Hotel Chocolat Easter 2013 Review: Beau Bunny Choc Egg

Time for Easter already?  Well it's time to start thinking about it.  Hotel Chocolat kindly sent me a Beau Bunny to sample or give away....I chose to sample it.  They don't seem to sell this from their website in the same format - you can have either the egg or the mini eggs, but their shop may have a more diverse range.  They seem to have turned MR BB into a bit of a 'product' but he is quite cute and the chocolate was OK so I don't really mind.

 I'd like to point out there was nothing wrong with their P and P.  The white scratch on the top of the egg was made by me in my eagerness with some scissors to rip off the ribbon and cellophane.

 So it was a nice transfer of a rabbit plus 6 mini eggs.  We all preferred the 3 caramel filled ones, the other three were 'praline' and we are not that mad on nuts.

The large itself I didn't have a problem with,nice and thick with a good flavour, but my partner said it tasted a bit of coconut which is not necessarily good for a premium chocolate.

Overall 8/10 - enough for three of us to share as a dessert, or for one person at Easter
They are suitable for vegetarians and all of their chocolate is ethically sourced.

Review: Hotel Chocolat: Your Eggscellency Extra Thick Easter Egg

Hotel Chocolat kindly sent me a Your Eggscellency™ Extra Thick Easter Egg.  

The packaging was beautiful, almost a mini hat box, with a luxury black ribbon tied around it.  I have previously criticised HC for their excessive packaging, but this time I was won over. Not as much plastic as there was last year. A couple of months ago I was seriously underwhelmed by the HC Advent Calendar, but this li'l baby ticked all the boxes.  Exciting packaging, thick chocolate in two colours and inside, 12 liqueur chocs: Champagne truffle was my fave, followed by the Mojito and then the Bison Grass Vodka. 

One side of the shell was half milk and the other half plain chocolate.  I really liked that - I am a fan of both and it was nice to take a bite of each.  It was indeed very thick chocolate that I rather liked.  You could really bite into it and hear it snap - you don't get that with a Cadburys Egg.  

This sizeable egg costs a sizeable £26

Review: Hotel Chocolat Advent Calendar 'Truffles to Share'

This advent calendar was gratefully received courtesy of Hotel Chocolat and it felt really naughty to eat the whole thing by 14 November!  However, I had a review to do, so I had the perfect excuse.    I'm guessing this is aimed at Double Income No Kids Yet couples (can anyone else afford £24 for an advent calendar?) who want to share a high end product. The (rather seductive) gimmick is that there are two chocolates behind each window.   I do have children and they were very excited about it, but they only liked one or two of the truffle flavours.  In fact rather than bickering over who would have the chocolates we were all saying 'No, go on, you have the mulled wine truffle.'

 I loved the Salted Soft Caramel and quite liked the gingerbread truffle, the plain and milk truffles, but the mulled wine flavour was rejected by all of us and only one of us, my 10 year old son, liked the cinnamon praline. All the chocs were the same nipple shape.  It would have been more fun with some variation e.g. Stars, trees, snowmen etc

On the plus side, two chocs per advent window is a great idea.  Right sized chocolates, three quarter sized = a nice mouthful.  

Negatives: high price and dubious flavours. The packaging design was half right: I liked the sparkly icicle and tree pattern but there was an ugly strip of white cardboard down the middle on the hinge of the calendar. 

It would have been nice if the website had listed the truffle flavours contained within this calendar.  There are some very tiny icon symbols to show they contain e.g. alcohol, nuts, milk etc ( hey, hotel choc, can you make those symbols a bit larger?  They're very difficult to interpret in such a small size) but no list of flavours.

Overall our verdict was that it is a good concept, a little overpriced with not particularly yummy chocolate.

There are four other advent calendars in the range.  I think the others have festive shaped chocs inside and are priced at £12-17

 Rather interesting that their website is also advertising a 'Cheese and Chocolate Tasting Experience.'  As a youngster I discovered the taste sensation of pairing mature cheddar cheese with Kit Kats, a guilty pleasure, but I've always been a fan of sweet-savoury combos.  They even use chocolate as a 'cracker' for cheese and serve sweet relishes instead of Branston.  Whooh.  Brave, but I'm liking it.

