Salzburg, or: sweet mother of god, half of my soul to beelzebub for another square of this PLZ

i know, not chocolate, but a chocolate boutique, wherein loads and loads of amazing chocolates lie in wait for my greedy appetite (+ tight purse strings). why is this picture worthy?

samples. like, all over the store. the most fabulous samples of some pretty fancy chocolates. i visited it two days in a row, the first day because i needed to really think it over and set some kind of a budget for myself, the second day to purchase.

i wasn't able to take pictures of the stuff i sampled, but i can give you a short rundown. they had a lot of dark choc samples (all rich, all amazing, dark and sexy - none of that somewhat nasty weird tang of an aftertaste you can get from crappy dark chocolate), and some bizarre ones - dark chocolate + lavender (which was amazing; there were bits of lavender in the dark chocolate and i think lavender oil. i don't know if i would necessarily call it tasty, but just amazingly inventive. it's so cool to taste lavender and really good dark chocolate in your mouth... it's like eating a non-disgusting, non-alcoholic form of perfume. a really intriguing combination for your tastebuds. i came back the next day and stole a couple more samples of this one.), dark chocolate + chili (didn't like it as much as the lavender and dark chocolate, but this, though a more oft tried combination, did a good job with balance. the chili heat kind of crept in at the end of the savoring and lingered, a small pleasant fire), and dark chocolate (not very dark, like 60%) + pear (also a pretty good, though the pear flavoured-sugar on top was a bit too sweet).

here are the things i actually did take pictures of/consume larger quantities of - i don't know if it was intentional (probably not) - but i happened to purchase two rose-flavoured things. probably because they both looked so pretty:



you have to admit, the sugared rose petal in the center is pretty impressive looking. this was a really nice combination of not-too-dark-chocolate (53%) and rose oil. really fragrant, the chocolate wasn't overly sweet, and was well balanced by the sugary, but not overwhelmingly so, rose petal. i really liked tasting the rose-ness in the chocolate - again, i don't know that the rose necessarily enhances the flavour of the chocolate, but it's like eating dark chocolate and inhaling subtle but lovely-smelling rose fragrance simultaneously. the experience is highly enjoyable.

but oh wait, wait wait wait wait....

probably the divine virgin of all finds - and white chocolate, not dark! insane! - this slab of white chocolate-champagne-rose (the package reads champagner-rose gefullt; gefullt means filling - i'm not entirely sure what kind - it wasn't as sugary as fondant or extremely extremely creamy either... but anyway) - here she is, clothed:


slip:


naked and half ravished:


sorry about the awkward homoerotic metaphor. i normally am not a fan of white chocolate, but this combination (shipped in from a chocolatier based in vienna) of champagne and rose oil and rose petals was absolutely sublime. i think what i said before about the rose oil and rose petals adding not so much to the flavour of the chocolate, but the experience of inhaling roses while you eat the chocolate, still holds true.

but this time champagne got involved. and that you can actually taste. the hint of carbonated fizziness and (very very slight, almost undetectable, but necessary) bitterness of the alcohol balanced out the very pure, unadultered sweetness of the white chocolate filling (interesting, it's a light sweetness, like that of nice bottled water or of fresh air, as opposed to the heavier, richer, more intense flavour of dark chocolate - reminds me of the tea/country vs. coffee/city dichotomy that might only exist in my mind).

this is what effervescence should (always) taste like: white chocolate and champagne, with the smell of a cloud of roses.

Cadbury Double Decker and Cadbury Tasters

Mmmm... paying visits to the vending machines between classes...

Cadbury Double Decker:
Incredibly chewy nougatine upper deck and a crispy cereal lower deck. Very filling. I wasn't a fan of the chewy upper deck -- twas waaay too chewy, with an Airheads-esque consistency. Biting off a piece produced a sensation very similar to a rubber band snapping in your mouth -- mildly frightening. Also, the whole bar was borderline too sweet.

