Take pity on my poor little sister. She’s living in Germany and pining, dreaming, of Cadbury Coconut Rough. Without thinking, I said “No problem, that’s available in EVERY supermarket in Australia, I’ll post some to you”. Foolish words.
Searching high and low reveals a problem: The giant Cadbury machine does still make and sell the famous Coconut Rough. In New Zealand. And Ireland. Drat. No help at all here. From a quick check on Mr Google and the Internet, I found I can buy it, but the postage to Australia will cost more than the block of chocolate. I was not brave enough to try for the postage to Germany.
All this leads me to do a Jeremy Clarkson, and ponder: “How hard can it be?” (to make your own). I think I have a method of making it figured out, I was getting all enthused about trying it, and then the Lady Of The House came home with a mini-block of Whittakers Toasted Coconut Slab. So I’ll leave the kitchen experiment for another day.
Onward then, to the Whittakers, which as you can see is a mini-slab. Whittakers make decisions of choice easy: they sell small blocks of 50 grams, and HUGE blocks of 250 grams. Trying the small before the large seems a good way to go.
As you can see, when they say it’s a slab, they mean it. I’d been thinking maybe this could be 3 or 4 squares or small segments, but no. Whittakers seem to have the same approach to their small slab as their large: Industrial Strength Big Brutes!
Opening the pack led to great anticipation: the first whiff on opening screams COCONUT in big fat capitals. We’re off to a promising start. This is a soft milk chocolate – getting it out of the pack for the photo was a bit of a challenge, it would have been easy to push great ugly finger-prints in. This does help, though, in cutting a piece off – and seeing what the inside is like.
The ingredients list the toasted coconut as 18%, and looking at the cross-section, you can see they aren’t fooling around. The knife, cutting through, makes a strange crunchy noise. That’s coconut we’re cutting.
The taste matches the smell: soft, sweet, and lots of coconut. That coconut is nice and crunchy as well, so you get a decent texture to it. I cut the mini-slab into a few pieces and passed it around. The family are unanimous: Pretty Good. The Lady Of The House is most impressed.
After we’d tried a few pieces, I left half the slab on the kitchen table, where the two young masters discovered it. And it gradually got smaller and smaller during the afternoon.
For the coconut fans out there: this is pretty good. Now to send a kilo or two to little sis.
In case you hadn’t noticed, the world is currently freefalling into economic oblivion, and shops everywhere are desperate to get us to buy their stuff. Supermarkets in particular are packed with special offers and cheap, own-brand products.
Tesco is no exception, and “Ryelands” appears to be either owned by Tesco or producing products especially for them in a similar way to Cocopia.
But if Cocopia are going for the quality end of the market, Ryelands are definitely going for the bargain basement end. So here we have a pack of five 40g bars of solid milk chocolate, each in a fairly tasteful wrapper…. with a not-so-tasteful “Discount Brands At Tesco” logo emblazoned upon it. And all for just £1.17.
The back of the wrapper indicates it’s made in Poland (not necessarily a bad thing) and that sugar is the main ingredient. Mmmmm… sugar.
And unfortunately, when you put a chunk into your mouth, you can really tell. It’s incredibly sweet.
There’s also another flavour in there that I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s a slightly rubbery note that I think falls somewhere between “party balloon” and “old lorry tyres”. It’s very strange and not particularly pleasant. It’s not a strong taste, but it’s noticeable, even under all that sweetness.
The upshot is, I can’t recommend this at all. It’s cheap, but it also tastes cheap.
We may all be looking to save money these days, but chocolate is an affordable luxury. If you’re going to treat yourself, there’s no point in trying to save a few pennies by buying something that you’re going to end up throwing away. So don’t buy this.
Tasting Time!
Having been dazzled by the displays at Chopin’s Al Saad branch, it was time to sit down and taste a few of their offerings.
I was given three chocolates to try, all of which turned out to be milk not dark chocolate (obviously a language barrier there – perhaps I should have said ‘black chocolate’).
