Why Have I Never Tried: Lion Bars?

Although I'd like to think that I'm not a superficial person, I must admit that what first drew me to the Lion bar was its physical appearance. Rarely does packaging look as fierce (pun fully intended) as the Lion wrapper, which boasts a roaring lion and aggressively large, boldly colored font.

But looks alone do not a great candy bar make: I was also drawn to Lion's contents, which, to the best of my knowledge (my wrapper was inexplicably in Polish), looked crunchy, chocolately, and possibly nutty, which is my favorite candy bar combo. To me, a good candy bar is one with a lot of textural contrast (case in point: I really think that Snickers, while a bit pedestrian, are the Platonic ideal to which all other bars should aspire). So I was excited about what this Lion bar, which I had previously never encountered, had beneath its chocolate surface.

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Although I've somehow never seen Lion before, apparently it's a fairly beloved bar, introduced in England by Nestle in the late '70s. It's a caramel-filled wafer covered with a layer of crisp cereal (according to Wikipedia, the original recipe called for Kellogg's Special K) covered with milk chocolate. The inner layer of cereal around the wafer does slightly resemble a lion's mane.

Taste-wise, Lion sort of reminded me of a Twix bar covered in cereal. I found the caramel in the wafer a bit cloying, and I was a little disappointed that what I had hoped were nuts below the chocolate was actually puffed rice. A peanut version does exist, but I unfortunately didn't know about it until it was too late. Still, I appreciate that there's a lot going on in this bar—plenty of varied texture and flavor so I don't get bored eating it. The cereal was ultra-crispy, which made crunching down fun and noisy, always a plus in my book. Also, the packaging is still some of the best I've ever seen.

At the end of the day, I'm still searching for a bar that will give me more pleasure than a good old-fashioned Snickers. But in the meantime, I don't mind crunching on a Lion.