Day 282 - Dark Chocolate Covered Honey Grahams with Sea Salt

David was excited to get these treats.  He thought they sounded amazing and bought them on a shopping trip when I was not with him.  Therefore, he had opened the package and eaten a great deal of them before I got around to tasting one.  He is way more into snacking than I am.

I packed some of these as “Pope Snacks” and brought them with me to the “Pope Parade” to munch on while waiting for the Pope to whiz by in his Pope Mobile in Washington DC.  (That was a WHOLE LOTTA “Pope”s in one sentence!)  We had to leave home to get to the parade area around 5:45 am and I knew snacks would be required since we would be waiting around a few hours.

Pope card game!!

Pope snacks - gotta have 'em!

So these Dark Chocolate Covered Honey Grahams with Sea Salt were taste tested while sitting on a blanket on a very crowded DC sidewalk.  For me, the chocolate part of these graham crackers was a little bit too hard.  I cannot fully blame that on the product though, since David HAD opened the package a week or two before I ate them, so maybe they were not quite as hard when they were freshly opened.  The sea salt (in my opinion) was the best part.  There was not a ton of sea salt – just a tiny bit – but when you got a hint of it with a bite it was a nice zing of “savory” in with the sweet. 

The chocolate was quite THICK.  In the center of the cracker there is an equal amount of CRACKER and CHOCOLATE – making it thicker than it needs to be.  They taste much more like CHOCOLATE than graham cracker.

Multi-tasking - snacking, reviewing, and waving a teeny tiny Vatican flag.

David says, “These are very good.  Good chocolate.  The sharp sea salt bits that you encounter are delightful as a counterpoint.  I recommend letting the chocolate M-E-L-T, not rushing it in your mouth so that the smooth chocolate can floooow all around your mouth.”

These would be good to pop in your lunch bag before heading to the office.  Or in your kid’s lunch bag for school.  They are hearty so not as melt-y as some other chocolate items might be.  I think they would be a good dessert served with a nice espresso. 

Look!  The Pope went right in front of me in his Pope Mobile!!!!

UPDATE – Before I could post this review, we popped into a Trader Joe’s to get photos.  Remember, David purchased this one when I was not with him, hence NO PHOTOS of the price tag or the packaging.  But when we looked for them last night, we could not find them.  Frightened that they had been discontinued (common at Trader Joe’s), I asked an employee, who went to check then remind me that they had been RECALLED.  I remember seeing a sign about that in the store when it happened.  DRAT!  Apparently there was milk in them and it was not listed on the ingredient list, so they recalled them.  Boo!  (But better THAT than if, say, a salmonella scare…)  I called Trader Joe’s Customer Relations Department to ask when we might expect to see them again and they had no estimated time.  But they ARE getting them back.  I mean, think about it.  A really yummy snack.  A reasonable price.  Loads of people begging for them.  And the supplier just need to delete a line on the ingredients list!  I can’t imagine it’ll take TOO LONG – this is a total guess on my part but I would think they would want htem back on the shelves before the holiday season.  Here is a link to info on the recall:  http://www.traderjoes.com/announcement/recall-undeclared-milk-in-dark-chocolate-covered-honey-grahams

Flag flying in the sunshine - Washington DC, Vatican, and USA

When I see them on shelves again I will comment here to let you know – GO GET ‘EM!

Price - $3.99

Rating – 4.25

Bonus photo for anyone who scrolled down this far - POPE-A-POTTIES.  There were LOTS of them.  :)