Why I bought this.
I love marmite, on toast, mixed with baked beans, in cheese sandwiches even mixed in with mashed potato. My other half thinks I am weird, and he does have a valid point there, but I am always on the look out for unusual flavour mixes so, when I saw this whilst browsing a 'novelty' gifts site (one I saw reviewed on Ciao as it happens) I had to try it. I have tried many different flavoured chocolate bars from Spicy Chilli to seriously salty Bacon - yes really! Deciding I had to buy this was the easy part, finding it at a sensible price was a tad more challenging.
Price and availability
On investigation I saw that this is supposed to be stocked in Robert Dyas and Debenhams, well our local Robert Dyas had just closed and there isn't a Debenhams within a sensible distance and, finding no other supermarkets that stocked this I had to resort to an online hunt. Firebox.com stock it at £6.99 for 2 bars but that is expensive if you find you don't like it. Further hunting found it on various gift sites from £3.00 a bar but then you had to pay postage on top so as a last resort I tried Amazon and Ebay. Amazon had varying prices, but again totalled over £4.00 for a single bar so Ebay was my last resort. I found it on Auction starting at 99p with £1.20 postage and placed a maximum bid for £1.70, I simply was not prepared to pay over £3 to try this. To my surprise I won it for £1.50 in the end, I say I was surprised as there were several bars listed and not one had gone for under £3.50. All this effort for one bar of chocolate, so was it worth it?
Packaging and first impressions
2 Days later it arrived. The packaging is premium looking, fairly plain, black, sturdy cardboard with the Marmite logo very prominent and 'Very Peculiar Milk Chocolate' emblazoned across the front above a brief description of the expected taste and a tantalising picture of milk chocolate curls. I did think this package was quite thin for a 100g bar of chocolate and of course, on opening, it was even thinner (approximately 5mm, half a centimetre, the whole bar is indented with 2cm squares). The yellow foil inner wrapping had very peculiar written all over it, so confident were they that this was going to be a strange taste experience, and on opening this you are met with a distinct whiff of Marmite, so was their confidence justified?
The taste test.
My first impression of the taste of this chocolate is that it is remarkably similar to Galaxy, it does have that gorgeous, creamy, melty, indulgence to it. But what of the Marmite I hear you cry? Well it is there, just, I think - but you don't actually taste it until after you have eaten it. I let the square of chocolate melt on my tongue and noticed a very, very slight grainy texture and crushed these fine grains around my mouth with my tongue. That is what released the Marmite flavour, but, don't expect a lot. If you didn't know this was Marmite flavoured chocolate then you really wouldn't recognise the taste, it is very, very subtle. I tried this both at room temperature and then later after it had been refrigerated and found that you could pick up the Marmite taste more after refrigeration. Overall, taste wise, really creamy, really tasty but not enough Marmite for my taste buds, so not anything to write home about in all honesty.
This is made by Kim and Miller Uk, who seem to specialise in unique food products, according to their web site. I looked at the calorie count in this bar and it is not for the faint hearted - 540kcal per 100g bar, the worrying thing is that it is tasty enough for me to devour in one sitting, but I have been very good and nibble at a square when the fancy takes me. The ingredients in this are what amused me the most, amongst your normal cocoa butter, whole milk, soya etc. they have listed Onion powder, Garlic powder and Celery flavouring. If I am honest, had I looked at the ingredients before buying then I probably wouldn't have bothered - but who does that anyway?
For those with allergies etc. there is the standard warning about containing nuts, milk, soya and Celery, so common sense should prevail.
So there you have it, Marmite flavoured chocolate, deliciously creamy, but not enouugh Marmite and certainly not worth the premium price tag. So not very Peculiar at all then!
