Unibic Choco Kiss Cookies

Everyone's riding the centre-filled cookie wave, and the latest brand to join the bandwagon is Unibic. This Australian brand has been in India since 2004, and today has a wide pan-Indian reach through a number of products distributed through supermarkets and local retail stores. Given the variety of products, I'm surprised this is turning out to be the first review of a Unibic product.

It is, however, no surprise that their centre-filled cookies, called Choco Kiss caught my eye since everyone is making these and the category seems to be doing really well. So far, I've reviewed Sunfeast's Dark Fantasy Choco Fills, Sunfeast's Dark Fantasy Choco Meltz, Parle's Golden Arcs Choco Filled Rolls. The Unibic Choco Kiss cookies resembles Sunfeast's primary offering in this category, Dark Fantasy Choco Fills more than any other.

It's a plain cookie filled with liquid chocolate in the centre and scores over Parle's product, which has a gooey, but not runny chocolate filling. While Unibic's chocolate filling doesn't score too high on taste, one has to give it points for a very crumbly cookie. However, Sunfeast trumps both in terms of an overall taste experience.

Unibic's Choco Kiss Cookies are individually packed and a 75g box comprises six cookies. Priced at INR 35, each cookie comes to about Rs. 5.80. This makes it the costliest product in the category as compared to Rs 5 apiece for Sunfeast's Choco Fills and Rs 3 apiece for Parle's Golden Arcs Choco Rolls. Sunfeast's Choco Meltz is a more premium product with a chocolate coating on the outside and is priced around Rs. 7 per piece. Unibic, therefore, needs to find another USP if it is to pose any real competition to the existing players. For now, though, they can be happy with one happy tiny customer.

RATING: 3/5

Nestle Nescau - Chocolate Energy Biscuits

What is it about the imported variety of Nestle biscuits that is so... weird? I remember hating Bono just as much. Nestle's Nescau comes all the way from Sao Paulo, Brazil and is apparently a variation of energy biscuits. Energia Que Da Gosto in Portuguese roughly translates to 'Taste that energy'. Although, the biscuits seem to have no glucose or any special component that might give the said energy.

The wheat flour, though, is fortified with iron and folic acid, and there are other regular ingredients like sugar, cocoa, vegetable oil, flavouring, milk powder, etc. I fail to see how such commonplace components can create such hideous flavours. The biscuit isn't tastleless, it is positively cardboard-y.

The cream is not rough with a sugary, crude taste. The taste of chocolate is weak, if anything. Reminds me of the cheapest kind of chocolates sold at local groceries here. You definitely shouldn't be paying INR 50 for a 140 g pack, however enticing the packaging may look. I know it has a superhero appeal, but the taste is anything but super.


RATING: 1/5