How Much Do You Love McDonald's Hash Browns?

As usual, while on vacation I find myself often eating fast food.  It's not that I have anything against the stuff from a health point of view, I just find myself wondering why I go to fast food restaurants when I'm visiting a place like Vienna with a great selection of restaurants all over the place.  In this case it has more to do with the fact that breakfast at my hotel is 15 Euros each day and frankly I'm not willing to pay that kind of dough for a slice of toast and some eggs.  So McDonald's has been the breakfast of choice for most mornings on this trip.  It's been pretty tasty as well, not to mention the fine German greeting I get every morning on the top of my box.

I can't say I was suffering with this fast food breakfast.  In fact the McDonald's hash brown is easily one of my favorite fast food staples.  Even cooler, here in Vienna, they call the hash browns "Rosti".  So every single morning I got to walk up to a nice lady working at the local  McDonald's and ask her for a "Rosti on the side".  I'm convinced she had no  idea what "on the side" meant because her English was almost non-existent, but it got the point across.

To make things even better, in Austria, they offer a breakfast sandwich that has a "Rosti" inside it.  It comes with tomato, lettuce, cheese, some kind of mustard/mayonnaise, a slice of sausage, and a rosti.  While I  wasn't a big fan of the sauce, the rosti fit in really well.  If this idea has not taken off in other parts of the world, I recommend you take matters into your own hands and try it yourself.

As a side note, Allison ordered an Apple Juice one morning and when she tried it out, it was carbonated.  The orange juice I drank regularly was normal, but the apple juice was carbonated.  Is this some kind of Austrian thing?

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Thursday's Candy Links

Hostess is filing for bankruptcy... again in only a few years.  Have people stopped eating Twinkies?

Is M&Ms changing the colour combination for their plain a peanut M&Ms?  It looks like something is up.

Joan Collins is the new face of Snickers, I guess Mr T didn't cut it.

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It's Meat in a Tube, Vienna Style

If I had to pick one style of food that is the most popular in all of Vienna I'd have to say that it would be grinding up meat and stuffing it into a tube.  Just about every restaurant offers some kind of sausage or wiener.  You don't even have to go into a restaurant to get your "link on" either, there are vendors at just about every corner with selections of tubed meat just waiting to be taste tested.

Most traditional of all tubed meats is the sausage.  It comes in many varieties from the Brautwurst to the Wiener (just an added note Vienna in German is Wien).  In most cases you don't often find these sausages inbetween two buns.  Instead you'll often recieve your sausage whole or chopped up with a slice of  bread and some sauces on a plate.  It's a pretty good way to enjoy the stuff meat tube, but it makes it hard to eat on the go.  Fortunately even the hot dog stands have tables set up so you can eat there comfortably.

The sauces,  for  the most part are fairly simple.   Most common is mustard, and most often this mustard is a spicy mustard that isn't really that hot, but it's a lot stronger than the cheap yellow stuff from grocery stores.  The second most popular sauce is ketchup, although I'm convinced it's just offered to tourists that might be afraid of the mustard.  Most of the time the mustard comes from a tap or pump while the ketchup is offered in sealed packages.  This tells me that it's really not the prefered way to eat your meat tube.

The worst (or wurst if you want to be funny) way I found tube meats available was in a vending machine in a train station.  While I am a big fan of vending machines, and I would even eat a hot dog from a vending machine, in this case I wouldn't even touch it.  This is mostly because it was in one of those corkscrew vending machines next to chocolate bars and chips.  It had no refrigeration and in fact had direct sunlight shinning on it.  While I could have been brave and attempted this treat, I'm concerned it might have had adverse affects on the rest of  my vacation.

As I mentioned yesterday, if you want to combine your love of candy and a meat tubes it's not a problem.  These very realistic wieners are actually made of marzipan, and as far as I know contain no meat at all, that's gotta be pretty good for all of you vegetarians out there.

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Wednesday's Candy Links

I so want one of the candy dispensers of the future, it's got a motion sensor so if you're too lazy to hit a bar or turn a knob you can still have candy.

