SnackSurprise - The January Box - Bulgaria

All good things come to an end and, with that being the case, welcome to the first and final snack box of 2021. For our last SnackSurprise post, we shall be experiencing the highs and lows of Bulgarian nibbles.

I Tetris'd the shit out of that!

Our final selection.

Would we end on a high or would the Bulgarian box prove to be a disappointment? A quiet Saturday afternoon would prove it one way or another.

They put lots in this bag, the bastards...

Savoury snacks first and we're off with Zayo Bayo, a corn-based snack with the flavours of cream and dill. In a promising start, the bag was full to the brim but that's where, for me, it turned sour. The smell released from the bag was like the foetid atmosphere of an ancient tomb. Past that, we sampled the rather soft, almost stale texture of the snack itself. The cream half did ok, but that dill really was off-putting and for me, it was a solid no. My good lady remains on the fence about these.

A new accompaniment to soup...???

We followed up with Kubeti Pizza, which turned out to be small toasted pizza flavoured bread cubes. Very crunchy and heavy on the tomato and oregano, my good lady remarked that these would be quite nice in tomato soup, resembling as they do, croutons. I can't help but agree, but not sure if we would ever be brave enough to try that particular recipe. 

Early enough for Beer Nuts, not early enough for beer.

The Beer Nuts were the last of the savoury snacks and, well, as you can see, they are peanuts covered in a crunchy, roasted shell. Ok, they're day-glo orange but actually tasted quite nice, with a lovely texture and a pleasant, not over-powering, flavour on top of the expected peanut. Sadly, these were not consumed with beer (it was half one in the afternoon and that's just too early for home drinking), but you can easily buy equivalents in the UK.

A bit squished, but tasty nonetheless.

Milkiss began what turned out to be one hell of a choccy fest. A triple-layered coca cake with a milk cream filling, this had suffered a little in transit but was still good enough to eat. And what a treat it was, a strong smell of chocolate was backed up with a similarly strong taste. The filling was just sweet enough without becoming cloying and the cocoa powder is a nice touch on the top. A lovely little snack.

Good stratification there.

A chocolate wafer next, with the very crumbly Nestle Mura. Not too hard, nor too dry, you get enough of the chocolate in the wafer and the milk filling kept it from desiccating your gob. A good choice to have alongside a coffee, it did the job.

The offending item is circled here.

The Balkan Cake Bar had more chocolate, wrapped around a soft cake bar that, frankly, had a very strange taste. It came across as sour cherry but had a perfume quality that sat badly with the overall idea of the bar. Not at all nice, so much so that I pre-emptively forgot to take a picture of it.

ORANGE!!!!!

Another wafer bar now, with the Borovets Wafer that's listed as having a hint of orange and peanut. That, gentle reader, is complete and utter horse shit. The orange in this chocolate wafer bar smacks you round the face and teabags you into submission. Having said that, there was still a subtle peanut essence there, but by God it's scared of the orange stomping around your gob. With maybe a bit less of the orange, this would have been a nice, if slightly boring, wafer bar, but alas...

It's a Milky Way.

Svoge Republika was another chocolate bar, and, simply put, it's a Milky Way, only slightly firmer. 'Nuff said.

Cake disc of honey/ginger goodness.

Medovinka was another snack of cake-y goodness, but by this point, both my good lady and I were suffering from the excess of chocolate. Even after having just a bite of each snack, things were getting a tad sickly. Still, this honey flavoured cake only had a thin choccy shell.  The cake itself was quite moist and had overtones of ginger as well. However, there was no way in Christendom or any other spiritual land that we could handle more than a bite each. Still, nice enough.

Cat poo? Resin block? Nope. Sugar HELL!!!

What the actual fuck is this? Chaika Dessert was a silver foil wrapped hard nugget of... Well, what? Apparently a classic dessert bar, this seemed to be a foil wrapped cat turd, or a small block of resin (allegedly... so I have been informed...). It was actually a thick chocolate shelled bar of sugar. The white fondant filling felt like 100 percent sucrose that definitely set teeth on edge. Extremely unpleasant and kind of made the heart pine for foiled cat poo.

