Junk Food Betty

I felt pretty guilty entering the driveway to my local Carl’s Jr. (or Carsl’s Jr., as it has affectionately come to be known) because kitty-corner to it, mere hundreds of feet away, sits my favorite mom ‘n’ pop sandwich shop, which serves the best cheesesteaks I’ve ever eaten. Given, I haven’t eaten a lot of cheesesteaks in my day, and I’m sure any Philly native would slap me across the face and start raving about Pat’s or Geno’s and how there certainly isn’t enough abuse from the staff when ordering, but all I know is that their cheesesteaks are delicious.

This is why I felt guilty as I drove past them in order to hit the Carl’s drive-thru to pick up their new Philly Cheesesteak Burger. I was eschewing my favorite, locally-owned sandwich shop in order to pick up some short-lived fast food gimmick. But that is my job, a job I don’t actually get paid for, so it had to be done.

The Philly Cheesesteak Burger is pretty self-explanatory. Carl’s Jr.’s website describes it as “Juicy steak, with sautéed green bell peppers and onions, and melted American and Swiss cheeses, all piled on top of a charbroiled beef patty and served between a seeded bun.” Using beef as a topping for beef, or really, a sandwich as a topping for a burger, should strike me as bizarre. But I’ve seen some things lately that have apparently dulled my sense of the absurd, because the Philly Cheesesteak Burger doesn’t really seem that insane. Probably unsatisfying, but not terrifying. So I wasn’t feeling very trepidatious as I grabbed my sandwichburger without incident, avoiding eye contact with the real cheesesteak place as I drove home.

The Philly Cheesesteak Burger looked pretty innocuous on the outside, and actually smelled rather tasty. I decided to open it up to see what was inside…

Oh, come on, it doesn’t look that bad, right? Let’s take a closer look!

Okay it does look that bad. But I’m no food photographer, and I’ll be honest with you, I love how disgusting those pictures look because the Philly Cheesesteak Burger was actually delicious! I know, I’m as surprised as you are. The steak was actually juicy; it was finely chopped and really tender. The peppers and onions were crunchy, which seems quite a feat to pull off, considering fast food restaurants are seemingly incapable of keeping anything from becoming a soggy mess. While the onions didn’t add much flavor, you can distinctly taste the bell peppers. The cheese is impossibly gooey and creamy.

This all reminds me of the cheesesteaks I get from that place that sits in the same parking lot. There, you can watch them make your sandwich, and it is a thing to behold: the steak, peppers, onions and cheese are all mixed together with a giant metal spatula on top of a sizzling flat griddle. Something about throwing them around and mushing them together on that griddle makes the cheese gooey and distributed throughout the sandwich in a wonderful way, and while I hate to compare them to Carl’s Jr., I think Carl sent out a spy to see how they did it, because the taste and technique are remarkably similar.

Is this how all cheesesteaks are made? Maybe so; once again, I don’t have a whole lot of experience with this type of sandwich. But the cheesesteak on top of my burger was like my mom ‘n’ pop sandwich’s sidekick: less experienced, not as polished, and with about a 30% reduction in quality. It’s not your first choice when you’re being mugged in a dark alley, but it’ll satisfy you in a pinch. And save you from the mugger? I don’t know, this analogy fell apart pretty fast.

Oh yeah, and there’s a burger in there somewhere, too. The cheesesteak kind of overwhelms it, which I am perfectly okay with, but you will taste that Carl’s charbroiled flavor at the very end. Personally, I could have done without the burger altogether, but at least it kept the bun from completely falling apart.

Carl’s Jr.’s Philly Cheesesteak Burger is delicious, which I really wasn’t expecting. Tender meat, crunchy veggies, and melty cheese all tie together in a way I didn’t think would be possible from a fast food restaurant. The burger is almost completely extraneous, but I guess Carl’s felt obligated to throw it in there, perhaps because burgers are kind of what they do, or because they felt a burger with a cheesesteak on top if it would be a proper novelty item in this exciting era of “who can make the strangest food?” Either way, I’m a fan, and I’ll keep ordering them as long as they stay on the menu.

• Score: 4.5 out of 5 sandwiches on top of sandwiches
• Price: $3.69
• Size: One burger
• Purchased at: Carl’s Jr. #828
• Nutritional Quirks: 1,420 milligrams of sodium, but that’s hardly unusual these days.  Let’s go with vegetables that are actually crunchy, which is definitely a quirk for a fast food restaurant.

Curses!  This new Country Fried Steak ‘N’ Gravy Biscuit from Hardee’s looks like the culinary equivalent of a unicorn galloping across a rainbow.  Country fried steak + biscuits and gravy = Serious Awesome.  Unfortunately, I happen to live in a part of the country that thinks Carl’s Jr. when they see the Happy Star, not Hardee’s.  The closest Hardee’s to me is approximately 982 miles away and it would take 18 hours and 12 minutes to drive there.  Not that I considered doing such a thing.  That would be silly, right?

