Today's Review: Dairy Milk Oreo Eggs

While you can't beat a classic bag of Mini Eggs, it's nice to see Cadbury expanding their range. These Oreo filled eggs carry on the same theme as the Daim eggs that were already around. I'm not sure if these are new this year, but I certainly didn't grab a bag last year, so they're new to me.

There's not too much to say to describe these. They're Dairy Milk chocolate eggs, filled with Oreo creme filling. It's the same filling as you get in the Dairy Milk Oreo bar, a smooth, creamy chunk with bits of chocolate embedded inside. It makes for a good centre, and there's definitely enough to make for a delicious, Oreo flavoured experience. But the egg is pretty full, and the balance between the innards and the chocolate coating is a little off, there's just a bit too much creaminess that results in the egg in its entirety being a little sickly. It's not that bad though, I still managed to make my way through the bag very quickly. I'd rather have too much filling than not enough, seeing as the Daim eggs disappointed me before, so this is a nice bag of Easter treats that you should pick up while they're around.

My rating: 4/5

Today's Review: Ice Breakers Sours Green Apple Watermelon & Tangerine

I've seen these in Tesco several times now, but at £1.50 a pot they seemed a little pricey. Apparently not by too much though, because now they're on offer for £1.20 I didn't hesitate in buying some. These are disc shaped candies that come in three flavours: Green apple. watermelon and tangerine.

I was put off at first because these looked too much like a pack of mints, but the flavours swayed me into buying them. However, regular Ice Breakers are indeed mints, and I've found that a lot of the fruit variations from regular mint brands often have a strange menthol like taste to them. This is the case here, unfortunately, and while it does provide a little hit of freshness, in my view it compromises the flavour. The fruits are pretty well represented though. The watermelon has that great sweet flavour that you find in most watermelon flavoured candy, but it does succumb to the mintiness quite quickly, and that overwhelms it a bit too much. The green apple doesn't hold out for long at all, and while there's definitely a hint of fruit, it's not that great. The tangerine goes some way to make up for all that, it's a lovely, bold orange flavour that lasts throughout the entire sweet, and it's the one I reach for the most when I open up the pack. So I guess there's slightly more bad than good in here flavour wise, though I must say the sour element is very well done. It's not going to blow your head off, but it's a strong sour kick that permeates right through to the centre, and it actually satisfied my desire for sourness where many other sweets have failed. All in all, these aren't great, but they certainly could be worse. Nice and sour, with some interesting flavour, but ruined a little with the strange fresh aftertaste.

My rating: 3/5

Today's Review: M&S Tex Mex Burrito Bean Chips

I like crisps that are made out of other things besides potatoes. So I was happy to see M&S have brought out an interesting new range of chips in all manner of flavours, but this one in particular caught my eye. I like a good burrito, so why not eat it out of a bag? These chips are made from kidney beans, with some cheese flavouring and ancho chilli thrown in for good measure.

The kidney beans add a lovely texture to these chips. Sure, they're still mostly maize, but the beans give them a much fuller flavour, and a slight, shall I say, chewiness that lends to a more burrito-like taste.The chilli is well used, instead of overpowering everything else, it provdes a mellow heat that lasts throughout the life of the chip and sometime after. The cheesiness is probably the least effective part. It's noticeable, sure, but doesn't feel quite as authentic as the other ingredients. Thankfully there are some other spices, along with tomato and onion, thrown in there, and overall it creates a very burrito like experience. I know I wouldn't normally say this, but perhaps it could have been improved with a bit of meat, but the kidney beans go some way to providing the texture to fill that gap. These are very nice, and while it's not as good as eating a real burrito, it's probably as close as you're gonna get in a bag of chips.

My rating: 4/5

Today's Review: Galaxy Golden Eggs

Well, it's January, and that means it's time for Easter. I hear cries of despair all over at the Easter products lining the shelves, but I don't mind, it means I can pick up more chocolate goodness over the next few months. It also means there are some new products around, and this is one of them. I like the increased variety of mini egg bags over the last few years, and these Golden Eggs from Galaxy certainly looked delicious. They consist of Galaxy chocolate eggs embedded with crunchy caramel pieces, and "rolled in gold".

