Snackhole

Find out what you should be putting in your snackhole.

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Quick Review - Smith's Chips - Gravy

The flavour brought to you by Hamish & Andy in 2008 is back. And it is pretty shit.

Tasting kind of like barbecue flavour, but less sweet and with no spice, I was so underwhelmed I didn't even take a photo. I actually didn't think you could get gravy wrong, but apparently you can.

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I Compared a Few Platforms and Kept Coming Back

I'll be honest, I did the rounds before settling in. I tried a couple of the names everyone mentions, candy.ai and ourdream.ai among them, and they're fine in their own right. But when it came to actually designing a companion who felt like she came out of my own head, SweetDream was the one that kept pulling me back. The character creation just goes further.

On sweetdream.ai you're shaping everything that matters, the appearance, the personality, the little quirks, the voice, the backstory that gives her context. And it doesn't stop at setup. The chat is remarkably natural and emotionally tuned, it remembers what you've shared, and the AI-generated photos and videos look beautiful. There are even voice messages and human-sounding calls when you want to hear her.

What sealed it for me was how private and discreet the whole thing stays. Building an AI girlfriend feels personal, and it should stay personal. If you're weighing your options for an AI companion, do what I did, try a few, then build something on SweetDream and see why it's hard to leave.

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OMG! Desserts - Red Velvet Mud 'n' Mousse

Sometimes, I get shitty about trendy food (I'm looking at you, macarons) but sometimes I hope they never end (come at me, salted caramel). Red velvet, being part of the soul food trend that includes mac 'n' cheese and pulled pork, is the kind of hipster food I want in and around my mouth at every opportunity.

While the Red Velvet Mud 'n' Mousse isn't nearly as pretty as it looks on the packaging, I was kind of pleasantly surprised that OMG! got the light chocolatey flavour and the kind of rusty not-too-red colour in this pretty much bang on (you can't tell in the photo because of the chocolate ganache). However it is mud cake, so denser than a true red velvet cake, and the chocolate ganache and white chocolate mousse really take the dessert to a much sweeter place than red velvet usually goes.

This follows the same formula as the other OMG! Mud 'n' Mousse desserts. I would have loved to see a slightly tangy cream cheese icing instead of the chocolate ganache, but there was nothing to complain about. The serving size is good, the flavours are pleasant and the texture is decadent. If you like these desserts already this one is definitely worth a whirl.

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M&Ms Raspberry

I'm a big fan of M&Ms. They're just so perfectly, evilly addictive. Just the right sweetness and just the right crunch factor. I mean, seriously. There's a good reason why these are so damn popular.

One of my favourite things about M&Ms is that they regularly offer new, limited edition flavours (but no peanut butter in Australia yet. Seriously, what is up with that??) to reward snackers everywhere.

While it's not exactly new (sorry), the most recent flavour to hit Aussie shelves is Raspberry. 

I'm not a 'pink' girl, but even I have to admit that a packet of M&Ms in various shades of pink, red and white is kind of adorable. It would certainly make the ideal choice for a Valentine's date.

These little guys don't have any kind of special filling, rather the raspberry flavour is in the chocolate filling itself. And it's a pretty good flavour as well. The raspberry candy flavour is distinct, but well balanced with the chocolate. It lends sweetness without being sugary, if that makes sense.

My usual go-to flavour with M&Ms is peanut (despite the odd dodgy peanut), but I have returned to these since first reviewing them. Definitely worth a whirl.

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Snacking all over the world: Queenstown, New Zealand

A lot of people go to Queenstown for skiing. A lot go for bungee jumping. A lot go to hike up mountains. Some go to ride in the ultimate hybrid of shark and machine.

I went to spend Christmas with my family, eat food and drink. And that I most certainly did.

Queenstown is a total babe, and it’s packed with awesome things to do. With that combination they really don’t need much of a foodie scene. But boy, do they have one anyway!

Unsurprisingly, snacking habits of our Antipodean brethren differ little from our own. Notably, however, they had some pretty delicious local kettle chips (holy shit, I love kettle chips), and about eleventy billion flavours of Whittakers chocolate. Of which I ate NONE because I was always so damn full!

I was really curious to try the local snack, a cheese roll. No doubt like me, you find the name of it a little confounding. What do they mean? A roll with cheese in it? Cheese on top? A cheese scroll?

Jonesys in Arrowtown claimed to make award-winning cheese rolls, so I thought where better to find out? It turns out it’s cheese and some other stuff (onion soup mix and evaporated milk, apparently) put onto a piece of bread, rolled up and then toasted.

If it sounds a bit weird, it really is. But it’s also kind of good. I can definitely see how it’s a school snack of epic proportions in the south island, but I didn’t feel compelled to go back for more. Ever. Maybe if I was drunk.

