Another Variety

When I did my last big re-organize of candycritic.org I decided that if any candy had more than 10 versions, I would give them their own category. I started that a few years back, but honestly haven't added a new candy or snack to the list of candies with more than one version since. I can think of at least 3 or 4 treats that should be added to that list, but I really haven't gotten around to it. Doritos is approaching that mark, and maybe when they cross it I'll finally get to adding all the treats that deserve the spot... or maybe I won't.

Check out my latest review of another flavour of Doritos.

I'm Thinking Again, And Eating Breakfast

In this episode of Chris's Monthly Morning Breakfast Thoughts, I drink a really weird blue drink. I also talk about the candy and junk food news from the last month, as well as the new updates on candycritic.org.

Make sure to check out our Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram feed to find out about all the stuff we mentioned on this episode.

If you followed us on Patreon than you'd already have seen this video a few days ago.

CC

I Can't Believe We Have A Candy Update Today - Kinako Mochi Choco

I'll start off with the update itself, it's a Japanese candy that's not great. It's pretty cheap, and it consists of flavours that are very common in Japan, mochi and chocolate. This candy could work, but it doesn't, because it's cheaply made. I could tell you more about today's review, but frankly I have a bigger story to tell Now onto the reason that I'm amazed that I'm even writing this.

Last week the main computer we use to run this site died. It died and many of the programs we use to make this site stopped working. I was pretty sure that this was going to lead to at least a week's worth of silence on our end. Then gradually, I started to rebuild. I had to make a few updates to our system, but in no time things started to come together. We have backups here, and I'm totally stunned that they all worked. I was able to get everything back up and running in two days. While there still might be a few speed bumps ahead, it appears that all is working well enough to not only keep the updates coming this week, but also continue working on the new version of Candy Critic (coming soon).

I freaked out last week about this, but as I sit here now, I'm kind of  happy it all happened. Things seem to actually be running smoother, and we even updated a few things.

Click here if you want to learn more about today's new candy review.

Also be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, we might need some tech support if things do go south while we recoup.

CC

It's Time For A Look At This And Last Month In Candy, Also A Review - Toffifee

To start off this week we're posting a review of a candy that likely could have been our Christmas review, but I feel it fits better being a post Christmas review, Toffifee. If you ask Allison it's the one treat that I always love to eat around Christmas time. She's nice enough to make sure we have a box every year as well. It's strange that I haven't written a review up until now, but better late than never.

You can click here to check out this new review.



We're also re-starting our video series, Chris's Monday Morning Breakfast Thoughts as a monthly show. We've decided that  it works much better as a monthly show and we'll be posting it on the first Monday of every month.  You can always find the new episode posted here on this blog, but you can subscribe to our YouTube channel to get the videos as soon as we finish them.

Also make sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to keep up with all our daily shenanigans.

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Candy Critic Statistics

So this past weekend we finally finished putting together the database for all of the candies reviewed on candycritic.org so far. It was way more reviews than we were expecting with well over twelve hundred. One thing that made me feel good about the reviews was the scoring. If you look at the graph above showing the number of candies that have any particular score, you'll see a fairly good curve. Each bar represents a score starting at 0 and going to 14.5 (there's a reason that there's no 15) in increments of  .5. The curve does lean slightly towards the better end, but that's because it's candy.  This  information will be used on the new site when we start listing the candies according to score.

This next graph shows all of the different candy brands that have more than 10 reviews on the site. The first bar is actually our question mark category, because we don't know the brands of some of the candies we've reviewed. We're hoping to lower that number down a lot and might be asking some of our readers to help with that.  This graph is very useful right now because we're presently building a section that will feature our most represented brands on the website. I took a guess at what these would be on my initial design, but I got a couple wrong.

This graph  features one of the new additions to the site that I'm most excited about. We're going to start listing some of the candies that have many different varieties. This includes Kit Kat, Lay's, and Pocky, to name a few. I love the idea of collecting varieties of candies, and I'm hoping this section grows in the  years to come.