Horrible little flowery bastards.

Temenuzhki Drops were the final snack, a small, hard sweet in the shape of flowers. They had a horrible floral taste of Violet and I couldn't finish mine. My good lady lasted another 20 seconds (she's made of sterner stuff) but in the end, she too disposed of the offending sweet. However, to avoid waste, these shall be kept as my brother in law likes this kind of stuff. Weirdo...

A bottle of fizzy honey piss... interesting...

Last, but not least, was Derby Etar, the drink of the box, and was advertised as having the "iconic" Bulgarian flavour of Etar, a combination of caramel and honey. What it certainly had was an unpleasant smell once you cracked the bottle top open, but when you had a drink, you knew why. It was foul. Very floral, the honey overpowers you and made this a horrible drink. As per usual, it felt like we're more unlucky than lucky when it came to the drinks side of SnackSurprise.

Overall, this was a mixed box, with an over-reliance on chocolate and some favours listed in the guide as "interesting" but coming over as just plain bad. Still, one or two highlights means this month's selection wasn't a complete bust.

So then, that's it for SnackSurprise. The subscription has been cancelled and we shall receive no more. It's been an interesting experiment and we've found some lovely little snacks, but there haven't half been some bad ones as well. It's certainly been an experience.

SnackSurprise - The December Box: Spain

Rather more promptly than expected, the latest SnackSurprise box landed just before Christmas. Due to having rather more traditional fare to consume over the festive period, my good lady and I decided to wait until after the Christmas to sample the delights held within this blue and orange box of delights.

Another good selection of snacks.

As you can see, another decent selection that covers savoury and sweet snacks, as well as the ever present drinks can. Here are the relevant pages from the pamphlet.

The usual pamphlet.

So, in fitting with our usual pattern, we decided on the savoury snacks first.

Meaty Quavers... mmmm.

Boca Bits are crispy salted wheat snacks with a rather delicate meat flavour. As you can see, they look very much like Quavers and, taking away the slightly different texture due to their wheat origin, that's precisely what they are. Very pleasant and with a good crunch, their flavour doesn't sit too long on the palette. A very good start to the box.

I didn't mean to make it look like he has a cheesy goatee...

Pandilla (by Cheetos) are another bag of crisps, this time in the shape of ghosts. These are very crunchy and have an almost mature cheese flavour, certainly in the aftertaste, which lingers a good while. Definitely one for lovers of cheese flavoured crisps, though if you're on the fence about that flavour, maybe these aren't the ones for you. 

They at least look nice...

The first of the sweet snacks now and we have Palmeras. Described as a crunchy puff pastry topped with a sugar glaze, these were the first disappointment in the box. The are certainly soft, almost falling to pieces when we tried to remove them from the packet. They are also crunchy, what with that glaze too, but they also have a greasy texture - you get the buttery feel of the puff pastry, but that is so strong, it becomes greasy. That sugar glaze doesn't go well with the grease either. Neither of us were enamoured with these though to it's credit, I can understand why they might go well with coffee.

These are fun sweets, and tasty too.

Fini Galaxy Mix are a strawberry flavoured mix of very chewy gummy sweets. The initial impression is of intense sourness that soon gives way to a punchy strawberry flavour, a combination that is really quite refreshing. We couldn't manage more than one before giving up, as they really do pucker the cheeks, but they do what they set out to do.

Lovely sour balls of gummy juice...

Pikotas next, and these feel very much like Jawbreakers until you actually try one and crack that firm but thin outer shell where you then get a lovely gummy centre. The cherry flavour is quite strong with just a hint of sourness that is far less over-powering than the Galaxy Mix. Very good little sweets.

Simple and straight forward.

Fini Sparks are tiny, multi-flavoured candy pieces that have a nice, punchy taste, but one that doesn't last too long. This is a good thing, as they are a tad sour (there is a pattern here), but for what they offer, another good sweet.

What are these? Only Smarties have the answer...

Lacasitos = Smarties. 'Nuff said.

Cakey goodness or pink coated turd... You decide...

