It has gotten to the point where reviewing these nutrition bars has gotten to be boring to me. It's almost the mindset of "oh well, another day, another bar" but occasionally, I'll have one come through that I'm legitimately excited to try out because just the name and/or description of it gets my interest piqued. As I've mentioned before Balance Bar sent me a box of bars to try out and as I've made my way though the box with other reviews, I've always held one of these bars out as a way to "reward" myself for trying the flavors that didn't excite me much. So, it finally got to be time to "reward" myself and that led me to this Chocolate Almond Biscotti bar from their Cafe line of bars. Just the description alone on this bar got me curious and I've had prior success with their other Cafe bar, so I was anxious to give it a go. For nutritional purposes, this one comes in at the standard 1.76 ounces with 200 calories and fourteen grams of protein. Like I said, it's from the Cafe line of bars, so it's Cafe inspired as if it would be something that you'd eat while drinking a cup of coffee and reading the newspaper, I guess.
Being that the namesake of this bar is a biscotti cookie, one would expect that the bar would at least make an effort to resemble the cookie in some form and Balance certainly does that here. The bar itself has a chocolate base layer that is topped with the typical rice crisp mix that includes an additional add-in of semi-decent sized almond pieces. The bar is they topped with a "glaze" that would resemble a butter cream that was on top of an actual biscotti cookie. Within that glaze, there are more small almond pieces, so Balance is definitely not shorting anyone on the inclusion of almonds within this bar. The bar is then topped with another drizzle of chocolate to give it a decorative flair, since this is for a fancy cafe after all.
So, as I eagerly bit into this bar, I was only hoping that it would meet my expectations and I can happily say that it did. The chocolate base layer is hearty and thick and provides a wonderful base to the crunch of the rice crisp and almonds. If anything, I would say that the rice crisp in this bar has a cracker like crunch to it as a typical biscotti cookie would have. The almonds then add a nice hearty crunch to that soft cracker like crunch of the rice crisp so that you do have some textural difference as you chew your way through. The glaze itself provides a nice sweet kick to the heartiness and crunch of the bar as you make your way through. In fact, I would say the sweetness of this glaze almost resembled the characteristics of a raisin as it was both sweet and tangy at the same time.
Buy It or Fly By It? Not only could I eat this with a cup of coffee in the morning, but I could eat this non-stop all day long because this was freaking delicious and gets one of the strongest BUY IT ratings that I can remember giving to one of these nutrition bars in quite some time. If you do choose to eat it with a cup of coffee, you'll enjoy it, but if you choose to eat it with anything else, you'll enjoy it just as much. I know that I did and this is one of the rare instances where my expectations for something were exceeded and for that, I give Balance Bar massive kudos. Pick this up and I have a feeling that you will feel the same way.
BUY IT!! |
Its good to see when a nutritious bar actually tastes really good; there are so many out there that sound as if theyre going to be delicious but once you take a bite realise how wrong you were!
ReplyDeleteI agree 100% with you on this bar. Its one of the best varieties balance offers.
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