Saturday, 7 January 2017

Asda Rainbow Choc - Does it taste good?

What is it with supermarkets never being able to make nice packaging? You obviously have to excuse the 'value' range of products, because they're crap and don't pretend to be anything otherwise. The problem comes with those own-brand products that are priced damn near the real deal. To try and sell this to customers, supermarkets jazz up the packaging and make it look all pretty and official. Well, that's the plan, but we all know turds have a certain resistance when it comes to being polished.

I think nothing proves my point much better than this... thing. Filled with "ooh, shiny!", and just about every piece of the colour wheel, it manages to stand out but look completely bland and generic all at the same time. Frankly, I think that's some achievement, and I tip my hat to Asda for coming up with such a thing.

It's quite clearly meant to rival that Smarties Sharing Block I looked at a short while ago, but I'm still yet to find the white version of the Smarties widely available, so for the time being, Asda (and other supermarkets) have the monopoly. Like the Smarties bar, Asda have got that same crappy plastic wrapping, which has the same re-seal abilities as a used plaster. Probably the same desirability, too.

Once you peel back the wrapping, your first thought will be "where's the nearest intensive care unit?" White chocolate is already a slightly off-putting colour as it is, but now it looks like the bar has an exotic disease. I may be joking around here, but I'm not joking when I say this is one of the most unappealing bars I have seen for quite some time.

When you put that thought to one side and break away a chunk, you realise that, no, it isn't Ebola, it's just a knockoff Smartie encased in the chocolate. Now you can breath a sigh of relief, wipe that sweat off your brow, and begin tasting the chocolate.

Upon putting it into your mouth, you'll quickly discover this is not one of those bars that just melt into a creamy delight in the mouth. It has that weird 'fake gloss' feel that, for the initial few seconds, feels like you've got a Lego brick in your mouth. No taste instantly bursts though, so you have to bite down to explore further.

After doing so, you find that things aren't too bad at all. The fake Smarties have nothing going for them, but the white chocolate itself is perfectly serviceable. It won't blow you away by taking you into a sensory wonderland, but it was enough to raise my eyebrows - that was when I realised looks are deceiving. It's not overly sweet, but that just makes it more tolerable to have in larger quantities, should you want to get fat and not see your fiftieth birthday.

And here's the real knocker: it's just 45p. That's it's standard price. For that price, I can recommend this bar with confidence. Obviously if you never liked white chocolate in the first place (in other words: you're a blatant racist), this bar will do nothing to change your mind, but considering this thing costs less than to use the bloody toilet in some London train stations, you can't really waste your pennies.

Buy it? Yes, almost impossible to go wrong, even if it does look, er, off...