Illustrated by Louisa Cannell.
What's on my desk this week? A rich dark chocolate bar filled with creamy dry-roasted cashew butter and bits of real vanilla beans. Wondering what the kicker is? It's vegan. Hu Kitchen, an entirely gluten-free and all-natural restaurant-goods chain located in NYC, shells out these delectable bars. And since we'd heard through the grapevine that they were snacking gold, Hu was gracious enough to send a couple our way for sampling (a.k.a. scarfing down).
In addition to our Food team munching on these specialty choco-squares, we also had the exiting opportunity to open the taste-testing up to a few of our actual audience members (a group of Mad Chatters who happened to be visiting the R29 HQs). The consensus? The packaging was simple, elegant, and easy to open/reseal. The scent was distinctly vanilla and the taste was an ideal balance of salty-sweet. One tester likened the creamy cashew butter filling to a "truffle-like" quality and another stated that "just one square felt like a decadently satiating snack." All this from a 100% vegan product made with organic and fair-trade goods. What's more? The group was asked to rate Hu Kitchen against two other Snack On This! contestants. And it came as no surprise when the Cashew Butter & Pure Vanilla Bean Dark Chocolate Bar out snacked the competition by a landslide. It was a nearly unanimous victory, with all in agreement that keeping a few of these squares on hand (or in desk) would instantly up their afternoon pick-me-up-productivity game.
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In addition to the flavor above, there are eight other fantastic options: Almond Butter & Puffed Quinoa, Hazelnut Butter, Salty Dark Chocolate, Simple Dark Chocolate, Crunchy Mint Dark Chocolate, Crunchy Banana Dark Chocolate, and Why The Fig Nut? Dark Chocolate. You can snag your own for $5 online or in store at any Hu Kitchen Restaurant and participating Whole Foods.
*Hot tip: Buy enough so that when someone asks for a square you can give them their own and keep them at bay from eating your entire bar. They're that good.
Related Video:
produced by Lucie Fink.
Welcome to Snack On This! A weekly series on all-things crunchy, crispy, smooth, savory, and sweet. Join us as we munch our way through the latest snacks that get a big thumbs up from our food team. (That usually means they've made it all the way from our mail pile to a more permanent spot in our not-so-official snack drawer.) Got suggestions for next week? Throw 'em our way in the comments below.