Their website describes the sandwich as “A seasoned, country fried steak with a generous portion of sausage gravy served between a Made From Scratch® buttermilk biscuit.”

My heart and stomach ache for it.

I’ll have to live vicariously through other people’s reviews for now.  Hopefully, if it sells well, they’ll bring it over to Carl’s Jr.’s menu.  If that ever happens, I’ll be on the Country Fried Steak ‘N’ Gravy Biscuit like sausage gravy on a country fried steak.  Aw, man.  Even my terrible analogies show I’ve got Hardee’s on the brain.

If you actually live in a state that has a Hardee’s, the sandwich retails for $2.19.  I urge you to try one out and let me know what you think!

It’s almost getting boring to say things like “fast food restaurants are trying to one-up each other by creating increasingly more ridiculous menu items”. I say “almost” because frankly, I hope they keep it up. This is the stuff I live for. It’s my bread and butter, baby.

So when a friend graciously alerted me to Denny’s new Fried Cheese Melt, I knew I had to have it. Denny’s isn’t the usual type of place I’d go to get a food to review – you mean, there’s a person who shows me where to sit, hands me a physical menu, and checks up on my periodically to ensure I’m having a pleasant dining experience? What foreign land have I happened upon?

But the Fried Cheese Melt was too deliciously silly to resist. It’s part of a revamp of their $2 $4 $6 $8 Value Menu, replacing the Three-cheese melt with soup or garden salad, which falls into the $4 category. According to Nation’s Restaurant News, Denny’s describes the Fried Cheese Melt as “made with four fried mozzarella sticks and melted American cheese grilled between two slices of sourdough bread. It is served with French fries and a side of marinara sauce.”

Yes, that is correct. Four fried mozzarella sticks stuffed inside a grilled cheese sandwich. Gawker calls it “culinary terrorism.” I call it AWESOME.

NRN also informed me that the new Value Menu doesn’t launch until August 24. My brain chose to ignore that statement, probably due to over-excitement, possibly because I was already sticking the keys into the ignition of my car. Either way, I found myself in my local Denny’s yesterday, eager to devour this potentially awesome, potentially lethal sandwich. You can imagine my disappointment when I didn’t find the sandwich on the menu. You can imagine my thoughts of suicide when I asked the waitress about it and she told me that it wouldn’t be out until next week.

And thus ends my non-review of the Fried Cheese Melt. Worst. Review. Ever.

But I like telling stories, so let’s just keep going! Who knows what kind of magical things could happen?

Resigned to my fate of not eating a Fried Cheese Melt and also of having to actually put pants on and leave the house again next week, I ordered a Spicy Buffalo Chicken Melt and consoled myself with a giant cup of ranch dressing. The sandwich was quite tasty, and the seasoned fries were really good. I tried to enjoy myself, but across the deserted restaurant they were conducting a training class, run by the female incarnation of R. Lee Ermey, so I could hear every word of what was going on. “The napkin-bundled silverware needs to be on the right of the place mat, not on top of it,” she shouted to a group of probably-terrified trainees. I looked down at my place mat, with its bundle carefully placed directly on top of the place mat on the left-hand side, and smiled a little.

But then they started talking about the new Value Menu items, and it’s like they were intentionally torturing me. A video was presented, where I could hear an overly cheerful gentleman describe in detail the sandwich that was beyond my grasp for another full week. Just as I was about to drown myself in ranch, our waitress magically appeared. Can you guess what she was holding?

“We have a treat for you! As you can tell, we’re doing some training over there,” she told me as she set the plate down on the table. “So, well, you know…” I wasn’t really sure what that last part meant, but I didn’t care. The sandwich was MINE! Tears welled up in my eyes and I thanked her profusely. My heart went from two times too small to just 1.5 times too small. Then I whipped out my extremely large camera and slid it across the table to my dining partner and sometimes-JFB-contributor Bob, because I’m too much of a sissy to take pictures of food outside the comfort of my own home. I didn’t tell Bob at the time, but I was also afraid the Feds would bust in and arrest me for culinary terrorism. I was happy I had the sandwich, but still heartless enough to throw him under the bus.

So, now that we’ve all gone through a classic tale of love lost and found again, how does this sandwich actually taste?

Well, it tastes like four mozzarella sticks inside a grilled cheese sandwich, which is actually pretty fucking delicious. The buttery grilled bread and the cheese surrounding the sticks keeps them firmly in place, which is great, because I hate when you’re eating mozzarella sticks and you take a bite and the whole gooey mess wants to stretch into your mouth and the breading gets all broken up. I also hate when the sticks get cold too fast, and I think the hot cheese helped to insulate them, keeping them warm and gooey but not falling apart. Additionally, the bread sopped up more marinara sauce, increasing surface area and absorbency so that a person who loves lots of dip like me could glob on as much as I wanted without the sauce sliding off. The marinara sauce was delicious, and the cup contained the perfect amount of it.

