Today is the second Michel & Augustin Petits Carres bar that I bought at the Grove Farmer’s Market. I recall them having a few varieties. If I bought all they had I clearly don’t remember. My sister just chose a few for me and I went with them. I didn’t care enough to make sure if I was trying all the varieties or just some of them.

This is the Hazelnut Dark Chocolate flavor, which, I am hoping will be a bit more flavorful than the plain dark chocolate. Time will tell though.

The first thing that had me bummed about this bar was it has overcooked cookie base. Not just darker than the last, no. It has inconsistent coloring all over and in some parts it was a dark as the chocolate was. Not good. The flavor is not as strong or yummy as Nutella is, which I found disappointing. The filling is only slightly nutty and just comes across as bland. Sadly there’s no saltiness in the cookies base. Just a bland sweetness and a rock hard texture which made it even more difficult to separate and eat as the Dark Chocolate variety.

So this one was disappointing. I was hoping it’d improve my thoughts about this candy, but instead it just made me think worse of it. If I wanted to eat flavorless burnt cookies I’d make some myself, as it’s easy to leave a batch in the oven too long. I mean, it didn’t taste terrible but it wasn’t great either. Especially since I paid about $4 for this, imported from France no less. Fool me once….

Rating: Might Eat Again

Links Michel & Augustin Webpage (French)

I came across this Michel & Augustin Petits Carres: Dark Chocolate at the same trip to the Grove Farmer’s Market down in Los Angeles on 3rd and Fairfax. The stores there carry and amazing array of items, and these bars from France are one of many. It was actually my sister who noticed them at first and kept picking them up to look at the packaging. The purist that I am, I was more interested in the huge bars of Felchin and Dolfin chocolates. It wasn’t until I she came over and tugged on my sleeves suggesting that these would be great to review on my blog. “Look at how unique these are!” she exclaimed. That line of reasoning was exactly why I bought them.

This is a candy bar that I have never seen before. This isn’t because it’s French and I just haven’t seen it on shelves here in the USA. No, I mean by the fact that this style of candy bar is completely new to me. Usually you see instead is a bar that is similar; where cookie bits are crumbled into the chocolate, or the chocolate is put into the cookie and it sold as a…well, a cookie. So this idea of a molded cookie base and chocolate interior which is a candy bar is very new to me.

I shall start with the first flavor: Dark Chocolate.

So these bare have butter biscuit as the bottom with a chocolate filling pressed into “wells” in the top. The bar is broke into six biscuit sections, two wide and three tall. Out of the wrapper it’s pretty to look at. Kind of like a stained glass cookie. Also though, due to the denseness of the cookie bottom, the sections are kinda hard to break. Everyone single one of them gave me a difficult time.

The bar is 73g in size/weight. I admit I wasn’t quite sure if this was a candy or a cookie. But, one seldom sees a 73g cookies wrapped like a candy bar. Much less from France.

The butter biscuit bottom is soft and crumbly. It doesn’t require a lot of chewing to make it break apart. The flavor is very sweet and buttery, with nice notes that aren’t too sweet. It’s a nice butter shortbread. I was surprised by it’s intense salty aftertaste, which was strange at first then ended up being the part I looked forward to most. The chocolate filling is soft and gooey, but solid. When I opened the wrapper it stuck to it and came out as a solid whole. Which is…odd. The flavor is sweet but very…flat. It reminds me of creamy cocoa powder. The flavor gets stronger,  but it’s not very sweet and it has a very flat chocolate flavor.

So this is ...meh. I’ve had chocolate bars that are better and cookies that are better. I just can’t help but feeling that this is better off as a cookies, as opposed to packaged like a candy bar.

Rating: Might Eat Again

Links Michel & Augustin Webpage (French)

New Tree has done a lot of evolving over the years as a chocolate company. I recall back a few years ago when their chocolate bars had emotions and specific flavors paired together. You can see an early candy review of mine from CandyAddict.com where I reviewed all the current New Tree flavors at the time. Since then they’ve really changed their flavors and chocolate philosophy now. They’ve gone “healthier”, which is the best way I can put it now. Let’s look at this Belgian Biscuit bar as an example.

To start, this bar is a 65% chocolate and is labeled as “dark chocolate with golden flax seeds” along “3x more fiber, omega 3 and -30% sugar”. Healthier that most chocolates on the market now, wouldn’t you say?

