09.04.04
Crispy Macadamia
Oh boy oh boy these fellas were tasty. TheMan is all about the first 5 pea rating (ever) going to Crispy Macadamia and I have to say, they are one fine tasty treat.
First off, they are neat little round chocolate ball fellas in pretty darned cool packaging. Plus, they were shiny! Shiny = good in my book, however, shiny doesn’t always = good chocolate. In this case, the chocolate is both glossy and very good. I’d say it’s better chocolate than I have had so far in any JSF, perhaps rivaling some of the good chocolates hanging around in upper end chocolate stores. It’s some mighty tasty stuff, in fact if you happen to eat a Pocky afterwards, the Pocky chocolate tastes pretty bad. Mind you, Pocky chocolate is some tasty edible stuff but it pales greatly in comparison to Crispy Macadamia chocolate.
Mmmm, chocolate. After the chocolate coating there is a casing of crunchity and then the macadamia nut. The crunchy coating is marvelously crunchy, sort of like if you took the crispies from a Nestl”s Crunch, fed them lots of steroids and made them into a thick nut wrapping layer. I’d say the crunchy layer was about an eighth inch thick, which is pretty sizable given the whole of the candy. It certainly had the crunchity going on, perhaps more crunch than it had taste. On the other hand, what does the crispy in a Nestl”s Crunch really taste like? Sort of ricey, maybe a bit wheaty? So yeah, crunchity with a taste like you would expect a crunchy from a Nestl”s Crunch to taste like.
Lastly, the nut. I was a little fearful for the “crispy” in this candy because I know macadamia nuts are one of the softer nuts about. They are not as snappy as, say, an almond or brazil nut might be and I thought that maybe I’d be disappointed. Well, that crispy layer alleviated my fears on that account, but it also introduced another factor into the Crispy Macadamia nut harmony. The crispy layer crunchitied right over the macadamia nut to the point that I wasn’t really sure that there was a nut in the candy at all. It tasted slightly nutty but I had to actually look and see if there was indeed a nut (and there was) and maybe not a ball of nut paste. The chocolate flavor and the crispy texture sort of steam roller the nut so that it is really sort of a nutty after thought.
I did get some dissenting votes from the macadamia nut purists (who would hate any sort of adulteration to their beloved nut) but the package clearly shows chocolate covered candies and is called “Crispy Macadamia”. I can’t say that not liking it because the nut is covered in chocolate and crispy is a really valid stance in critiquing a chocolate covered crispified nut. But, if you are one of those macadamia nut purists, given the response, this is not the candy for you. All the other (sane) people really liked it. A lot. I got no middle of the road votes, they were all (I’d guess, just from the reactions) a 4.5 pea or better.
This is a tough call. On one hand, all the (sane) responses were very, very positive and the chocolate is far and above any other JSF chocolate yet tasted. It even has one boss crispy going for it, and yet the macadamia nut gets sort of lost in and among the flavors and textures. But still, really quite a good munch. If I went to quarter pea ratings (which would be really hard to cut given the size and brittleness of a wasabi pea) these would sit happily at 4.75 peas.
Ahhh, what the hell. Macadamia nut isn’t known for its overwhelming nutty flavor anyway so here is our first
Rating of 5 Wasabi Peas out of a possible 5.