Oh! And I had L&P! It mostly tastes like lemonade, but there’s some kind of shadow of Dr Pepper or something in there as well. It’s definitely unique and pleasant, but not something I’d make a special effort to seek out here.

Steakhouses are huge in Queenstown, and they tend towards the plush, masculine style of Rockpool, rather than the vomitous, nasty style of Outback Jacks. Thank Christ. Their popularity is no doubt because gorgeous local meat is in strong supply. The quality and abundance of fresh, local produce was reminiscent of dining in Margaret River.

We visited Jervois Steak House (amazing venison and fried mac & cheese) and Flame Bar and Grill (possibly the best ribs I have ever tasted), and both were excellent.

Like Margaret River, Queenstown is in close proximity to a wealth of wineries as well. Specialising in Pinot Noir. Hell yeah. We didn’t get the chance to visit many wineries, but we sampled plenty of the local product, our favourite being from Felton Road.

We visited a few Queenstown institutions, among them the infamous Fergburger and Fergbaker. They really, really were worth the hype, and the sometimes 20 minute wait for a burger. Get anything meat based from Fergburger (this is the pork belly burger holy shit), and make sure and get a pork belly pie from Fergbaker. 

The other famous name around Queenstown is an upstairs pizza joint called Winnie’s. Sure, it is in part famous for its retractable roof, but it deserves just as much attention for its awesome pizza.

The bar scene in Queenstown is HUGE. Queenstown is a really small town, but they have packed bars in with a shoehorn. Among our favourites were Surreal for relaxed bar vibes, Eichardt's for the most mind-blowingly awesome cocktails, The Find for cool décor and the best DJ we encountered while there and Cowboy for ridiculous drunken fun with a taxidermy bear and 1L steins.

I highly recommend Queenstown, even if you're not into adventure tourism, especially if you love your food. It's a pretty charming little town with plenty to see and do. And eat.

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Limited Edition: Pauls Double Thick Custard - Choc Mint

If you're an Australian custard lover like myself, then you have no doubt delighted in Pauls Double Thick Custard in the past. Because pouring custard is for wimps and losers.

This Christmas, Pauls released a limited edition choc mint flavour, available in a 500mL carton only.

It is without doubt a total winner. The texture is just as thick and silky as usual, the chocolate rich and the mint authentic and easily perceptible without overpowering.

Warning though, this is extremely addictive. This photo is actually of the empty carton because I had already eaten it all. So buy and consume in secret, because you earned this custard, god damn it, and no one is going to take it from you!

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Connoisseur Classic Sticks

So since I've been so slack lately, it's highly likely that if you were thinking about trying these babies, you would have already. Because it's Connoisseur ice cream. In convenient stick form. Fuck yeah.

As you might be aware, I am a huge fan of Magnums, so I was pretty excited when this option hit the shelves. And while not as nicely packaged as the Magnum Black, they still look pretty sexy in their little black boxes.

While Madagascan Vanilla and Cookies and Cream didn't excite me too much, the other three flavours did. And so I have eaten them all.

First up, Kangaroo Island Honey with Pistachio. This is a pistachio flavoured icecream with honey through it and pistachios generously crammed into the chocolate shell.

I wasn't expecting too much of this one as I'm not a huge fan of honey flavour, but it was very good. It is sweet, no doubt, but the honey added a lovely richness without overpowering. That chocolate shell was a real winner too.

Next up was Sumatran Coconut. I love coconut so much. A food that tastes amazing and reminds me of beach holidays has to be some kind of magical wonder food. But it can go horribly wrong in a "drinking Wipeout at an underage party" kind of way.

Luckily, this is Connoisseur, so it goes extremely well. Not quite "drinking a cocktail from a young coconut poolside" well, more like "if lamingtons really were as good as you remembered them" well. The ice cream has a pronounced and pleasantly natural sweet coconut flavour and flecks of desiccated coconut throughout, with a good quality and suitably thick chocolate shell.

Finally, Murray River Salted Caramel with Macadamia. Salted caramel is one of those food trends I hope never dies. It makes my tongue weep with joy. But I found the salted caramel from Connoisseur's Australian Collection really disappointing, so I was doing my best not to get my hopes up for this one.

I needn't have worried, at least not for my tastes, because this is a delicious, velvety flavour bomb. But be warned, this is caramel ice cream with a swirl of caramel sauce. Despite what I thought was a perfect balance of salt in the mix, there is no disguising that this is sweet. Like the pistachio ice cream, the shell of this one is packed full of macadamia. That's good shit.

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Limited Edition - Snickers Hazelnut

These came out a little while ago, but are definitely still on shelves in some supermarkets. If they sound like your bag, I hope you can find them with relatively little trouble.

I like limited release Snickers. I like them because, like limited release Mars Bars, they never stray too far from the original formula. Let's face it, Snickers are really popular for a reason, and it's because people love that shit! So new Snickers varieties tend to do one of the following - change the nut, change the chocolate, or change the ratio of core ingredients. 

