was perfect. It was still crispy enough to break with a satisfying crunch on first bite.
Jim was dead on with the hazelnut filling! Seriously that filling is so good that personally I think it rivals the hazelnut used in the companies Nutella.
I wish I could just get a hold of the hazelnut on it's own!!

The bar as a whole has it's merits- I am not normally a fan of wafers, but if they are always as crisp as the ones in this bar (rather then the chewy, limp, stale wafers one tends to find in candy) I could learn to love them. The chocolate coating was too sweet for my taste but, on a occasion I don't mind. The clear star here is the hazelnut creme.



PURCHASED FROM:
Claro's Italian Market

Ferrero - Rondnoir

My thanks to Amy with Ferrero for send out the beautiful Prestige package you see in the picture
I am already a huge fan of the Ferrero Rocher so just the description of the Rondnoir was enough to convince me I would probably like it even more.

The Rondnoir is as the companies description says has a dark chocolate cream that surrounds a "black pearl" of fine dark chocolate. That is enclosed in a delicate wafer and covered in more dark chocolate.

I loved everything about this candy!
The crunch of the wafer. The great little bits of nubby chocolate covering the shell.
The cream layer is sweeter then all of the other layers but that really serves to set of the generous sized pearl of dark chocolate in the center. The pearl melts in your mouth in a smooth waterfall of chocolate.

My only compliant is that I could easily eat way too many of them in one sitting.
My initial thoughts proved correct. As much as I do like the Rocher the Rondnoir IS my preference of the two.

I hope the Easter Bunny brings me more!

PURCHASED FROM:
Sample From Rep