January 19th: Meiji Chip! Chop

Original Chocolate - Kcal 361 Fat 18.8g Carbs 43.2g (per 65.0g)
Roasted Nut - Kcal 324 Fat 15.4g Carbs 41.9g (per 65.0g)

It may be a new year, but the usual suspects are still supplying the samples for this ChocolateMission! Yes indeed you may have been able to guess that these Meiji Chip! Chop were another product sent to me by J-List - a Japanese goods exporter who have been sending me the latest Kit Kat, Pocky and Meiji products for a good while now (See HERE).

On their website, J-List describe the product in focus today, Meiji Chip! Chop, as 'triangle chip cereal shapes filled with chocolate'. This sounded like a fair premise to me, and I was even lucky enough to try out two different variants - 'Original Chocolate' & 'Roasted Nut'. Before I tell you about both of them, I must quickly pass mention to the quality of the presentation for the range. Both 120.0g boxes were well decorated with typically colourful looking decorative pictures and fonts. The cereal triangle pieces were contained within foil packs, which kept a nice fresh state even after being opened for a few days. The aesthetic appeal of either variant wasn't great, but it was at least nice to see a thin layer of chocolate nestled in the middle of each piece.

Being the adaptable product they were I tried both of these flavours in a number of different situations - dry on their own, on top of ice-cream and as part of my usual wheat flake cereal. Out of all three of these methods, I thought the latter two were the were where they shined best. A few pieces supplementing my cereal in the mornings certainly livened my usually dull mornings nicely. When it came to the two variants I tried the, 'Roasted Nut' flavour (silver packaged ones) were my favourite and were the ones I finished before the plain originals. The reason for my preference was quite simply because they offered everything the plain variant did, just with an additional minor flavour note of woody hazelnut. This supplementary hazelnut note complimented the existing sweet and salty wheaty chocolate flavours very well. Another thing that I really liked about these Chip! Chop was how the thin inner chocolate filling layers managed to register some moistness without compromising the crisp cereal texture - they were exactly as displayed on the packaging.

Overall when eaten on their own these weren't life changing, but as additional accompaniment to other foods they were a nice little product that I enjoyed across a variety of different situations. Whether they be eaten as a normal cereal, or used to top other desserts, I think these are a decent little product - they are certainly a lot nicer than some of the poorer chocolate cereal products that we have to put up with here in the UK. As aforementioned, my favourite out of the two flavours were the 'Roasted Nut' Chip! Chop - whether you like nuts or not will obviously determine where your own preferences lie. In regards to a recommendation, I wouldn't suggest you go to the expense of importing these especially just to try themselves, but if you are looking for a tasty little product to top up an existing order I would suggest them as a pretty nifty option.

Original Chocolate - 7.4 out of 10
Roasted Nut - 7.6 out of 10