This is where the fascinating and entertaining introduction to today’s post goes. If you squint your eyes and tilt your head just so, I bet you’ll be able to decipher the wit and majesty. Go on; it’s just like a Magic Eye.
Or not. Let’s talk snack bars.
My brother gave me this Chocolate and Cashew Raw Revolution Organic Live Food Bar last year, and I hoarded it for months because it reminded me of my first visit to New York in 2007. I stayed in a horrid hotel near Penn Station where there was half a metre between my bed and the wall, one tiny window far above my head, and wallpaper comprised of vertical stripes in orange and black that echoed both a prison and insane asylum.
And yet, despite that hotel, I fell in love with New York. How could I not? Every night, I’d return to my Bedlam-cell with a squirrel’s stash of delicious treats including Raw Revolution bars, pints of So Delicious non-dairy ice cream that I’d eat in one go (no freezer!), and vegan pumpkin pie donuts. Despite the almost-pulsating wallpaper and grimy sink, all was well in my world.
In short, I’m duty-bound to love Raw Revolution bars because they taste like New York.
The above Morish Crunch bar, picked up at Sydney airport during a work trip, was described on the package as “Australian popping corn and beer nuts with shavings of coconut, smothered in mouthwatering caramel”.
- There were, at most, three peanuts/beer nuts in the entire box.
- The caramel was so hard it almost broke my mouth.
- The caramel was so sweet it felt like it burned my mouth.
- Regardless, I couldn’t stop eating this confection. Stupid addictive crack.
BAD HANNAH STOP.
Ricki included this vegan and protein-packed Peanut and Caramel Simply Bar in her Parcel of Wonderment last year, and I saved it for when my heart needed something to thrill over. Happily, the delay was worth it; this Simply Bar was both tasty and filling. Win all ’round!
NO SERIOUSLY HANNAH BAD YOU MUST STOP.
And we close with an Australian raw date and nut bar, also procured at Sydney airport after a work meeting. Made by Santos and comprised of dates, cashew nuts, almond meal, cocoa, agave, honey, coconut, coconut oil, and xanthan gum, this raw snack bar was adequately tasty (particularly when combined with a large soy latte).
However, just between you and me, my raw vegan brownie bites are a zillion times better.
Question Time: Have you tried any of these bars? What did you think?
Oh I want to try those raw revolution bars! A worthy purchase you reckon?
I only tend to buy bars when I’m travelling these days… most of the time I know I can make them myself (and better as you say)
Are you a tim tam slam fan!?!
Hmm. I think my answer to that would be that they’re a worthy purchase when travelling or if someone is giving it to you as a gift, but judging by how expensive they are at my local health food store, while I have a food processor I’ll probably keep making my own for the minute. Or, you know, until I win lotto with the ticket I never buy.
Theoretically I’m a Tim Tam Slam fan, except not really because I haven’t had one in years and years. I like to savour my Tim Tams and with the Slam, you have to eat it in one go!
Simply Bars was one of the sponsors at Blend last weekend! I loved getting to try those bars.
That Tim Tam loks delish!
For my own sanity, I have to pretend that Blend weekend of yours never happened. Oh the breakfast spread!!
I haven’t had any of those bars, but I have made your brownie bites and I’m sure they’d win hands down.
I’ve been going through a sesame seed phase and cannot get enough of these bars:
http://www.sunhealthfoods.com.au/bars-sesame.html
I’ve been crazy about sesame seeds and tahini, although I haven’t seen that black sesame seed paste you like. Hopefully I’ll find it soon.
Aw, I do like you Margaret!
I’ve tried those sesame bars you’ve linked to but I must admit that my heart lies with the darn-addictive sesame snaps that sit near them in the aisle. And, absolutely seriously, email me your address and I’ll find and send you a jar of the black sesame spread 
I completely agree – Sesame Snaps are even better! I am particularly fond of the huge tubs sold at Costco. It’s the first thing I think of when I go there.
You really are naughty, but thank you for the offer. My work address is PO Box 689 Camden NSW 2570. It’s easiest to send things there because I kind of live there!!
Thank you for your kindness. xoxo
Oh Margaret, I wish you hadn’t told me that. I have a bad enough time resisting the siren call of the huge tins of Poppycock when I convince Lizzi to take me to Costco
Yay! I can’t wait to see if you like it
Will be a slight delay as may not be able to get to Woolies for a few days (work and mother’s day adventures out of Canberra and all) but just you wait, my dear! xo
“Siren call” ha ha. Poppycock is EVIL! I think it doesn’t even taste that good (plus it contains bad vegetable oil), yet when I have some, I can’t stop eating it!
I’m obviously not looking properly for the black sesame paste in Woolies, or my local one doesn’t stock it because it’s a small “country store”. No rush, and I’ll let you know if I come across it.
