July 27th: Galaxy Jewels Assorted Chocolates (UAE Arabic Mix)

My adventures with UAE sourced chocolates commenced forth furthermore this week with me finally completing a long term reader request in the form of these Galaxy Jewels Assortment. This review was made possible by ChocolateMission friend Fiona, who is currently an expat residing in the UAE.

The Galaxy Jewels typically constitutes a chocolate selection containing ten different chocolate varieties. This special Arabic Mix being reviewed today was a current limited edition offering that contained some never seen before flavours. Presentation wise I thought the package was very good looking, and I was impressed with both the packaging and chocolates themselves, which were held within individual foil wrappers. Contained within the plastic box a handy menu was included that allowed easy identification of the five different variants. As ever I have given ratings and my thoughts to each of them below using my usual scale of Awful-to-Superb.

Milk Chocolate - My thoughts on the quality of the UAE Galaxy milk chocolate were given in full in my last UAE chocolate superpost (See HERE). Not to my surprise, the quality from that selection, and this Jewels Assortment held consistent, with the milk chocolate here suffering once again from the enhanced levels of hydrogenated palm oil. This once again hampered the creamy flavours and typical Galaxy soft mouth feel across the different flavours. Poor.

Mixed Nuts - This blue wrapped offering far exceeded expectations with the three nut laced blocks made all the better in both taste and texture. Flavour wise the saltiness of the pistachios and woody hazelnuts gave the taste an extra dimension. Alongside this taste progression, the small sized nut particles also disrupted the waxy feel of the melting chocolate which was also a big positive. Good.

Coffee Caramel - This was another piece that was very positively influenced by a supplementary filling and I was again left relatively impressed. It was obviously quite a positive thing that the caramel took up a large proportion of the chocolate, thus detracting attention from it's poorness. The caramel inside was neither amazingly buttery or salt enhanced like the best caramels of this world, however the coffee note was surprisingly strong and had good cut through in the taste. Good.

Semsemah - This was always going to be one of the more interesting flavours and comprised of a milk chocolate heart shell containing a sesame flavoured praline centre. As you expect the outer portion melted with the same slimy mouth fell, though the praline at least had a little more grip to it texture wise. In terms of flavours the sesame element created a lovely buttery, cream nut taste that to me came across as mixture of almonds and chestnuts. This chocolate was good enough to make me want to try out some more sesame enhanced offerings. Good.

Qamardeen - What on earth is Qamardeen!? My brief amount of research shows that it is a hotel in the UAE - apart from that I'm totally oblivious!? What I can tell you about is what this chocolate constituted of, which was milk chocolate with a slightly fruity tasting caramel centre. If I had to guess the fruit I would hazard a guess at it being something along the lines of dates, as the fruitiness had a poignant sugaryness to it. This caramel wasn't as good as the coffee, but the chocolate was still all the better for it. Standard.

Overall this selection has showcased that even poor quality chocolate can be masked by some fair standard additional flavoured centres. I will save you me babbling on about the standard of the milk chocolate again, but it really is worth making the point that it is highly effected by the supplementary fats content. Hopefully that will give you some perspective in to how good some of these fillings were - the sesame praline, coffee caramel and mixed nuts especially standing out as unique and great tasting variations. Having tasted this limited edition Arabic Mix I'm now even more curious to see what the original selection has to offer with it's ten different flavours. If you come across this Arabic Mix I would suggest it as a highly superior option to many of the original Galaxy UAE offerings. This isn't chocolate in any sort of grand form, but if your a UAE citizen I would say they are at least worthy of your consideration - they are better than anything else I have experienced from this area.

7.3 out of 10