This year's Halloween candy, food and drinks

I'm pretty sure that this was the most varied year yet when it comes to sampling Halloween goods. There's food and drinks from Belgium, France, the UK and Japan in here. 
Om all the noms!
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I feel that this year the Halloween candy craze started on my very first day in Tokyo, where I came across DARS' TRICK OR DARS series. 
Which is, as far as I understand, just regular DARS in a Halloween packaging. Needless to say, I did approve, and without ever having tasted DARS choc, I made it a mission to find all 6 different designs.





 

All of them had essentially the same packaging design on the chocolate wrapper, just different colour. This is the front of the wrapper. 

The white chocolate tasted very vanilla-y, and whilst that was a little unusual, I also didn't mind. I quite liked it.





 

The milk chocolate doesn't taste very different from Côte d'Or milk chocolate, meaning that whilst it's not my fave, I also didn't have anything against it.





 

And the back of the wrapper. 

The dark chocolate I only took photos of because I don't much like dark chocolate. 
Bert didn't want it, so I gave it to his grandmother because dark chocolate is her fave too, and she said it was just like proper dark chocolate you can find here in Belgium. 

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I also bought a big bag of Halloween KitKat whilst I was in Tokyo. 
 You can get it in some Asian supermarkets over here, but it's always much more expensive, and I wasn't about to shell out a mark-up on it at a place like Sun-Wah. 
To be honest, I only bought this because I was having a Halloween party on the 29th of October. 
 I didn't actually expect much from it, and I thought pudding (caramel pudding actually, kindly translated by my friend Marie) was an odd choice for Halloween, but these turned out to be really good! 
 One of the best Halloween candies I tried this year, actually. 

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Fortnum and Mason Halloween goodness thanks to Charlotte! 
Thank you again Charlotte! 
Because there was so much, I decided to share with my friends at my Halloween party. All of this stuff looks amazing. 
Stick with me to find out whether they tasted amazing.

 

Chocolate skull squares 
Well, they looked amazing. 
Claire even used one as a photo prop before she ate it. 
The issue was, all our other chocolate treats were Belgian chocolate. 
This is vastly inferior British chocolate. 
Meaning only Marie, who is used to Japanese chocolate (which is rubbish) liked them. 
I feel really bad about this because they were a gift, but hey, photographic uses right? 

 

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Chocolate coated pretzels 
I wasn't too keen on these, because I didn't like the combination of the salty pretzel with the far too sweet British chocolate. 
Claire, Bert and Marie did really like this combo though, and they ate the lot of them. 

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Orange pumpkin Halloween rock candy 
These were just nice citrussy hard candies that were Halloween themed. 
Nothing special, but nothing bad either, so thumbs up I guess :). 
They made for a nice change from all the crisps and chocolates. 

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Voodoo Men 
Charlotte got these last year, and then forgot to send them to me. 
In theory these were expired, but I had a look at the ingredients and decided to try one. 
Ok admittedly, I first put them past the cat, because if something is expired you can be assured Loa will NOT touch it. And he was all “om nom nom” so I gave one a go and I would have to agree with him. 
These are just nice sugar cookies with a hint of lemon flavour to them. 
I really liked these a lot, they were definitely my favourites from the F&M lot! And they looked hella cute too! 
Actually everyone that tried these liked them, so 'nuff said really.
No link for these as they weren't selling them this year.

 

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Tokyo Disney Sea – Duffy and friends Halloween candy 
I bought it for the tin, I am not even joking. The chocolates inside were a mixed well, tin I suppose (sorry, bad pun is bad). 
The milk ones were really nice, just like regular milk chocolate you get here in Belgium, so no complaints there. 
The strawberry chocolates I wasn't fond off, but whilst I like strawberries, I don't much like strawberry chocolate. 
So I think it was more a personal dislike than an issue with the candy.

 

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HEMA was surprisingly good this year. 
Not just with the snacks, but also the decorations (as you can tell from my October favourites). 

HEMA – Spooky Chips is something I'm fairly certain is made at the Croky factory. 

 

They looked the same as the Croky Creepies, they tasted the same, only the packaging is different. 
Not really worth paying more at HEMA, even though the packaging is cute. I forgot to take a photo of the bag, but it's in the same style as their other Halloween candy, with a bat on the front of the bag.

 

I did get a bag of those other “Halloween” themed chips/crisps: Monster Munch. 
I say “Halloween”, because like Creepies, these are available all year 'round (but for some reason there were no Creepies to be found anymore halfway through September). 
I only buy them once a year for Halloween because they're owned by a Monsanto subsidiary and I avoid funding Monsanto as much as possible. But yeah, they taste nicer than Creepies so there you go.