Pantera Rosa is a cake bar that encases a soft sponge and cream filling in a pink coloured shell. The outer covering is a sweet as it is pink, but get past that and you have a deliciously moist sponge, with the cream centre adding that extra layer of texture to complete a very nice snack. This is definitely one for elevenses with either tea or coffee.

Baggsie the double one!

The Filipinos biscuits were another delight - small round chocolate covered treats with a good snap and plenty of crunch. The balance between the biscuit and chocolate is just right and these are snacks highly recommended to accompany your mid-morning brew of choice.

That texture adds to the pleasure... of the taste, obviously!

Tokke is the penultimate snack and can best be described as a Time Out with extra rice pieces included. These add even more texture to the mild milk chocolate shell and crunchy wafer inside. An intriguing combination and one that felt right, but also a tad off. Still, definitely a nice choccy bar.

A glass of something quite unremarkable.

Finally, we have La Casera, a fizzy drink that is said to be one of the most popular soft drinks in Spain and a great addition to wine or beer. What you actually get is carbonated water with a tiny (and I mean tiny) hint of lemon. It's not an offensive taste, so does better than some drinks we have from previous snack boxes, but that is its problem - there is hardly any taste there. So whilst you could say it's refreshing, it achieves this by tasting of neither nowt nor summat. Having said that, we can certainly see how this drink would turn a glass of wine into a spritzer or a beer into a shandy, if such things float your boat. 

So we once again come to the end of another Snack Surprise box and, for the second month running, a box that has exceeded expectations. With only a couple of items that didn't suit us, this was another good selection. Let us see what the new year brings for the January box.We are certainly looking forward to it.

SnackSurprise - The November Box: Denmark

Another timely(!) delivery from SnackSurprise, though there was a bit of warning this time. An email was received advising that due to a query over the quality of one of the items to be included, November's box would arrive slightly later than expected. The honesty of the communication was appreciated and it was with some expectation that we opened the box and found that we had treats from Denmark this month.

The usual, informative pamphlet.

Not a bad looking selection.

As is becoming a bit of a tradition, once we had unpacked everything, my good lady and I decided to start with the savoury snacks first.

A good start to the box.

Snack Chips are pretty much ready salted crisps with the addition of light spicing. First impressions though and they fulfill the promise of being crispy. The crunchiness is sublime and reminded us of Walkers Squares crisps from our childhoods, and not the pale imitation of Squares that you can buy now. The Snack Chips also taste lovely, and that mild spicing adds a depth to the flavour that elevates these crisps to another level (and yes, I have been watching too much Masterchef!). A great start to this month's snack box.

Wotsits with 50% more vowels

We followed up with the Ostepops, a crispy corn-based snack that are cheesy in the extreme. Essentially Danish Wotsits, they're a lovely snack and I would say they taste better than Wotsits. Also a nice surprise (after last month's Patos Rolls disaster) is that the bag is full when you open it. None of that "peering into the abyss" to see the half dozen crisps here.

Your nuts, M'Lord...

Kims Nodder is a bag of mixed nuts. With almonds, cashews, pecans and salted peanuts, this is a perfect pub snack bag... when such a thing could be done. Sadly, I don't think they count as a substantial meal but knowing the government's current crystal clear messaging, you never know... Nice nuts, with the right amount of salt and another great snack from the box.

Genetically modified dolphin, anyone???

Flipper next, and this is where things go a little south now. As you can see, it's an approximation of a dolphin. An approximation... yeah. Still, the "classic" foam dolphin let rip a powerful scent as soon as the packet was opened, almost enough to turn the stomach - a dolphin stinking of strawberry, I think. As for the texture, it's quite soft (getting it out of the packet was fun) and chewing it reveals a decent flavour and an experience that reminded us of the white from egg shaped fun gums. It is, however, very sweet, and I struggle to see how any adult (children are different) could handle a whole dolphin(!). 

Bertie transformation not guaranteed.

Pingvin Blanding is anything but bland, a selection of liquorice and gummy sweets. Not much to add here, they taste quite nice and you'll get a similar thing if you mix up bags of Haribo and Allsorts. Now there is an idea!

Be happy I did not have to Google this image...

