The creator of the viral Dubai chocolate bar says it's changed her life. After tracking down 3 different versions in NYC, I understand why.

07.09.2024 - 15:56 / insider.com

It all began, as most things do these days, with a viral video on TikTok.

UAE-based creator Maria Vehera filmed a 1 1/2-minute clip in which she opened a chocolate bar, broke it in half, and dipped it in green pistachio cream before taking her first bite. Since she posted the video in December 2023, it has been viewed 77 million times and has over 5 million likes.

The chocolate in the video — a milk-chocolate bar that's filled with pistachio cream and kataifi, a shredded phyllo pastry — took FoodTok by storm. From homemade recipes and vegan substitutes to DIY kits on eBay and small business owners making their own versions, everyone has been trying to recreate the bars.

The original bar, named "Can't Get Knafeh of It," after the traditional Middle Eastern dessert kunafa, was created by UAE-based dessert shop Fix Dessert Chocolatier. Its founder, Sarah Hamouda, launched the brand from her home kitchen in 2021.

"Coming from my dining-room kitchen to a small cloud kitchen with one person and then now a team of 15 people has been surreal," Hamouda told Business Insider.

The brand took off earlier this year and, according to Hamouda, went from getting six to seven chocolate orders a day to 500 orders a day, with the bars selling out within a minute of new products going on sale every evening.

Since the brand's viral success, Hamouda has quit her corporate job and is determined to meet the growing global demands. But Fix Desserts have yet to hit stores in the US, so some local businesses have taken things into their own hands. Banking on the bar's virality and a growing global chocolate market, US-based businesses are creating and selling their own versions.

In New York City, Nuts Factory, a specialty food store with six Manhattan locations and six others across the state, introduced the chocolate bar in July.

"We hand-make about 1,000 bars of chocolates every day to send across all our stores," Din Allall, the CEO of Nuts Factory, told Business Insider. And while he doesn't have a number on the chocolate sales yet, it's been popular enough a product to warrant expansion. The brand has already launched a dark and white chocolate option alongside its milk chocolate offering and plans to introduce additional flavors in the upcoming months.

Since I can't make a trip across the Atlantic to try the original, I decided to try bars from three local businesses selling them in New York — the Chocolate House, Mokafe, and the Nuts Factory — to determine which appears to be the most authentic and tastes the most delicious.

Here's how the chocolate bars tasted, ranked from my least favorite to my favorite.