Review: Porta Kiwi chocolate bar

If you’ve been following this site for any length of time, you’ll know that I loves me some oddball chocolate bars.

Yes, yes, I know. Oddball is in the eye of the beholder, but come on: a kiwi flavoured chocolate bar? I found this curious Porta brand treat at the Italian Centre in Edmonton, along with a few other strange chocolate bars that will be showing up on the site shortly.

Some of the most interesting experiences I’ve had writing for NEAROF! involve food items where I can’t even begin to estimate the taste before the first bite. Orange chocolate? I can figure that out. Chocolate with peanuts and raisins? Not hard to ballpark guesstimate a flavour. But kiwi and chocolate? No idea.

And so, here comes a glorious taste adventure into the unknown.

The Pitch: “Milk chocolate with kiwi flavoured filling.” No outlandish claims. Just a simple, measureable statement.

The Look: Nice. Dark brown and black packaging, with a vivid illustration of a kiwi. Like many curious chocolate bars, it’s wrapped in paper, not foil plastic. The bar itself is divided into rectangular sections, each one a little pocket filled with a kiwi crème centre. The filling is runny and sticky, but not drippy.

The Taste: Decent chocolate forms the shell, while the filling is sweet, tangy and tart. Does it taste like kiwi? Not very much, no. It’s fruity, with a juicy, raisiny taste. Maybe part of the issue is that I have no concept of what a kiwi filling should taste like. Or maybe it’s that while kiwi is a unique taste, it’s subtle enough that it can be easily buried by other flavours.

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RATINGS AND DETAILS

Cost: $1.98 for a 100 gram bar at the Italian Centre South in Edmonton.

Value for cash money: Crazy good.

Availability: Around here? Not widespread. In Germany? Probably easier to find.

Nutrition?: Per 40 grams: 170 calories, 6 grams of fat, 28 mg of sodium, 1 gram of fibre, 2 grams of protein.

The verdict: Not bad at all, but not very kiwi-ish. That said, there’s one nice benefit of the bar over the fruit: No accidentally eating a strip of fuzzy kiwi skin.