Now, who doesn't like to get their mouth round a Skipper's Pipe? A strong taste, cloying on the tongue and claggy to the teeth, leaving you with a bitter aftertaste. You'll like it if it's your sort of thing. As for the pipe-shaped sweet...

No plums-based innuendo here - I was worn out after my adventures with the Skipper's Pipe!

This is a stand out sweet from the box: Plum in Madeira. A thin chocolate shell surrounds a disc of marzipan and a layer of Madeira soaked plums. By Jove, it tastes delicious! The chocolate is crisp and in no way overpowers the star of the show: that filling. The highlight so far!

Though we do have chocolate toffee balls... put 'em in your mouth and suck 'em!

The Guld Toffee are more down to earth. A chocolate covered toffee that's hard enough to do service as a musket ball, before the chocolate melts away and you spend the next ten minutes trying to chew the damn thing without it stealing every filling you have. Pleasant enough if that's your thing. 

"There... are... four... fingers!" JLP may have said.

Orangestang looks like an orange flavoured Kit-Kat but it's not. Oh, no, it's a thin strip of chocolate (there's no biscuit) with a hint of crunch in there with an added punchy citrus flavour. Think a slightly sweeter version of Terry's Chocolate Orange and you're about there. As it's rather sweet, it's another one where one finger is enough for all but the sweetest of tooth's but that one you do have tastes lovely.

This is just Doodle Dandy...

The Yankie Bar is a great combination of Milky War and Mars Bar, just a bit smaller than the latter. Apparently the oldest chocolate bar in Denmark, you can certainly see why it's been around for so long. It's a brilliant chocolate bar. The right about of toffee and nougat, it's got a great taste balance and it's another snack from this box that hits all the right notes.

Similar in taste (and alcohol content) to Lambrini (i.e.  none).

Finally, we have Champis. Upon opening the can, you get quite a strong odour but in actual taste, it's very subtle and rather pleasant. The grape is just about noticeable and at a push, could be described as similar to a weak fizzy wine. We found it decent and, it must be noted, one of the first drinks we've had from a snack box that didn't want to make us hurl.

There we have the Danish box and my, what a nice change from the usual. There was nothing in here that we took an instant dislike to and that, gentle reader, is a first for our snack box experiences. True, one or two things might only get a bit of a look in but overall, this was a very good box this month. I would say "roll on December's box" but with Christmas coming up and the usual posting dates, you know it's going to be 2021. Ah well, just in time for the post-festive season diet!

SnackSurprise - The October Box: Turkey (and yes, I know it's late...)

Another month and another snack box, and this month's box of delights features snacks from Turkey.

It was cold so no blanket shot this month.

Fourteen different snacks this month as you can see from the booklet and I've also included the pages of the pamphlet about the Premium Box so you can see what else you might get if you want to pay the extra.

The Mini/Original Box contents.

The Premium Box extras.

In what seems to be an emerging pattern, we're starting off with the savoury snacks first and what appears to be a rather generous bag of hot pepper corn crisps called Patos Rolls. 

Ice Tea not included.

Except it's not generous at all. This is a 25g bag of crisps masquerading as something three times its actual size. And you thought Walkers were stingy bastards...

I kid you not, nothing has been removed from the packet yet.

But what about the taste? Actually rather nice - these are rolled Doritos in essence. Crunchy, a tad powdery and with a good taste, these take a good three or four before you get any kind of tingling of heat on the tongue, which makes them a pleasant (and milder than expected) snack to eat. Just a shame the packaging (and flavour) promise more than they deliver.

These really shouldn't work, but they do.

Eti Crax are something of a mystery, offering a chilli and lime flavour in a crunchy stick. What they actual give you is a wonderful hot and sour taste that certainly packs more heat than the Patos Rolls. We couldn't manage more than a couple each before the heat became too much but they are easy to return to. As far as this snack box goes so far, this is a cracking start. 

Conjoined buns.

Cake now and Dankek 8kek. Nope, no idea what the name signifies but what you get is a lovely, soft, moist banana cake covered in a thin layer of chocolate. Each flavour is quite potent and combine well overall. It's sweet, but not overly so, and I think would go very well with a brew.

If this was a tree frog, I'd stay well away.

