A couple of product reviews ago I said how I love when packages show up at my door. But I also said how my deliveries now consist of oat spreads, cheese sticks, and lots of fish. You know the healthy stuff. Well, all that changed with my delivery from Chillo Foods. Don’t get me wrong, the products did contain healthy nuts, but some were coated in chocolate. Yeah!
Chillo Foods is headquartered in Los Angeles and all their products are made in the USA. Their claim: “From dark chocolate-covered pretzels to Persian pistachios they hit the mark with every sweet and salty craving you have!” Lets find out.
Lucky me, I received six cans of an assortment of their products. So, to do this review justice I decided to invite a few neighbors and some of the staff of Where The Food Comes From over to give these products a thorough taste test.
Great idea, right? But it was harder than I thought. Way too many opinions and way too many taste preferences. Plus, it was super noisy and a bit hard to keep my folks on track. But eventually I got what I needed.
Let The Review Commence
The California Pistachios were delightful and four out of six tasters found the light salt to be quite appealing and perfect for their taste. “Crunchy” was a very popular adjective. Ironically, most commented on how easy they were to open. Not the cans but the pistachios themselves.
Because there were two varieties with shells, the Persian Pistachios couldn’t help but be compared to the California Pistachios. Our tasters all commented on these pistachios appearing to be more elongated than the California variety. What threw us off was the color of the pistachios was kind of orange — then our resident farm expert explained to us that it’s just a different variety of pistachio grown in a different part of the world.
Other comments included: “not overly salty,” “mild in flavor,” “not as sweet,” and “softer” than the pistachios from California. One reviewer found the taste to be “bitter” and one felt it tasted “stale.” Host and Producer of Where The Food Comes Chip Carter stated, “[These taste like a] classic traditional pistachio from days gone by.” As for me, I really liked the interesting mild flavor of the Persian variety and enjoyed the softer texture. But on the whole I much preferred the California nut.
The Honey Roasted Almonds turned out to be an all-around favorite and all but one taster agreed the sweet taste was just right. He felt it, “lacked flavor.” As one taster put it “[it tastes] sweet but not too sweet [and I like that it is] lightly dusted.” Chip felt the almond was “slightly sweet, [has a] good roast, excellent in fact, [and the] smaller nut – not a bad thing.”
Time For The Chocolate!
I got really excited about tasting the next three products. Why you may ask? Because they are all coated in dark chocolate. Side Note: We have all heard there are health benefits of dark chocolate and eating approximately 1 to 2 ounces daily is not unreasonable. But let’s see what our tasters have to say.
Pretzels and chocolate are a winning combination. And Chillo Dark Chocolate Pretzel Bites did not disappoint. When we popped them in our months four of us felt we had tasted something like this before. As it turns out these pretzel bites have a very similar texture to malted milk balls. One taster found the glossy sheen of the pretzel to be visually appealing. Four tasters agreed the crunch was great and the slight bitterness of the chocolate was not “overbearing,” though one did feel it left a bitter after taste. In my opinion one taster summed it up perfectly and stated, “Love the dark chocolate, creamier than most dark [chocolate]. Perfect pop from the pretzel.”
Time to meet the next product, Chocolate Covered Expresso Beans. Espresso beans are a heavily roasted coffee bean which, in my opinion, makes them an acquired taste and our results reflected this. As one taster put it, “[It’s a little crunchy [and the] coffee taste is light but mixes well with [the] chocolate.” And on the total flip side another felt, “It has a strong coffee taste which is expected. [The beans] overpower the chocolate.” And Chip’s opinion, “Love the fact that the coffee bean doesn’t turn to dust. Which is why I don’t usually eat coffee beans!” Me, I really don’t care for chocolate covered expresso beans and felt the strong coffee taste did overpower the chocolate. Like I said expresso beans are an acquired taste.
There is a funny story about the Cocoa Dusted Chocolate Almonds. My friend was over when my package arrived and I could not help but pop this can open. Wow, am I glad I did. This is how I would describe them: the almond is softer, awesome flavor, creamy, addictive, and the chocolate melts in your mouth. I was tempted to keep them for myself but fair is fair. As two tasters summed it up, “Yum! Best chocolate covered almond ever. The cocoa boosts the chocolate coating. The nut is soft – bonus” and the other stated, “Delicious and addictive – like candy. I would devour 2 – 3 cans of these after dinner [and the] cocoa dusting adds to [the] creamy chocolate flavor.” One taster felt that because it tasted more like a candy it was not her favorite. But they were delicious, as evidenced by the fact that there were none left for me to keep.
There you have it. It’s a great product and all of our tasters found something they liked — and most loved it all. These are available online and in stores for about $3 and change per can, a very fair value for the product. I like the fact that they are produced in the United States (except for the Persian Pistachios of course) and will definitely satisfy that sweet and salty taste so many of us crave. This food editor would highly recommend all the lovely nuts, pretzels and expresso beans offered by Chillo Foods. The company is a newcomer — we project they’ll be around for a long time to come.
