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Weekly Candy
IN QUESTION: Created by Taste of Nature, Inc. in 1997, these bite-size candies are little balls of actual cookie dough — flour, chocolate and vanilla, but no eggs — then covered in creamy milk chocolate. They come in a variety of flavors, ranging from basic chocolate chip more outlandish red velvet cupcake and cinnamon bun.
AVAILABLE AT: Originally only available at movie theaters, where I discovered them years ago, Cookie Dough Bites are a surprisingly elusive candy. I do know, however, that they can now be found at a number of spots around town, including the Temple University bookstore on 13th and Montgomery, the Dollar Tree on Columbus near Ikea and good old Kmart.
HOW MANY DO WE TYPICALLY EAT IN ONE SITTING: According to the nutritional info there are two servings in each container, but it never feels like it. I tend to devour them and then become angry when I realize they're all gone.
FINER POINTS: These doughy babies were once featured on Food Network's Unwrapped, and you can check out a short clip is on the Cookie Dough Bites website.
Remember back in January, when Trader Joe's brand Speculoos Cookie Butter was so scarce in the 215 that my buddy Adam Riff ended up FedEx-ing me some from Cali? In that "Delicious or Suspicious?" experiment, it was scientifically determined that Flemish cookies transmogrified into Jif-like storebought butter was a great fucking idea. Looks like the aloha shirt-wearing life lovers at TJ's agree, so much so that they're now carrying SPECULOOS-FILLED CHOCOLATE BARS. You sick bastards. Obviously I bought one.
I guess it's the candy preparation process, but the dark choco-enveloped cookie butter in this particular treat is not as oily and creamy as its spreadable compadre — think more the consistency of Reese's peanut butter, which has also long been available in a jar. Oh man America is doomed.
Photos: Drew Lazor
IN QUESTION: Essentially an American take on a Violet Crumble or Crunchie bar, this treat is not made from real honeycomb at all. Its choco-coated, sponge-looking center is made from a ton of sugar, honey and corn syrup.
AVAILABLE AT: Pennsylvania General Store in Reading Terminal Market (12th and Arch streets). I've seen variations of this sweet at multiple candy store that carry fancy little chocolates.
HOW MANY DO WE EAT IN ONE SITTING: Each piece is about the size of, say, a misshapen golf ball. The chocolate isn't very thick, so we’re looking at a large comb-to-choc ratio. Since the comb is pretty much all sugar, I'd say only eat one per run. Two if you're a rebel like me.
FINER POINTS: Originally, I was under the false impression that I'd actually be eating real honest-to-god waxy honeycomb. Not so. Instead, I bit into a candy harder than I'd anticipated. It, however, boast all the honey flavor you’d expect. I would recommend eating them the day you buy for optimum freshness — I had one a few days after my purchase and it did that weird thing when you're eating toffee and it kind of gets hard and weird while you're chewing it.
OK so we don't really rock this feature on a weekly basis anymore, but we're gonna keep on calling it Weekly Candy, in the same spirit of Conan O'Brien continuing his "In the Year 2000" bit well after the turn of the century.
IN QUESTION: Kinder Happy Hippos. The hippo character was originally created for Ferrero (which makes Nutella) in 1987 by artist André Roche to be placed in "Kinder Surprise" choco eggs, and soon became so popular that the company decided to turn them into their own snack. First released in '93, Ferrero takes the famed hippo-shaped wafer cookies and injects them with a milk-and-cocoa cream on top and hazelnut cream underneath. To top it off, tiny bits of meringue coat the exterior of the cookie, giving it a slight crunch.
AVAILABLE AT: The hippos are probably all over the city, but I've only spotted them at The Foodery (324 S. 10th St.) and Old Nelson (701 Chestnut St.).
HOW MANY DO WE EAT IN ONE SITTING: One package yields five hippos but they're pretty small. Maybe I like to overindulge when it comes to candy, but I ate all five in 5 minutes. Let's just say they’re just as addicting as Nutella.
FINER POINTS: In case eating a whole box wasn’t satisfying enough, check out the brain-cell killing commercial that made Happy Hippo a star in the first place.