They all come in very shiny, posh looking silver and gold wrappers, reflecting the premium brand status that Chopin enjoys out here.
First up was this long, thin stick which turned out to contain small pieces of biscuit.
The milk chocolate itself is quite well rounded in flavour, if a little on the sweet side. I suspect Arabs have a bit of a sweet tooth. The small pieces of biscuit were very crunchy and did make themselves known, adding a little sweet and buttery flavour to this one.
Next up, I found myself unwrapping this silver oval.
It was pretty obvious from the shape that I was about to sample something with coffee in.
Sure enough, healthy sized fragments of dark, rich coffee bean were lurking in among a creamy, slightly darker tasting filling, adding a crunchy counterpart to the buttery flavoured cream. I found myself wishing I had a couple more of these to hand. Very enjoyable.
Finally, I unwrapped this golden block.
Here was the cornflake chocolate my friendly female assistant had told me about.
(apologies for the poor photo)
As you can see (just!) it’s a hollow centred chocolate filled with a stack of tiny flakes of corn. I couldn’t help wondering how they’d managed to put this one together. The flakes were perfectly crispy, slightly sweetened and satisfyingly crunchy, melting away with the chocolate for a well rounded finish. This was definitely the first time I’d tried anything like this, and I was suitably impressed.
Overall, I have to say that these are definitely chocolates for the sweeter tooth. I haven’t yet seen any 70% or above Arabic chocolate, and I have the feeling that milk chocolate is the norm. The chocolate itself is very smooth with good rich cocoa flavours, but perhaps a little sweeter than some of the ‘posher’ milk chocolates we’re starting to see in the UK and Europe. It’s not all style over content though, and I think I might buy a few Chopinn chocolates to take home for friends and family over Xmas.
Ma Salaam!
So here I am in downtown Doha, Qatar. I’ve spent the last week and a half here and it was only a day or so ago that I had time to walk down the street a little to see where I could change some money. Lo and behold, I fell victim to yet more chocolate based synchronicity.
Two hundred metres from my hotel is the first branch of Chopin Chocolates to open in Qatar!
Chopin is a Lebanese chocolatier who appear to be slowly spreading across the Middle East. I had a peep in the window (it was Friday and all shops were shut) and immediately resolved to visit as soon as possible.
What follows is a pictorial essay (with captions) on what must be some of the most beautifully constructed and elaborate displays of chocolates I have ever seen.
Chopin don’t just make chocolates, they also sell pre-made displays for weddings, births, and other occasions. I was greeted by a couple of very friendly ladies who (thankfully) spoke excellent English. Once I’d established my identity as International Man of Chocolate, we had a chat and I took the following photos. Then I was introduced to their in house designer, who told me that the shop employs two full time display builders and finishers, who have produced these amazing pieces under his guidance.
Feast your eyes on this little lot – click a photo to view it full size.
Firstly, a couple of party displays…
Next, their Christmas displays..
These have been made for the Haj. The black box represents the Kaaba.
These displays are for the birth of a child. First a baby girl…
…now a baby boy…
Of course it’s also possible to buy ‘ordinary chocolates, but even then there are hand-finished options which make most other chocs seem rather dull and uninteresting by comparison. These are chocs with a serious ‘bling’ factor.
I mean, have you ever been given a chocolate that was hand finished with a velvet ribbon and a big blue jewel?
They also stock a wide selection of more ‘everyday’ chocolates – the sort of things we’re more used to seeing.
When I began to ask questions about the content of some of their chocolates, I was informed that (not surprisingly) nuts were quite common (pistachios, almonds and hazels are all grown in this region) and cornflakes were also very popular.
I was given a few samples to try (sadly not the bejewelled masterpieces, but there again, I’d never want to open those!) and they’ll be reviewed properly soon. Meanwhile, I hope you have enjoyed feasting your eyes on what must be the most extraordinary collection of confectionery I have ever laid eyes on.
Come back after Christmas for Part 2 – the all important tastings!
Merry Christmas, everyone!