While these are likely the dullest representations of candy that you can imagine, it's become a really valuable tool for us while updating candycritic.org. In the past the organization has been done slightly randomly, but with this database we're hoping that it will come together in a much more organized way.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with all of the work we're doing to update the site.

You can also follow us on Patreon and help us build this site by signing up.

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It's Monday Morning, So It's Time For Some Thoughts, And A Review - Nude Chocolate

Long and tube like, is not the way you want to describe something that's called "Nude Chocolate", but it's just the way it is. This week's review was purchased because of the bold letters on the package and what they spelled out.

Click here to find out if this "sexy" treat lives up to the hype.



On this week's Monday Morning Breakfast thoughts we look at statistics. Many of you out there are probably not interested in math, but candy math is pretty fun. After compiling all of the reviews into a database, I have some interesting stats about the kind of treats we have on the site.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with all our adventures and travels.

Also be sure to follow us on Patreon to get previews and all kinds of other cool stuff.

CC

So We're Living In Cambodia For Now

As you may or may not know, we move around a lot. While our official home is and always will be Canada, we find ourselves constantly on the move, and leaving our home and native land for a while.  This year we've found ourselves in Cambodia.  Cambodia is a great place to be for many reasons.  First of all it's pretty close to a lot of great food destinations. Thailand and Vietnam are a stone throw from us, and the rest of east Asia is a short flight away.  Now that I think about it, Australia isn't too far either... hmmm.

The other great thing about Cambodia is the food is pretty amazing. We've only been here a few weeks and we're already discovering the amazing range of foods available. From where we live we can find lots of French food, Cambodian food, Japanese food, Chinese food, and a plethora of western and other world cuisines.  This place is such a foodie country that you can't walk for a block without smelling something cooking.  I have to be honest, when we first moved here I was worried about what might be the most common smell, but food is certainly the main odor. That does make going for walks difficult, at every corner your stomach rumbles.

As for candy, I'm finding it a little more difficult in some ways.  There are candies from just about every corner of the globe available here, but I'm having trouble finding the local treats.  For the most part any local treats I've found I've either tried already, or they're just copies of western , French or Japanese treats.  Maybe that is what this culture is  about, after all it's pretty hard to pin point a true Canadian treat as well. Fortunately I have a few years here to explore.

As for the site, I'm sure over the next few years our collection of Asian treat reviews is just going to keep growing.  I can also see this as being the perfect environment for episodes of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!!, as I've already discovered some truly sketchy foods.  Hopefully Allison and I will be able to get out a bit more and record some new episodes of Junk Fud On The Road as well.  We already have a few episodes coming up about our journey here.  Finally this move might be giving me some time to update candycritic.org itself.  The plan is to update it with WordPress, but at this point I'm just trying to get a handle on how that works.  If you're a WordPress expert any help would be greatly appreciated.

To all of you out there reading this, thanks for following along with our adventures.

CC

The First Episode of In Hindsight Is Online!

Welcome all to the first episode in a 4 part series called In Hindsight.  In each episode of In Hindsight I'll look back at an old review that I've posted on Candy Critic and see if the review still holds up.  I've been reviewing candy for longer than I care to admit, and frankly some of my early reviews... well... they suck. So this is a way for me to make up for that. This week I'm looking back at one of my favorite childhood candy bars, the Oh Henry. So sit back and relax and watch me realize that I'm not that great at reviewing candy.

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This Week In Candy

There's a lot going on right now.  Things at Candy Critic are going to be different.  It'll start with a huge crazy adventure, followed by a change of address.  We're not at liberty to give everything away, but I can assure you that it's going to change things here a great deal. During the crazy adventure there will be a lot of regular things put on hold, or at the very least put on random.  Some of our regular posts will continue as is.  The reviews will likely be put on hold for a few weeks. I wish I had more to say on the subject, but I don't, particularly since I'm writing this week's in advance.