Snickers Hazelnut is no different, replacing the usual peanuts with the fancier, more expensive hazelnuts. It's not the first time this bar has been released in Australia, and I'm sure it won't be the last, because it's a bit of a winner.  Snickers Hazelnut pretty much preserves the same ingredient ratio as the original, with chopped up hazelnuts dotted through the caramel layer. There's no mention of whether the nougat is flavoured at all, but I'm a little bit suspicious that it is because this bar packs a really nice choc-hazelnut punch. It's pretty much a Nutella flavoured chocolate bar, to be honest. 

By this point you're either all over Snickers Hazelnut or you're not a hazelnut fan. If you're a Snickers nut (see what I did there?), this is a nice variation on the classic. If you love your Nutella, you're in for a treat. I recommend getting at least one into your snackhole while they're available. 

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Snackhole? More like SLACKHOLE.

I realise this might read like an invitation for people to make offensive jokes about my anatomy, but it's not, so you can wipe that smirk off your face right now!

What this is, is an apology. It has been nice to find out that a bunch of people have actually read this blog, but it has been in the context of "What happened to Snackhole?".

I'm tempted to endear myself to you all by blaming it on my dismay at Breaking Bad ending and showing you some awesome Breaking Bad themed snacks, but it's actually because I'm a lazy cow. A sorry, lazy cow.

But more blog posts are coming soon. Promise. Bitches.

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Fuck yeah Dubrovnik Butcher. #sausagefest #bestwurst

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Kettle Chips Chunky

Holy shiiiiiiit, Kettle Chips have released new Chunky extra-thick cut chips and they're the bomb!

Anyone who has enjoyed kettle cooked chips in the USA knows just how joyous a chip eating experience can be. Those bastards are thick and extra crispy, and they have a satisfying crunch like no other. They are magical. When Smith's released their Extra Crunchy chips last year, I hoped for that delicious kettle cooked crunch, but it wasn't to be. Sure, they were extra crunchy... For Smith's. Despite the epicness (epicity?) of the Flame Grilled Steak flavour, they barely reached the crunch level of Kettle Chips' standard range, let alone exceed it. I'm pleased to report, however, that while they're not the best kettle cooked chips of all time, Kettle Chunky are absolutely wiping the floor with Extra Crunchy texture-wise. I wouldn't be surprised if there are weaklings out there who may even consider them unpleasantly crunchy. Yeah. They're that good.

Now before you rush out to smash about five packets of these babies into your snackhole, I need to add a disclaimer. The Mediterranean Herbs and Spices flavour verges on disgusting. It has this overwhelming base flavour that tastes of tomato paste. It's far too sweet and overpowers everything else. I still ate the whole damn bag because of that crunch, but I wished I'd never bought it. Crushed Sea Salt, on the other hand, was very nearly under-seasoned. The salt seems to settle to the bottom of the bag, so I recommend giving them a swish before you open them. If you're a fan of a crunchy chip, the texture will more than make up for the unimpressive flavour. I'm really hoping that in the near future they come out with a salt and pepper or maybe even a brave jalapeno flavour to take these to the next level.

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Cadbury Marvellous Creations - Clinkers Editions

So Cadbury have released two new Marvellous Creation Bars. By all rights this should be very exciting to me because Marvellous Creations Jelly Popping Candy Beanies is one of my favourite chocolate bars of recent years. Let's face it, if you're going to indulge in the creamy sugary childhood favourite that is Cadbury Dairy Milk, you might as well fill that sucker with jelly lollies, smarties and pop rocks and just have a fucking party. But I'm not very excited about these new additions to the Marvellous family - 'Clinkers Gummi Bears Choc Biscuit' and 'Clinkers Raspberry Chips Marshmallow' - for a few reasons.

1) Clinkers?!? Clinkers are the joke of the candy aisle. They look like chalk, they feel like chalk, they taste like perfumed chalk. They're just shit. And you put them in both of your new chocolate bars! Why?? 2) They're worse than existing Cadbury bars. The Black Forest block already has chocolate biscuit and sweet/tangy jelly candy in it without shitty Clinkers. Rocky Road already has little raspberry bits and marshmallows in it, but it has awesome peanuts instead of shitty Clinkers. And both of those blocks are way easier to break than Marvellous Creations blocks. Though they are all significantly harder to break than they used to be - am I the only one who's noticed that? I would like to add at this point that despite the fact that I firmly believe Clinkers found a truly appropriate mascot in Lee Harding, I actually did try these.

They weren't much chop, although I did appreciate that the gummi bears were actually whole, tiny gummi bears. These are probably only worth it for people who actually like Clinkers. Otherwise, just keep buying up that discount Cadbury in its now usurped cardboard packaging until it runs out.

