I’m not going to pretend I’m any good at ranking wines. My idea of a good wine is one that’s a little smoky, a little fruity, and not too dry.
Kinda describes this one.
Chocolate, 2/4/15
4 stars
oh, my s’mores!, by chuao chocolatier. Just what it sounds like: milk chocolate, graham crackers, and mini marshmallows. This is a low four stars (or maybe 3-1/2 stars if I gave out half stars) because it really wants dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate. It’s still good, but not really the best it could be.
Chocolate, 1/18/15
4 stars
pretzel toffee twirl, from chuao chocolatier. It’s just what it says it is: pretzels, toffee, and dark chocolate. What keeps it from being 5 stars is that chuao added whole mini curly pretzels instead of chopping them up, or using smaller straight pretzels. The pretzels make it difficult to share or save for later.
Chocolate, 1/8/15
Normally, I don’t mix “diabetes” posts with “chocolate” posts, as chocolate is usually safe. Today’s review is a mix, as the chocolate in question — more accurately, the dark-chocolate-flavored confection — impacts my blood sugar enough that I don’t really consider it safe.
Creamy Dark, from Milka. A “dark chocolate confection.” It would probably have gotten 3 stars had it been safe, as it’s a simple taste.
Chocolate, 12/31/14
3 stars
Smokehouse BBQ Potato Chips, by Wild Ophelia (a division of Vosges). Dark chocolate with potato chips embedded in it. It’s a great idea, but the chips get swallowed by the chocolate and turn this into a fancy crunch bar. I won’t turn it down, but I won’t go out of my way to look for it, either.
Chocolate, 12/22/14
4 stars
triple nut temptation, by chuao chocolatier. Dark chocolate with almonds, hazelnuts, and pistachios. I debated between awarding this 3 or 4 stars, primarily because I can’t decide if this would have been better limited to one kind of nut. Baci sticks to hazelnuts, and is awesome; so I’m left wondering what this would have been, had chuao stuck to pistachios.
Restaurants, 12/19/14
This is a long-overdue post. I made a business trip to Omaha in the fall, and these are the restaurants that I visited, rated by how good they were for my blood sugar:
Good
Fuddruckers. Yeah, the international chain. I had a buffalo burger and no fries, and was nicely full.
Brother Sebastian’s. It’s an Omaha steakhouse. Tasty steaks, decent salad bar, and you can order Port for dessert.
Mi Casa. It’s a decent Mexican restaurant, for Omaha. The lunch specials are all carb-heavy, but I avoided the chips and was okay. (“Okay” in this case was the high 130s, which shows that this place might not be my first choice.)
HuHot. It’s a national chain, and serves Mongolian barbecue. They’ll let you avoid the noodles, which makes a big difference.
Dickey’s. Also a national chain, it serves barbecue. The key is that this location served Caesar salad as a side, and it was pretty good.
Bad
Swine Dining. It’s a barbecue joint, which is normally safe. Given what I ordered, I’m thinking they either use really cheap bread (which generally means over-refined fast carbs) or they sweeten their chili too much. Or both.
Dishonorable Mention
Cheddar’s. A national chain, this place had the usual way-to-busy vibe that the Cheesecake Factory always has. Unfortunately, the food wasn’t even Cheesecake Factory level. I managed to order something that was safe for me — so this should be under the “good” column — but it wasn’t very good. How you can get a bad steak in Omaha is beyond me, but the folks at Cheddar’s managed it.