Review: Larabar Chocolate Chip Cherry Torte Bar

Larabars have gotten mixed reviews on this blog. Some of them have been abysmal failures, while others have been ringing successes. Because of that, I never know what to expect when taking my first bite, so that unexpectedness always makes these reviews kind of fun. It's that air of uncertainty that leads me to try out another flavor in this Larabar Chocolate Chip Cherry Torte Bar. I picked this up on sale at Kroger for $0.99 and it's 1.6 ounces with 190 calories and three grams of protein.

When I unwrapped this, I knew there was one thing that I could count on and that was that this bar would be mostly made up of the typical date purée. Outside of that, I wasn't sure what to expect other than it would include thing that I read off the ingredient list like unsweetened chocolate chips, unsweetened cherries, almonds and cashews. As you can see in the photo above, those ingredients are basically puréed as well because they are just spread in small bits everywhere throughout the bar. I will give Larabar one thing: while their flavors are unexpected, the basic composition of their bars is pretty much uniform and you basically always know what to expect.

Before taking my first bite, the presence of so many unsweetened ingredients left me a bit apprehensive. I was fearful that this would be bland. After that first bite though, my fears quickly subsided because the presence of so many unsweetened ingredients had no negative impact on this bar at all. In fact, the natural tang of the cherries made up for that as it announced its presence with authority and kept on coming with the more and more I dived in. The dates and their natural flavor helped that as well. One thing that made this bar kind of fun and even more tasty was the chocolate chips as they added an occasional crunch to the very chewy and moist bar (the crunch was aided by the nut bits) and since the chips melted quickly after I bit into them, they kind of coated the cherry flavor with something that I might even describe as decadent. Quite a combination and definitely a good one.

Buy It or Fly By It? I'm a slob that loves decadence, so this bar clearly gets a BUY IT rating. In fact, I would even go so far as to describe this bar as delicious. I've always loved cherries dating back to my childhood, so anything that portrays them in a positive light like this bar does always piques my interest. If you'd like to be sufficiently piqued, grab this one if you see it at the store and I think you'll feel the same way I did after eating this.

BUY IT!!