chocolate surprise eggs

I don’t remember the first time I ever heard about Kinder Eggs or Surprise Eggs. I think I saw them on a blog and saw that it was chocolate with a little toy inside that you could assemble. How freaking cool is that and where could I get some?! I remember reading further and discovering that that were in fact illegal in the US due to a law from 1938 that no toys could be embedded into sweet confections and sold in the United States because “The imbedded non-nutritive objects in these confectionery products may pose a public health risk as the consumer may unknowingly choke on the object.” Um, are you for real? They’re much more reasonable about this in Canada, where the eggs have “…always been legal here because Health Canada has determined the tiny toy inside is not likely to be used by children under three years of age.” Sigh. Why can’t we be as reasonable and rational as Canada?

I saw last month that CC was able to get one at a Mexican market in San Ysidro so I had this inkling that maybe I’d find one at a Mexican market. Now I wasn’t on the hunt for any… but fortune shined on me so I could finally get some!

I made Jake drive down to 25th & Imperial to go to Gabriel Tortilleria for some freshly made tortillas for some taco makin’. This place is open 24 hours in case you like… really, really need some tortillas at 2AM. You can see them making tortillas on a machine right behind the counter and they just have a few shelves stocked with all of their products. There were a bunch of people in there when we went so I didn’t take any photos. After that, I wanted to get some meat and instead of driving all the way to Lemon Grove to the Farmer’s Market (where we usually go) we decided to just drive around to try and find a market.

We struck out at the first place we went to which said out front they had fresh meat, but upon entering the only things we saw in the “butcher case” were boxes of White Castle and Hot Pockets. Hmmm! We ended up driving up Imperial a bit more until we found this place:

lews-market

Lew’s Market. I spied a “Fresh Meat” sign and hoped for the best. I ended up getting some carne asada for $3.99/lb and some pollo asada for $1.99/lb. At the front counter I saw some chocolate eggs which I stared at after I had paid for all of the food. I went back to the car and told Jake about them and we sent S in to buy as many as he could with $5.


chocolate-surprise-eggs

They ended up being $2 each. They had two different kinds which were both Disney themed but S just got two of the “Planes” ones. I don’t remember what the other kind was.

inside-surprise-egg

I opened one and S opened the other. Inside, you can see there’s a clear plastic tub inside of the hollow egg.

ripslinger

Pop/twist it open (with quite a bit of effort, actually) and these were the little pieces + instructions in my egg.

finished-plane-ripslinger

These parts are truly very tiny, especially with my double propeller on the front!

plane-pieces

Here’s S.’s parts.

bravo-plane

Which turned into this plane. We didn’t see the Planes movie so I don’t know the characters, but I thought it was rad to put together these little planes!

While reading up about Kinder Eggs, I found this article that said the US Ban has been “sort of” lifted on Kinder Eggs. A company worked with the FDA to create a “safe” version of the surprise eggs called Choco Treasure. The toys are larger than the ones inside of Kinder Eggs and come in some kind of special capsule for child safety. After quick look at the site, the toys don’t seem quite as interesting to me, but it’s still cool that there’s some kind of legal version. I’ll still buy any of these “illegal” ones if I see them though! Shh, don’t tell anyone else, okay?


7 thoughts on “chocolate surprise eggs

  1. OMG – I LOVE em!! Isn’t there anywhere closer than that Lew’s market? I like how you sent in S to buy them (in case the store got raided by the Feds right then and there – j/k). The chocolate looks pretty thin though – how did it taste? And $2 seemed high at first until I saw how cool the airplane pieces were!! I want to a buy a few !

    1. Hi Faye! I’d try any little market down south in the hood. You’re more likely to find it in a Mexican market. The ones I got had Spanish all over them. The chocolate wasn’t bad, maybe a slight step up from Hershey’s. The toy was what made it fun! Good luck on your hunt 🙂

  2. hi Mary – so glad you got to try these! i saw the Disney themed ones at Mercado Internacional. I’ll have to get those next time.

    The toy in yours is pretty intricate. The Kinder Eggs we had had crappy puzzles (really?) and small figurines. Nothing complicated like a airplane with propellers and wings!

    Here’s a post I did last year on the Choco Treasures (found at Target):
    http://pinkcandlesatridgemonthigh.blogspot.com/2013/03/choco-treasure-wanna-be-kinder-egg.html

    i’m really glad i didn’t get, uh caught with my two 3-pack boxes of Kinder Eggs from my last Canada trip, haha.

    @Faye – you will probably find these eggs at the markets in the hood, so get out of your comfort zone and drive down south! 🙂

    1. Haha I’m glad you didn’t get caught either, CC! I’ll have to check out your post about the “wannabe” eggs. I was happy with this first find! The little planes were fun to put together.

  3. It looks like these are not the original one from Ferrero as they have a white chocolate layer inside (and a different red and white wrapping). You can get them from time to time at Tip Top Meats or Balboa International Market. The German Supermarket in Huntigton Beach also often has some of them.

    1. Hello Two Foodies! I couldn’t tell what company actually made them from the packaging, all I saw was Disney in Spanish! Thanks for the tips on other places to pick them up, I know I want to visit Tip Top Meats again anyway so I’ll look for them on my next visit.

  4. I’ve been to the market they have the best carne asada and pollo asada I’ve ever had we drive all way out there to get it from El Cajon occasionally.now we have all our friends and neighbors going down there to get ityou must try it you won’t regret it

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.