I keep seeing that fancy new chocolate from Dubai that is cropping up in garages and supermarkets now but at £12 a bar (!!!?!!) I’m too tight to buy and try it, is it worth the price and have you bitten off more than you can afford?
Expensive Foreign Chocolate
If the taste of the chocolate is as sick-making as the toxic shithole that inspired it,
it’ll leave a very nasty taste in your mouth
I’ve not tried it, but during my years living in Dubai (or, er, “toxic shithole”, as I believe I should call it), I did once try camel milk chocolate. Actually, that did taste like it came from a toxic shithole, quite literally.
Ditto ditto … horrible stuff.
Dairy Milk chocolate and Cheddar cheese are the only things human beings need to survive. Everything else is unnecessary extravagance.
Can we include Fruit and Nut there? Just the greatest.
I’d like to nominate Trebor extra strong mints please miss.
Opening up the mint front is a sideways move but I agree, it’s a fine mint though I fear I can feel my teeth melting when I eat them. I had a bad Smint Green habit when driving and kept getting mouth ulcers so I gave up the habit completely which stopped them and am now mint free. I miss them though.
Oh yes. I always have a pack in the car, and I suck on one whenever some tw*t cuts me up, or I join a traffic jam, which is almost daily. I dread to think what my blood pressure would be without them.
Big bag of salted peanuts for me, please. I can do without the chocolate.
Dairy milk? Dark chocolate rules!
I really like Tesco own-brand 85% (or 75% if it is out of stock) which is £2 a bar.
You could buy six bars of that for the price of one sourced from a toxic shithole. (c) Jaygee
For me anything that is ‘Dubai related’ is a tasteless gauche expensive pile of turds. I probably won’t try the chocolate in that case.
Not just me then. A colleague went for a family holiday for 3 weeks and showed me the holiday photos. It looked like 3 weeks in hell. They seemed to enjoy it though, amazingly.
An upmarket Rhyl. Mind you Colwyn Bay could be considered an upmarket Rhyl so it’s not exactly a high bar.
I was about to defend Rhyl and then I realised I was thinking of Tenby. Don’t mind me…
Wrong end of the country. I love Tenby at least when it’s not filled with stag dos and hen parties.
A place is never improved with the addition of a hen or stag do.
Rhyl would be.
🙂
But “We’ll always have Powys.”
Does the Rhyl tourist board have t-shirts and hoodies with “Keeping it Rhyl” on them? They should.
He’ll hole now but when I first lived there in 2000 it was a great place to live so very different to now.
ahh, so I should cross it off my Xmas list? my mother-in-law would probably have bought me a box if I asked her!
Probably everyone will get this as presents for the next year or so. Chocolate is a default present, especially if it ‘seems special’ to the buyer. Having worked extensively in the confectionery industry (automation of recipes and production lines) in my early career, I basically won’t eat chocolate unless I am sure of where it came from. Some of the mass produced stuff is higher quality than the ‘high brand value’ choc.
As a disclaimer, I have no idea who is making this stuff yet.
There is no chocolate question that cannot be answered by Cadbury’s fruit and nut.
Other than ‘what chocolate is clearly less desirable than Cadbury’s whole nut’. Incidentally, why don’t they do an all-fruit version?
Anyway, I’ve tried Dubai chocolate, or a £6 a bar version of it anyway, because The Light wanted to try it. It was very good but not £6 a bar good.
Not tried it but the ingredients sound amazing … a plain version would be awesome
What he said
agreed though Moser Roth is pretty, pretty good too
It is viral so, therefore, it is far more expnsive than it should be*. It might be nice but for £12, I would want something that needs a bit of effort to pick it up and last me more than one mug of tea,
* the exception to this rule is when it has gone viral becasue it is super cheap. But £12 plus for a 100g chocolate bar is not in this category.
I adore chocolate, unfortunately it leads to migraines both the silent and the bloody painful kind so it has been chucked into my personal dustbin of history. Thankfully cheese doesn’t as yet pose a problem or life would become unthinkable. Also £12 do me a favour.
My b.i.l. visited dubai last month, I jokingly asked him to bring me some back.
His reply”£20 a bar. How many do you want?”
Aldi do an ice cream version. It’s passable.
I lived in Switzerland for many years and am firmly of the belief that they make the best chocolate (and cheese too). A bar of Lindt is still a (too) regular occurrence
This is the correct answer.
I did too – well, my dad and mum and sister did. I spent 5 years in chokey at the time. My dad worked for Jakob Suchard testing the chocolate production lines – used to come home with boxes full of Milka. Lovely stuff. I got a summer job in Neuchatel, helping to design soluble cocoa powder – that was really fun.
Zotter from Austria is a family favourite, though at more than 5 Euros a bar, it is a real indulgence. Rapunzel is a German organic company, and their chocolate is still pretty decent.
I was at COP in Dubai, and can confirm it isn’t a place I would recommend visiting out of free will. What would happens if Elon Musk was a country, really.
Not that I have lived everywhere in the world, but I was in Brussels in 1986, and agree with Vincent that Cote d’Or hazelnut chocolate was the best, particularly in plain white wrappers. these days a lot of chocolate seems to be milk solids and palm fat. I wouldn’t eat Cadburys if you paid me – what would the Quaker founders say if they knew?