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Banoffee pie in a jar was delicious, and made 100 times more awesome with yellow whipped cream and sprinkles.

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My first official poutine experience. Yes, yes and yes.

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Pascall Mallow Bites Chocs - Mint

Without a doubt, Pascall are the king of the Australian marshmallow industry. But they're not ones to rest on their mallow-y laurels, oh no. Every year or so Pascall hit us with something new and I for one appreciate it. But I'm going to confess something. Until recently, I had never stuck a Pascall Choc in my snackhole. I know, right? Vanilla and Honeycomb have been out for AGES and I just kept passing them by. And I'm gonna put it out there - I kept doing it with the Swirls too. I know what you're thinking, and I know it's that I'm kind of marshmallow hating prick. I don't blame you, but I have to plead my case here. I love marshmallows, but I just never really saw the need for any change to those fluffy pillows of sugar and food colouring with their silky dusting of corn flour. Who needs berry flavour when you have pink and white? Who needs a chocolate coating when you have hot chocolate? But I'm not just snacking for myself anymore, loyal followers. No. I'm snacking for you. So when I saw the shiny new pack of Pascall Chocs in mint flavour, I knew what I had to do.

Upon opening the packet, I was greeted with a pleasant mint chocolate aroma. The marshmallows are smaller than normal marshmallows, and their innards are a gloriously lurid shade of green (the photos don't do justice).

And then I tasted, and holy shit, these are good marshmallows. They had that lovely, supple marshmallow texture you know and love, a pleasant sweet mintyness and were covered in the perfect amount of Cadbury chocolate to achieve the ideal flavour balance. They were insanely moreish, and we polished off the vast majority of the packet in minutes. Beware.

Maybe you consider yourself a marshmallow fan, maybe you don't. Either way I would highly recommend giving these a go. After all, it's winter and who doesn't need a little extra insulation?

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While we're talking fries - Hungry Jack's is right. They might have 99 problems (of which their new Big Cheese range is one), but their new Thick Cut Chips ain't one. They are fucking good.

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Ask Snackhole - Family drama

Recently a friend and accomplished snacker wrote to me with a problem. A big problem though, thankfully, not all too uncommon.

Michelle wrote:

Dear snackhole, I am writing to ask your advice on a matter that causes great debate in our household; bag chips - who owns the rights to the stray chips left in the bag that have fallen out of the cartons??? I know that you are a busy snacker, but I'd really appreciate your expert opinion on this matter, it's tearing our family apart. Is it first come first served? Do you asses the loss of chips in each individual carton and award bag chips to the one with the lowest level? Do they belong to the one who pays for the meal? Or the one who hands everything out?? What is the bag chip etiquette? Is there one? Please help!

Michelle,

Thank you for having the courage to come forward about this painful problem. Know that you are not alone. Far from it, in fact. Almost every Australian family struggles with the issue of bag chips (henceforth known as bag fries to avoid confusion) at some point, but almost all families feel this is some kind of secret shame, internalising the problem and blaming themselves. I am here to tell you now, Michelle, that this is not your fault. The sad fact of the matter is, like RSVP-ing and the circumstances under which you send a thank you card, the teaching of bag fries etiquette has largely gone the way of the dodo. However, while this is a complex issue, there is an accepted, multi-step process of resolving bag fries ownership issues, which I have outlined below. 1) Assess ownership of the bag contents - Has an agreement been entered into prior to receiving the bag that the food contained therein belongs to multiple parties? If parties have all requested their preferred menu item and that has been agreed upon and purchased, shared ownership is implied. It is important to note, however, that if the food is purchased under the condition that other parties must do something in order to receive the food requested, it could conceivably be considered that all food in the bag belongs to the purchaser until such time that other parties have lived up to their end of the bargain. 2) If you have purchased the food and shared ownership does not yet apply, then you go ahead and eat those bag fries. Unless, of course, you were provided with money by a third party to purchase the food on their behalf, in which case the bag fries are theirs until such time that shared ownership applies. 3) If shared ownership applies, then bag fries should be apportioned according to loss from individual packets. This can be difficult where packets are of differing sizes, but I go by the rule that they should be proportionately full. However, there is a final proviso under which the fries may well be back up for grabs. 4) Fries can be considered res nullius (owned by no one) if they have been abandoned by their owner. This would include their owner declaring the fries are unwanted or the owner scuttling off to enjoy their meal without claiming their share of the bag fries. Res nullius then allows anyone to claim ownership, meaning s/he who claims ownership of the res nullius fries first gets them. So there you have it. The accepted method of determining bag fries ownership. Or you could battle for the bag fries on Mario Kart, at which point even if you lose you get the smug satisfaction of knowing that the fries are now cold and stale, and so is your competitor's victory.

All the best, Michelle. I know you can do this.

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Movie snacks!