This review has been sitting in my draft folder for quite a while now! I first saw the ROM bar on the Choc It Out youtube video 10 Foreign Chocolate Bars, which highlights some very unusual chocolates that can be purchased in the UK. It seemed a very fitting inclusion for my Around the World challenge, especially as the wrapper depicts the colours of the Romanian national flag.
The patriotic appearance of the ROM continues onto the chocolate itself, with the words "Bucuresti" imprinted on the bar for Romania's capital city Bucharest. In fact there is a reason behind all this patriotic imagery beyond mere asthetics. When the ROM was released in 1964 it was the only choice of chocolate bar available under the old communist regime. I'm sure this must be the first chocolate bar I've blogged about that has political roots. Even though times have changed in Romania, it apparently caused quite a stir when the wrapper's iconic Romanian patriotic look was briefly replaced with the American flag instead!
Onto the bar itself. The outer chocolate is quite dark and is filled with a creamy caramel and rum flavoured filling. It's all very sweet and the alcohol flavour is quite strong, certainly too strong for me. The flavour is not to my liking at all and sadly I couldn't finish the bar. This is simply due to the fact that I don't like alcohol and chocolate combinations in general and not a reflection of the ROM itself. Therefore, I don't feel I can pass judgement on the overall flavour. I can however say that the ROM is probably worth a try just for the history alone!
Purchased: Local Romanian grocery store (thanks to Marcus ChocItOut for pointing me in the right direction!).
Price: Can't quite remember but they were very cheap, less than £0.50p.
I love boozy chocolates, so this filling (because there is also another type of filling, which isn't gooey, it denser and grainy) is the only thing that I still like about the ROM bar. So it's probably no wonder that I find the alcoholic component to be far from what I'd call strong. Since I like boozy stuff, I've tried a lot of it and obviously some really did pack in a serious amount of alcohol... which makes the filling of this bar seem really mild in comparison.
ReplyDeleteThe chocolate itself... I really can't like it anymore these days, after I've tried so many excellent chocolates. It's just too sweet and the melt doesn't feel right.
They're really cheap here, too. And they're certainly not among Romanian chocolates that I'd recommend. But I think my favourite Romanian chocolates (stuff like PaulaAna or Choco Fashion) are probably impossible to find abroad...
Maybe my personal memories are skewed, but I don't remember this bar from the communist days. The only bars I remember from those days were some Chinese ones (which my grandfather's cats didn't like... and I know that because... what else can a baby do with chocolate except trying to bribe the cats to play with her? :D ) and some that looked like cooking chocolate. I only discovered ROM bars when I was in the 7th or 8th grade (late '90s).
Where can I buy rom biscuits in Manchester??
ReplyDeleteThere are some polish shops that sell everything eastern european. Just google "polski sklep [INSERT AREA HERE]"
DeleteWhere can I buy these in Florida/
ReplyDelete