Mouth chocolate-covered deliciousness gift bag

For Christmas/Hanukkah, the fabulously talented Mallory Kasdan (author of Ella) gave me a gift bag of chocolate-covered things manufactured in Brooklyn from Mouth, which sells indie, small-batch, artisanal foods.

Basically, I want to eat every single thing that Mouth sells, and ideally nothing else--if it were possible to thrive on artisanal pickles and mayonnaise and chocolate bars alone, that is what I would do.

I have now eaten every last item in my chocolate-covered gift bag. Here are my bottom-line responses to each item:



Nunu Chocolates, chocolate-covered grahams: Loved these. Crisp, chocolatey, sea salt sprinkled on top. More, please.



Nunu Chocolates, hokey pokey: This was okay, but the texture doesn't do it for me. It's chocolate-covered honeycomb, and it gets stuck in your molars. If you like honeycomb, though, this is a good choice.



Tumbador, corn nut dragee: Another good salty-sweet combo, but I liked this less than the Nunu Chocolates graham crackers, again because these got caught in my molars, and also sometimes they had a weird soapy taste.



Jacques Torres, chocolate-covered corn flake clusters: These were awesome. Crunchy, chocolatey, all the appeal of chocolate-covered pretzels only more interesting.



Roni-Sue's chocolate-dipped pretzels: These misled me. You know I love chocolate-dipped pretzels, and these looked so beautiful. The chocolate part was good. But the pretzel they chose to dip was texturally just wrong.



Tumbador, hazelnut dragee: Delightful.These were even better than the other Tumbador item, because unlike the corn nuts, these did not get stuck in your molars.

BOTTOM LINE: If I could receive this gift bag in the mail every couple months for the rest of my life, I would be happy. Also, go look at Mouth's website. They offer a lot more items than these. A lot of Brooklyn things worth eating.

Rescue Chocolate "Fosteriffic Peppermint" 66%

We have already reviewed Rescue Chocolate -- positively.  We noted it was made by Tumbador, which we like.  So one might make the naive assumption that the peppermint-flavored Rescue Chocolate would remind one of the Tumbador version.

And you know what?  Sometimes naive assumptions are accurate.  I didn't do a side-by-side comparison, but this definitely reminded me of Tumbador's delicious peppermint bar.

Bottom Line: Tumbador.  Which is a good thing.

Treehaus: Featuring Nunu, Mast Brothers, and Tumbador (among others)

Manhattan Espresso Cafe was around the corner from my previous job, and they sold all sorts of secondary market deliciousnesses.  My current go-to is Treehaus.  Aside from baked goods and other great things, they sell chocolates by Nunu, Mast, and Tumbador:

I bought some Nunu chocolate-covered graham crackers.  They were good.  As described.  They didn't blow me away.

From Mast, I bought a black truffle sea salt bar.  Like with Nunu, I thought it was very good, but I didn't really get the hype.  Everyone with whom I shared it, though, did get the hype.  It was a bit salty and fruity for me.

Surprisingly, the winner for me was the Tumbador Mint Crunch, with nibs.  This is obvious, because I ate it too quickly to get a picture of the bar itself.  Readers will know Leila and my fondness for mint and nibs, so this might not be surprising.  It might not be the best mint bar in NYC, but it's yet another darn good version.

Bottom Line: This isn't even scratching the surface of Treehaus' sweet offerings, to say nothing of their savories.