Gooey, spicy, crunchy.
The first time I heard of Chego‘s Sriracha candy bar was when I was in line at the West LA restaurant. It was listed on the menu with a “Sold Out” Post-It next to it. Yes, that would be a candy bar made with a chocolate crisped rice bottom, caramel, Sriracha ganache, spiced candied peanuts and dark chocolate.
Kogi’s pastry chef Beth Kellerhals created them for her company, Double Chin Desserts, and they started selling the bars in April last year. The spicy chocolate bars have been a hot commodity ever since. So the next time I was at Chego and saw that it was available I ordered one, taking it back to Scoops Westside where I split it with the ice cream shop’s proprietor Matt Kang.
Matt loved it, but I just wasn’t as enamored by it. It’s exotic, unique, spicy and sweet, sure, but I wish it used a nut other than peanuts which, honestly I dislike, but that’s just me. The peanuts, even though spiced and candied, just cheapened the candy for me. I mean the bar is $4, peanuts are throwaway nuts. However, when I thought about it, I was hard-pressed to think of what other kind of nut I would have preferred here. Almonds would have been too hard in an already crunchy bar. Walnuts? Meh. Maybe no nuts at all? Hm.
The whole bar isn’t encased in dark chocolate by the way. Flip it over and you can see the crisped rice. Try to eat the bar with a fork (as you do when you have to share it) and the bar comes apart — the chocolate brick of peanuts, the bar of crisped rice with the gooey caramel between the two. But unlike an Oreo cookie, you wouldn’t be tempted to lap of that caramel.
From LA Weekly’s Squid Ink:
The Sriracha element is found within the bar, in the form of a thin layer of ganache floating above a pool of slick caramel.
The presence of the Sriracha was more subtle than I thought it would be. I figured I’d need a glass of water handy while I nibbled at the bar, but wasn’t the case. So if you’re expecting ow-chi-mama hot, you’ll be bummed. Not to say this is a bad candy bar. It’s fine and would no doubt make a fun treat for your Sriracha-loving friend. But I found it to be a splurge at $4 a bar.