Portion control is the best way to keep eating treats, but not gain weight or health problems, fortunately if you live in New York you have many option in the "smaller treat" category.

No more caffeine in Massachusetts schools, I fear those kids who wait till the last minute and pull all nighters will suffer.

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Stuff I Want To Try

Fruity Hearts - Made by: Surf Sweets - Why: Isn't Valentines Day coming up? - Click here to learn more about this treat.

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Marzipan in Vienna

Marzipan is one of the most flexible candy products in the world when it comes to shape and colour.  Although it's not clear as to origins of marzipan, the fact is, many countries have latched onto this amazing almond paste and use it in many ways.  Austria is no exception, and you can find the stuff in just about every single sweet shop, cafe, and bakery.

In many cases marzipan is used in a relatively standard way.  You can find it in the center of the famous Mozart chocolates, inside many sweet treats, and it's also used to decorate treats and cakes with spectacular results.

The good thing is, the sweet makers don't stop there.  One of my favorite uses of marzipan that I saw all over Vienna,  is it being used  to make other foods.  Or at the very least when it's molded and coloured to look like other food.  Often the results are pretty fantastic, and even though I'm not a huge marzipan fan my mouth waters.

This being Vienna (one of the sausage/hot dog capitals of the world), you're bound to find marzipan decorated like the many varieties of tubed meat available. Although this looks spectacular as a piece of art, I'm not sure if it makes my mouth water like some of the other shapes available.  For the most part I like many types of sausages and wieners, but frankly I find them to look kind of unappetizing.

This also being Europe, you're bound to find marzipan in many erotic shapes as well.  As with the marzipan sausage, although I have to give them credit for the artistic merit of the treat, the idea of consuming small boobs isn't really that appealing... I wonder if that last sentence is  going to increase the traffic to this blog?

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It's National Bittersweet Chocolate Day

Bittersweet chocolate is not only the best chocolate for baking, but it is also the best analogy for winning something with a great loss.

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Tuesday's Candy Links

Yesterday Dr. Mike Lustgarten sent me this article with a little more information about why cocoa might not be that healthy.

A good explanation as to why pink lemonade is pink, I figure it's relevant since so many candies use it as a flavour.

I think I may have posted about this "non-melting chocolate" before, but just in case I didn't... or if you missed it.

A information about a kitchen counter top cotton candy machine, I'm not sure if I'm even a big enough fan of the stuff to buy this thing.

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Mozart's Chocolates

All over Vienna, and apparently all over Austria there are chocolate companies selling chocolate balls filled with marzipan with the name and image of Mozart all over them.  My knowledge of Mozart is fairly limited, all I know is  he wrote lots of great music, and he had a tendency to over-endulge in food, women, and gambling.  So when I saw these chocolates I wondered if maybe the treat is based on a chocolate that was popular during Mozart's time.  Maybe it was even a treat that he enjoyed himself.

As it turns out the use of Mozart is simply a marketing stunt, a very old marketing stunt, but just a marketing stunt.  The chocolate were developed more than a hundred years after Mozart's death and there is no evidence of any treat like this existing when he was alive.  In fact the technique for making the origionals (they are said to be  perfectly round with no flat edges) probably didn't exist while he was alive.

It's interesting, how marketing a candy with a popular musician is not something new.  Mozart was very much the popular musician of his day, and he continues to be popular.  Even merchandise created more than 100 years ago that used his name and likeness continues to sell well, mostly because it uses his name and likeness.  It just makes you wonder if our great grandchildren will  be eating Cherry Garcia ice cream and telling tales of a the great minstrel of days of yore.

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Monday's Candy Links

You know how I always go on about the health benefits of chocolate... well the science still isn't 100% yet.

"PepsiCo Claims Mountain Dew Will Disintegrate a Mouse Carcass" is information I always hoped I'd never need.

Mental Floss has a great list of places you can eat today where famous foods were invented, included is the birthplace of the fried Twinkie, and the root beer float.

Natural Vines is giving away a whole bunch of prizes including 10 grand on a Visa card, good candy and free stuff is always good.

