Russ and Daughters

Russ & Daughters is a famous Lower East Side provider of bagels, cream cheese, smoked (and non-smoked) fish, and other such delicious brunch essentials.  Unbeknownst to most, it also sells chocolate.

It sells bon bons:

It doesn't take them that seriously.  They don't make them themselves, and the people who worked their did not know where they got them.  But they were totally serviceable.  They sell chocolate covered pretzels:

... which are honestly pretty hard to mess up.  But the star is this:

Chocolate bagel bread pudding.  Like regular bread pudding, but with bagels instead of bread.  And chocolate chips.

At first bite, you'll be like, "This isn't chocolatey enough.  But I better have another bite."  At second bite you'll be like, "This still isn't chocolatey enough, but I'll have another couple bites."  And pretty soon you are just shoveling it into your mouth like you have not seen food in six weeks.

Bottom Line: This isn't chocolatey enough, but I'll take a dozen.

Trader Joe's chocolate-covered peanut butter pretzels

Chocolate-covered peanut butter pretzels are the greatest thing Trader Joe's has ever done. Possibly, they are the greatest thing anyone has ever done, at least at a $3.29 price point. They are exactly the right size, exactly the right mixture of salty and sweet, exactly the right chocolate to peanut butter to pretzel ratio, and exactly the right amount of crispiness. Whenever I bite into one of these, I think to myself, "The world can't be all bad, after all."



BOTTOM LINE: An anytime snack that will fill you with optimism, joy, and peanut butter.

Asher's Dark Chocolate Smothered Pretzels

Tonight I watched the Vampire Diaries season premiere with a friend. She really, really, passionately loves the Vampire Diaries, and I have basically no feelings about it at all. To thank me for supporting her in her passionate love, she bought a box of Asher's Dark Chocolate Smothered Pretzels for me to eat while we watched.

I LOVE CHOCOLATE-COVERED PRETZELS. And these were some particularly fine specimens. The chocolate was excellent. The pretzels were salty. Their website copy says, "We bet you can't eat just one." I bet you can't eat just six. I certainly couldn't.

BOTTOM LINE: If you're into chocolate-covered pretzels, you'll be SUPER-into these.