Review: Zone Perfect Perfectly Simple Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Bar

I often go through the aisles of stores and just bypass products that I think I must have reviewed before.  I know that I've mentioned that previously, but when you cross over one thousand reviews like I have recently, it's tough to remember everything that I have or have not reviewed.  Today's review product is one of those instances as every time I saw this  Zone Perfect Perfectly Simple Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Bar on the shelf, I was convinced that I had reviewed it because it was such a seemingly basic product that I figured I would have hit on at some point.  One day, curiosity got the best of me and I check the Zone Perfect review archive and low and behold, I found out that I had not reviewed it, so here we are.  I (finally) grabbed this bar off the shelves at Kroger for $1.00 and each bar is 1.58 ounces with 190 calories and ten grams of protein.

When I took this out of the packaging, I quickly realized that there was not a lot to look at here.  It's a pretty boring looking bar (it is oatmeal after all) that was a mix of oatmeal and the typical date paste puree of countless bars out there.  It also had a decent smattering of chocolate chips spread throughout the bulk of the bar, so those chips were going to have to pass for the excitement of this one.  The bar also had a dose of vanilla in it and I know that because I could smell that vanilla mixed with the oatmeal as I was taking the picture of this bar and it was quite a nice smell.  I also may have checked the ingredient list too, but that would be too easy.  I had to over-dramatize it by playing up my sense of smell.   Anyway, I guess my only other real observation was that this bar was quite soft and pliable.

As I bit into this soft bar, the immediate taste of oatmeal and vanilla hit me pretty strongly and since I usually mix both of those things when I make oatmeal myself, I was more than fine with that.  After going through those chewy and tasty portions, I was then hit the the crunch and melting decadence of the unsweetened chocolate chips.  Ordinarily I'd be kind of upset that this was unsweetened chocolate, but since the vanilla in this had so much flavor, the chips were good as just a texture piece (melting and crunchy) in this bar.  Really, besides the texture and the vanilla/oatmeal combination, there's not much going on in this bar and that shows that this bar is aptly name as part of the "Perfectly Simple" line of bars because it certainly was that.

Buy It or Fly By It?  I certainly give this a BUY IT rating.  Not an exciting bar by any means, but certainly a tasty one and since it combines one of my more desired flavor combinations (oatmeal and vanilla), I'm naturally going to be pre-disposed to like it.  I'm just glad that this bar delivered for me in all its simplicity.  Looking back, I can't believe it took me this long to review this bar.  So odd (to me).

BUY IT!!