When you review a chocolate bar like this Beryl’s Almond Chocolate Bar, it’s often about trying to figure out how they’re different than the rest. The “rest” being the thousands of other chocolate bars with almonds made all around the world. When it comes to the mix of chocolate with almonds, candy companies know that it’s a popular combination that should work. It’s most certainly not a bar that’s trying to surprise or innovate, since there are literally hundreds (maybe even thousands) of other chocolate bars that are very similar.

There is really one notable feature of this bar that make it kind of unique, and it’s all about the almonds. Most almond chocolate bars tend to choose between full almonds and almond pieces. Both of those almond delivery methods have their advantages and disadvantages. The advantage of the full almond chocolate bar is that the full texture of the nut really shines, and it plays a nice contrast to the smooth chocolate. The advantage of the almond pieces is that it’s better distributed throughout the bar, because it can blend better with the chocolate. This bar however decided that it would be best to go with both, and it’s a little weird, but it works. The advantage is that there are almonds pieces throughout this bar, but there are also occasions where you’ll get the crunch of a full almond. It seems like a simple idea, but I can’t recall ever seeing it before in a chocolate bar with almonds, and it works fairly well.

While the almond delivery method is unique, and it seem to work, there is one flaw about this bar that kind of takes it down a little. The chocolate in this bar is okay, but it’s not amazing. There are many other almond bars that have much better quality chocolate that blends much better with the almonds. The Beryl’s chocolate isn’t horrible, however it did detract from this bar a bit. It’s disappointing because the almonds were well disbursed, and even fairly good quality. It’s sad that the chocolate just couldn’t match that quality.

I certainly wouldn’t suggest you avoid this bar. If you happen to be in Malaysia and you want something chocolaty this is a great way to go. There are much better bars out there, but it’s worth giving this a try just for the almonds (and almond distribution) alone. Now that I’ve seen that this can work, I’ll be interested to see if other companies will (or have) done this. I’d also be happy to see Beryl’s improve their chocolate a little too.