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The Holidays Are Over, Back To The Reviews

With my holiday vacation and my post holiday flu, I haven't been very good at updating Candy Critic with new reviews lately.  But I'm back and I can't see any reason why I won't continue to review regularly now.  In fact, I'm thinking of having a Viennese candy Review-A-Thon next week to make up for lost time.

Click here to read today's new review.

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What Is This In My Salad?

While dinning out in Vienna I ordered a tomato and cheese salad and it came with the strangest side pickles (?) I'd ever seen.  I couldn't for the life of me figure out exactly what they are.  The flavour was very sour, both in the fruity sense and in the pickled sense.

The texture was the strangest part of all.  The outside is kind of like a hot pepper while the middle is filled with crunchy seeds.  It was almost like eating a hot pepper with no heat at all.  The only thing I could think that it might be would be pickled goose berries, but I'm not sure.

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Friday Candy Video - Yellow M&M Abuse

The first time I saw this commercial I thought it was kind of funny.  Then I thought about it a little bit, and now I think it's just mean.  What do you think?

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Friday's Candy Links

Check out Boing Boing's "Chocolate hat of the day", if only this was a daily occurrence.

Toothpaste made from cocoa extract?  By that science I can eat a chocolate bar for brighter and whiter teeth... right?

Still got a some New Years Champagne left over?  Why not make marshmallows... yup, you heard me.

New Hamburger from Quick burger could be the greatest Star Wars tie in ever, the Dark Vador bun is black.

37 thousand dollars worth of gum stolen, I'm really curious, what does 37 grand worth of gum look like?

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Classic/Creative Candy Advertising - Just Bite It Already!

Do you know what bothers me about candy advertising, the fake bite.  I hate it when you know for a fact that the person eating the treat in the advertisement didn't bite down at all.  You know the minute they took the picture this kid pulled the bar out of his mouth without much more than a few teeth marks in it.

Ad found on Vintage Ad Browser

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Manner Store In Vienna

If you're unfamiliar with Manner, it's an Austrian candy company most well known for a chocolate wafer bar.  While you may have never tried a Manner wafer bar, the company has one very famous devoted fan, Arnold Schwarzenegger.  He apparently loves these treats so much that he tries to include them in his movies, you can see this if you check out some of the candy shelves in the Terminator movies.

While not hugely popular all over the world, in Austria they're a really big deal.  In fact Manner has stores all over the city of Vienna, and I imagine they have more throughout all of Austria.  The stores are clad in pink, and sell all kinds of treats.  The wafer bar is the main treat available, in about as many sizes and quantities as you could imagine, but they also have other sweet delicacies available.  I'm not sure if all of the other treats are made by Manner, but all of them appear to be made in Austria.

They also have a whole bunch of merchandise for those of you who either love the bar, or fall in love with the bar.   They had everything from pink jackets, nail clippers, pins, and my personal favorite these pink golf balls.

Best of all, if you go out to the main square (near the store I visited), one of the many horse drawn carts ready to tour tourists around the city is painted up with the Manner logo and Manner colours.  Man these Austrians really like these pink clad wafer bars.

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Thursday's Candy Links

Here's a quick look at the candy industry in Vietnam, I'd love to do a Vietnamese candy review-a-thon in the future.

Tostitos has a new mascot, it's a bag of talking Tostitos, I'm still not sure how I feel about spokes people being the thing you eat.

Cybele from the candy blog just got back from Germany, it sounds like she had a really good time and saw a lot of great sweet treats.

Cybele also checked out the Ritter Sport factory on her adventure.

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Stuff I Want To Try

New Norman Love Confections - Made by: Norman Love Confections - Why: It's always great to try a new treat by an expert chocolatier. - Click here to learn more about this treat.

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Vienna Christmas Markets Part 3 - Hanging Food From Your Tree

On my recent trip to Vienna I got to experience what the Christmas capital of Europe (and maybe the world) had to offer. The holiday is a big deal in Vienna and everything is focused around dozens of holiday markets spread all over the city.  Well as you can imagine these markets are full of sweet treats and Christmas surprises.  For the next few days I'm going to highlight these sweet treats and maybe even convince you to make your way to Vienna next year for Christmas.

