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Thursday, January 18, 2007
American Value Chocolate Bars
I’ll save you from skimming to the end of the review. Yeah, that holds true in the case of American Value bars. This is a long thin Milk Chocolate bar that clocks in at a respectable 1.4 ounce portion and mentions the price of “4 for a Dollar every day” in a ghastly yellow logo in the corner. The label couldn’t possibly be less compelling if you gave me a version of Microsoft Word 95 to make it in. The package says nothing to recommend it, it doesn’t get our hopes up, it doesn’t lend any expectation to the experience.
Inside the package things get a bit better. It looks like a chocolate bar (and the ingredients reveal it’s real chocolate as well). It smells a little nutty and a little like chocolate. Sweet and less that ultra smooth, it’s a passable chocolate bar to give a child that isn’t very finicky, has a short attention span or perhaps you don’t like that much. Since the bars are rather attractive (probably more so if you don’t leave it at the bottom of your bag when traveling) I would be comfortable recommending this bar for craft projects like Gingerbread Houses in the style of mid-eighties cubicle farms.
Oh, now they’ve raised my expectations. I’m expecting some smoothiness and some crispiness. The wrapper features more design than a lowly word processing program could handle. This does not make it any more attractive. It’s not your monitor either, there’s a strange green cast to the package as well.
There are, in fact, four fingers. They are, in fact, crisp. They do not taste like KitKat fingers, and there’s nothing wrong with that. These are a bit less flaky and light. Looking at the ingredients I see that maize flour (corn) is used instead of wheat flour of a Hershey’s or Nestle’s KitKat. I actually rather enjoyed the malty corn flavor of the wafers. However, the chocolate here was funky. It had an odd flavor to it, kind of like a new car smell. This bar was made in the UK (the Milk Chocolate bar was made in the USA). Taquitos.net has a few of the other Dollar General candies reviewed. I get the sense that Dollar General just subs out the manufacture of all of their candy - the Rocklets they sell under their own name are made by Arcor in Brazil, this four fingered bar in the UK and the milk chocolate bar in the US ... so you wouldn’t expect them to be so consistent.
POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:12 am 
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Meticulously photographed and documented reviews of candy from around the world. And the occasional other sweet adventures. Open your mouth, expand your mind.
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COPYRIGHT NOTICEAll content (text and photos unless otherwise credited) is copyright 2005-2008 by Cybele MayPlease do not use my photos on your own site without permission directly from me, they represent what I ate in preparation for these reviews and are not to be used for other purposes. Design by Hop StudiosPowered by ExpressionEngine
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VOTE IN THE POLLWhich do you prefer as a holiday treat?
Total Votes: 251
Chocolate Candy 
31% (78)Holiday Themed Candy
18% (45)Cake
7% (18)Pie
12% (31)Cookies
31% (79)
 
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SUPERB 
YUMMY 
TASTY 
WORTH IT 
TEMPTING 
PLEASANT 
BENIGN 
UNAPPEALING 
APPALLING 
INEDIBLE 
SUPERB
YUMMY 
TASTY 
WORTH IT 
TEMPTING 
PLEASANT 
BENIGN 
APPALLING 
INEDIBLE 
I reviewed some Dollar general candy too ehre:
http://candyaddict.com/blog/index.php?s=dollar+general
Brian
I would be more likely to turn up my nose at the sight than the price.
Brian - yes, I saw that. I couldn’t figure out how to do a link to a category on your site and I was feeling lazy about linking all the posts. (I did link to the Rocklets review before though ... I’ll have more to say about Arcor, the company that makes those shortly.)
Sophia - yeah, my brother was the one who bought them! I’m not sure if he was being nice to me or not in this instance. (Actually, his wife gave me some wonderful malt balls ... so I’m inclined to think he’s nice.)
Some varieties of those bars are much worse than others. I never tried the plain chocolate bar, I was too afraid. I kind of like the mint one, and the 100 Grand type bar is actually very good. The fake M&Ms;are borderline toxic, and I strongly disliked the KitKat one. The almond one is passable, but lacks the appealing whole almonds of a Hershey.
Maybe they are an acquired taste. I suggest we all take $10 and buy 40 of them, then compare notes afterwards.
You’ve done us a great service.
I dunno, those stars might be a little hard to do in Word 95…
I have a sudden urge to buy some of these and give them out to children misbehaving in public. When someone asks me why I’m rewarding bad behavior, I’ll tell them the chocolate isn’t very good, then run away laughing.
It’ll be awesome.
yuck, I like it alot more when you review chocolates that make me hungry.
Anyway, keep up the good work, I love your writing style.
Dave - thanks for the rundown. I don’t live near a Dollar Tree and haven’t seen all the varieties before. I saw Taquitos also though the mint cookies weren’t too bad.
Helen - oh, I’m getting a tummy ache just thinking of what $10 worth of these would look like.
Laura-Marie - good, I was afraid I was going to have to make people sign waivers.
Tricia - wasn’t there a default background template that had stars in it ... maybe I’m thinking of the orignial version of “Publisher”.
Jon - I can picture the story in the “Oddly Enough” column about how you get sued for cruelty to minors.
Rachel - this way you’ll appeciate the good stuff! (People used to complain that I’d never given out bad ratings.)
Generic Kit Kats! Haha! Gotta love it.
WOW!!!!! This site is sooooo Cool!!!
I will say that I have never bought any chocolate bars or kit kat clones from Dollar General, but I have bought a variety of cookies and various other bags of candy for a dollar that are just as good as the more expensive names at say three dollars. No they are not as good as the name brand but I can’t justify paying 3 times the amount for something a little better. Hey who knows mabye it’s just an acquired taste!
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