Villars Chocolat Noir

I must say, I was pleasantly surprised by this chocolate bar, seeing as it is made in Switzerland, known more for milk chocolates, like Toblerone. The 72% cacoa content dark chocolate bar has a good ingredient listing, cocoa beans, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla flavour and artificial flavour. The company is over a century old, they started in 1901, and perhaps they have been doing something with that time, perfecting their way of making chocolate. If the packaging is correct, their using quality ingredients and good methods will bring a superior bar. The bar snapped fairly well, smelled really good, and tasted quite good, better than a lot of bars I've recently tasted, that cost much more. I would definitely sample this one again. I definitely like the cute flower on each piece!

Hershey's Special Dark

Now I know I have said that I don't like Hershey's chocolate much or at all, though I wrote that before I heard the news that Hershey and Barry Callebaut announcing that they were collaborating on chocolate products, 80,000 tonnes worth of chocolate and chocolate products initially going to Hershey's, and I know that such products are down the road, probably far down the road, and couldn't possibly affect this particular bar, but I reasoned that perhaps this trend to produce better chocolate, Callebaut provides excellent chocolate for a large number of well-known companies, had already begun, and that it had affected this particular bar, so that it would at least taste reasonable, and not like chocolate-flavoured milk. The bar itself contains 50% cacao content, a good step in the right direction, and its ingredient listing is fairly good, just sugar (remember, it's only 50% cacao), unsweetened chocolate, cocoa butter, cocoa powder, milk ingredients, soy lecithin and artificial flavour (I'm hoping vanilla). It's a straight dark chocolate bar, and it tastes fairly good, passable, better than any other Hershey bar I've had in a long while.

Cebu Phillipine Mango Nectar

Along with the Cebu dried mangoes I reviewed earlier, I came across this six-pack of mango nectar from the same company. Each can is 250 mL, and its ingredient listing looks fairly good, just water, mango puree (at 37% of the total), sugar, citric acid and ascorbic acid (the latter two as preservatives). It tastes pretty good, though not nearly as good as the Alphonse juice I also bought at the same time, though that was not canned and presumably fresher.

Bin-Bin Coconut Milk Flavor Rice Crackers

These rice crackers are very similar to the Seaweed Flavor rice crackers from Bin-Bin I reviewed before, they have real coconut milk, along with coconut flavoring, to flavour them. I think I prefer them. What I don't like about these rice crackers, and it seems a lot of Asian food products have this in them, is the MSG, or monosodium glutamate, which is used as a flavour enhancer, but affects some people, especially those with sensitive stomachs, as it could irritate the stomach and intestine, in particular my father must avoid it. Some people, too, get headaches or migraines from MSG, so examine the ingredient listing if you think that you might be allergic to it. Fortunately, I'm not.

Mae Ploy Thai Yellow Curry

There are three common types of curry popular in Thailand, the red and green kinds are the most popular, though, for some reason, I prefer the least popular kind, the yellow curry. I recall about 20 years ago, eating at a Thai restaurant in Boston with a number of my friends, and ordering a yellow curry dish, it was just chicken. And, it was delicious, flavourful and slightly sweet, with a little kick to it. And, I sought it out since, trying it now and again at various Thai or Vietnamese restaurants. Now, I wanted to make my own yellow curry dish. Rather than make my own, a next step, I decided to try this brand from Thailand, Mae Ploy, who also make a red and a green curry version. It turned out quite good, very tasty, though not as good as that first taste of the yellow. I served it with vermicelli, and used chicken thighs for the meat.

Thai Yellow Curry
50 g of Yellow Curry Paste
2 cups coconut milk, separated
200 g of meat
100 g of potatoes
50 g of onion
100 g of carrots
1/2 cup water

Stir-fry yellow curry paste with 1 cup of coconut milk, until dissolved, then add the additional 1 cup of coconut milk, and heat until boiling. Add the meat, and continue cooking until done, about ten minutes. Add potatoes, onion and carrots and the 1/2 cup water, and cook until the potato, carrots and onion soften, about fifteen minutes.

bill's Coconut Bread

I've been meaning to make this, since the first time I saw it on someone's food blog, and now, more recently, in the book 'The Accidental Foodie', in which a number of influential, to the author, chefs are interviewed and provide recipes, and now, more importantly, as I have found that my beautiful Thai friend likes coconut, and wished me to make her a Western-style coconut cake. Bill Granger is an interesting chef from Sydney in Australia, and I doubt that I will ever be able to get to his famous restaurant, so I'll have to live vicariously through his various recipe books. So far, I've had success with this recipe, it was easy to make, and came out perfectly. Tasty, too. This is more like a coconut pound cake than bread, but it's still great toasted and buttered, as suggested. The recipe originally calls for 1 tsp of ground cinnamon, feel free to add it, if you like it more than I do.

bill's Coconut Bread
2 eggs
300 mL milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup superfine sugar
150 g shredded unsweetened coconut
1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted

Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Grease and flour a 8-1/4 by 4 inch loaf pan.

Lightly whisk together eggs, milk and vanilla.

Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl. Add the coconut and sugar and stir to combine. Make a well in the centre and gradually stir in the egg mixture until just combined. Add the melted butter and stir until the mixture is just smooth. Be careful not to overmix.

Pour into the loaf pan and bake for about 1 hour, or until a toothpick comes clean.

Leave to cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then allow to cool on a wire rack.

To serve, toast thick slices and spread with butter.

Abernethy Scottish Biscuits

The advertising on the package for these Scottish biscuits explain that they are 'light crumbly Scottish biscuits that melt in your mouth'. Well, that sounded good, and I was expecting more of a Scottish shortbread, it being placed next to the more famous Walker's line of shortbreads. That is where the similarity ends, unfortunately, while they are reasonably tasty, they are not terribly crumbly, do not melt in your mouth much, and don't taste like shortbread (well, that last one was my misconception, I'll grant them that). I don't think that I'll eat these again.

Mama Shrimp Creamy Tom Yum Flavour Noodles

Tom Yum soup is a popular spicy dish in Thailand, with shrimp and tomato and mushroom, and chili powder to provide the heat, I had some on the weekend, very delicious. This instant noodle product from Thailand attempts to recreate the flavour of this soup, and does an admirable job, though it is a creamier version than the one I had on the weekend. Like all instant noodles, it is very easy to make, just add about 500 mL of boiling water to all the ingredients, the noodles and the spices, and let it sit for three minutes. To make it even better tasting, and heartier, add some extra ingredients, like cooked shrimp, or cut-up tomatoes, or other vegetables, or cooked meat. Makes for a good lunch, especially if you like the heat of chilis.

Ginger Black Sesame Seeds

My beautiful Thai friend wanted me to try this, she knows I like ginger, and this is a treat in Thailand. You can either eat them strewn on other dishes, or straight, as a snack. The black sesame seeds are toasted. Very tasty.

Lux Red Sour Cherry Tea

The Polish tea company Lux has several loose tea selections, I picked this one because I like sour cherry. For ingredients, it has rosehips, wild cherry, dried apples, raisins, rowan, hibiscus flowers and natural flavours. I like rosehip tea very much, and rosehip and hibiscus are often the main ingredients for herbal teas, and thought it would be the dominant flavour, but this tea does tastes like sour cherry, though I wonder if it is the 'natural flavours' that make it so.