That last bit of the description threw me off a little, but check out those bad boys, they look fantastic. Every egg is a uniformly gold coated delight, and the insides are even better. The egg itself is your classic creamy Galaxy chocolate, and each egg is a decent size, giving a nice fix of chocolate. The caramel pieces are probably the best bit about these though. I do like a bit of caramel, but I've found with all the other caramel flavoured eggs, it's just gooey stuff put inside a hollow chocolate shell. Often this leads to the caramel dominating the flavour, and leaves me wishing for more chocolate. But the caramel in these eggs is in condensed, crunchy form, packing in a lovely sweet caramel taste while not compromising on the amount of chocolate. These eggs are a gorgeous addition to the Galaxy range, and I'm glad I tried them out so early this year, it means I can pick up lots more bags before they disappear.

My rating: 5/5

Today's Review: Flame Grilled Steak Pringles

After many fruitless attempts to get my hands on the seasonal Pigs In Blankets Pringles over the last few months, I stumbled upon this flavour in Asda earlier. I assume it's new, it says it right there on the can, but you never know with some packaging. I'm still bitter about the lack of crisps that taste like sausages wrapped in bacon, but I thought these might be some consolation.

These do taste meaty, I'll give them that. I wouldn't say they taste exactly like steak, but they do have a definite beefy taste to them. Not the meatiest tasting crisps ice had recently, but not awful. There's also a lovely undertone of onion throughout that adds a bit of an extra kick, though at times it does overwhelm the beef flavour a little. Sirloin steak these Pringles are not, and I don't think I'll be buying any more. But for those who like meat flavoured crisps, these aren't too bad. Just not my cup of tea. Or rather, my can of Pringles.

My rating: 3/5

Today's Review: Portlebay Lemon Sherbet Popcorn

I reviewed the cappucino flavour of Portlebay popcorn a few weeks ago, and now they're on offer in Tesco, so of course I picked up a couple more. This lemon sherbet one stood out in particular, it's another popcorn flavour I've never really seen done before, apart from the slightly disappointing Tyrrell's offering.

This is some pretty good quality popcorn, nice chunky kernels with a very satisfying crunch to them, and I think I only found one unpopped one at the bottom of the bag, so good going there. The flavouring on top is fantastic as well, a sweet but satisfyingly sour lemon, and authentic as well, there's lemon juice in the ingredients. But wait a minute, this isn't just lemon flavour popcorn, it's lemon sherbet, and that's pretty clear from the fizz you get when you pop a kernel in your mouth. It's pretty much like the corn has been rolled through a tray of lemon sherbet. This is lovely, fizzy, sweet, crunchy popcorn, I'd probably even pick up a bag at full price, that's how good I think it is.

My rating: 5/5

Today's Review: Argos Touch Screens

Everyone like a bit of Argos, don't they? They stock all manner of things, and there's no need to browse countless aisles, just look up the number, type it in and someone upstairs does all the leg work for you. It's a winning formula, and it's even better when you can reserve something online and just wander right in and pick it up. But every once in a while I find myself going into Argos without a specific plan of action. Perhaps I want to look something up on the fly, and that is when I am confronted with the horror of the Argos touch screens.

There are two types of commonly used touch screen technologies. There is capacitive, which utilises the electrical current running through your body, and there's resistive, which relies on pressure applied to the screen itself. The Argos touch screen appears to be neither. While I suppose it falls into the latter category, I often find myself pressing down harder than I probably should onto the screen with little visible effect. About one press in five I find a letter appears on the screen, which is a nice sign things are going my way. But when it comes to the space bar you can never tell if you've been successful. The only way to find out is to press hard on another letter, and more often than not I find it appears as an extension of the previous word, forcing me to jam my finger down on the delete button and try all over again. It wouldn't be so bad if there was any visual clue that the button was pushed, but no, it's a static row of letters, watching me silently.

The only reason I can think of as to why these screens are so useless is that it's a thinly veiled attempt to fight back against the rising tide of technological advance. If I can't work the touch screen, I'm more likely to talk to an employee, or flick through the massive, plentiful catalogues that they still insist on churning out at an alarming rate. But even if I use the catalogue and want to check stock, I still have to use the touch screen, and it's infuriating. I suppose I should give it at least some credit, I can actually get the job done. It's just I don't highly rank a screen that gives me sore finger tips after a minute of use. Sort it out, Argos.

My rating: 1/5