Galletas Puig Delicias Maria y Chocolate

This almost looks religious to me for some reason

The Attraction

What's better than free souvenir snacks from a foreign land? 

The Review:
In this week's case, a coworker brought back goodies from the land of Venezuela. The snack name translates to, "Maria and Chocolate Delights". How can anyone not love a snack with a name like that? The question I had immediately is what the heck is a "Maria"? More on that later...

I open the package to find something that looks like 2 giant chocolate coins. Well, at least one side of it. As you flip it over, you can see that the other side is a cookie or biscuit. I will say this, they are not cheap based on the size of this cookie. They are roughly the circumference of a top of a soda-pop can...and there are 2 of these in the package. (internal chubby fat kid giggles, which in turn triggers external chubby adult to giggle)

I pray to the chocolate gods

I take a bite and there is a nice resistance in the chew. The biscuit isn't too dry or crumbly and the chocolate isn't too sweet or overwhelming. It somehow strikes the right balance where each side makes an appearance, but doesn't overstay their welcome, unlike your cousins from out West with the baby that won't stop crying. It manages to do this sweet flavor dance in your mouth where you don't feel like it's too much or too little of either side. It leaves a clean finish without that overly chocolaty aftertaste.

After a few more bites, I decide to do some research and find out that "Maria" is the name of Galletas Puig's biscuit product sans chocolate. Oh, now it all makes sense! Maria y Chocolate! 

Let's flip for it. Call it, chocolate or biscuit?

The Sweet:
Generous sized cookie / biscuit with just the right amount of both

The Bitter:
Stop me if you've heard this one before, but I'm pretty sure this is covered snack ground

Conclusion:
These are good cookies. I can't knock them for that, however they somehow seem very familiar. Like I've seen other variations of this milk biscuit / chocolate combo before. Was it these Petit Ecolier cookies or was it the Digestive Cookies with Chocolate? I can't recall if the flavor hit just the right balance like these Maria y Chocolate cookies, but what I will say is if you can't get the others in your area, these are worth a try. Do they carry the guilt and the fun reputation of other snacks? Probably not and even though that's part of the excitement of consuming snacks, taste is critical too. That is something Maria y Chocolate gets just right.

Video of the Week

Maybe I'll just wait for the next one...

On any given workday, one of the things that annoy me is how crowded the subway can be on my commute to and from work. Well, "crowed" is relative in my case and I also take for granted that I'm in a temperature controlled modern train that was made within the last 50 years. All options the folks in Mumbai don't have. Oh, and by the way, if you are a woman and don't like to get groped on the way to said job, you have to pile into a designated car just for women.....suddenly I feel a lot better about my commute now.