I actually overdosed so badly on Poppycock last time that I honestly don’t want to see it again for a very long time. Sesame snaps FTW!
I bought two types of raw revolution bars from that shop in Griffith last year, one was Spirulina and something, and the other was cashew and agave nectar. The first one made me sick (I actually threw up), and the second one was sickeningly sweet but at least I still felt alive afterwards. So, alas, I can never face another raw revolution bar again
Oh dear holy monkey on a bicycle, you poor thing!! I once had banana spirulina crackers that were rather tasty, but I have heard that spirulina can be far too intense in many situations. Ugh! You’ll be far better off letting me make you some raw vegan treats sans crazy “superfoods”
I’ve not tried *any* of these. I had plans at the start of the year to make snack bars, starting with the peanut butter-quinoa puff ones that I made from your recipe (remember those?), but that batch was really the end of my efforts. Maybe I should bring them back. Maybe I should bring exercise back so I have an excuse to eat them, too…
If I used exercise as a reason to eat, I would’ve starved a long, long time ago, so I don’t really advocate that approach to life. And also? Who needs snack bars when you have delicious almond blueberry cake, I ask you? I ASK YOU. Exactly.
As I’m reading this at Sydney airport, your last feature has me thinking “really? where?” and wanting to embark on a treasure hunt. I may yet do it
Also, my NY accommodation sounds remarkably similar to your NY accommodation – I suspect it’s a common sort of experience actually (mine was at a YMCA) – and I have been wanting to try those raw revolution bars for ages but not been able to justify the cost. It’s cheaper than a trip to New York, so now I may just manage it.
Ah, if only I’d got this in time! Virgin or Qantas terminal? I got both of these at the Virgin terminal, but I still prefer Qantas because that terminal has the imported chocolate and Gloria Jeans which makes soy lattes with almost 50% foam. BEST.
I was Qantas
Which may explain why I never found them. But, I did pass some happy time in that chocolate shop (have you seen the dark chocolate with lavender? and the milk chocolate with early grey tea? the brand eludes me now other than that it sounded French. I will be googling it, because I exercised too much restraint around the $10 per block price and didn’t buy them, but now I wish I had!)
The Dolfin ones? Or Dagoba? Or a company that doesn’t start with “D”? I must admit, I’ve never actually bought the chocolates there because of the insane mark-up. But a girl can dream of a day she’ll fly Business Class and have access to all the expensive chocolate in the land…
Dolfin! Thank you
I should have known you’d be able to come to my rescue.
Business class is a lovely dream…especially at that moment where your legs want to jump and dance in protest of their lack of space. One day!
I really need to find a way to turn this ridiculous level of niche chocolate knowledge into some sort of profit. Seriously, I just did that? I’m insane.
One day! At the same time, though, even on long flights over seas, I can’t stomach the idea of spending $10,000 on something that is, really, just one day of your life.
I try not to snack but really when they look this good, it’s hard not to right?
Snacking is what gets me through the day at the moment, I must admit. So yes, definitely too hard not to
HAHA are those tim tam sweet flavours any good? been wanting to get one but not sure which!
I’m ashamed to admit I did somewhat like them. However, I bought them during a hell week of crying, anxiety, misery, stress, and nausea, so really anything with sugar tasted good at that point
None to all of them but YES to iwanttotrythemallrightnow. With my coffee.
I think you would particularly get a kick out of the Tim Tams. So wrong, yet so right, yet so wrong.
Sweet Wishes!
That’d be something to say to yourself each night in your insane asylum / prison cell of a hotel room in NYC. Eep.
The Raw Revolution bar looks like it’s fallen prey to the curse of organic snacks worldwide, where there are multiple fonts and lots of writing on the packaging so that it’s tough to tell what the product really is. As long as its tasty!
Except that, in all honesty, simply being in New York does feel like Sweet Wishes to me, Bedlam or no. As soon as I step off the plane – oh, the exhilaration. It feels like I can’t breathe
The curse of Organic Snacks… or the curse of the 80s
(And the early 90s. I remember my school projects being abused terribly by the scourge of ClipArt.)
I loved Magic Eye!
I do not love Tim Tams. I’ll eat pretty much any old chocolate if I feel the need, but TT’s are always a little weak and greasy for my liking. Not judging you though! Neverr! Indeed I’m applauding you with envy, because I haven’t tried a single one of those bars.
As a kid, I was so proud of how easily I could do Magic Eyes. Now that I have glasses, I see that “triumph” as less of an achievement and more of what it really was: a sad indication of my double-vision eyesight. Hmph.
Laura, I’m judging me enough for the both of us. I don’t even go for normal Tim Tams myself, but those wacky flavours were on sale during a particularly horrible crying/anxious/miserable week, and my soul wanted only things of most crappysugarness.
