A Trip to the Shops: Part One - Cyber Candy

FOR PART TWO: Click here

One of my favourite shops in London's trendy "West End" is Cyber Candy.

They sell imported chocolate bars, sweets and cereals from all over the world. The first time you go in this shop I guarantee your eyes will be unable to understand what they are seeing. It's like going into Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory - only these sweets are REAL. 

With everything from crazy variants of popular brands, like the Snickers: Cruncher, to unheard of curiosities, like this "ZAGNUT", in Cyber Candy you'll be like the proverbial kid in a sweet shop. ONLY LITERALLY. (Unless you are an adult)

Let's take a look around! It's a small shop, but they've packed it out to the max. (Sadly the downstairs CEREAL section was closed a few years ago. I don't know why, it was amazing!)


As well as the obligatory Jelly Belly jelly beans, there's unusual sodas like Pepsi: Wild Cherry and Vanilla Coke. Along side the more well known brands like Mike + Ikes, Tootsie Rolls and Hersey's, there's a section for all the mental Japanese sweets, like these worryingly named "CREAM COLLONS" and the unsurprisingly buy-one-get-one-free "MANJA" bar.

Then there's some European nonsense like this:

Over in the North American / Australian section you will find yourself repeating the phrase "WHY DON'T THEY HAVE THESE OVER HERE?!?" quite a lot. Check out these delicious looking Oreo variants.

The American's have managed to ruin their best invention, the Twix, though, with these horrible looking PEANUT BUTTER and COCONUT versions.

Nearby I found this "BAR ONE" bar which claims to actually extend your day by one hour. A bargain at £1.35.

Even more exciting is the "ZERO" - check out the ingredients: Caramel, Peanut and Almond COVERED IN WHITE FUDGE. Then there's the brilliantly named "CHOKITO" containing Chewy Caramel Fudge, Crunchy Balls and LOADS OF CHOCOLATE.

Now, quickly - close your eyes and imagine the best chocolate bar ever invented in your mind - my bet is it would probably be Marshmallow and Caramel covered in Dairy Milk. Bet you wouldn't have named it Pinky though.

This is a much better name:

I've NO idea what this is:

Here's a brown Mars Bar:

Pop-Tarts were sensibly banned in the UK in 1994 for being completely useless. But here at Cyber Candy they have contraband Strawberry Milkshake and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough flavours:

There are some cereals left over from the cull (now kept safely behind the counter) including Gobble Monkey's no.1 placed cereal of all time, Lucky Charms (no longer for general sale in the UK) and these Reece's Puffs which are guaranteed to stink of peanuts.

One downside, import prices means everything's a tad pricey - a box of Lucky Charms and a white Mars Bar will probably set you back £7 - but even if you don't buy anything, it's a happy place to spend half an hour.

For PART TWO (click here)
For PART THREE click here