What you will have during this transition is a few of the regular blog posts.  We'll be posting our weekly "Candy Thing" as well as our weekly "Candy In The Media" posts.  This Week In Candy will also still be posted, but keep in mind that they're all pre-written, and they'll generally just explain that there's things going on.  Reviews may, or may not, be going online while we're in transition.  That really depends on our tech situation at any given moment.  Since this "transition/adventure" is a somewhat permanent thing, we're sure to run into a couple of bugs while we try to make sure everything works.  So please be patient.

To make up for everything we're not doing, we're giving you guys a fun little bonus.  For the month of September we're posting weekly articles about candies with variety.  This week we're posting about the bar that probably has the most varieties Kit Kat.  We'll talk about all of the different versions that are out there, and which are the ones worth trying.  Next week, we'll be looking at Pocky.

Snack Facts, our Instagram feed will not be posting daily, instead it will be posting randomly.  We'll post any fun things we learn about while this adventure happens.  Sometimes you'll get a whole bunch of posts, other times not so much.  You can always keep up with Snack Facts on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Speaking of Facebook and Twitter, this is going to be where a great deal of our continuing coverage will be.  We hope to post here as regularly as we can with updates as to where we are, and what we're eating (junk food and candy wise).

UPDATE!!!

I have internet, so here's a new review! Click here to enjoy it!

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This Week In Candy... Sorry It's Really Late

If you've been keeping up with our Facebook and Twitter lately, you'll know that I got a serious dose of food poisoning.  If you've been keeping up with Candy Critic over the last few years, you'll know that I've had several serious doses of food over the last few years.  This is likely because I've been in many places where food hygiene is not really as big a deal as in North America.  You could say it's my own fault, but to be honest only a few times has it been caused by a "sketchy" food choice (one of which was featured in an episode of "Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!!").  Most often the food that gets me is the surprises, the food I thought was safe, but as it turns out.  I plan on writing an article about that which will either appear here on this blog or in a newspaper or magazine.

As for what's happening here on Candy Critic, we're starting to get everything back in order, and going to push out as much as we can this week, as we had planned. Our two regular weekly posts Candy In The Media, and our Candy Thing, will be out as regular.  We're also releasing a new episode of "Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!! which we recorded in advance.  The only thing that's completely off this week is Snack Facts, our Instagram feed.  We'll be back next week with new posts, and I think it's going to be food poisoning related.

We also just managed to post our new review.  It was a simple review we had on the back burner, for just such an occasion.  All I can tell you is that if you're disappointed by the late review, you're not nearly as disappointed as I was about this chocolate bar.  Click here to read why.

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This Week In Candy

It generally takes about a week for me to get home, and get sorted after a trip.  This trip to Southern Africa was particularly epic, but I still managed to get everything sorted out and it's all ready to go.  What does that mean for you?  Well to start, we're having a review-a-thon, and as you might have guessed, it's going to be all African treats we picked up on this adventure.  You can read more about the first entry into this week's review-a-thon below.  We'll also be posting a special article looking back at our adventure, and some of the cool foods we sampled going up on Thursday.

So what else has happened on our epic trip, well I got to thinking. More importantly I got to thinking about some of the projects I've been promising but not executing.  I've decided to use the month of November as the launching/testing for new projects here at Candy Critic, to see what's going to work and what won't.  On our African adventure I decided that I'm going to start producing more material, in more mediums.  On deck are the following projects:

The podcast is coming back!  Junk Fud will start again in November with a few different formats.  We'll see what works and play it by ear from there.  We'll make sure to let you all know about the new episodes on our social media, as well as on this blog.

The Periscope  show is going to be going up later this month.  The show will be called VS, and will let you vote on your favorite candy.  It'll be the ultimate contest of snack vs snack, like WWE meets Food Network.

More blog articles.  I've been writing some long format blogs about travel, food, and candy, and I'm going to start sharing them on this blog.  Some will be looks back at past food travel adventures, others will be food travel tips, some still will look at snack history and news.