Hahhaha… You’ve given me so many ideas and recommendations to binge on, I love it lol! I shall classify these under “exam-study-snacks-so-no-touchy”. And this sounds sad but I’ve never tried any of these! I always stick to the same product once I’ve found one that I like. How unadventurous (booo, wince… booooooooo)
I totally have parts of my pantry that are designated “no-touchy-touchy” too
I wouldn’t boo yourself too much, because if you really think about it, all of these snacks were either a) given to me, b) bought during boring airport loitering, or c) bought during periods of high-stress-crying-anxiety-need-sugar-desperately. 
I’ve never tried any of those! You won me over on the Raw Revolution, as I too love New York. I’ll have to give those a try.
Teehee, I can’t truly vouch for the Raw Revolution bars tasting of New York to anyone who didn’t eat them for the first time in New York… which clearly means you need to go to New York stat
I’m intrigued by the first one. How alive is the food in the live food bar, I wonder?
Still wriggling.
Raw Revolution is one of my favorite snack bar makers. Quality ingredients and they have really creative flavors.
I have never had a Tim Tam. Gasp! And I had no idea they came in so many different flavors. Turkish Delight is a flavor that you’d never see in the states. They’d fill it ever-so-predictably with sugary peanut butter or flavorless nougat or chocolate frosting and it’d give you a toothache just looking at it.
Ah but you see, I live in the land of “peanut butter? why would you put peanut butter in candy?” and so what you see as predictable I see as GIMME GIMME. I am intrigued by your talk of creative flavours (with a U, snap). What should I look out for?
Good news! We put peanut butter in everything! That aside, there seems to be a plethora of cookie dough flavored items. I’ve always preferred the cookie to the dough though. And ice creams have taken this weird divide into two classes: refreshing asian types like toasted coconut with sesame, and then the “junk food” flavors like birthday cake. I’m personally excited to see lemon making it’s way into more things, and anything apple pie makes it into my basket quickly.
This whole post is making me a wriggly ball of envy. Australia barely does sweet pies at all, let alone sweet pie-flavoured treats and ice cream. (We’re more a meat pie country, you see.) And oh, the glory of cookie dough candy! We don’t have that either.
I think I need to have a quiet lie down and think about all the things we have that you don’t so that I feel better. (We are good at lemon desserts. And now I must make my favourite Lemon Delicious ASAP.)
I love it when food tastes of memories – wish I had lovely foodie memories of new york – would be far superior to what we thought were blood stains on the wall and also to my discovery that chilli in new york means lots of minced meat! Oh no I forgot dojos which I loved
As for the other bars – bad caramel bar for having too few nuts for Hannah and too many nuts for Sylvia! The only one I have tried of all these is flavoured tim tams – well they taste of memories and are so available and calling my name at the supermarket
To be fair, I also got food poisoning in New York and honestly thought I was going to die in a bathroom stall and that no one would realise I was gone for several days… but the lovely food memories win
Yay! I’m so glad I’m not the only one who falls for the flavoured Tim Tams when on sale. Do you like any of them?
Argh. Stop!
/furtive rustling in pantry…
I almost can’t believe this is how my brain works (that’s a lie, I totally can, and I bet you will too), but when you said that I had this image of me magically transporting myself into your pantry, hiding in the back, and yelling out “Boo!” when you started rustling.
Damn you space-time continuum! That would’ve been the best practical joke in the history of ever.
The coconut, chocolate and almond bar was VERY VERY strange. It was almost as if ALL of the ingredients had lost their individual tastes and transmogrified into something completely new and, in fact, not as nice as the originals. Ho-hum.
I warned you, I warned you! I’m actually going to write about how bad those particular bars were in another bars review post later
(They’re different to the Santos one above) Aren’t my creations better? 
What exactly is a beer nut? I have always wondered this. Is it just any nut that is consumed with beer? I am pretty sure it is not a nut made with beer.
It’s just a peanut. Oh how I wish it were a nut made of beer! I’d be far more of a drinker that way
I haven’t tried any of these bars sadly but that Morish one looks AMAZING! Wonder if they sell them in Melbourne…
And I totally should have clicked their website first before writing that comment ha! Now I know where to get them, yay!
Dear heavens I love being an enabler
I’ll have to check the website out to see if this is available in Canberra…
There are some really yummy looking bars here. I can imagine how you love New York. We sent our son there last night to study during the summer. We paid a huge sum of money for him to stay in student accommodation in Brooklyn. He had to share a tiny room with two others. He hated that room and was barely there (especially as one of the room-mates was a black rapper who wouldn’t stop playing his music night and day), but he sure did love New York!
I can’t even describe the overwhelming giddiness and joy I feel stepping off the plane into New York, and so I’m incredibly envious of your son’s experience! Although, to be fair, I did get to do an entire year in Virginia
I really like most of the Morish stuff. The bar you showed is addictive
Having tasted so many of the TimTam varieties I’ve settled on the original and the double coat as my favourites. On cold Canberra nights I confess to having two. One to savour slowly and then the second to slam with my hot chocolate.