Ref Lindt – I find it too sickly after the first couple of chocolates. Much prefer Milka to be honest.
However best chocolate I have eaten has been in Ecuador and specifically a chocolate mousse which was divine.
Avoid their Lindor brand, which is stuffed with palm oil, and you miss out on the worst. Their range of dark chocolate bars, from 50% cocoa to 100% are quite acceptable.
Dark chocolate. All milk chocolate including the Cadbury’s stuff is sickly sweet to my taste anyway.
Best stuff I had though was from here:
https://www.spruengli.ch/de/standorte/zuerich-paradeplatz-hauptsitz.html
Ooh, the Paradeplatz Sprüngli? That was a necessary destination on a sunny day in Zurich. The ice creams were perfection.
That chocolate farts above it’s arse – I’ve tried it. Middle Eastern nut brittles are far better. Not that any chocolate is much cop these days. Back in the day, Belgian quality Cote D’Or milk was the one – whether with full hazelnuts or not.
These days I would far rather have a slice of Lancashire black bomb cheese, which is tremendous.
http://www.lancashirebombs.co.uk/cheese.html
*drools uncontrollably*
ahm avin’ sum a THAT! ty for the link
I am firmly in the camp that chocolate is nice but cheese is the absolute best food group. For chocolate, Aldi Moser Roth Plain Chocolate with Sea Salt is very good – especially for the money (£1.29). It comes as 5 small bars and they are sized just right for a little chocolate hit.
Cheese wise, Schilton is the absolute bomb. But I know want to try some Lancashire Black Bomb cheese.
I prefer the one preserved in soil from Islay
Peat Schilton.
It’s a keeper for sure.
Started out at Red Leicester.
But soon hit the harder stuff.
I’m on a cheese on toast for lunch jag. Third day running. I’m not proud of myself.
I burst out laughing at that Twang.
Isn’t it just one of those crazes that’s fuelled by social media, wasn’t there something similar with a fizzy/energy drink a few years ago where parents were buying up cases for their kids?
Prime energy drinks, which sold at about £2 a can. Our local supermarket had a rack full of them reduced to just 10p a few days ago.
Istanbul was chockers with it. SWIDT
People queuing at stalls.
We didn’t try.
According to the Food & Wine website it’s a scam!
https://www.foodandwine.com/viral-dubai-chocolate-bar-fix-dessert-chocolatier-8714704
Doesn’t it say that if you’re buying counterfeit versions it is a scam? Which it is.
It says they only supply via Deliveroo in Dubai so presumably all this other stuff must be fake.
»It says they only supply via Deliveroo in Dubai so presumably all this other stuff must be fake.«
»They« is the one brand that started this craze (and yes, you can only get it in Dubai). But »Dubai chocolate« has now become a general label for every kind of chocolate that has anything resembling pistachios in it. Turkish and Arabic bakeries here have been selling that stuff for years – and by now they are labelling everything »Dubai«. And adding a few euros to the price.
A Freddo. With a tea or a coffee at approx. 11:30am on a weekday after a morning of prising plain English out of brilliant but opaque IT technicians.
I say ‘a Freddo’. I mean the entire pack of 5. TAR.
My preference is always a good 70% dark chocolate from any of the reputable brands (tend to get Green & Blacks mostly).
I do like a standard small Cadbury Dairy Milk though with a mid morning coffee. You know it’s not the best chocolate by far, but it’s still enjoyable. I also have a liking for Mackies. Honeycomb.
My son who’s studying in the Uk introduced me to Cadbury Dark Milk when we visited last year- that seemed to be a nice balance between moreish dairy milk and ‘proper’ chocolate. Never seen it again though.
We’re on the Cocoa Runners mailing list (they did a pod with the Zoe gang all about how most chocolate is sugary shite), where they send you 4 locally made bean to bar, er, bars from around the world, every month. Yum.
https://cocoarunners.com
Cadbury’s Dairy Milk is one of the pinnacles of civilisation. All the variants – Fruit & Nut, that one with embedded bits of Daim bar etc are fab too. All else is pale imitation. I often get bought posh, expensive chocolate for Xmas / Birthdays etc, and every time I wish the giver had just saved some money and bought me a bar of the purple stuff.
These are the truest, wisest words the AW has ever hosted.
Yes, exactly how I feel.
Cadbury’s chocolate is a horrible, tasteless, chalky mess.
Swiss or Belgian for me please.
Get thee to a nunnery! Actually, tb completely h, I don’t think that Dairy Milk is the best chocolate ever, but I do believe it to be the best affordable-on-a-daily basis chocolate. It isn’t sold here in Italy and I have to content myself with Milka which is nowhere near as good. I do love Lindt Lindor, especially those little round balls, especially the red ones, but who can afford them every day? Not me. An even bigger con than Easter Eggs with regard to their cost vs chocolate quantity ratio they are. I remember Cadbury’s Cream Eggs as being absolutely brilliant but they’re also sadly unavailable here. I haven’t had one for decades. And Cadbury’s Chocolate Buttons! Fab! As Socrates or someone else once said, a life without Cadbury’s chocolate is a life not worth living.