OK so we don't really rock this feature on a weekly basis anymore, but we're gonna keep on calling it Weekly Candy, in the same spirit of Conan O'Brien continuing his "In the Year 2000" bit well after the turn of the century.
IN QUESTION: Cadbury's Double Decker candy bar, a milk chocolate-covered treat filled with soft, chewy nougat layered atop a crunchy cereal bottom. It's kind of like if someone spliced together the sugary DNA of a Three Musketeers and a Nestle Crunch Bar. Like most commercial candy bars, Double Deckers are not crafted with top-notch chocolate, but there is much textural satisfaction to be found in 'em regardless.
AVAILABLE AT: I first came across the Double D in a London vending machine about two years ago — after trying one, my roommate and I made sure our dorm room was stocked with a supply at all times. Lucky for us, Capogiro (117 S. 20th St.) started selling Double Deckers here in Philly this past September, so it's now that much easier to reminisce.
HOW MANY DO WE EAT IN ONE SITTING: Unless you're on a diet or have an extreme aversion to processed chocolate, you will likely blink and suddenly find an empty wrapper crumpled in your choco-stained hand.
FINER POINTS: Double Deckers are a little pricey at $1.50 a pop, but you'll seem super sophisticated when you tell your friends about the bloody brilliant London-based chocolate bar you're a bit fond of eating.
Photo: Jessica Leung
Once a week, Team Meal Ticket shares its latest sugar-laten fixations. Do not tell our dentist.
IN QUESTION: Mamba brand fruit chews, which have always seemed so staid and humorless when compared to the zestier Now and Laters or Jolly Rancher Fruit Chews, now come in "Funny Fruit Gummy" form (made with real fruit juice!). I have absolutely no objections to the broadening of the Mamba market, but I must object to the practice of anything, candy or otherwise, self-identifying as "funny." It's obnoxious, just like the girl you went to high school with who constantly described herself as "superrrrr sarcastic." You can't call yourself sarcastic! And you can't call yourself funny, either. This is solid advice, Mamba Funny Fruit Gummies.
WHERE TO BUY: The 7-Eleven at 11th and Washington, which is in a heated race with the 7-Eleven at 10th and Snyder and the Wawa in Chinatown in the "most overtly crazy people outside every time we visit" competition.
MANY DO WE TYPICALLY EAT IN ONE SITTING: I made about a 25 percent dent in this bag before handing them off to CP arts editor and fellow candy enthusiast Carolyn Huckabay — they've got the consistency of grandpa-friendly old-school gummy candy (softer than gummi bears or worms), but they're so incredibly sweet that I started twitching afer like two oranges, three raspberries and maybe a few watermelons and cherries. OK maybe I shouldn't have eaten so much so fast.
FINER POINTS: Perhaps I have a higher tolerance for sour stuff than some people, but it really irks me when candy is emblazoned with a bold "SOUR!!!" declaration and then is not even remotely sour. These jawns are saccharine as hell, quit lying bag!
Photos: Drew Lazor
Once a week, Team Meal Ticket shares its latest sugar-laden fixations. Do not tell our dentist.
IN QUESTION: That'd be the amazing Mint Pocky, packaged in a box the color of mouthwash. Why does mint-flavored shit always rock this color? Real-life mint does not look like that whatsoever. Anyway, minty zesty chocolate meets the characteristic Pocky stick crunch. That's it! It's tremendous.
WHERE TO BUY: Here's where you can help me out, candy fans. I purchased this box at Hung Vuong (Wing Phat Plaza, 1100 Washington Ave.), where I usually cop my Pocky. Lately though, the candy selection over there has been sparse and weak as hell! I literally found this rogue box of Mint tucked in with a few others in a Pocky splinter cell located behind some sardines in my second-favorite aisle, "Various Kinds of Cans." What gives? Why do I gotta perform a storewide scavenger hunt to find all the good flavors?! I'm mad at you, Hung Vuong. Where else can I acquire the Pockys I require on the reg? Get at me in the comments.
HOW MANY DO WE TYPICALLY EAT IN ONE SITTING: There are two sleeves in this particular box, so two sleeves.
FINER POINTS: It's amazing how similar Mint Pocky tastes to Girl Scout thin mints — same satisfaction, skinnier, more Asian delivery system. You know what that means — freeze 'em!