Cadbury Tasters:

They look like Whoppers, but they're really just Cadbury milk chocolate in spherical form. Indeed, each ball is only meant to give you a taste of the brand. The balls were quite hard though and not recommended for the weak of teeth.

Austria, marzipan-licious (or not)

purchased in vienna: mozartkugeln.

chocolate + marzipan.




something i quickly discovered while in austria: i cannot has marzipan. i don't know what it is about the texture - its weird congealed quality that isn't really smooth and has a bizarre, sugary/almondy taste. yes, wrapped in chocolate. but i dunno. this isn't apparently even the "original mozartkugel", so maybe that's why i wasn't so impressed. although, to be fair, it was the best that i tried that had marzipan - but i think that's mostly due to the fact that it was so small, comparatively.

poor mozart.

they've commercialized the bejeezus out of his balls.


this was a gigantic truffle thing with a really fluffy chocolate inside. not so much tasty as it was ridiculously sweet.


chocolate with this weird cherry in the center. it was alright - i think they must have pickled the poor cherry to bits, because it definitely had a ridiculous amount of alcohol in it (waaay too much - i remember actually choking because it was so unexpectedly strong). and this, the day of my daughter's wedding!

needless to say, though a lot of things about vienna were disappointing, none more so than my self discovery project.

oh, wait, here's more marzipan that i have nothing substantial or useful or really even interesting to say, other than that i consumed it (admittedly, all these sans mozartkugel on the same day...):


again with the marzipan. DAMNIT!

well, i guess there's one important lesson that i learned from Austria: i do not like marzipan at all. i think my distaste for that particular variety of sweet is strong enough so that i have no right to share my opinion about any of the chocolate i consumed that contained marzipan.

Kinder Country and Ferrero/Kinder Duplo

Chocolate-eating takes no breaks, especially when touring Europe. In fact, chocolate-eating is highly encouraged whilst visiting foreign countries.

Unfortunately the chocolates I tried were just varieties of Kinder that I haven't found in the UK. But chocolate is still chocolate, even if I shop like I'm skint (used a British-ism there!).

Kinder Country
Purchased this from Penny Markt in Vienna and started eating it on the lonnnngg train ride from Vienna to Berlin via Nurnberg (Nuremburg). I took this picture, get it?! Get it?! Kinder Country with the German/Austrian countryside in the background?! Oh that's a knee slapper!

(We are also in no way affiliated with AAA, nor do we endorse their products, but their Tour Books are really damn helpful.)

ANYWAY, Kinder Country itself is your classic Kinder chocolate (milk chocolate outer with a white, milky inner), except it's laced with chunks of rice cake (you know, those Quaker rice cakes. Yea.). Personally, I think the rice cake chunks killed the feeling. Not very well-integrated and at times, just weird. Meh. Kinder chocolate still made me happy though!

I also want to note that it took me a little over 2 weeks to go through this 9er, and I was even sharing with my travel buddies. Yea, I'm pretty good at rationing chocolates. In fact, I ate two of these bad boys on the very last day because I was bored in Milan-Bergamo airport, and at Manchester airport while waiting for the bus.

Digressions, sigh.

Kinder/but originally Ferrero (methinks) Duplo
Acquired these in Rewe, a Penny Markt-esque store in Berlin and went halfsys with Ivy on this. They look like chocolate-covered logs with a wafer inside. Definitely some Nutella action going on. Wafer was not that wafer-y, but more chocolate-y. And sooo delicious. Duplos are awesome, and a cleaner eat than Kinder Buenos. Oh no, I think I might have a new favorite Kinder product...

Just did a Google search for an image and noticed that Duplos may also come in a form that looks A LOT like the Bueno. Hmms...

Mint- and Orange-flavored Kit Kats

Here in the UK and other parts of Europe, Kit Kats come in different flavors. Two of which are Mint and Orange.

