Lu Glico: Mikado (white chocolate)

Product name: Lu Glico: Mikado (white chocolate)
Purchase details: £0.69 for a 70g box (Tesco Superstore)
Calories: 11 per 2.3g biscuit
Country of origin: UK

Ah...Lu Glico: Mikado (white chocolate). Regular readers won’t be surprised to know that I’ve always preferred these to the milk chocolate version.

These ‘biscuits coated with white chocolate’ (55%) were made by Mondelez and came in a cream box. The overall concept was the same as the milk chocolate but, in terms of appearance, the ‘wonderfully creamy white chocolate’ provided a much paler colouring, particularly against the inner biscuit.

The aroma combined a mild but creamy white chocolate with rich tea biscuits, and the resulting taste was basic but delicious – the pretty thick chocolate was really sweet and milky but the biscuit’s flavour was also stronger than normal, and this was lovely too.

The texture was also as crispy and smooth as ever and so I thoroughly enjoyed this guilt-free snack.

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 7.5/10
Texture: 7.5/10
Overall score: 7.38/10

Lu Glico: Mikado (milk chocolate)

Product name: Lu Glico: Mikado (milk chocolate)
Purchase details: £0.69 for a 75g box (Home Bargains)
Calories: 11 per 2.3g biscuit

Country of origin: France

I seem to have a habit of reviewing the original version of a product after I’ve already looked at some of the variations. In this case, although the Daim and King choco (praliné) may have seemed more interesting types of Mikado, I was very happy to go back to the first one I ever tried: milk chocolate.

These ‘ultra-thin, crunchy biscuit sticks coated with wonderfully smooth milk chocolate’ were made by Kraft Foods and came in a simple white box that included an illustration of the product. I won’t go over the basic concept again as I did this with the Daim variety but it goes without saying that I was more than pleased with the low calorie count!

Almost half of each stick was taken up by the chocolate layer (49%) which was spread evenly and wasn’t too thin either. The aroma was standard but good – chocolate biscuits!

The biscuits themselves were the usual plain and crispy kind. The chocolate that coated these felt nice and smooth on the tongue and also provided a lovely chocolate flavour that included a sugary element. The lack of bumps on each stick’s surface meant I was also able to revert to my preferred method of consumption – gnawing them like a beaver!

There’s no pretending that Lu Glico: Mikado (milk chocolate) are essentially chocolate biscuits but their great format and lack of calories make them a big hit with me.

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 7.5/10
Overall score: 7.25/10

Cadbury Dairy Milk: Lu

Product name: Cadbury Dairy Milk: Lu
Purchase details: £0.50 for a 35g bar (tesco.com)
Calories: 180 per bar
Country of origin: UK

Cadbury released the Dairy Milk: Lu bar at the same time as the Ritz version and this really was like déjà vu as I’d previously had the Milka Lu from Monster Sweets.

The overall wrapper and product design was the same as with the Ritz but I particularly liked the metallic blue colour used on this wrapper.

Since this product simply contained ‘sweet biscuits’ in addition to the usual Dairy Milk chocolate, it was much less innovative than some of the other varieties available. However, I expected them to make more of an impact than the Ritz crackers had done as there were still eight biscuits but, this time, only 69% of the bar was chocolate.

The Dairy Milk scent was as normal but I was surprised that the sweet, buttery biscuit also made an impact, resulting in an aroma not dissimilar from the biscuit selection boxes that are often gifted at Christmas.

As expected, the chocolate tasted like the usual Dairy Milk, but I did find the biscuits weren’t very flavourful. Strangely, though, the combined ingredients did sometimes produce a taste that reminded me of bananas.

The hard, crunchy biscuits definitely made a much bigger impact on the texture, with their size making the chocolate a bit less prominent than normal.

There was definitely nothing wrong with this bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk: Lu but it just didn’t excite me in any way. I definitely preferred the sweet and salty contrast provided by the Ritz alternative so that would be the bar I’d buy again.

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 7.5/10
Taste: 7.5/10
Texture: 7.5/10
Overall score: 7.5/10

Lu Glico: Mikado (Daim)

Product name: Lu Glico: Mikado (Daim)
Purchase details: £0.69 for a 70g box (Home Bargains)
Calories: 11 per biscuit
Country of origin: France

I love the Mikado brand – so few calories! It’s been a while since I’ve had space in my snack stash for them, though, and I’ve only had this Daim variety once before, so I decided it was time to buy them again.

These ‘biscuits covered with caramel flavour milk chocolate with caramel pieces’ came in an eye-catching yellow box that featured red branding for both the Mikado and Daim logos – I particularly liked how the Daim brand had been used to look like an explosion from the bomb in the background. The box also had images of Daim chocolate, as well as the long, thin biscuits – I could totally see the reason for the name ‘Mikado’ which is another word for the game ‘pick-up sticks’.

The clever thing about Mikado biscuits is the way one end is left free of chocolate to avoid messy fingers – I guess the result is not too dissimilar from corndogs! Going by the picture on the packaging, though, the rest of the sticks were coated in a decent chocolate coating and knobbly caramel pieces. Despite these contributing to 43.9% and 5% of the product, respectively, I did find the reality looked a little less impressive – the chocolate layer was very thin in places and the surface wasn’t as bumpy either. However, they were still attractive, and I liked the contrast between the biscuit’s golden surface and white innards.

This particular pack had been made by Kraft Foods and, on opening the inner foil wrapper, released a buttery caramel scent. Up close, a milky chocolate aroma was noticeable too. I was pleased that the caramel infusion was noticeable in the chocolate’s taste, with the overall flavour being quite deep – an almost burnt sugar taste against the sweet chocolate. In contrast, the biscuit was very plain, and was like an unsweetened rich tea.

These Mikado (Daim) were lovely and crispy to chew, and the chocolate melted away very quickly too, if preferred. However, this did leave behind the smooth but hard biscuit which, quite unusually, didn’t really dissolve. At 11 calories a pop, though, you couldn’t really go wrong with these!

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 7.5/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 7/10
Overall score: 7.25/10