Своzе ХРУПКАВА ЦАРЕВИЦА

Product name: Своzе ХРУПКАВА ЦАРЕВИЦА
Purchase details: £0.59 for a 90g bar (99p Stores)
Calories: 133 per 25g serving (477 per bar)
Country of origin: Bulgaria

Well, this is a first – a review of a product I can’t pronounce. In fact, I had to rely on Microsoft’s ‘Symbol’ function just to write it! If it helps, though, the word ‘Своzе’ came up on my till receipt as ‘Svoge’ which is a town in Bulgaria, so I’m guessing that’s how you say the brand name.

Anyway, this bar’s red wrapper caught my eye, along with the imagery of what looked like Sugar Puffs. Thinking it would be something similar to Kinder Chocolate: With cereals, I had a closer look and discovered it was actually ‘milk chocolate with crunchy, salty corn snacks (13%)’. I quite like experimenting with sweet and savoury and, seeing the bar was a Mondelez International product, I thought it would be worth a try despite its cheap price (it was actually cheaper than I expected when I got it to the till – who knew you could get things for under £0.99 in 99p Stores?!).

Apart from the translation label on the back of the wrapper, all the writing on the packaging consisted of special characters, so I’m indebted to Google Translate for the little extra information I managed to obtain. The product name (‘ХРУПКАВА ЦАРЕВИЦА’) meant ‘crispy corn’ and the writing in the blue box (‘ИЗНЕНАДВАЩ НОВ ВКУС’) translated as ‘surprising new taste’. I then decided to quit whilst I was ahead in terms of language!

The slab of chocolate was divided into 15 pieces that featured a crown design. The plentiful corn pieces were visible through the base of the bar (and a little through the top!) and, combined with their hardness when it came to cutting through them, reminded me a bit of golden unpopped popcorn kernels. Inside, though, they just looked like cereal.

The bar emitted a really basic chocolate scent which didn’t have a lot to it. Unfortunately, this was also true of the taste which wasn’t particularly sweet or milky. The chocolate also had a really grainy melt and, bearing in mind the corn pieces were painful when left behind in the mouth, it just wasn’t worth consuming the bar in this way.

On the plus side, the extremely crispy corn pieces rescued this product. Initially, they tasted like salted popcorn, but then the flavour was far more in keeping with Doritos Cool Original. This interesting element distracted from the cheap-tasting chocolate, and the bar was perfectly enjoyable to chew as there was a lot going on texturally. The thinness of the chocolate contributed to this as it made the corn an even bigger feature than it might otherwise have been.

Due to its low cost, I didn’t have high expectations of this product, but I did quite like the way the saltiness blended with the chocolate. I thought I’d end up comparing the concept to Cadbury Crunchums but the execution of this bar was pretty different.

If you stumble upon Своzе ХРУПКАВА ЦАРЕВИЦА, I’d recommend you giving it a try for novelty’s sake, but I very much doubt it would become a regular purchase!

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 6.5/10
Taste: 6.5/10
Texture: 7/10
Overall score: 6.88/10