Garnish Overkill At Bill’s

Pineapple, coconut and apricot juice. With half a watermelon for good luck.

Nando’s Rewards The Low Spenders

We went to Nando’s for some dirty chicken on Tuesday evening. It’s wrong, but so right.

They’ve introduced a reward card, where you get a stamp for spending over £5.80. After 10 stamps, you get a free chicken. There are other rewards on the way if you’d rather cash in before obesity kicks in.

We spent just over £20 for two of us. I asked for a second stamp, but the server refused. I then asked if we would have got two stamps on two cards had my wife come up separately to order and pay for her meal. The server said no.

Remarkably, then, it seems Nando’s is operating a reward scheme that encourages customers to spend as little over £5.80 as possible.

By dining alone, I could get a free chicken after 10 meals and £58.

By dining with my wife, I’d have to spend £200 for the same reward.

Brilliant. Well done, Nando’s – your reward scheme actively discourages me from visiting!

Chocolate Review: Connie (milk with ‘nibbed’ hazelnuts)

A timeless combination, chocolate and hazelnuts were invented for each other. This is as good, better even, than expected. The chocolate is of a very high quality and with no overpowering flavours it really shines. The hazelnut chunks sit in the bottom of the bar, giving the classic sweet nutty undertone and soft crunch to a very, very satisfying and moreish bar.

I confess I had to look up the word “nibbed”, which apparently means “roughly crushed”: as a result the bar loses a point or two for pretention.

Montezuma’s Connie

Chocolate Review: Space Hopper (milk and orange)

What do you expect? It’s the age-old combination of milk chocolate and orange oil. Frankly, it can’t possibly go wrong and it doesn’t.

A wonderful aroma on opening, the expected rich chocolate and a hint of orange fragrance and flavour as it melts on the tongue. More subtle and sophisticated than a Terry’s Chocolate Orange, this is a treat.

It’s much more of a binge-bar than the previous flavours. The others have taken time and consideration to enjoy. This one, I wolfed down.

Montezuma’s Space Hopper

For some reason, they seem to imply Terry’s Chocolate Orange is dark chocolate, and that milk chocolate fans are at an orangey disadvantage. They’re wrong. It isn’t, and traditionally never has been. The red-boxed versions are dark chocolate, but haven’t been around for long.

Chocolate Review: Bean Machine (dark and white, with coffee)

I wasn’t looking forward to this one little bit. I don’t like coffee. And combined with dark chocolate, how could it be anything other than unpleasantly bitter? White chocolate should temper that, though, andI  was reassured by the smell: not a very strong coffee hit at all.

Interestingly, the white chocolate is marbled through the dark chocolate bar. This seems utterly pointless: no one can taste a thin seam of white amid dark, so the overall effect is simply milk chocolate.

The coffee, thankfully, isn’t beans or powder, but a part of the chocolate itself. It isn’t particularly strong. But, it’s still coffee.  So I won’t be having this one again. I’m not sure I can even finish it.

Montezuma’s Bean Machine

Chocolate Review: Culture Shock (white, ginger and chilli)

Wow! Just wow.

Grown-up’s white chocolate, creamy, smooth, rich, sweet but not sickly, gives way to a fragrant splash of ginger, whose warmth rises until BANG! the chilli hits the back of your throat.

It’s surprisingly hot, without making you reach for water. The three flavours come in succession, none overpowering but each one leading nicely into the next. There’s no chance of  being unable to taste one of the flavours, as is a problem in some bars.

The chocolate is superb, as expected, with the chilli and ginger lingering on the palate for a flavourful, spicy and red-hot finish.

Out of this world.

Montezuma’s Culture Shock

Chocolate Review: Surf Nut (milk chocolate, macadamia nuts and coconut)

I was excited about this one: I love the creamy texture of macadamia nuts, and have always been a fan of sweet coconut. My only concern was whether flakes of coconut would spoil the smooth texture of the chocolate?

Initial impressions on opening were good:  strong, robust milk chocolate smell. The coconut came through at the back of the fragrance, not too sweet or overpowering, just a little hint of tropical sweetness.

This bar seemed to melt slightly better on the tongue than Vera. Not the smooth feel of ‘ordinary’ bars like Dairy Milk, but this is REAL chocolate – the lower fat content means a higher melting point and an ultimately more grown-up and satisfying chocolate hit. This is stronger and less sweet than newsagent bars, and utterly delicious.

The chunks of macadamia are smaller than expected – this is a good thing, giving more of a praline consistency but with a much more luxurious texture to the nut. The coconut isn’t too sweet, nor is there so much of it that it fills your mouth after the chocolate has melted away. A fine balance, with the right amount of plump flakes.

The bar crumbles nicely between the teeth, with the coconut flavour the last to hit.

This could be my new favourite chocolate bar.

Montezuma’s Surf Nut

Chocolate Review: Vera (dark chocolate and pistachio)

Penny gave me a huge pack of Montezumas’s chocolate for Christmas, with about a dozen different bars of Sussex-made organic, fair-trade chocolate.

So, I thought I’d eat around one per day for the next couple of weeks and offer a full and honest review here. I probably won’t enjoy it.

First up, Vera: made of dark chocolate and pistachio nuts.

It was quite a cold day, and chilly in the office, so that may have affected the texture. The chocolate smelt good, strong and rich. The block broke with a pleasing snap, but I had trouble trying to get it to melt in my mouth.

The flavour of the chocolate is dark but not too bitter, certainly possible to eat a full bar without it becoming overpowering and the quality of the cocoa shines through. I wouldn’t normally choose dark chocolate, but this was good. The mouth-feel wasn’t as velvety and smooth as I like, the chocolate formed separate granular clumps rather than a semi-liquid coating. But this would be expected as the bar was much less than room temperature.

The addition of pistachio nuts is interesting. They have a sharper and more subtle flavour than almonds or hazelnuts that wouldn’t have worked in sweet milk chocolate. Conversely, in stronger dark I felt they were more textural than anything – their delicate flavour being somewhat overwhelmed by the richness of the chocolate.

In all, Vera is an unusual bar that I felt was only partly successful. The temperature may have let it down, so I suppose I’ll have to have another bar to double-check.

Montezuma’s Vera