Marie Ange Di Costa Morbidi Torroncini Al Pistacchio

Ahh, just like being in Italy again

The Attraction:

Pistachios seem to be one of several popular nuts in Italy (hazelnut, almond and cashews are a few others), so it was only natural when I saw this bag of pistachio nougats begging me to take it home in the airport in Rome, that I take the bait. Well, I think we know how that turned out, don't we?

The Review:
While I was in Italy, I found a few gelato stands that served some amazing pistachio gelato. I'm going to go off on a bit of a tangent here, but the last time I had pistachio ice cream, it was in a form of a milk shake probably back in 1996 up around Oyster Bay, Long Island New York. I remember well because it was so tasty and bright green when I was drinking it....and not so tasty and bright green when it left me. I won't go into all the gory details, but that was a big part as to why I shied away from the pistachio flavored anything for awhile. This was as good as an excuse as any other to try pistachio flavored anything again.

I take a nougat out and tear open the wrapper it was sealed in. As I open it, there is a very subtle hint of pistachio flavor. I take a bite into the piece and I am pleasantly surprised how easily the nougat yielded to my bite. The texture of the nougat itself is more of a dense paste than a nougat I've been used to. The pistachio flavor greets me at the door, then shortly after the sugar wave starts to hit, except it keeps rising and rising, and rising...when will this sugar wave crest and finally crash?! Damn this thing is sweet!

Let me out!

The Sweet:

These nougats have a nice texture that isn't overly chewy 

The Bitter:
The sweetness doesn't stop...it's really sweet, no seriously...really sweet

Umm..pistachio..yay?

Conclusion:
Marie Ange Di Costa seems to make some pretty fancy treats in Italy. These nougats are no exception. Although they are seemingly well made, they are just too sweet for my taste. I was so distracted by the sugar level that I barely noticed the pistachio part of the description. I don't even know if I can even finish the rest of the bag. Which reminds me, the next time I'm in Italy and I got a hankering for pistachios, I'll just stick to the ice cream variety.

Video of the Week
The good people over at Motherboard have released an interesting video of one of their correspondents staying at a hotel exclusively staffed by robots. I don't know about you, but have you seen some of the people that work at the front desk of a hotel? We might not be able to tell the difference.

This is ridiculous, I demand a real dinosaur as my concierge!

Ferrero Tronky Latte e Cereali

 

Ferrero? Let me guess...hazelnut again?

The Attraction:

As I begin to polish off the remaining snacks on my recent trip to Italy, I pulled out this box that I've been waiting to review. What caught my eye about this snack is this description of milk and cereal flavor. I had no idea what that means exactly or what flavor that would taste like. Let's find out, shall we?

The Review:
I've been staring at this box for awhile. I've been wanting to try this, but I purposely have been holding this out to the end to so I had a snack to really look forward to. I must say though that my previous reviews of some of the other snacks I got from Italy like Loacker's Tortini Mini and another Ferrero product called Nutella B-Ready had gotten me used to a certain formula that these Italian snacks seem to follow; crunchy shell, hazelnut cream, perhaps some chocolate thrown in there somewhere. This product should be different, I hoped, as the flavor I choose seemed to not indicate any sign of hazelnut anywhere. Don't get me wrong, I got nothing against hazelnut, but even man cannot live on hazelnut alone.

The box houses five individually wrapped Tronky "sticks". I unwrap one and quickly see the familiar shell similar to the one on the outside of a Nutella B-Ready stick, albeit a lighter shade. "Please! Have mercy....no hazelnuts, sir!" I beg to the Tronky Gods.

I take a dive in fully expecting a hint of hazelnut to greet me at some point, but there was none to be found or was there? What I did get was a smooth sweet cream, with the texture reminiscent of the cream in the middle of an Oreo, except in this case, sandwiched between two light crispy wafers. The filling, isn't as sweet as the cream in an Oreo, but it does have a slight taste of hazelnut (curses!), but not overwhelmingly so. It's more of a passing flavor versus a full on assault.

It actually reminded me of this Choco Roll, I had way back when. Is that a good or bad thing?

This shell looks familiar

The Sweet:

Nice familiar crunchy wafer wrapped around a sweet cream core.

The Bitter:
Maybe not the ideal start to the morning, if you take the flavor suggestion literally.

Is that what semi-solid milk and cereal taste like? 

Conclusion:
Yes, Ferrero reuses the shell...again, but the differentiator for me this time is the cream filling. Perhaps wisely I stayed clear of the Tronky Original that has hazelnuts in it. I have a feeling this review would have been very different otherwise. Be it as it may, these are fine snacks and aren't overly sweet and deliver a nice sugar pick-me-up when needed. Would I hop on the next plane back to Italy to get another pack? Nah, but if I have a layover there, I might drop a Euro on this little treat while I continue to comb the candy rack for other treasures.

Video of the Week
I don't think I need to say much, if you haven't seen it already.

December can't come soon enough

Kinder Colazione Piu

Kinder is everywhere in Italy

The Attraction:

Our recent trip to Italy netting a few treats, one of which were these breakfast sticks. I really had no idea what the story was, but there were so many of these types of pre-made pastry things, that we decided to try some. As they say, when in Rome...

The Review
I had no idea what flavor this was. One could guess chocolate based on the color of the pastry or wheat if you look at the illustration, but it was all part of the mystery and fun of it all. I unwrapped a stick and was immediately struck by the coffee scent these snacks were emitting. Coffee? Never would have guessed that. It was only today that I finally translated the words on the packaging so I can determine what Kinder is advertising the flavor as. "Colazione Piu" comes up as "Breakfast more". Umm...ok, that didn't really help. How about "lievitata naturalmente" which it says next to those stalks of wheat on the left...."naturally leavened"...I still don't think that's a flavor. I'll have to let my taste buds tell me what flavor this is.

First bite in; there was a reason there was a coffee scent, but thankfully it wasn't super strong and the lines of frosting across the top also help soften the flavor even more so. As you might have guessed by now, I'm not a fan of coffee, so coffee-flavored anything is a hard sell. The thing is, with the sweetness and spongy consistency of the cake, all parts of the greater whole seem to result in more of a tiramisu flavor than just plain coffee......and that is a good thing.

Boy, this photo is making me hungry

The Sweet:

Coffee-flavor without bonking you over the head with it. The strips of frosting complement the caffeinated taste and helps build a tiramisu-like effect. 

The Bitter:
The pastry is a tad drier than I would have preferred. A bump up of another 10% in moisture would have been about right.

If you look closely, you can see a strip of
coffee syrup in the middle

Conclusion:
Does a product based on coffee-flavor stand a chance with someone that doesn't particularly care for coffee? In this case, unfortunately, it does not. I can see how coffee lovers or someone indifferent to it could like this snack. In fairness, had I known it was this flavor, I would have selected another option that Kinder offers. Although I don't see myself missing Italy because of this snack, I can see myself dutifully polishing off the remaining sticks in the package to make space for other snacks in my pantry. When I say dutifully, I mean gladly.

Video of the Week
Recently, it's been hot here in New York, but if I had to do what this guy does to get an air conditioner at my place, I would have no AC....and one less pair of clean khakis.

"Is it installed yet? I'm dying in here!"