Photo: Drew Lazor
Once a week, Team Meal Ticket shares its latest sugar-laden fixations. Do not tell 0ur dentist.
IN QUESTION: Meiji's Pucca Choco Pretzels! These jawns are little goldfish-shaped crunchy pretzel lifeforms injected with "choco cream" (similar to Nutella).
WHERE TO BUY: Friend of Meal Ticket JF kindly bought us these little guys from Mitsuwa Marketplace, the gigantic Japanese supermarket in North Jersey. To be honest not sure where to cop in Philly region ... perhaps Maido in Narberth? We know that Food & Friends at 20th and Spruce carries Meiji brand products. Get at us in the comments with any advice.
HOW MANY DO WE TYPICALLY EAT IN ONE SITTING: I ate the entire school of choco cream-impregnated pretzel fish in a single sitting. I was the big effing blue whale and they were the krill.
FINER POINTS: While I in no way subscribe to the "don't eat anything with a face" philosophy, the little-kid me had occasional qualms with eating Pepperidge Farm goldfish just because they were smiling so earnestly. I'd be like I'm sorry goldfish, but I'm about to turn y'all grins into violent mush with my underdeveloped teeth. These sweet and fun-to-eat Puccas have no faces so I don't feel nearly as uncomfortable about shattering marine exuberance in the name of snacking. Also, I very much dig this particular sub-classification of "pretzel," even if it's really more like a cracker than the salt-studded twists we're accustomed to.
Photo: Drew Lazor
IN QUESTION: Ferrara Pan’s Chewy Lemonhead & Friends are what we're talking about today. Most of us are familiar with the molar-chipping Lemonheads we all ate as kids, but they've since gone soft — packed inside an obnoxious yellow box splattered with a giant rainbow, Lemonhead is joined by his buddies Apple, Grape, Orange and Cherry, all of whom conspire to force you to eat more candy than you should. Grape and cherry taste like cough syrup (go figure), but lemon, orange and apple taste like they should: fruit candy. They're supposedly made with "real fruit juice," but the best part for me is that they’re first sweet and then tart (like the inverse of Sour Patch Kids). While I still can’t get over the cheesy horrible animated dancing fruit waving at me, I keep reaching for more.
AVAILABLE AT: I haven’t seen them in too many places, but you can definitely find them at the always-entertaining CVS at 10th and Reed in South Philly.
HOW MANY DO WE TYPICALLY EAT IN ONE SITTING: They’re the same size as the original Lemonhead, so it’s likely that one could pop at least 20 into your mouth at once. They’re also chewy, which means that you don’t have to wait for the hard exterior to melt in your mouth. And if you’re sitting in bed or at a computer like I often do during a candy sesh, then mindlessly downing handfuls is not unlikely.
FINER POINTS: In case you want even more real fruit juice in your diet, Chewy Lemonhead & Friends also comes in "berry" and "tropical" varieties.
Photos: Drew Lazor
Once a week, Team Meal Ticket shares its latest sugar-laden fixations. Do not tell our dentist.
IN QUESTION: We loooooooove all things Pocky here at Meal Ticket, but this one caught our attention due to its dualistic appeal (weird flavor/awesome packaging) — Sweet Milk Pocky! Though they're ostensibly meant to ape the flavor of sweetened condensed milk, these things taste like straight-up butter y'all. If you are into crunchy biscuit sticks slathered in teeth-slidey, margarine-esque opaque frosting the color of cartoon straw, then you, my friend, would probably like to take Sweet Milk Pocky out on a date.
WHERE TO BUY: Where else? Hung Vuong Supermarket in Wing Phat Plaza at 11th/Washington.
HOW MANY DO WE TYPICALLY EAT IN ONE SITTING: The whole box. It's the only way to form a real Pocky opinion.
FINER POINTS: Who's really the Sweet Milk Pocky mascot? Is it the cool-ass nonchalant cow on the outside of the box, or is it the weird, possibly royal old-school airplane stewardess/milkmaid anime girl who uses Pocky as a wand to cast spells on lions?! I NEED TO KNOW PLEASE INFORM ME
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