Candy in the Media, and Cool Candy Things will continue, but they'll be a lot less of me yammering about them and more room for you to just enjoy the strange things we find on the internet.  Every Wednesday we'll pick out a Cool Candy Thing for you to check out and every Friday we'll randomly post a candy video, or a link to a cool candy game or website.

Finally, there has been some thought about updating the format of candycritic.org.  I'd love to do this, but frankly I don't have time to learn any new coding.  If anybody has any suggestions for upgrading the site, without me having to learn a brand new code, that would be great.

This week Snack Facts is back!!! We'll be coming to you with a new fact about a classic snack every day this week.  This week we're looking at one of the strangest candies every, cotton candy.  Sure it's a classic candy now, but cotton candy might be one of the first modern cuisine foods ever.  Every day this week we'll look at this strange treat and post a new fact on our Instagram feed.  Don't use Instagram, don't worry, we'll also post Snack Facts on our Facebook page and Twitter feed as well.

This week's new review was probably the most talked about snack that I picked up on my African adventure, Monkey Gland Sauce flavoured potato chips.  I can only assure you that no monkey was harmed in the making of these chips.  Click here to read the review of these very odd chips.

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This Week In Candy

Well we're back, and things are starting to settle down a bit in our new location (which for now we'll just call Candy Land).  I've got lots to cover on changes and upcoming Candy Critic blog things.  First of all there's a secret message in the photo above, figure it out and... well there's no prize but you can feel really good about yourself.  It will however let you know the subject of many upcoming blog posts.

Secondly, we're going to be changing a few things here on the blog.  We're going to cut down on the number of entries and focus a few things exclusively to our social media.  The "Candy News" section that we used to post on Friday is going away.  Instead we're just going to focus on posting all our news on Twitter.  We may also decide to post our news on our Facebook site as well, but we're not too sure about that yet (let us know if you have an opinion on the subject).  We're also going to combine our "Friday Candy Video" and "Classic/Creative Candy Advertising" into one post.  I'm not sure what to call it yet, but we'll post weekly about an ad/campaign/candy reference that we've come across.  This will be posted every Friday starting this week.

We're also going to announce our weekly Candy Critic review update on This Week In Candy (the very post you're reading right now), instead of giving it a solo post.

Speaking of which, this week's new review is Lay's Cinnamon Bun potato chips. Click here to read our latest review.

Finally we're going to start writing more original content and longer articles on this blog, this also includes candy related experiments as well.  The idea of these changes is to minimize the number of posts and maximize the quality of posts.  This will be an ever evolving thing, and we welcome any comments.

CC

This Week in Candy

The time has finally come, I'm leaving Greece.  I've been talking about it for weeks now, but I'm finally heading out to a new adventure.  I'll miss Greece a lot, it's been a great place to learn about sweets, and in particular to learn about ingredients.  This country respects ingredients more than any other place I've ever visited or lived.  The food here is simple for a reason, the ingredients speak for themselves.  I've found this in all the food in Greece, and I'll take this knowledge with me forever.

For the next few weeks I'll be going through a moving transition.  This will involve visiting Canada, stocking up on the latest sweet treats there, and catching up with old friends.  For Candy Critic, and this blog, that means that updates might become a little more random and things will be a little different for a little while.  I'll keep trying to post new reviews weekly, but frankly I'm not really sure what day of the week I'm going to have internet access, so they'll come up as a bit of a surprise.  On the blog we're going to stop posting the news on the blog for a little while, however we'll still be posting the news on the Twitter feed as regular.  This is also going to be the last "This Week in Candy" for a little while, but it will be replaced by a weekly look at some of my favorite Canadian candies.  We're probably going to be taking a break from "Snack Facts" as well, or at the very least they'll be more occasional, and not daily.  All of the other regular posts should be the same as usual, but now and again I may post some bonus pieces about what I'm up to on my voyage.

This transition is going to take a few weeks, but I really think things will still be really fun.  I'll be posting regular highlights from my various adventures along the way on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter, so stay tuned there.