Eti Puf is a marshmallow and biscuit combo that screams out to be loved. I mean, look at those sprinkles!!! It's so cheery and demanding to be liked. It also looks garishly dangerous, like an Amazonian amphibian warning you to stay the hell away. Yet what we actually get is an extremely sweet biscuit that's at least not hard, and a firm marshmallow. It wasn't to my taste though my good lady enjoyed it's nice coconut taste. She did add that it wasn't as good as a Tunnock's. She's not wrong.

That laughing/crying packaging is disturbing...

Eti Cin is apparently a Turkish favourite -  a sweet biscuit tart covered in orange jam and then dusted with chocolate sprinkles. The packaging gives the impression that it knows something is up and it's not letting us in on the secret. That secret is that it's not very nice - the jam is too cloying and the orange overpowers the senses - think a Jaffa cake but four times the intensity of flavour. Really not nice at all.

We're gonna rock down to, Eti Bidolu.

Eti Bidolu is a wafer sandwich with nut filled chocolate as the filling. The wafer is a tad dry but the filling is gooey enough to save your mouth from desiccation. I liked it but my good lady didn't take to the peanut pieces at all. So a marmite style wafer then. 

This sweet biscuit was sponsored by the Umbrella Corporation.

Eti Tutku (and the last of the Eti branded snacks) are biscuits with a cocoa cream. They aren't too dry, and the strength of flavour is pleasant without being too strong. As noted in the pamphlet, these would go well with a cuppa and are an inoffensive biscuit.

Nothing witty at all here - must be slipping.

Away from Eti now and onto Alpella 3Gen. This is a white chocolate bar with layers of white chocolate inter-spaced with wafers. Tasting like a Milky Bar on steroids, it's very nice though I think some people might struggle to finish a bar in one go - it is very sweet because of that white chocolate.

Or here. WTF is going on???

Another chocolate bar next and a familiar one at that. Ulker Albeni is a giant single bar of Twix. There you go, that's pretty much it. Pretty easy to describe and pretty easy to recommend if you like a Twix. 

Nor here either. Though you may have thought that with every caption so far.

Proper ket now (that's not Turkish, that's a local term), and Jelibon Sour Patch Karpuz. Melon sours to us. Soft jelly centre surrounded by a sour crystal like exterior, these deliver the initial sour taste and then a lovely, refreshing watermelon burst once you get chewing. The zing they deliver is mouth-watering and they don't leave any kind of nasty aftertaste which is always a good thing.

It's definitely not toffee.

Kent Tofita are a cherry heavy tasting chew and look pretty much like Chewits. The cherry is strong with this one and they are long lasting. Not too hard and, in a pleasant surprise, not likely to pull fillings out if they stick to your teeth. We didn't mind these at all.

A reason not to go into that bloody wardrobe.

Okay, full disclosure time here. I detest Turkish Delight. Have done since being a child and in the intervening years have now and again sampled it with the same outcome. My good lady, however, was willing to try this one and... nope. Again, it's one of those Marmite decisions.

Probably wouldn't taste better even if covered in cocaine...

Suitable for all muskets and pistols.

The Eksiyuz Sakiz are small, hard, sour bubble gums that kind of worried me when I took one out of the wrapper. You'd kind of expect some give in a bubble gum but no, not here. These things could be used in a musket! Actually trying one was also bad as it had an incredibly sour taste that wasn't just unpleasant - it was actively foul. After disposing of the offending sweet, the aftertaste hung around like a losing Presidential candidate and was almost as salty as those horrible Swedish things from a couple of months ago. These are ones to avoid.

Not rancid fruit piss, which makes a pleasant change.

Finally, we have the included drink and, in some weird tear in the fabric of reality, the Dimes Visne really was quite pleasant. A sour cherry drink, this has a good initial punch of flavour which then politely fades away, leaving a subtle hint on the palette. It's refreshing and worth another go. I think this is the first drink we've had in a snack box that we have actually enjoyed.

So there you have it, another box done and, looking back, more hits than misses, or so it feels. There was an over-reliance on chocolate but other than that, there's been some decent ket in here. Roll on the next one.