This is another chocolate with sort of a confusing name.  It's a chocolate bar with a subtitle: technically it's "Milk Chocllate With A Smooth Filling."  I don't know why they didn't just call it "The Lindor Truffle Bar."

Lindt is considered a somewhat down-market chocolate bar manufacturer by hard core chocolate fans.  In the same way that pet food snobs like myself look down on the Iams brand (particularly after they downgraded the formula and started selling it in grocery stores).  But as with Iams, the truth is that Lindt bars are a lot better than the other mass market options you'll find in the grocery store.  

But aside from the Lindt chocolate bars themselves, there is the Lindor Truffle, about which I will brook no complaints.  Lindor truffles are the perfect food, end of story.  The only thing wrong with those little spheres of chocolatey delight is that they tend to be a little pricey.  And gosh, do they really need all that packaging?  

Unlike my preference in bars, I prefer the milk chocolate Lindor truffle (the red wrapper).  The dark chocolate Lindor truffle (blue wrapper) just doesn't do it for me.  But the milk chocolate… yes.

So you can imagine my intrigue when I first spotted these chocolate bars at the Grocery Outlet.  This is a chain of discount grocery stores in my area.  The kind of place where they have signs explaining that expired food hasn't gone BAD necessarily.  It's perfectly good!  They just don't want to sell it at Safeway anymore.  (What can I say?  You can get ridiculous savings on a bottle of wine there.)

The white on red packaging is so distinctive, and yet I was confused by the bar form.  Lindor truffles are round!  Why is this thing flat and square?  I had to buy it and give it a try.

Sure as shootin', this is a flattened version of the Lindor truffle.  Each cube is a flat rectangular truffle, with the creamy interior filling and everything.  At the Grocery Outlet price point ($1.29 per bar), this solves any remaining problems with the Lindor truffle.  It's super affordable - each bar is the equivalent of TEN of the standard spherical truffles - and has the minimal packaging that an eco-freak like myself prefers.

If there is any significant difference it's in the ratio of chocolate to filling.  You get more chocolate outer coating per amount of filling with the bar.  Or is this simply an illusion?  The round truffles always seem to have air space inside.  I would have to buy some spherical truffles and perform a chocolate-ectomy in order to be sure.

The only real mystery is what these were doing at the Grocery Outlet.  They don't expire until next November, so I doubt they were remaindered for expiration date issues.  I suspect they just may not have been selling well enough to justify the shelf space, which is a darn shame.

At any rate, look for the distinctive bright red wrapper in the chocolate bar section the next time you're on the hunt for a treat.  I dare say you won't be disappointed.