In this informal YouTube video, two speakers (A and B) conduct a blind taste test of three Nanaimo bars sourced from three downtown Nanaimo businesses—Serious Coffee, Mopotishu, and Red's Bakery—all located on Commercial Street. They begin by describing the classic Nanaimo bar structure (bottom fudge/coconut/cocoa, middle custard/buttercream, top chocolate layer) and discuss expected ratios. As they sample each bar, they comment on visual appearance, layer thickness, texture (e.g., gooey custard, mousse‑like middle, nutty cookie crumb), and flavor balance (sweetness, chocolate intensity). Speaker A identifies the Serious Coffee bar as the favorite, citing the right ratio of layers and a pleasing chocolate taste, while noting the Mopotishu bar’s mousse‑like middle deviates from a traditional Nanaimo bar. The Red's Bakery bar is praised for its chocolate layer but criticized for overwhelming the custard. They also mention price (Serious Coffee being the cheapest) and each shop’s reputation (Red's Bakery known for awards). The video ends with a light‑hearted sign‑off.
Chapters
Hello!
The Nanaimo bar taste test.
3 different Nanaimo bars, each from 3 different Nanaimo businesses downtown.
The Nanaimo bar is made up of 3 things: a chocolate layer, and then this layer is like a buttercream, which is butter, icing sugar, and custard. Custard. And the bottom is sort of a fudge made up of butter, coconut, cocoa powder, and cookie.
It's like a cookie crumble.
First, let's talk about the ratio.
This top is a little bit too thick.
It's a little too thick.
I'm used to this.
Well, that's even too thin. Yeah, like I think somewhere in between. In between here of the chocolate is probably right. This ratio looks all off to me. So color, how do things look to you? I actually think this one looks—
this is the color I'm most used to, and maybe that means they use more custard.
I will say though that the top's very nice and clean, and then the other two are a little less so.
This one looks like it's mousse or something. It looks lighter.
Okay, blind taste test. Do we own a blindfold? This is sample number 1.
The custard layer is really soft. A little too gooey. I'm used to it being a little thicker. It tasted good though.
Sample B.
There's nuts or grains, like whole grains or oats in the cookie layer. Because it has like a mousse layer in the middle. Like, it still tastes nice, but it's not an Animo bar.
Wow!
It's not— it's a nice taste. It's a whole different square. C. It was very much like what I'm used to, but a little too much chocolate. It had the taste and the right balance, but the consistency was a bit gooey.
I didn't actually change the order.
So it was like this.
So which— it was like that, yeah.
This one has some kind of like nuts or something. I mean, it's still— it's chocolate and butter and nuts. Like, what's not to love?
But which one did you like best?
Taste-wise, this one. Oh really? Where I got it from? Yeah, this is from Serious Coffee. Yeah, um, on Commercial Street. These are all on Commercial Street.
That's the cheapest one, incidentally. Why did you like that one?
It had the right ratios of taste. Okay, like for this is— I would say if it hadn't been squished, you can kind of see it on the back, you can see that's the right ratio to me. This one, the mousse middle, not my thing. It still tasted okay, it just didn't taste like an Nanaimo bar to me. Okay, if you're wanting something lighter and a little less sweet, I think that's a good way to go. The chocolate's very tasty on that one.
That's Mopotishu, which is a really good, uh, brunch place, by the way. This is Red's Bakery, which is sort of like known in the city as quote-unquote the best Nanaimo bar.
That one was like—
they have all sorts of awards on the wall.
But the fudge, the— this layer, the chocolate layer, was a little bit— I felt like it drowned out the custard a bit, but the cookie layer was like perfect. So, 1, 2, 3.