Cadbury’s Cream Eggs, I can feel my teeth recoiling in fear of the thought of eating one. Mind you the thought of eating an egg appeals.
Post your address, @Gary – we’ll have a whip-round at Christmas and send you a Cadbury selection box!
Ooh, excellent! Just put “Gary, Sardinia”. I’m the only Gary on the island.
On checking, it appears that the PO will no longer accept “challenging” addresses such as this – not on their website, anyway. I could ask in person – but I suspect they’ll box my ears and throw me out! Oohyah!
Cadburys crème eggs are no longer made with Dairy Milk chocolate and are now a sugary abomination in comparison with their heyday.
When did that happen? I bit into a Creme egg for the first time in years a couple of months ago and wondered what the holy hell had happened to them. (Or if this was yet another unwelcome dividend of middle age)
Presumably when Kraft bought out Cadbury? Or shortly thereafter?
(Gits…)
A guest speaker, pre Covid, was the woman that started Green and Black’s and she spoke about selling to Cadburys because they didn’t have the capital to take it forward. Prior to the sale, they worked right up to midnight on the contract day to make sure the brand was in as good shape as possible- all Fair Trade certification was in place etc. I can’t imagine what she must have thought when Kraft bought Cadbury’s. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth but my wife swears G&B is nothing like it used to be and won’t buy it.
Living in Italy you may have come across Gay Odin’s cioccolata foresta. It’s a huge flake and delicious – Cadbury’s doesn’t even come close ! It’s made & sold in Naples, and they don’t export to post Brexit.
I’ve not heard of that. Will certainly investigate. With the urgency only a true addict can muster.
Can I just say dark chocolate is the work of the devil. I have a theory that no one likes it but some are more polite than others.
I like it.
You’re very polite though.
So wrong
I agree, it is.
Twang – I’m in your corner.
Me too. Recently I saw that alien-looking billionaire bloke who’s planning to live forever talking about his daily diet of healthy food that will help him not die. He includes some chocolate in his diet. I was surprised at that. He specifically said dark chocolate, but I’m sure Dairy Milk is just as good and has the added advantage of not tasting horrible.
No much more sugar and artificial shit
Artificial “shit”? What, like you used to get in joke shops?
So you’re saying that eating Dairy Milk every day won’t necessarily lead to eternal life?
Give Us This Day Our Dairy Milk, And Deliver Us from Revels
…although I quite like Bournville, but that’s almost a different category between milk and dark.
I like both but if I was left to my own devices I’d probably just get plain/dark chocolate.
I am sad: it sounds like you’re not given options when it comes to chocolate…🙁
Pause to regret the demise of the Walnut Whip. They used to be a joy to have back in the day but they seem to be about a third the size they used to be. I would bite off the nut, not especially pleasant but necessary, then the sealed bit, then the fun began licking out the moussy bit (vanilla or coffee flavour Sir?) , nibbling the sides as required until you are left with a disc of solid chocolate which could be eaten slowly of course but more satisfyingly as one chewable bit to finish. Even better with a cup of coffee.
Simpler times.
“The Demise of the Walnut Whip”…
Good name for a slow blues, with a suitably creamy guitar tone! Nostalgia tinged with regret; anger at the size reduction/price increase; a guitar solo which takes the listener through the eating journey outlined above, from nut to disc – this idea has legs!
I recall there was a half walnut inside at one point.
Walnut Whips were very much a Mum’s chocolate when I was a kid along with Fry’s Chocolate Cream and, possibly, Fry’s Turkish Delight. Although I suspect not even Mum’s would eat Fry’s Turkish Delight.
I don’t miss Walnut Whips at all. The amount of bang for your buck was, to my greedy boy mind, pitiful. It was the same price as a bloody Yorkie.
Fry’s Turkish Delight is my Waitrose treat. Having done the shop I scoff it in the car and smuggle the wrapper into the bin. Then I can kid myself I didn’t eat it.
I shall admit to buying a box of a version of the Dubai chocolate from Costco this weekend. It wasn’t cheap, but, for a quid or so more than the OP bar, I got a smart box with 5 times by weight and some nicely luxury looking chocolates which worked out at 50p each. Cheaper than Lindors.
They were very tasty without being brilliant. On a par with nice, fancy chocolates but with the good grace of needing 3 to 4 bites to eat them. Although I could have done it in 1 but I was trying to be classy.
Classy? But you were at CostCo.
Single handidly making Farnborough Costco the place to be for those 45 minutes. I like to think….
I went off Cadbury after their lobbying to get the definition of chocolate… amended.
Jonathan Coe’s splendid novel, Bournville, has a very funny section on said lobbying
Is Whittaker’s chocolate from NZ widely available in the UK? I ask because a few years ago they ran TV ads with Stephen Fry, Nigella Lawson and Bill Bailey. The bars are chunkier than the Cadbury equivalents. The white chocolate is rather nice.
There is a Whitakers with just the one T in the UK so there could be a problem with selling it over here.
Tony’s is good but it’s so hard I fear for my teeth.