Monday, October 2, 2017

Everybody must get candy.

It's October, and time to start thinking about candy! Just as we do in December (Christmas), February (Valentine's), and April (or March, depending on when Easter falls). Okay, we basically think about candy all the time. Now our excuse is Halloween. Fine.

But where shall we buy our candy?


Dylan's Candy Bar has been ruining the dental work of Manhattan's Upper East Side trust-fund children since 2001. They have also opened branches in Chicago, LA, Miami, the Hamptons, Telluride, several other spots in Manhattan, luxury outlet malls, and a number of airports. They have a huge number of classic and hard-to-find candies (Chuckles, Turkish Taffy, and so on), but their main stock in trade includes big containers of homemade candy that are sold by the pound. You can make a bag filled with anything you want. At checkout they weigh it and charge you appropriately. There's also candy-related merchandise, including (of course) candy-themed pajama pants.

You need these.

We had a lot of fun looking around one of the stores one day, and managed to get out of there with less than half a pound of candy between us, almost all chocolate. It's not shopping for candy -- it's a shopping-for-candy experience.

There was just one problem -- the candy was kinda lame.

Seriously. Their homemade chocolate did not have a particularly good flavor. I'm not sure why. It had a delicate mouthfeel that would seem to indicate lots of lovely fat, but the flavor is weak. That goes for their toffee-graham-nut filled OMGs, too. Even they taste more of nuttin' than of nuts. The chocolate is not even up to the standards of the higher-end Hershey's or Nestle's stuff. It was terribly disappointing.

What makes me sad is that, by expanding the franchises into major airports, Dylan's spreads the word that this is New York City candy, much as See's Candies comes across as the Southern California candy. But See's are pretty good, and Dylan's are pretty meh.

Maybe it's just me. After all, I'm just a Twinkie-horkin' slob who's never seen an opera and couldn't tell a Château Margaux from a Carlo Rossi -- what do I know?

No, I'm right -- Dylan's is expensive and not too good. You'd be better off spending the same money on a huge pile of fun-size Milky Ways.

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