Review: Ciao Bella Key Lime Graham Gelato Squares

I can always tell when a neighborhood starts to think that it is more important than it actually is.  Usually that means that a Whole Foods and/or Fresh Market moves into the neighborhood and in the case of my neighborhood, we recently got a Fresh Market.  Yippee, I guess.  Anyway, as I was strolling through the Fresh Market store on its opening weekend, I noticed that they had a pretty solid sale on Ciao Bella products that allowed me to buy one and get a second one free.  So, normal price was $5.99, so I got two boxes of these gelato squares for half that price (second review will come later).  This first box of Ciao Bella Key Lime Graham Gelato Squares has four individually wrapped squares and each square is 4.0 fluid ounces and 250 calories.

From outside appearances, these carry all the look of an ice cream sandwich.  Since these are gelato squares though, the interior is clearly gelato and not ice cream in this instance and also since it is gelato, the interior is softer.  That interior gelato is key lime flavored and it does carry a mild, but not at all overpowering smell, of key limes.  I'd say that it was a very pleasing smell and being that I'm not the world's biggest fan of key limes (I usually find them to be too tart), that mild smell was very encouraging to me.  The key lime graham gelato with grainy parts of graham mixed into it is then scooped inside of two soft graham squares that were almost doughy because of how soft that they are.  As a person that prefers my sandwich-type dessert products to have soft exterior "cookie" portions, I also found that quite encouraging before I dove in.

As I took my bite of this, I got an alternating mouthfeel of things that were soft, creamy and chewy.  The graham sandwich parts were the soft and chewy parts and the interior gelato was the creamy part that also contained a touch of graininess from the graham grains spread throughout.  As for the flavor, the graham portion of this square tasted pretty much like you'd expect a soft graham cracker to taste, so that was a win.  As for the gelato, I'd have to say that I found it delightful.  Much like the smell of the key lime itself, the taste was mild and only had a bit of tartness to it.  That mild tartness made it extremely enjoyable and when mixed with the almost vanilla-esque flavor of the graham square, it made for a more than pleasant combination.  This entire square wasn't quite like the pie that this was sort of trying to emulate in a way, but I think that is what I found appealing about it since I'm not all that huge of a fan of the pie.

Buy It or Fly By It?  That previous sentence was kind of a dead giveaway, wasn't it?  Obviously based on that sentence alone, it's clear that this gets a strong BUY IT rating for me.  I'm happy that the snooty Fresh Market had these on sale and I'm also glad that I was able to get another box, because I can't wait to try the next flavor now.  Part of me is sad and part of me is glad that these typically run $5.99 a box though.  On the sad side, I wish they were cheaper so that I could get them more.  On the glad side, I'm glad they are as expensive per box as they are so that I won't sit around and buy/eat them all the time.  Probably a good thing as that would just accelerate the growth of my expanding waistline.

BUY IT!!

Other Reviews:
*Junk Food Guy
*On Second Scoop