 

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Back to the HEMA noms!

 

 The Spooky Chips weren't the only things from HEMA's Halloween range this year, they also had Spooky Chocolate (which sold out in a matter of days on the website) and Spooky Marshmallows. 

The chocolate was fine, it was just milk chocolate balls in a pumpkin wrapper, which is cute and good for a Halloween party or to hand out to trick or treaters (which we don't get) for sure, but nothing special.

 

The marshmallows, however, were really good! 
Not only did they come in cute Halloween shapes such as Jack o' Lanterns and ghosts, they also had a bit of filling which was a really nice touch. 
Of course, the were full of sugar and colouring so it's probably for the best they're not the kind of thing you eat all year round. 
But flavour wise: A+. 
Together with the KitKats and the Voodoo doll cookies, these were my fave candy this year! 

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Panos – Halloween donut 
I will be totally honest, 
I bought this donut, put it in the fridge when I got home to eat it later that day (together with an eclair I had bought for Bert) and then forgot about them and discovered them the next day. 
So this wasn't as fresh as it could have been. 
That said, I have had other donuts in the past that had been in the fridge overnight, and this just tasted like every other very bland supermarket donut. It's not bad, but it's far from amazing at the same time. If you're at Panos and want a donut, their pink “Simpsons” ones aren't amazing either, but they taste better than these in any case. 

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Pumpkin soup is a staple. I love Bert's homemade pumpkin soup! It's just butternut pumpkin, some garlic and alphabet letter pasta for soup but it is sooooooooooooooo GOOD! I have no idea why I don't have a photo though, but that's ok, you all know what soup looks like :P. 

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Starbucks pumpkin scone. 
It's a Japanese Halloween season treat, which means I was lucky enough to be able to eat it whilst I was in Tokyo. 
And unlike most other foods I devoured whilst in Tokyo, I actually had the sense to photograph this before I nommed it.
It was a bit dry, more so than a regular scone (it might just have been a bit dried out because it was a mega hot day when I had it), but overal I did really like the pumpkin flavouring of the scone. 
It's a good thing that there's pumpkin seeds and a pumpkin cream on top of it though, else it would have been way too dry. That said, I would have it again, because inspite of the dryness I did like it. 

 

I had it with a macha frappucino, because I was in Tokyo and I saw my chance for one of these wonderous drinks. I think the Netherlands have them too now, but Belgium is not so lucky. 
So I did not combine it with the ultimate Halloween drink: Pumpkin Spice Latte or Pumpkin Spice Frappucino and I have no regrets. 
I had a couple of each in Belgium and France whilst they lasted though, which was something at least. 



 

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Halloween orange squash I had in Tokyo by Sangaria. 
The bottle was hella cute though! It even has a little maze game on it and everything. I found it at one of the NewDays konbini in Shinjuku station. It didn't particularly taste special, if you've ever been to the UK and bought orange squash, that's pretty much how it tasted. A nice orange squash though, one that actually tastes like fruit and not sugarcubes with some watered down orange juice. Would totally get this again if I could! 

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Let's end with the devil 
Because let's be honest, Monsanto is the devil (they own the Coca-Cola company). 
Normally I wouldn't buy anything from them, but I am weak and without honour, clearly! So I caved on this Halloween limited edition apple cherry flavoured Fanta. 
There was also specially packaged Fanta Orange and Fanta Exotic, but thankfully I wasn't quite THAT far gone. 
Anyhow... 
The fact that this vampire Fanta, which is supposedly apple and cherry flavoured, tastes just like French cherry coke worries me. 
Then again, this teaches me for drinking Monsanto juice, lord knows how much glyphosate I drank with this XD. 
I really have to get better at resisting these evil multinationals and their Halloween stuff. MUST RESIST FROM NOW ON! (we all know that come next year, I will fail all over again). 
Also, this smells really dubiously chemically, which never bodes well, I can't believe I drank this stuff! 
This really was this year's Halloween fail when it comes to food and drink O_o.
Whilst I might (hopefully not) cave on another Monsanto beverage next year, it certainly won't be this one! 

 

It needs to be said that Halloween is probably the one time a year where I make an exception to buying Monsanto goods. 
Usually I am pretty firm and steadfast in my boycott of that most foul and evil of companies, but during the Halloween season, well, I cave. 
I'm only human. 
And I want Halloween candy and drinks. 

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