Taking a bite the chocolate immediately has a lot of crunch to it. You taste sweetness and the butteryness of the biscuits, the chocolate really takes a back seat here. The biscuit’s flavor is the main star here. You don’t really taste the flax at all, it’s more of a texture at the very end when you get the seeds separating from the chocolate on your tongue and then stuck in your teeth.

Tasty, but not the best bar if you’re looking for a chocolatey hit. I found the texture to be the dominant factor in this chocolate bar, and it makes the bar difficult to be eaten in any other manner other than chewing it.

To be fair, New Tress does carry a collection like the originals I expressed above in the 2007 review. Yes, there’s been some changes. but the idea remains on the whole. Their branching out into more unique, healthful and innovative chocolate bars are interesting. I can’t say that these are something I’d immediately go for, but I’m sure they do appeal to certain consumers. It’s a quality bar at the end of the day, so it’s a good thing to go for if it sounds interesting to you.

Rating: Might Eat Again

Links New Tree Webpage

Everyone has their preferences with candy, and that’s the beauty of it all. I have preferences just like everyone else, but I also enjoy trying everything because I’m a big foodie like that. One candy that’s always in my stash are gummis. Both my boyfriend and I are big fans of gummi candies, so we’re always looking for new kinds and well as keeping the classic favorites around. When I saw these VanSlooten Sun & Fun gummis, I was interested since I’ve never seen anything like these before.

The come in a convenient tube with a removable top. The package design is simple, yet eye-catching. The photos of the gummis are pretty spot on in representing the candies on the inside, so it’s not a sad surprise when you do go about opening the package. The top was a little hard to remove at first, but once I practiced it a few times I had it down. The package smells fruity and sweet, but not of any particular fruit.

Green: Hard to lay my finger on this place. It isn’t lime or watermelon, but it has juicy fruity notes and a pleasant flavor. My best guess is it’s apple.

Beige/Brown (Cola): Sweet with spicy notes to it, like a good cola should. It reminds me more of Pepsi than Coke, as the spice flavor is more predominant.

Red: Sweet and floral, and surprisingly mild. Not really sure what this one is supposed to be. I get soapy notes every so often. Whatever it is I’m not quite sold on it.

Orange: Orange, but more like an orange cola flavor. It has some strange spicy/bitter notes to it that remind me of some orange candies I taste around Halloween.

Green/Maroon: This one is sweet and tasty. Has notes of “red” and berries. I think it’s trying to be strawberry or cherry, but the taste is so nondescript that I cannot place my finger on it.

These proved to be interesting all right. The flavors seemed kinda benign and muddled, but that didn’t stop me from eating them after the tasting. I shared them with my friends, like I do all my candies, and they liked these too. One especially with smitten with their dense, chewy texture. When I really sit down and think about it, I finally touched on what these remind me of: wine gums. Regardless, if you’re a gummi fan, these are a fun variety to try!

Rating: Might Eat Again

I’ve heard about these Sour Punch Bits, a new type of sour candy that’s a spinoff of Sour Punch Straws. I found a box of them in a candy store called Rocket Fizz in old town Pasadena. Unlike Sour Punch Straws that come in a clear cellophane package, these new Bits come in a movie theater sized box. I’m not the biggest fan of Sour Punch Straws, but seeing these new variety I couldn’t help but want to give them a shot. 

The box these Bits come in is very attractive. The box’s design isn’t too busy, it has a bright yellow background with their signature logo and Punch faces puckering. It also has colorful illustrations of strawberries and watermelon on it, so it’s vibrant and delicious looking.

Opening the box, you find a small plastic bag that takes up about half of the box inside. It’s tightly sealed and keeps the candies fresh and safe. Opening the package, I get a whiff of the candies: they smell like cardboard. Ooooh yeah.

The candies are thick little tubes, striped with color and sanded with sour sugar. They clump easily and feel slightly squishy to the touch.

The flavor is tart and fruity, but I wouldn’t call them sour. The sour sugar coating has a sour edge to it, and you really don’t taste it until the end of the candy’s flavor. Speaking of the candies flavor, it’s very…plastic, more so than the original Sour Punch straws. It starts out sweet, then the berry flavor kicks it. It’s…also just sweet. The watermelon shows up giving it a lighter fake “watermelon” taste we know so well. The flavor ends with “red” flavor akin to Twizzlers, then dissipates.

I would eat the normal Sour Punch Straws over these any day. I shared the rest of my package with friends, and they all really liked them, so what do I know. Since buying these I also seen a lemon and tangerine flavor, which, I am interested in trying despite not liking this flavor. It just goes to show that certain candies will speak to some and not others.

Rating: Might Eat Again

Links Sour Punch Website