I went to New York last November, and as Newark Airport only has one shop ended up wasting my last $20 on chocolate bars. It has taken me the best part of 5 months to eat all 8 of them because they are each so epic. This is what I thought of them:
Hershey’s Take 5
Chocolate, pretzels, caramel, peanuts, peanut butter…
This pretty much sums up eating chocolate bars in America. Like chocolate?? Then you’ll probably like everything else sweet, so let’s just put it in all in one bar for you so you don’t have to buy anything else you fat boy… the first thing you learn about American chocolate bars is that the aim to please everybody. If there’s an ingredient that someone might like, then they’ll throw it in the mix. You know, just in case. It’s a surprise there are any different bars over there at all and not just one big bar which contains every flavour ever.
Anyway, Hershey’s Take 5 is pretty much EXACTLY what you want from a chocolate bar so you can’t complain, soft, crunchy, sweet and chewy, I guess it’s the American equivalent of a Double Decker (my favourite chocolate bar).
8/10Twix PB (to go)
Maybe I’m in the minority here, but for the most part, my chocolate bars are very much, ‘to go’ all the time. I’ve yet to sit round the dinner table crack out a few Twix’s, but maybe the rest of the world is different. Anyway, yanks looooove throwing peanut butter into ANYTHING. If that means spoiling a national institution such as a Twix then so be it. Nevertheless, I really liked this bar, much more than regular Twix’s (which I’ve found to be pretty boring for the past decade, much like 4 finger KitKat’s…)
8/10Hershey’s Milk Chocolate filled with Peanut Butter
Oh, ok, I get it, American’s really like this peanut butter thing… I can see why, it’s pretty sweet, has a nice tang to it… goes well with chocolate… not a bad chocolate bar at all… But everything seems to be King Size. Is that really necessary?? It would be ok if there was regular option, but I couldn’t see anything of the sorts. There’s nothing regal about eating big chocolate bars, that’s just plain greed.
7/10Hershey’s 5th Avenue
Now, if ever there was a chocolate bar that overstepped the mark, this was it. Yeah, I like caramel as much as the next guy. And butter? Yeah dude, on toast I can fucking eat that all day long… But a chocolate bar made out entirely of that sickening taste of wafery butter, over and over again?? And only in King-Size format?? This isn’t going well…
1/103 Musketeers
3 Musketeer’s bar may sound more than a little bit like a Steve Martin endorsed chocolate bar, but you know, in American chocolate terms that translates pretty much directly into “MILKY WAY.” The fact that there’s only two bars in this is the most confusing thing. Not one to recommend, I felt thoroughly depressed by the time I had my way with this one.
2/10Cadbury’s Caramello
Cadbury’s is my favourite brand of chocolate. Regardless of how much proper chocolate-heads might look down on it, the taste is second to none. This is pretty much just a Cadbury’s Caramel, except that it is, of course, King Size. This makes each cell of caramel a huge chamber, and for my tastes, completely ruined the fine balance of chocolate to caramel that I’m used to. It made the whole bar very sickly, and frankly, it soon became a chore to eat.
3/10 Mr Goodbar
As if to confirm that most American confectionaries are really just re-hashed recipes of each other along comes ‘Mr Goodbar’. I’d thought I’d already reviewed this one, but it turns out I was just mistaking it for every other bar in America. Yep, fine. Not much to report apart from the fact that it tastes pretty unremarkably good. It does remind me though, that I don’t like Hershey’s chocolate. It’s just too dry and dusty, and tastes too much like the cheap kind of stuff you hang on Christmas trees. If this was Cadbury’s I might just love it.
6.5/10 (just because I’m getting bored of these tastes)
Pay Day (with phone next to it for scale)
This bar, I left ‘til the very end. See, I’m not sure what I think of peanuts in ‘candy bars’, so I wasn’t holding out much hope for it, and anyway I’d had enough caramel to last me a lifetime after all these. It again confirmed to me how huge American bars are compared to British versions, and the mere thought of having to eat the whole thing filled me with dread. It was quite tough to open because the bar itself was so sticky and had glued the wrapper really tight. They don’t mention it, but I think the whole bar is a long piece of nougat with caramel and peanuts on top of it. Nice and chewy, although the first bight’s a bit of a shock because the peanuts are so salty, and I really wasn’t expecting that.
7.5/10
At least with muppet-faced Capello in charge there is the prospect of colourful encounters like this one between Capello and Di Canio.
"In 1996, when he was coach to Milan, the future England manager took his club on tour to the Far East. Leading a China XI 1-0 in Beijing, Capello told Di Canio he was replacing him with a midfielder to preserve their advantage. The outraged striker questioned why he found it so important to win what was "only a friendly" and in return received extraordinarily personal insult and a transfer to Celtic.
