Sometimes Foodie

Unreal 54, Candy Coated Chocolates with Peanuts - Target : Cherry Hill, NJ

These were a little gift from my mother, she saw them on sale during a trip to target and picked up a little bag for me. I have already reviewed two other Unreal candies, and so far I’ve been pretty impressed.

Other reviews:

I love the look of this brand! All of the packaging I have seen so far has used bright, metallic, colors for accents and their signature logo. The first time I ever saw the logo, it thought it looked like some kind of alien language, but it’s actually a really stylized font that says “UNREAL.” (You can read it in the 1st photo when you turn your head to the left.) The black packaging and limited text give this brand an secretive, adult, feel. It’s really different from everything else on the candy shelf, and I love that.

Inside, there are peanut-filled M&M-like candies. Right away you can see the candy colors are intense, but a bit different. Instead of food dyes, this brand uses natural coloring. (So yellow is made with turmeric root, red with cabbage, and so on…) At first, the colors can be a little off putting, because they are a little muddy-colored, but that is only because we are used to the bright colors of food dye. These are also irregularly shaped, and they vary in size.

These smell like a mixture of chocolate and roasted peanuts. I was pleasantly surprised by how strongly these smelled, the peanut aroma is really intense,

When I ate the first piece of candy, I instantly noticed the bold peanut-y taste! When compared to peanut M&M’s, the panned hard candy layer is about the same thickness (maybe a just tiny bit thicker) and the chocolate layer is a bit thinner. This allows the chocolate to quickly melt in your mouth, and allow the roasted peanut to really shine.

While these don’t look as pretty sitting out in a candy dish, I do prefer the flavor of these Unreal candies to Peanut M&M’s. If you love roasted peanuts, give these a try. You won’t be sorry.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Key Lime Coconut Patties - Dollar General : Cherry Hill, NJ

Put the lime in the coconut and dip it all in chocolate! I saw this at the dollar store check out and I thought it might be interesting because I love these flavors. (I just don’t know how successful they would be when combined into a candy.)

The plastic packaging features an overall lime-green color scheme with a hibiscus flower print in the background. Piled on top of that, are images of palm trees, limes, coconuts, chocolate, and the coconut-candy-bar product itself. The design is busy, but graphically I think it works. I feel like the fonts and typography are where things gets a little iffy. The text choices makes this product look cheap. (Then again I got this at a dollar store, so you get what you pay for.)

Inside, there are two sweetened coconut squares that have been dipped in dark chocolate. The lime flavored coconut is a beautiful bright spring-green, but it isn’t natural at all. I would love to buy clothing or nail polish this color, but I don’t know if my food should be this bright.

The candy has a very strong coconut aroma, and it easily over powers the lime and chocolate.

Taking a bite…I was instantly disappointed. The chocolate is not chocolate at all, It’s that fake, overly sweet, waxy, “mock-late” that you can find in a lot of cheaper drugstore treats. Once you get beyond that gross mock-late, the coconut itself has a great texture, and there is a tangy lime flavoring, but it is more artificial than realistic. This is like mixing sweetened coconut with concentrated limeade. Surprisingly the combination isn’t bad, but that mock-late just ruins everything.
I actually liked the key lime flavored coconut patty quite a bit, but I hated that fake chocolate stuff. I bit around it, but that wasn’t enough to save this candy. I won’t be buying this again. When will I learn my lesson and stop buying dollar store sweets?
© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Biscoff Cookies - Aldi : Moorestown, NJ

Biscoff spread was one of the first items I ever reviewed on Sometimes Foodie. It tastes delicious, and I absolutely loved it, but I had never had the actual cookie it was based on. During a recent trip to Aldi, I saw that both were in stock and I couldn’t resist.

The design is classic with a hint of European flair. (Which makes sense, since this is a European company.) The sophisticated color palette of red, gold, white and black is very clean and it gives the package a mature look that appeals to adults. My only gripe is that the packaging is made of very thin plastic which made it difficult to open without tearing it apart.

Inside, there are delicious oval-shaped cookies that smell like molasses and cinnamon. (The aroma is slightly similar to graham crackers.)

These are delicious! I can taste some molasses, which must come from the brown sugar, and a nice spicy cinnamon. The cinnamon flavoring is just light enough to make this taste like a spiced cookie, but not a graham cracker.

