DARS Chocolate – White Pistachio

It wasn’t until very recently that I was discussing DARS with a friend and they made me aware that DARS was derived from slang in Japanese meaning 12. Which makes perfect sense when you think about how each pack always has 12 pieces. Everything just starts fitting together like a jigsaw puzzle. I’m guessing it’s a colloquialism, or short hand, kind of like how we use dozen to refer to 12. It’s kind of crazy how this supposed mystery that was bothering me was so quickly, and conveniently solved by a casual comment from someone else. Oh, how much I still have to learn about so many things.

Pistachio is one of the more premium nuts. By this I mean it’s usually pound for pound, one of the more expensive ones. I was never really clear on whether this was because of supply or demand, but what I do know is that these are quite tasty. Whether you roast them and lightly salt them, or grind them up to create a paste or cream for pastries, they are versatile and visually appealing to look at to boot. It generally has a very nice pleasant green tinge to it. They’re also in my experience, fun to eat. Because of the way the shells open up as you roast them, in Chinese they have a nickname that literally translates to “happy nut” because of how the slit in the shell kind of resembles an open mouth.

While I don’t pine or crave white chocolate, I am willing to concede that it can be tasty in certain formats alongside other things. Even if I don’t consider white chocolate actual chocolate by the technical definition. I’m going into this hoping that pistachio is one of those fillings that fits well with white chocolate.

The most striking thing about this when I opened it up, apart from how thoughtful the box design and cardboard internal tray is, is the aroma. It totally smells like cookies and cream. I don’t know if that’s because pistachios and white chocolate just naturally smell like cookies and cream, or if white chocolate just has an overpowering smell. Just an observation.

Now, I get that everything on the packaging is played up for effect and to draw you in, but I was a little disappointed that the inside wasn’t the same green. In fact, the green is much browner and washed out and looks more natural then it seems on the package. You would think that is a good thing, but it’s white chocolate, so any semblance of “naturalness” kind of went out the window.

The texture is similar to the other DARS flavours, in that it’s very uniform, solid enough to not melt away in the hand, but also not hard enough that it’s brittle. Even if you were to chew it immediately, it’s fairly soft and yields to the bite, rather than break apart into a crumbly mess like more brittle chocolates would.

The flavour is, to put it mildly….well….kind of mild. I can see how the filling was supposed to give the impression of pistachio, but the unmistakable nutty aroma you get when you chew pistachios is sort of in the backseat. It’s kind of like if white chocolate and pistachio were two kids in the backseat, and the white chocolate is that kid who won’t shut up to the point that you forget pistachio is even there. You panic for a second thinking you forgot a kid, but you yell out their name and they respond, making their presence known, if only for a moment, only to fade back into their invisibility.

That’s not to say the flavour is bad, but the nutty flavour is only there to help cut the boring sweetness of the white chocolate temporarily. I probably wouldn’t be able to call this pistachio if the box didn’t tell me what it was.

I like DARS overall, but this one while pleasant, is not exactly something I’d jump at if there were other flavour options. I’m hoping I can try some other versions of their chocolates with pistachio, in the hopes that maybe the white chocolate just isn’t compatible with it. Then again, I blazed through 6 pieces in the time of writing this, so I clearly still enjoy them.