Hotel Chocolat - Putting Myself First for a Moment...

Food PR, and fellow food blogger, Beth, from Jam and Cream PR sent me this (initally) very attractive parcel of chocolate from Hotel Chocolat to review.  It's called the Essential Easter Collection and it retails for £35.  Initial impressions were favourable although I immediately felt unhappy with the amount of packaging: the Tiddly Chicks were in a packet with in a box within a bag within a box?  A tad excessive, even for mail order protection.

I decided to hold a tasting review panel with my husband and two children, aged 9 and 11.  The kids were, of course, rather enthusiastic to have an early Easter treat.  My children totally buy into the Hotel Chocolat thing.  When we visit Exeter, it's somewhere they nag us to take them.  They claim it's their favourite chocolate and love all the cutesy shapes and packaging.  They feel they're being spoilt if they get a bar of  this stuff.  My husband is of a rather more cynical persuasion (understatement of the year) and hates the shop and product.  'It's not a hotel, and chocolate has an 'e' on the end of it' is his response to their nagging.  'Overpriced' and 'style over substance' may also have passed his lips.

We gave each item a mark out of 10 for Presentation, Taste and Easter Factor. Overall winner was the Doodle Chick bar - slab of caramely chocolate with a chick moulded on the front.  The children adored the taste of this but both adults thought it was horrible - a caramely coconut taste that was too sickly.  In last place was the Easter Expose Half Egg - the most 'traditional' of the products.  We really marked this egg down for its cheeky claim on the side, something about 'we were advised to make thin eggs to save money but look how thick we've made it' - and it was thick at the visible edges and was really thin towards the back.

The Tiddly Chicks scored badly for their packaging but were cute and lovely if you like plain choc shaped little chicks (I do).

The Egglets (caramel eggs in a cardboard basket) were probably my favourite although they had been bashed around a bit in the post and weren't in perfect condition. 9 year old son really hated these and actually spat it out.

The Tiddly Pot - an Easter decorated cardboard cup filled with rabbit and chick shaped chocolates was a hit with the children but husband declared it looked like a cheap cup of carry-out tea.  He's harsh.

We enjoyed them, but didn't love them.  Huge divisions between which things the children liked compared to the adults.  Not an all round hit, but we all liked something.

Unfortunately I'm going to have to mention the wording on the packaging.  It's becoming a bit of a geeky pet hate of mine that I have to read all the packaging and I get quite wound up when it's spelt wrongly (my current bottle of Original Source Shower Gel has two spelling mistakes) and Innocent Smoothie cartons (yes, I found them refreshingly cute a few years ago, now I wish they'd bland themselves out a bit and just provide basic info).  So the offending words from Hotel Choc?

 'And with the absolute minimum of recyclable packaging, putting yourself first for a moment won't cost the earth.'

Firstly, there's a double meaning there - 'the minimum of recyclable packaging'  - so they've used as little recyclable packaging as possible?  Great, chuck it all in landfill then.  They need to lose the word 'recyclable' rather than putting it in as a soundbite.

Secondly, the idea of 'putting yourself first for a moment' - i.e. being selfish, having your little chocolatey moment and buying stuff with lots of packaging isn't that endearing to me.

Also the bag says British Cocoa Growers and Chocolatier.  Presumably this is trying to position themselves in a niche that Cadbury has vacated.  I've looked at their website and they explain their rationale for not being Fairtrade, as they have their own plantations in Ghana and St Lucia and work / trade ethically there.  OK, I was going to ask where they grow cocoa in UK as I would think that's impossible.  So is that moniker also a tad misleading?  They grow cocoa abroad.

Aha!  I've found it!  There actually is a Hotel Chocolat - it's in St Lucia and opened at the end of Feb 2011 and it's all part and parcel of their brand.  I'm off to tell husband that actually they ARE a hotel.  And I would really like to go there if my eco-conscience and money would allow.