This may be the perfect cookie to accompany a cup of tea or coffee. I really love these cookies, and I see myself buying more in the future.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Strawberry All Natural Cane Sugar - Home Goods :Moorestown, NJ

Okay, this post is going to be a little different…

I’m going to do my typical review, but I totally bought this without knowing what I should do with it, so I am going to ask all of you for suggestions.

What should I make with this?

I was drawn to this product because of the packaging. The sugar is inside a thick glass jar with metallic detailing, which gives this product an industrial look, but the typography feels a little off. The lowercase font that is used for “strawberry” looks out of place when mixed with the distressed information in all caps. I like the look of either font on it’s own, but something about mixing the two just doesn’t work.

The only ingredients listed are raw sugar, dried strawberries, beets and red cabbage (the latter two were for coloring purposes only), so this is pretty good stuff. This smells exactly like I expected. I can smell delicious cane sugar mixed with tangy, ground up, dried strawberries.

I love the smell and taste of this fruity sugar, but I have no idea on what to make with it.

PLEASE SEND ANY SUGGESTIONS MY WAY!

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Raspberry Vanilla Cupcake Extra Dessert Delights - Target : Moorestown, NJ

As of right now, I have had every flavor in the Dessert Delights line. (Although I’ve only posted reviews for about half of them.)

Click on the flavor for photos and a review:

Orange Creme Pop

Rainbow Sherbet

Root Beer Float

Lemon Square

Today I’ll be reviewing Raspberry Vanilla Cupcake, the newest flavor. I’ve been a fan of this gum since the beginning. Key lime pie (which is now retired) was my absolute favorite! I’m not 100% sure, but this flavor might replace Strawberry Shortcake. (They seem to be making some changes to the flavor lineup.)

The packaging follows the same guidelines as the other flavors. There are flowing stripes of color that coordinate with the flavor, and there is a photo of the real dessert the gum is based on.

When it was announced, I wasn’t too sure about this flavor. Don’t get me wrong, I love raspberries. It’s just that Raspberry flavored foods can come off as candle-y or perfume-y. With that being said, this gum definitely smells like something from Bath and Body Works. This smells like a really nice raspberry lotion, not like a yummy candy or gum.

This flavor was just released. It’s brand new, but the texture feels like this gum is old and stale.

The first flavor I could detect was a floral raspberry. The taste isn’t sweet, or jammy, it’s more like a sugar free raspberry pudding. I can slightly taste some vanilla cake notes, but it’s more like a pre-made grocery store cake than bakery-fresh.

For the most part, these newer flavors haven’t been living up the the original three. (With the only exceptions being Root Beer Float, and Lemon Square.) While this flavor isn’t terrible, I wouldn’t say it tastes like a raspberry cupcake. I’ll keep this in my purse for now, but I don’t see myself buying any more of this flavor in the future. (BRING BACK KEY LIME PIE!)

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Lion Soda Kids Candy - Asian Food Market: Cherry Hill, NJ

Because this candy has 6 flavors, and such amazing packaging, I am splitting it up into multiple reviews.

Check out THIS POST on the aesthetics.

And THIS POST for the other 3 flavors.

Today I’ll review 3 flavors of this soda candy:

Cola (brown)

Orange (orange)

Lemon (yellow)

Cola:

You can taste the cola flavor the second this hits your tongue. This candy starts out tasting a little flat, similar to the Haribo gummy cola bottles, but when you hit the fizzy center it really starts to shine. These are really similar to the other cola hard candies, (reviewed here) , but these are much fizzier.

Orange Soda:

This might be the most accurate soda flavor in the bunch! This candy honestly tastes just like a glass of orange soda! As it dissolves, you can detect some sweet mandarin notes, but the overall flavor is unmistakably orange soda.

Lemon Soda:

Bright and refreshing. This starts out with a sweet lemon-drop flavor, but as it dissolves the fizzy center brings out stronger citrus notes. These are a little tart, but no where near Super Lemon.

It was tough to pick a favorite out of this group, but if I HAD to pick…

Orange

Lemon

Cola

My love of citrus sodas and candies beats the cola, but all three are delicious. This group turned out a lot better than the last one.

