Arnott's Wagon Wheel

An old time Aussie favourite, I used to live on Wagon Wheels when I was a kid.

The Wagon Wheel is not the prettiest chocolate out there, made up of marshmallow and jam sandwiched between two biscuits and dipped in chocolate.

There was a certain amount of nostalgia as I bit into this, it tastes just how I remember it. But sadly my tastebuds have grown up, so while ok, the Wagon Wheel is not something I'd go out of my way to eat when there are so many yummy chocolate options out there.

Rating: Neither good nor bad, 6/10

Hershey's Zero Bar

Having dinner one night at Misty's Diner (the best American-style food in Melbourne), I spotted the Zero Bar amongst the standard American candy bars. I was instantly intrigued by the flavour description of "caramel, peanut and almond nougat covered with white fudge". Doing a bit of research, I was quite surprised to find out that the Zero Bar, which I had never seen before, has been around since 1920.

Upon opening the wrapper, the bar instantly grabs your attention with the white "fudge" coating on the outside. The flavour delivers exactly as advertised, and while I enjoyed it I found the white fudge (which tasted more like low-grade white chocolate to me) overpowered the taste of the nougat, caramel and peanuts.

Rating: Unique in a good way, 7/10

Milky Way - Berries & Cream

Another limited edition Milky Way is the Berries & Cream. I had higher hopes for this than the Banana Whip as berry flavours work a lot better with chocolate than banana.

Breaking it in half, I had to admit it looked a pretty impressive. As for the taste, it was pretty underwhelming, nothing I can really put my finger on, it just didn't excite the taste buds.

Rating: Neither good nor bad, 6/10

Milky Way - Banana Whip

I didn't have high hopes for this, banana flavour is rarely done well, but in the interest of this website I picked up this Milky Way for review.

It was ok I guess, the banana flavour was overpowering but not sickening and I did manage to eat the whole thing (although I hadn't had breakfast so was pretty hungry).

Rating: Better than expected but that's not saying much, 5/10

Eclipse Chewy Mints - Fruit Trio

In Eclipse's new chewy mint range comes the Fruit Trio, a collection of lemon, orange and strawberry chewy "mints". The fruit trio have the same crunch and chew of the spearmint ones I reported on earlier, and the fruit flavours are fresh and tangy, with a mild mint aftertaste that doesn't ruin the fruity flavour. Overall, pretty damn good.

Rating: Crunchy, chewy, fruity goodness, 9/10

Red Bull - The Red Edition

As I didn't quite make it through the entire can of the Silver Edition, I decided to jump right in and try the Red Edition, a cranberry flavoured version of my favourite drink.

Easily my favourite of the three limited edition flavours, the cranberry flavour comes through nice and strong and the sweetness comes across as a nice, subtle, caramelised typed flavour.

Rating: Although nothing could be as good as the original, this is a pretty good substitute, 8/10

Red Bull - The Silver Edition

Continuing with the Red Bull limited editions, today I am trialling the Silver Edition, a lime flavoured beverage with all the added benefits of a standard Red Bull.

As with the Blue Edition, the Silver Edition delivers on the promised flavour. The taste reminds me of lemonade with a good quality lime cordial, not too sweet, not too bitter.

Rating: Although there is nothing technically wrong, I struggled to drink the whole can, 7/10

Red Bull - The Blue Edition

Red Bull has released three new limited edition flavours, the Blue Edition, the Silver Edition and the Red Edition. I picked up one of each but decided it would probably not be a good idea to sample all three in one day, so today I am starting with the Blue Edition.

The Blue Edition has all the same taurine, caffeine, sugar etc as a regular red bull but is blueberry flavoured. I was a bit concerned on cracking the can open, it had a faint medicinal smell about it. The Blue Edition turns out to be a purple liquid, deliciously sweet and tart and with a definite blueberry taste to it that isn't too fake tasting (although there is not a hint of a blueberry in the ingredients so it must be fake).

Rating: Overall, worth a try, but not really my cup of tea, 6/10

Coca Cola Macarons

 

Based on the success of the Grape Hubba Bubba Macarons, I have been investigating every patisserie I walk by to check for interesting, junk food related macarons. When I saw these Coke Macarons, I was so excited I did a little happy dance right there in the store! As I have stated previously, I love all things cola, it always surprises me that the flavour isn't experimented with more.

So with great expectations, I dove straight into the Coke Macarons. I knew as soon as I opened the box that this was not going to be good. Most macarons are fragrant with the promised flavour, these macarons had no hint of an aroma to them at all. Maybe it's different with the fruit flavours, I thought, it will still taste of cola, right? Wrong. They were bland and tasteless. The bite seen taken out above is all I bothered to eat (I hate to ingest calories that provide me no enjoyment).

Rating: What could have been amazing was sadly poorly executed, -1/10 for dashing my dreams

Eclipse Chewy Mints - Spearmint

I have been a long time fan of Eclipse mints, spearmint being my personal favourite. Eclipse has recently released a chewy version of their mints so I picked up a packet from my local supermarket.

The flavour is the same as for their regular mints, the chewy mints are quite brittle when you first bite into them and then soften upon chewing, I really can't find a single fault in these.

Rating: The only problem is that I want to eat the whole packet in one sitting, 10/10

McDonalds Lamb Taster

Along with the Serious Lamb Burger, McDonalds has also released the Lamb Taster, a wrap with half a lamb burger patty, lettuce and that oh-so-delicious garlic aoli.

The taster reminds me a lot in taste of a lamb souvlaki/gyros/kebab, and I found it quite filling without being too much. If the lamb burger looks to daunting, then I recommend giving the Lamb Taster a shot.