One of the strangest things I found in the Vienna Christmas markets, was the abundance of food themed Christmas ornaments.  Throughout the market the two things you'll find most for sale are foods and Christmas ornaments.  Some creative ornament makers have decided that it might be a good idea to mix these two ideas together.

While many of the food related ornaments were in fact based on Christmas candy, I found some that really boggled my mind.  I'm not sure if it's a tradition anywhere to adorn your tree with cheese, but if it is, I'd like to visit this place.

Why not decorate your tree with your favorite condiment?  While I really liked these shiny bottles, I think it would have been much cooler if they were filled with mayo and mustard.  Imagine enjoying your after Christmas turkey sandwich and walking up to the tree only to decorate your sandwich from one of the ornaments.  I think the only problem with that might be the lack of refrigeration.

The other popular trend in Vienna seems to be decorating your tree with chocolate treats.  Many candy makers displayed wonderful looking chocolates covered in shinny wrappers ready to be hung.  If you want to take a break from the traditional candy canes, but still want something edible on your tree, this could be the treat for you next year.

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Wednesday's Candy Links

Here's a look at why nostalgic candy continues to be so popular.

Want to visit the Pez head office in Connecticut? Make sure to check out their new visitors center.

Why does Roger Ebert think that movie revenues are going down into the dumps?  Number 4 is one I'll agree with 100%

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Vienna Christmas Markets Part 2 - Just Sweet Treats

On my recent trip to Vienna I got to experience what the Christmas capital of Europe (and maybe the world) had to offer. The holiday is a big deal in Vienna and everything is focused around dozens of holiday markets spread all over the city.  Well as you can imagine these markets are full of sweet treats and Christmas surprises.  For the next few days I'm going to highlight these sweet treats and maybe even convince you to make your way to Vienna next year for Christmas.

Yesterday I talked all about the baked goods available in the Vienna Christmas markets, today it's all about the candy.  You may ask yourself why I'd wait till day 2 of my Vienna Christmas market blogs to focus on the candy, considering this is a candy blog.  The reason is because I had to do the taste testing.  I wanted to pick out the most unique treat to write about in this blog entry and it took me a while to pick it out.

While there are many great treats available in the Vienna Christmas markets, these strange cones really peeked my interest.  For the most part it's because I had no idea exactly what they were.  I saw a few people walking around with them, and it was mostly just young kids and older folks.  When I saw other people eating these cones, I got the impression that they're filled with marshmallow.  The thing is, it looked like really soft marshmallow and not like the store bought stuff you get for roasting.

After looking around for the best looking selection, I picked one up for myself.  It was ridiculously light.  In fact, it was so light I was doubting the idea that it was filled with marshmallow.  If it was, it had to be a super light very airy marshmallow.

One bite into this cone and I realized that it wasn't marshmallow at all, it was meringue.  This was a really pleasant surprise for me because I'm not a big marshmallow fan, but I love meringue.  This meringue was a little thicker than most meringues I'm used to, but it was still very pleasant.  This treat is a great way to enjoy a texture and flavour similar to that of ice cream, without the cold.

Best of all it was filled all the way to the bottom.  I have to admit that near the end I was getting a little sick of the overly sweet flavour, but I persevered and really enjoyed it.  While it was really tasty, I wonder if it could be improved with a little bit of flavoring.  I'd be interested in trying a chocolate version of this, or even a fruity flavour.

While I enjoyed my meringue cone, Allison decided that she would go for some chocolate covered fruit.  She decided to go for some chocolate covered grapes, because frankly it's not something you really see chocolate covered too often.

The juicy grapes worked really well with the smooth chocolate (I say this because she let me sample one).  The flavour of the grapes worked well with the chocolate as well, which was surprising because I always thought that grapes had a really mild flavour compared to chocolate.  The only disappointment for me was the fact that the grapes had seeds in them.  I think a seedless variety would have work much better.  The market had other varieties of chocolate covered fruit including strawberries, raspberries, and mangoes.

