Penguins For The Peckish (McVities Penguin)

Member Name: cazkins

Product:	McVities Penguin
Date:	09/07/09 (22 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Rich chocolate, readily available & individually wrapped, crunchy biscuit and smooth cream filling

Disadvantages: Perhaps a little too rich, making it slightly bland

I think everyone recognises the slogan "P...P...P...Pick up a...Peguin!" They've had a lot of advertising to promote these in the past, and I still see the less frequent adverts recently in magazines. Penguin's aren't in my top pick of biscuit chocolate bars, and I only these for the first time about 2 years ago, but they're pretty taste and have a lot of chocolatey goodness to offer.

Penguin bars are produced by McVities, whose slogan is 'the sign of a better biscuit'. I probably have more trust in McVities producing reliably delicious, quality products, than other biscuit brands. I could, however, be biased because I'm in love with their chocolate digestives!

Initially released in 1932, Penguins seem to have become extremely popular. We have obviously taken their advice to pick up a Penguin when we're peckish. According to their webiste, over 430 million are eaten in England every year, so I'm surprised there's having become an endangered species yet!

Penguins are sold in multipacks, unavailable for individual single purchase, and a 9 pack costs around £1.29 (Tesco). This is about average as far as branded biscuit bars go, but there's often offers on these and sometimes a larger twin pack is available which saves a few pennies.

The multipack plastic wrapper is red, with a blue, white and yellow penguin to set the bars aside from any other chocolate product. At least, I don't remember seeing a penguin as a mascot for another other biscuit! I think this strong image, logo and slogan contributes significantly to the popularity of these bars.

In addition to their image, they have a taste of their own too despite the bars having a simple concept. Penguins have a thick biscuit base, covered in chocolate cream, and then enveloped in smooth milk chocolate.

Each bar contains 114 calories and 6.1g fat, which is average for a snack, and expected in a bar which contains such rich chocolate cream. The size is just about right to keep hunger away for a little while, and they're great for taking out as a snack or in lunchboxes due to being individually wrapped.

How do they taste? The chocolate is smooth and you can smell the chocolate when you tear open the wrapper. They look appealing because they are of a good proportion, and enough depth to sink you teeth into a Penguin and enjoy it for longer than an average biscuit.

The chocolate biscuit is fresh and crunchy, and compliments the cream very well because the texture is a creamy mixture of smooth and crunchy. The cream and chocolate give the bar an overall sweet taste, which is quite rich. I think that if these bars were much bigger, or if you have more than one, it would taste quite sickly as it's very rich. But at this size, they're just about right.

These should go a little way in satisfying hunger without weighing you down or being too sickly, and they should be enough to give you that chocolate hit when you need it.

The downsides? I find these slightly too rich, which then makes the chocolate a bit bland because there's so much creamy rich chocolate filling and little to counteract this flavour.

Definitely recommended for those who haven't already tried these, and something I will buy every now and again, just not on too regular a basis.

Summary: Chocoately goodness from a classic chocolate biscuit bar