Oooh, what else of Morish’s line would you recommend? I’ll have to keep an eye out next time I’m at the airport.
I ate 5 of those caramel Tim Tams in one night. You’re lagging, Gary.
The chocolate covered Macadamia nuts are my favourite. We will have to do a TimTam contest one night
The treats are addictive, aren’t they?
I (despite being coeliac and having to follow a gluten free diet) fell for the double choc caramel tim tams a few days ago. I had the option of either nothing, the Woolworths Macro double choc gluten free cookies or the caramel Tim Tams. Given that the gluten free ones were fully loaded with soy (which I find worse than gluten) I decided I needed to try these ones out. I only had one, but it was quite satisfying – pretty rich. Don’t think my tummy appreciated it though…
Oh, that’s such a shame
Although I do agree with the Tim Tam over Macro choice – those Macro ones taste greasy and insipid to me, unfortunately! Here’s to someone making a magical safe version of Tim Tams for you soon 
And what about the Tim Tams might I ask? You are too funny…
I purposely didn’t mention the fact that I’m ashamed to admit I really liked the Double Choc Caramel ones (they reminded me of golden syrup), although I bought both flavours during one of those exhausted-anxious-stressball weeks when sugar of any kidn was greatly appreciated.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it
hmmm…i thought raw rev bars were the grossest. and the simply bar was just so so. now that tim tam on the other hand….woweeeee…i want i want!! looks to die for tasty.
You just wait until my next bar review post. I’ll show you what grossness really is
It could also be a bit of a relativity thing too, in the sense that you in America have access to a plethora of raw/vegan/etc bars, many of which may be more delicious, whereas we have very few in Australia? Or maybe I’m just rambling 
TIM TAMS FOR THE WIN
Sorry I am not really a healthy bar girl
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
Can’t do a Slam with a raw bar
Ooohhhh even the wrapping looks so American if you know what I mean Angle Babe… I want a bar now! With lots of chocolate and less raw-ness.. actually bacon might help.. Fry me some bacon..
I actually really do. Kinda like how it’s really easy to pick which cookbooks are American and which are Australian
Darling Rake Sway Angle Babe, I would fry you endless bacon with my TAKO MIND POWER if you’d come visit me here in my own kitchen.
And then I’d throw it at your head.
xo
I keep those one of those raw revolution bars in my car for emergencies but I agree that your raw brownie bites are the bomb. I had them for my birthday.
Oh!! This comment has made me all smiles
For your birthday? What an honour for me 
I would like to try the simply bars b/c I heard they’re really good! I’ve tried raw revolution once. And you probably know that I’m seriously not picky! Perhaps I tried an unpleasant flavor, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would.
Hmm, that’s three “nay” votes for Raw Revolution… seems like my nostalgia may have got the better of my tastebuds
Well with those descriptions, I’m REALLY tempted to try Tim Tams…especially Turkish Delight ones.
I think the only one of those I’ve tried is the Simply Bar, which was good but not GREAT. I have a deep and undying affection for Larabars so nothing really compares in my mind.
Not going to lie; they were disgustingly delicious
Oh yes, Larabars are an entire world of win! I also used to love Clif and Luna bars for the candy-esque quality
Miss them!
I haven’t tried any of these bars! Can’t blame you for loving your NYC bar. But yeah, I’d favour your recipes any day, lady. Oh! Oh! Start a business packaging them! I’d buy.
Heidi xo
Oh darling! Heart heart. Don’t tempt me. Oh, if only I knew where to start! xo
Haven’t tried any of them (except the Tim Tams!). Go Natural makes a date, chocolate and macadamia bar that’s quite tasty, and reminds me of Larabars. Too bad we don’t have Larabars here in Australia
Hmm, if those Go Natural ones are the just date-and-nut ones, then they’re coming up in my next Snack Bar review and I absolutely hated them
They made me long for Larabars too though! In truth, I like making my own date-nut snacks enough that I don’t miss Larabars *too* much. (Though right now I could definitely go for one of the Key Lime ones…)
Had I known back then that date and nut bars weren’t really health foods (evil, misleading advertising!), I woulda just gone with the Tim Tams xD
Plus, you can’t do a Date Nut Slam
I have 3 key lime lara bars squirreled away in the cupboard. My lovely friend brought them from the US for me. I haven’t tasted any of these bars. I have tried some of the Tim Tams. I can’t believe how awful the Turkish Delight ones were. Blurgh.
Oh, the Key Lime Larabars were one of my favourite flavours! (Admittedly, there are now many in their line-up that I haven’t tried, but still.) The Turkish Delight ones just tasted like sugar to me!
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