‘I in contrast Lindt and Lidl’s Dubai chocolate bars – there was just one winner’

EXCLUSIVE: The Daily Star’s resident ‘why is this food going viral and is it really worth the money’ expert, Adam Cailler pitted the cheapest and priciest Dubai chocolate bars against each other

The world has gone mad for Dubai Chocolate – something none of us had heard of around six months ago. The viral chocolate bar consists of milk chocolate filled with pistachio paste mixed with crispy shredded phyllo pastry – or kataifi – and its origins are rooted in the traditional Middle Eastern dessert known as knafeh.

And since the bars took over the UK chocolate scene, everyone and their mother is now making them…including major chocolate brands and supermarkets.

And instead of taste testing every single version available (because I’d rather not have a heart attacked aged just 35, thanks) I got hold of the UK market’s most widely available expensive bar and its cheapest for the ultimate taste test.

For this, I bagged a bar of Lidl’s own J.D Gross Dubai style chocolate, and Lindt’s version of the same thing.

The former is currently available for just £3.99, while the latter comes it at a whopping £10 per bar – it was also available as part of a gift set featuring a handful of their Lindor balls in a fancy box for an even-more eye-watering £40 when I went to have a look.

But how do the bars compare to each other, and does a higher price equal a better bar? Let’s find out.

Both bars are packaged in roughly the same way, with the gold and green branding chosen for both. Lidl’s interior bar is wrapped in a gold foil, while the Lindt designers went for the silver foil wrapping.

For some reason, Lindt’s is branded as being a “new recipe” which would imply that a previous version was already on the market at some point – but I can not find reference to this anyway and the staff member I asked looked gormlessly at me, shrugged and took my money. Cheers.

Upon opening Lindt’s version, I was hit with a wonderful chocolate smell synonymous with the brand’s quality products.

The Lidl version however gave a definite whiff of pistachio – which is what I was expecting more of than chocolate . . . which is a common theme you’ll see occurring later on.

Cracking both bars open was quite an eye opening experience, as the cheaper version had nearly double the amount of filling compared to the premium version, and the chocolate had a better snap. The snap is something that comes from better tempering procedures (yeah, I watch Masterchef Australia), and something I would have expected from Lindt.

However the £10 was more chocolate than filling so the snap was not as sharp. But onto the filling itself – there was only one winner.

Lindt’s bar was all about the chocolate, something we know they lead the market on, but the Lidl bar was a heavenly dose of pistachio and crispy pastry – the chocolate, albeit pleasant, was secondary to the much-hyped filling.

Lidl’s pistachio flavour shone through, and it wasn’t manufactured or fake-tasting, this was very much real pistachio. Lindt’s was really very subtle, and overly dominated by the presence of the chocolate. If this was the “new recipe,” I’d hate to see what the old one was like.

And the true test of a good chocolate bar is to ask yourself which one you’d go back for more of?

Simply put, Lidl’s was eaten far quicker than the £10 bar, of which we still have some left after nearly a week.

Sorry chocolate purists, the £3.99 bar is the winner here! Congrats, Lidl.

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