I’m not sure if I’d buy another bag of these, but if they sold individual flavors I’d definitely buy a bag of orange.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Lion Soda Kids Candy - Asian Food Market: Cherry Hill, NJ

Because this candy has 6 flavors, and such amazing packaging, I am splitting it up into multiple reviews.

Check out THIS POST on the aesthetics.

Today I’ll review 3 flavors of this soda candy:

Melon (green)

Ramune (blue)

Grape (red-violet)

Melon Soda:

I had such high hopes for this flavor. I LOVE melon flavored sweets, but this is NOT like any melon I have ever had. The hard-candy outside tastes like bubblegum. I HATE bubblegum, so I was very disappointed. Inside, the candy has a fizzy center which is tangy and flavorful, and I really liked that, but it wasn’t enough to overpower the bubblegum flavor. To me, this was like having carbonated bubblegum mouthwash in my mouth. (As a kid, I was forced to do in-school fluoride treatments with bubblegum mouthwash for YEARS and it absolutely ruined the taste of bubble gum for me. To this day it still makes me extremely nauseous.) It is my least favorite of the three.

Ramune:

The blue ramune candy has some light citrus notes, but there is a slightly bubblegum-y flavor to this one too! Thankfully, it is much more tolerable. This candy reminds me of a diet lemon seltzer. While this isn’t a favorite, it wasn’t as bad as the melon.

Grape Soda:

This flavor is wonderful! The grape notes are really jammy and rich. It’s just like drinking a glass of grape juice cocktail. When you hit the fizzy center, it makes this candy taste just carbonated grape juice. (I often serve non alcoholic carbonated grape juice at my holiday parties and events, and this tastes just like it!)

Out of these three flavors, grape is by far the best. While each candy has a wonderful fizzy center, that really adds to the soda aspect of the flavors, the ramune and melon candies were too bubblegum-y for my tastes.

If you like bubblegum, or things that are flavored like bubblegum, you might really like the melon and ramune flavors. They just aren’t for me.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Limonata - Wegman’s: Cherry Hill, NJ

Limonata is a lemonade flavored Italian mineral water. Sanpellegrino makes several citrus flavors: orange, lemon, grapefruit, blood orange, and chinò. (I’ve never seen or heard of chinò, so I had to look it up on Wikipedia.) So far I have only had the orange and lemon flavors, but I’d like to try them all.

The glass bottle is small, textured, and slightly tinted. It has a unique teardrop shape, which fits really nicely in hand, and the bottom is textured like a lemon peel. I think the bottles are adorable, but the label design is quite sophisticated. The stickers have a complex, curvy, shape which is quite impressive from a design standpoint, and the label-design is very complex.

The caps for these bottles are not twist-offs, so you need a bottle opener. This may be a little inconvenient for some people, but I like it. (I rarely get to use my bottle opener.) Once open,this beverage smells like carbonated lemonade.

Limonata is pretty tart. The label says that each bottle contains 18% lemon juice, so if you like sour or tangy beverages, you’ll love this. (I do.) The lemony flavor is more like bottled lemon juice that is made from concentrate, than freshly squeezed lemons, but the flavor is very nice with the carbonated mineral water. If I had to liken this to anything, it’d be like the canned Country Time Lemonade, but with a lot less sugar. (It has that concentrated, not quite real lemon taste.)

Although it doesn’t taste like freshly squeezed lemon, I really love this drink. It’s tangy, bubbly, and refreshing. I think this is perfect for a spring/summer day. (I’m going to try and find the other citrus flavors to review.)

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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UHA High Concentrated Milk Candy -Asian Food Market : Cherry Hill, NJ

Today I have some concentrated milk candy to review.

The packaging caught my eye right away because it was so plain. In a sea of bright colors, happy mascots, and pop stars, this pale pink box stood out. The packaging is made of cardboard, and it’s about the same size and shape as a pack of Starbursts. (Just a few inches shorter.) The design is very minimal, and the colors are quirky. The text is navy blue, the box is white, and there are green, pink, and red accents. This design doesn’t wow me, but it did draw my eye on the candy shelf because it looks so different from everything else.

Opening the candy, I was pleasantly surprised by the little sliding tray! Inside the cardboard tray, there are tiny puck-shaped candies wrapped in silver foil. Everything is really conveniently packaged and well put together. The candy wrapper designs are surprisingly playful. They have cute little cows doing human things. ( I seem to have a businessman-cow on this wrapper.)

