Review: Brookside Dark Chocolate Cranberry With Blackberry Flavor Fruit & Nut Bar

I've reviewed these Brookside bars before and I found/find it funny how they take one fruit as the primary ingredient and then they top that with more fruit, but not just fruit...fruit FLAVOR.  Is it too much to ask to have the fruit in there?  Okay, I'm going off the deep end as usual here.  Anyway, I was recently browsing my local Kroger when I saw boxes upon boxes of these Brookside bars on clearance, so I grabbed this Brookside Dark Chocolate Cranberry With Blackberry Flavor Fruit & Nut Bar on clearance for $0.79.  I'd imagine it's typically in the $1.50 range though.  Anyway, this bar is 1.4 ounces, has 180 calories and packs in a modest four grams of protein.  The bar is gluten free, but I do find it funny that the nutritional info on the website specifically says that this is NOT Kosher.  Can't say I've ever seen that definitively stated before.

Clear packaging puts this bar out there for the world to see, so it's no great mystery.  And since there is no great mystery, I'll be brief in my description. The base of the bar was a dark chocolate coating and on top of that was the mix of fruits and nuts.  Included in this mix were the cranberries, the pumpkin seeds and the rather large almonds.  It appeared as if there were some bits of blackberry in there too, so it must be just more than flavor that they are bringing.  They are bringing an actual presence!  My eyes could have been deceiving me though.  From a smell perspective, this smelled very berry-like, so the namesake cranberry and blackberry was definitely represented.

Biting into this, it reminded me of a KIND bar.chewy, crunchy, grainy and coated in a melting (dark) chocolate.  Basically the same texture.  This bar was slightly more dense and chewy than a KIND bar, but it was very similar.  In terms of flavor, the fruits were definitely represented as they were both tangy and sweet.  The nuts and seeds brought a very slight degree of saltiness to this, but it wasn't overly potent.  As for the dark chocolate, it was mainly there for texture because I can honestly say that I did not taste it all that much.

Buy It or Fly By It?  All in all, this bar performed pretty much like I would have expected it to.  It was tasty, but not great.  That tastiness gets this a BUY IT rating. so if you see this in your store (on clearance or otherwise), don't hesitate to pick it up if you want something that is a fruity and crunchy snack or small meal replacement.  Remember though, it's definitely NOT Kosher.

BUY IT!!