Review: Leclerc Chocomax Brownies Coated Chewy Bars

Sometimes things just stick in your head, no matter how wrong or right they are.  For example, every time I think of Canada, I think of the South Park movie and how they portray Canada as our enemy.  That inevitably leads me to the famous song from the movie, along with some other lines, and it always brings a smile to my face.  Knowing that, when I saw the subject of today's review in  my local Kroger and saw that it was from Canada, I immediately thought of the movie and perhaps that's what caused me to pick up this box of Leclerc Chocomax Brownies Coated Chewy Bars.  Okay, perhaps that was not the only reason.  The fact that they were on clearance for $2.09 certainly helped as well.  Anyway, each box contains six bars and each bar is 32 grams...oh wait, that's metric...sorry, the Canadian thing got stuck in my head.  Each bar is 1.1 ounces and comes in at 150 calories with two grams of protein.

Obviously the box spoils a lot of the fun, but after taking this out of the wrapper and snapping the photo above, it was clear that this bar was properly named as part of the Chocomax series because this was chocolate to the max.  The exterior was a coating of thick and strong smelling chocolate and that was all wrapped around an interior of the typical whey protein mixed in with a smattering of chocolate chips and dried oat pieces.  The dark coloring came from the inclusion of cocoa powder (I learned that from the ingredient list!) and it was clear that there would be no shortage of chocolate here and as a confirmed choco-o-holic, I was very excited for that.  The bars were semi-soft too, so at least it FELT like these were going to be chewy bars as the very specific name would have implied.

Well, the name was right as while these were somewhat rigid, they were mostly chewy and that was a fun mix as I chewed my way through this and then was greeted by the melting chocolate of both the exterior coating and also the chocolate chips on the interior.  That chocolate was milk chocolate (Again, ingredient list!), so it leaned toward being sweet chocolate and I LOVE that.  Now, the main question I'm sure that everyone will have, and I know I did, was how much like brownies did this bar taste like?  I can say that it tasted quite a bit like a brownie.  Obviously it was mixing the texture of a baked good, but the inclusion of the oats in the interior mix did a good job of at least attempting to give that impression.  I've already covered how decadent the chocolate was, so that matched up with brownie flavor as well.  All in all, it was a solid approximation of the namesake.

Buy It or Fly By It?  Leclerc's website tags this with "When you want that brownies taste, this is what you want!" and I agree with that wholeheartedly and thereby give these a BUY IT rating.  Sweet and decadent chocolate mixed with kind of a fun mouthfeel and mental trick (making you think it's a brownie).  So, as long as you don't blame Canada like the South Park stars, I think this is one product of the great white north worth shelling out a couple loonies for, eh?

BUY IT!!