Last night at the Whole Foods Market in Providence I spotted a display of cutely packaged Jo’s  Peanut Butter Crunch candies at the register. In my bag the twosome went along with my sushi dinner and Eden Soy soy milk.

The chocolate treat was my mid-morning snack. I’ve heard good things about Jo’s candy but found the overall flavor of the peanut butter lacking. The chocolate quality was good, smooth and melty, but again, was a weak tasting milk chocolate. Overall it was ok, but really lacked much flavor.

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Italian candy maker Pastiglie Leone makes a line of lozenges in a variety of flavors, including assenzio, or absinthe. The candies have a texture similar to Altoids, but are about half the size of the famous mints.

I’ve sampled several other flavors in this line, including lemon and cinnamon and the absinthe flavor is my least favorite — it’s simply too bitter. There is an anise flavor, but the range of bitter flavors overpowers any subtle sweetness. I couldn’t even finish one small candy.

The flavor is awful, but the packaging is delightful. I’m keeping an unopened box on my desk for sheer aesthetics. I truly am a sucker attractive packaging.

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I love the taste of coconut, especially drenched in chocolate, but ever since I read Steve Almond’s Candy Freak I’ve had second thoughts. The author describes coconut in Almond Joy/Mounds as though, “I feels as if I’m chewing on a sweetened cuticle.”

Yeah, that’s pretty spot-on.

But when I saw the Choxie dark chocolate coconut truffle bar I knew I needed to taste. The bar is covered in a thin layer of dark chocolate while the inside is a mix of white chocolate, coconut and toasted almonds.

Full disclosure - i don’t like white chocolate, but the taste of the coconut and the crunch of the nuts was perfectly pleasing. On the downside the Choxie chocolate is mediocre quality at best and the filling makes this a super sweet candy bar. One square is all I could eat - normally I can eat whole chocolate bars in one sitting.

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I stopped in Paper Source to pick up more blank cards and spotted the bear buble gum from Mineco at the register. It’s adorable. so i picked up a package ($1.50 for 4 pieces of gum).

I’ve tried out the grape. Perfect ‘fake’ grape flavor, just the way I like it. Though while it gets a perfect 10 in presentation, it got stale and lost all flavor in about ten minutes. Oh well, it can’t be pretty and taste good, too.

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These are currently my favorite chocolate bars — the Ritter Sport whole hazelnut bars, either in milk or dark chocolate. And they are often on sale at Target!

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The Tronky bar is made by Ferrero, the same folks that make the delightfully decadent Nutella spread.

The exterior is a light, wafer-like material that honestly, lacks much taste–perhaps there’s a faint cocoa aroma. The inside of the bar is filled with a creamy hazelnut spread with extra chunks of hazelnuts. More like a light, chocolate snack than a candy bar.

I picked mine up in Providence at Venda Ravioli. They used to have a bigger candy selection. Now I only find a few imported treats near the registers.

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I was in the grocery store in search of 50% - off Halloween candy and found these: Brach’s Sundaes Neapolitan Coconut. They looked interesting and were certainly colorful.

Overall it’s just a sweet, almost taffy-like coconut candy. There’ really no chocolate, strawberry or vanilla flavor. All you taste is super-sweet coconut. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of coconut, but prefer a less sweet filling encased in a high-quality dark chocolate.

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I took the train into Boston on Saturday to attend Podcamp Boston and on the trip home picked up some chocolates from Serenade Chocolatier in S. Station. Their flagship store is in Brookline.

The truffles are quite large and very rich. The chunky, cocoa dusted chocolate was seemingly in two layers, the super-creamy ganache interior and a harder chocolate exterior. They were tasty, but not quite worth the $2.50/piece price tag. Don’t get me wrong, handmade chocolate is tastier and more labor intensive than the candy off the store shelf, but truffles are quite easy to make by hand–no tempering required.

Perhaps that’s what I’ll bring to a party I’m attending next weekend.

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Bill Buford was a guest on On Point yesterday. His New Yorker piece on Extreme Chocolate is in the October 29 issue.

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I was first introduced to the crunchy, caramel-filled Lion Bar while spending a semester in the Netherlands back in 1994. I had been living on fries with mayo, filled almond cookies and pounds of hazelnut chocolate. It was by accident that tasted my first Lion Bar. The cafeteria was out of Nutella so I couldn’t prepare my usual dessert of chocolate spread slathered on fresh bread. In desperation I purchased a Lion Bar in order to get my chocolate fix that evening. It was an affair that continues to this day.

Luckily you can find this candy at most larger grocery chains in the import aisle. Earlier this year there were reports that Nestle would stop making Lion bar due to poor sales, though there haven’t been any updates to that story…looks like the Lion Bar lives on.

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