All physical aspects of these Kit Kats, from shape to texture to even hardness, are identical to the ones in America so no visuals of an actual Kit Kat will be provided in this review. (Also, uploading pictures isn't a lot of fun, and neither is taking/stealing pictures of food).


Mint Kit Kat:
It's got a nice strong mint flavor, sometimes a bit too strong and reminiscent of toothpaste. Rest assured, the flavor is definitely there. This also bolsters the general opinion that mint and chocolate go really well together. Nestlé did a good job by playing it safe. (Btw, the above image is the same exact package that I bought.)
Orange Kit Kat:
Orange and chocolate, on the otherhand, aren't always a match made in heaven. Kit Kat certainly didn't orchestrate a burning passionate Las Vegas wedding between the two, but it's not awful either. Its got a sweet orange flavor that isn't sour at all, though after just having had an orange a few minutes ago, I can't say it reminded me of the Kit Kat. Meh. Still decent, but the concept is strange.

Nestlé Yorkie

I consumed a Nestlé Yorkie whilst studying for one of my midterm exams before Easter holiday.

It's apparently NOT FOR GIRLS!

Not exactly sure what the official reason is, but I would guess because it is very filling. The Yorkie is a essentially a solid chocolate bar from outer appearance, but inside, there is a slab of biscuit about one-third the thickness of the entire Yorkie lining the bottom of the bar and the remaining two-thirds is raisins and chocolate. All of this is really densely packed together. I bought a bar with 5 breakoff-able chunks. This bar got me through Math Finance and afterward, I didn't need to eat lunch anymore. It was that filling, even more filling than the Cadbury Picnic, and also much sweeter because it has a higher chocolate content.



I really liked the Yorkie. Of course, I'm a fan of any chocolate candy that has raisins in it that can trick me into thinking it's good for me in some way. This is probably the most overwhelming bar of its size that I've ever eaten because of the biscuit and dense chocolate action. Chocolate quality was standard milk chocolate, not very memorable, but not bad at all.

I also tried the Nestlé Yorkie McFlurry a while back, and it tasted nothing like the candy bar. I'm not even sure that there were raisins in it.

Cadbury Creme Egg McFlurry

Before I went on break, I tried a limited edition Cadbury Creme Egg McFlurry due to a tip I got from a loyal reader. (Yes, we have loyal readers! Plural!). Aside from trying as many chocolates as possible, usually the commercial stuff (Ivy "specializes" in the high class chocolaterie-type chocolates), I've also been trying to get every limited edition McFlurry.

I've never had a Cadbury Creme Egg before, so I don't know how "faithful" this McFlurry was to the candy. However, you can see that it looks like what I imagine a cracked and crumbled Cadbury Creme Egg sprinkled over McDonald's soft-serve ice cream. Here's a little secret I'll let you in on (but you could probably figure it out): this McFlurry was made by sprinkling pre-crumbled chocolate pieces and squirting caramel (or whatever the "yolk" is made out of) in a seemingly irregular fashion -- in other words, no Cadbury Creme Egg was actually used! This isn't supposed to be surprising, but I felt like sharing anyway.

Back to the taste. It was a little melty since I waited until I got back to my room to consume this (after, of course, taking multiple pictures of it). But it was the typical run-of-the-mill McFlurry. It probably didn't taste much like a Cadbury Creme Egg mixed with ice cream; at least, this was the case with the Yorkie McFlurry I had ages ago (tasted NOTHING like a Yorkie!). But I digress. The chocolate flakes were quite flaky, and a little powder-y? As for the "yolk," it tasted like caramel (is that correct for the yolk?). In the typical McFlurry fashion, the chocolate flakes and the yolk were weaved throughout the ice cream, but there wasn't a lot of either, so the McFlurry tasted like someone took a sundae with toppings added on and just stirred it with a spoon for a bit, as opposed to, say, chocolate and caramel ice cream.

Overall, good dessert for £1.19. It certainly is what you pay for.