Rating: Did I mention how awesome the aoli is?!?!?! 8/10

Cadbury's Green & Gold

Another shout out to my sister with this post, this time to say "Told you so!". During the olympics a number of green and gold based candies were released, green and gold being the Aussie colours. Somewhere along the way I stumbled on an add for this product, but try as I might, I could not locate this block of chocolate at any of my usual candy suppliers, to the point where people had thought I must have dreamed this up myself. So here we are, well after the London Olympics have finished, and I finally found it, hurrah!

The green and gold of this product comes from the pineapple and lime fillings, which alternate through the block of chocolate. The pineapple I love, Cadbury had released a pure pineapple block last summer and I chomped my way through many blocks. The lime is a new filling for Cadbury, I neither loved it or hated it, not as sweet as the pineapple filling, but still quite sweet for a lime flavour, it didn't quite work with the chocolate though.

Rating: Two thumbs up for the pineapple, one thumb for the lime, 7/10

Grape Hubba Bubba Macarons

A big thank you to my sister for sending me these Grape Hubba Bubba Macaron's from Baked Patisserie in Kirawee, NSW. Whenever I'm in Sydney I try and stop in at Baked Patisserie for a macaron or two. As well as having the standard flavour such as Salted Caramel and Pistachio (both yum), there is also a flavour of the month. Previous flavours of the month have included Redskin and Milo.

I always loved grape hubba bubba (although I prefer cola when it's available) and these macaron's had that wonderful fake grape flavour as well as capturing that hubba bubba taste you know so well. The flavour is quite strong so one macaron was more than enough, and the grape taste lingered for quite a while after eating (in a good way).

Rating: A great addition to the world of macarons, 7/10

Mentos Mystery

Another brand stepping into mystery flacours is Mentos. I have only seen this in one service station so I'm not sure where you might find them.

 

 The flavour was definitely from the citrus group (which I love), I'm going to say lemon (although the third listed ingredient is grapefruit juice but if it is grapefruit it is very mild). Being a fan of citrus, I demolished the packet in no time. Could have been more sour, but you can pretty much add that comment to any candy I review.

Rating: Not exactly an exciting mystery flavour, but yummy none the less, 7/10

Coris Volcano Candy Kit

Another Japanese candy kit, a candy volcano! Sadly it didn't quite froth away like the picture promised, but that is more likely due to my execution than the product itself. The froth itself was a deliciously sweet, tart grape flavour, I couldn't eat much of it but my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Rating: A bit of a fizzer :) 8/10

Kracie Mini Donuts Kit

This will be more of a picture review than anything else. Working my way through my collection of Japanese candy kits, I couldn't resist this cute donut kit. As with the other kits, lack of japanese knowledge was not really a problem, the kit is provided with everything you need, just add water. You make the vanilla and chocolate doughs, press them into the provided moulds and decorate with vanilla, chocolate and strawberry icing, and sprinkles and cookie bits. As for the taste, I loved everything but the strawberry icing.

Rating: Fun and tasty, my favourite kit so far, 8/10

Red Bull Gelato

Although it's quite cold here in Melbourne at the moment, I couldn't resist the opportunity to try a Red Bull flavoured gelato from Sweet Explosion at Highpoint Shopping Centre.

There were no surprises here, it tasted exactly how you would expect Red Bull gelato to taste, and given I actually drink Red Bull for the taste, I loved it!

Rating: Will be living on this when summer kicks in, 10/10

Kracie Gummy Dinosaur Kit

Another japanese offering, the Kracie Gummy Dinosaur Kit is a DIY kit for making gummy's at home.

Even though all the instructions were in Japanese, between the pictures on the instructions and clearly labelled packages it was easy to stumble my way through it. The kit came with two packets of flavouring (melon and cola), the gummy mix, a fork for stirring, a dropper for adding the gummy solution to the flavouring and a mould featuring the different dinosaur shapes.

To create the gummies, the flavour powders are poured into the moulds and smoothed out. The gummy powder was mixed with water (far right) and then added with a dropper to the moulds (top left).

The results were pretty standard for a home craft project (I am more scientist than artist!) and there was enough flavouring to make two sets of dinosaurs. The finished product was quite wet, I really enjoyed the cola flavour but the melon (tasting like honeydew) was a bit strong for me.

Rating: Fun, fun, fun, more interactive candy kits please!!! 9/10

McDonalds's Serious Lamb Burger

Sorry to my loyal readers for going missing in action, between a laptop meltdown and move interstate I've had trouble posting (although continued sampling!), but I'm back on deck now.

My first review to catch up on is the Serious Lamb Burger, which has been around in Australian McDonalds for about a month now.

The Serious Lamb Burger comes with egg, tomato, beetroot, lettuce, onion, garlic aoli and ketchup.

The burger is seriously big by "family restaurant" standards, I usually have no trouble putting away a Big Mac or Quarter Pounder, I was starting to feel the pain about half way through this burger. So while the Lamb Burger is more expensive than the standard fare, you won't come away hungry. The taste of the lamb is quite strong though, so if you're not a fan then probably steer clear of this offering (or try the Lamb Taster, a smaller wrap, instead).

The real highlight of this burger was the garlic aoli, I could drink buckets of the stuff and it cut through the fatiness of the lamb well. Overall I was impressed but it could do with a few minor improvements. I thought the egg was overkill, a thick rubbery fried egg didn't really add to the magic or work with the overall flavours.

Rating: A great new addition, must be hungry 8/10