The candy itself doesn’t seem to have any smell, but the foil wrapper does. It smells really metallic, which was a little off putting.

When I bought this candy I wasn’t sure what it would taste like. I have had milk candies from the Asian Food Market before, and I hated them. They sat around forever and no one wanted to eat them. I was thinking that these would be some sort of sweetened condensed milk candy, because “high concentrated milk” was written on the packaging…and I was right!

These little pucks are sweet, buttery, milky, goodness. They remind me of the salty milk flavored Chelsea I reviewed last year.

These candies are really delicious. I’m glad this tiny plain little box caught my eye.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Botan Rice Candy - Five Below : Cherry Hill, NJ

This was a little gift from my mother. She likes to read my posts (hi mom!) and wanted to get me a little something to review. I’ve actually had this candy before, but it was so many years ago I can’t remember what it tasted like, so I feel like I am reviewing it for the first time.

The packaging features large, bold, illustrations against a neon red and a true green background. While the colors are bold, they work quite nicely with each other. The illustrations and black text give the box a vintage look and feel.

According to Wikipedia, “The candy’s name, Botan (kanji: 牡丹, hiragana: ぼたん), means “peony” in Japanese. A peony blossom is shown on the label, next to an inu-hariko, a dog-shaped traditional toy for Japanese children.”

I like this packaging, but I wish the “Botan Rice Candy” was written in white instead of black. I think the black is easily lost in the background.

The box may be tiny, but it contains 6 pieces candy, which is a decent portion. There is also has a fun sticker inside! (I got a skateboarding pink hippo!) Each piece of rice candy is wrapped in an edible rice paper, which prevents it from sticking to the clear plastic wrapper.

When I unwrapped the candy I was surprised that it was soft and chewy. For some reason I remembered them being hard candies.

The first thing you can taste is the starchy rice paper. It has a mellow, rice-y, flavor which is plesant. (It tastes the way uncooked rice smells.) That layer slowly dissolves, and when you start chewing, you get really nice, zesty, orange notes. It is like eating really good orange gumdrops, or orange slices. The texture is fantastic! It starts out a little bouncy, but it turns into a slow dissolving chew. (Kind of like an orange Starburst, but MUCH softer.)

These are really yummy! I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy these, for some reason I remember not liking them when I had them years ago, but I loved them! I definitely see myself buying more in the future.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Meiji Almond Oats Crunch -Asian Food Market : Cherry Hill, NJ

This is the third flavor of Meiji Almonds I have tried. (I have already reviewed the Melty Kiss and Crispy Puff versions.) This candy is foolproof. Almonds AND chocolate? Toss anything into that mix and you have a winner. (Unless you’re allergic to nuts.)

The packaging is similar to the Melty Kiss version. It’s the same size, shape, and it opens the same way. Personally, I preferred the Crispy Puff box with a sliding tray, but both designs function as needed. The color scheme and design for this package both have an earthy feel that plays off the cereal/oats flavoring, and I think this is the most cohesive design of the bunch.

Most of Meiji’s snacks contain a foil pouch to keep the candy fresh, and this is no exception. Once I opened the plastic bag I got a whiff of delicious chocolate. The almonds themselves are pretty big, each one has a thick chocolate coating, so you don’t get too many of them. I would have liked more, but this is still a decent amount of chocolate.

Instead of my first impression being the taste, these wowed me with texture. These are crunchy! There are quite a few layers to these candies, it’s no wonder they are so thickly coated! First there is a layer of semi-sweet chocolate with rolled oat flakes mixed in, then a crispy cereal-like shell and finally a crunchy almond. Each layer blends nicely together and creates a wonderful texture. The chocolate tastes more like a semi-sweet dark than milk chocolate, and the cereal/oats add a really nice earthy flavor as well as texture.

I wasn’t sure if I would like these more than the Melty Kiss, but I do! The textures and flavors are fantastic and nothing is overly sweet. These would be AMAZING with a glass of milk.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Meiji Almond Collage

I’ll be reviewing a new flavor of Meiji’s Almond tomorrow, so here is a collage of the flavors I have tried so far
Melty Kiss

Crispy Puff

Have a great day!

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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