As I said in my art show a few weeks back.  To Greece I say "so long and thanks for all the fish".

CC

New Look For Candy Critic Site!

Today we officially launched the new look for candycritic.org.  It's a lot simple to navigate (we hope) and much easier for us to update (we hope).  If it all works out we'll be adding more reviews, more often.  You may have also noticed that many of our older articles are no longer around (we're still cleaning a few up but they're pretty much all gone), don't despair!  We'll be re-publishing our favorite articles here on the blog with updates, and more interactivity in some cases.

Check out the new site and let us know what you think.

CC

This Week In Candy

Candy News -  According to the many e-mails and postings I've received in the last few weeks, it would appear that Valentines Day is coming up.  If you're a candy maker and you want me to mention your Valentines candy treat be sure to let me know.  It looks like it'll be a good year for Valentines Day treats as well since the candy industry is doing so well financially.

What's Happening At Candy Critic -  We're tirelessly trying to update www.candycritic.org with a new look and a cleaner navigation.  We hope that this new look will also be friendly for your cell phone and tablet devices as well.  As soon as the new look is up, that's not the end of the updates either.  We've decided to dedicate ourselves to going over some of the older entries and fixing up the grammar and spelling.  This is not an area where we're perfect, but I think we have improved over the last few years.  I'm also working on a new photography project that involves slices of bread covered in... well, anything.  I hope to have something on the blog soon about it, I just need to work out a few bugs first.

Rant - With the new updates the thing that's really troubling me is the old articles from www.candycritic.org.  Back before we had a blog, I used to post non-review related rants and ideas as articles on the site.  I kept them online for all these years, but frankly some of them seem outdated, and others seem kind of hidden in the background.  The thing is, once in a while people send me e-mails about particular articles and how much they've enjoyed them.  The plan is to pull them off the website and re-post most of them on the blog, do you think this is a good idea?

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New Candy Critic Site Design

For a while now, almost a year, I've been re-thinking the content and design of Candy Critic.  I realize that many people aren't really into frames anymore, and I've also realized that many of the "articles" are really out of date.  So after much thought and many design ideas, I think I've settled on this (seen above), as the new future look for Candy Critic.  It's going to take a while to migrate all the reviews into the new format, but I hope to have it done soon.

CC

Something I Learned About Updating Websites

I have a really bad habit, whenever I update my websites I do this whole "all or nothing" system. In other words I try and update the whole site all at once. Unfortunately with Candy Critic I've learned that attempting to update this huge site all at once is not really possible, particularly when you want to continue to ad new reviews. So I've decided to start updating features and portions of the site and post them online as soon as they're done. This week you'll see that the review listings are a slightly different format and a little more organized.

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This Summer At Candy Critic

Here at Candy Critic this summer we're going through a few changes and hopefully going to update, create, and even expand, on all kinds of fun candy content. Our first major change is that we've relocated ourselves into Europe, more specifically Greece. Don't worry though, we'll still be reviewing and writing about treats from all over the world. We're also going to be focusing on a few print publications which we hope to role out in the next few months, namely a calendars and books. We also have grand plans on updating the look and feel of Candy Critic and making it a little cleaner and easier to surf. None of these new changes are going to affect the blog or the site and soon we will be back to updating with a new review every week.

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A Little Break

Hey candy folks,

I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to be taking a little break from the Candy Critic blog for a few weeks. I'm off to enjoy a little summer fun before it goes away. When I get back I promise lots of big things, for example when I get back I plan on getting back onto the candy book that I was working on last summer, I also plan on the new update of candycritic.org with a brand new look. I have a few updates scheduled for the next week or so, but the news updates and such will probably be few and far between.

See you in a couple of weeks!

Out Of The Loop

I'm a little out of the loop (the internet loop that is). My access to the web is limited for the next few days but I'm going to continue to try and update this blog as much as possible. I may do come catch up posts when things settle down a bit, and a post here and there when I get the time. Come Thursday night I should be all caught up and after that (for a little while at least) things should be back to normal.

CC