The Christmas markets of Vienna are really full of sweet treats.  Most of the treats aren't that strange and not a single one was anything that would be shocking to a North American pallet.  While we managed to find a few really creative treats, most are fairly simple.  This isn't a bad thing, because these simple treats are all made fresh and with really high quality ingredients, so they taste great.

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Tuesday's Candy Links

A great article about the kind of chocolate available in Brussels.

A look at healthy foods for 2012, including chocolate.

Peanut butter prices have been going up, and it looks like it'll keep going up for a little while.

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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.

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Vienna Christmas Markets Part 1 - Baked Sweets

On my recent trip to Vienna I got to experience what the Christmas capital of Europe (and maybe the world) had to offer. The holiday is a big deal in Vienna and everything is focused around dozens of holiday markets spread all over the city.  Well as you can imagine these markets are full of sweet treats and Christmas surprises.  For the next few days I'm going to highlight these sweet treats and maybe even convince you to make your way to Vienna next year for Christmas.

Baked goods are probably the most popular non-alcoholic non-sausage food you'll find in the Christmas markets of Vienna.  Everything from cookies, to breads, to donuts are available.  I imagine (because I don't live here) that some of these treats are made only for this time of year.  I know that most of these treats taste as good as they look

One of the most fascinating baked treat available at most of the markets is a cake like treat called Baumkuchen.  I've encountered Baumkuchen, in Japan, but here at the Vienna Christmas markets it's a totally different type of baked treat.  The Baumkuchen in japan is a round cake made up of many thin layers of cake wrapped around a pole and cooked in on a spit.

The Baumkuchen in Vienna doesn't seem to be made up of as many layers and is more like a twisted rolled out dough that is wrapped around a wider spit.  It's like a cinamon bun only instead of being wrapped up on itself, it's thiner and wrapped around a pole.  It also is generally served in a similar way to cinamon buns with icing, cinamon and sometimes, flavours like chocolate and vanilla.

One of the most common baked treat I found at the markets was these round cakes that apear to be filled with meringue.  Meringue, is a really common ingredient in many of the treats found in the Vienna markets.  These cakes came in a huge assortment of sizes as well, from these small ones that are no more than an inch and a half tall...

To these enormous ones that are more than 6 inches tall and two feet long.  I wonder if I could eat a whole  one of these in one sitting.

I came across one cookie vendor that turned the art of icing cookies, into a fine art.  The amount of detail in this decoration is like nothing I've ever seen before in my whole life.

Although they're fairly expensive, for cookies, for a piece of art I think it's really reasonable.  I guess the only problem is,  as a piece of art it will only last so long.  Either it'll go bad, or you'll  get so hungry looking at it and you'll gobble it up.

One of the most comon cookies found at the Vienna Christmas Markets is the gingerbread cookie.  A common way to present them is in a heart shape, with a string through it.  The idea is to give it as a gift to a love interest and she'll wear it around her neck.  The message on this one made me chuckle a bit,  I wonder what it means in English?

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How I Spent Christmas This Year

Since 1249 Vienna has been celebrating the holiday seasons with their impressive markets and holiday festivities.  Today some consider it to be the Christmas capital of Europe, and maybe even the world.  Since Allison and I live only a few hours flight away we thought that we might partake in these festivities and enjoy a Christmas holidays in Vienna.

You can be sure that over our holidays we came across many interesting treats and sweets.  And you can also bet that I'm going to post many an entry on the subject over the next few weeks.

But there's more to Vienna than the sweet treats, Vienna has all kinds of amazing foods to choose from, and I'm going to mention a few of them as well.

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Monday's Candy Links

Chocolate bars are evolving now that Cadbury is designing bars that can stand upright.

What better way to end off the holiday season than a video of a really creepy, unappetizing, transforming gingerbread house.

I'm not sure if the writer of this article realizes that there are vending machines all over Japan, so making them hotspots for wifi is not a marketing scheme, but good wifi science.

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