These are pretty much all of the things that I told the manager when he came over a little while later with our waitress. I knew he was the manager because he was wearing a tie! I felt like a rock star when he asked my opinion of the sandwich. I savored the feeling of power. My words could make or break this sandwich. Never mind the countless focus groups it probably went through before it hit my table; my word was Law. I could crush all the hopes and dreams of Denny’s marketing department with a single sentence.

But, like I said, I didn’t. I gushed and raved about it, and both the manager and waitress seemed very pleased by this. I bet the manager went home that night and told his wife all about how two twenty-something shlubs loved the new Fried Cheese Melt. She pretended to listen but was instead wondering if she remembered to record the new episode of  The Real Housewives of D.C.  It didn’t matter, though, because he was riding on Cloud Nine.

And thus ends my wonderful adventure at Denny’s. Ms. R. Lee Ermey provided great dining entertainment, I got a delicious sandwich that I wasn’t even supposed to have, I made a manager smile, and I got to feel like a rock star. Oh, and did I mention that the waitress didn’t even charge me for the Fried Cheese Melt? I hope I tipped her sufficiently, but really, you can’t put a price on such a lovely and somewhat surreal experience. Nay-sayers be damned; I’m two thumbs up on Denny’s Fried Cheese Melt.

Edit: Remember, the Fried Cheese Melt doesn’t launch until August 24.  I got really lucky, but you might not.

• Score: 4.5 out of 5 hearts grown 0.5 times bigger
• Price: $0.00; normally $4.00
• Size: One sandwich with a side of marinara
• Purchased at: Denny’s #6491
• Nutritional Quirks: It’s probably chock full of everything bad for you, but who cares?

I’m inappropriately excited about reviewing these Doritos 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd Degree chips. You see, I’ve been seeing 1^st and 2^nd Degree Burns in at least two separate stores. But wherever I looked, I just couldn’t seem to find the 3^rd degree. I couldn’t understand – why so elusive? Why would you sell the first two, but not the third? Is it that dangerous? My frustration over my inability to locate the third burn only intensified my curiosity. And I couldn’t just review the first two, that would be…somehow wrong. Incomplete. So I was left to be constantly confronted by two thirds of a trio that I so wanted to take pictures of and write about on the Internet.

But then…then, one fateful Saturday afternoon, I walked into one of the stores that had been taunting me with burns that only required aloe vera and not a trip to the hospital and what did I see…3^rd DEGREE BURN, MOTHERFUCKERS! I excitedly grabbed a bag and headed over to where the first two had been taunting me in the store for close to a month now. And yet, they were not there. I traversed the whole store, and couldn’t find them. So…you finally get the third, and then remove the first two? That don’t make no sense.

Luckily, I knew another place that also only carried the first two, so I picked those up and basked in triumph. And thus ends two paragraphs’ worth of a story that is only interesting to me.

Moving on! In case you don’t have a grasp on the simplest of medical concepts, the gimmick here is that there are three different levels of heat. Let’s take them literally, just for fun. The first degree, Blazin’ Jalapeño, will make your tongue mildly uncomfortable. There may also be some swelling. Run some cool water over your tongue for a while and stop being such a pussy.

The second, Fiery Buffalo, will…wait a second. How is buffalo hotter than jalapeño? According to the Scoville scale, jalapeños register in at 2,500 to 8,000 units. “Buffalo” isn’t a pepper, and thus isn’t on the Scoville scale, but I’ve had my fair share of buffalo sauces, and I don’t think any of them were in any way hotter than eating a raw jalapeño. I guess they could have just used a really hot sauce to make them. Well, regardless, after consuming these chips, you will experience severe pain and swelling of the tongue, as well as developing disgusting blisters. Cold water can also help here, but it is advised that you suck on the sap of an aloe vera plant throughout the day. Try not to pop those blisters that are filling up your mouth. That would probably taste pretty gross, and it’s bad for the wound. A sterile gauze bandage may be applied to your mouth to help protect the burn. I guess you should just stuff a bunch of gauze in there and carry around a pen and paper. It would probably hurt too much to talk, anyways.

The third degree, Scorchin’ Habanero, will fuck your shit up. Habanero peppers register on the Scoville scale at 100,000 to 250,000 units. It is advised that you wear protective gloves while handling these chips to prevent skin irritation. After you eat these chips, you should seek immediate medical attention. Do not remove any clothing you may be wearing on your tongue. Elevate the tongue to above the heart le- well I guess that one is taken care of. Call 911 or have someone drive you to the nearest Emergency Room; do not drive yourself, as you may go into shock and cause a car accident, which would only make things worse. Your tongue will require constant medical attention and bandage changes for weeks afterward. A skin graft may be required. They may harvest your new tongue skin from your buttocks.

After hearing all that, you must think I’m a fool for attempting to eat all three burns in one day. Well, maybe I am a fool, but I’m a fool who eats things so that you don’t have to. Some may call me a fool; others, a hero.

1^st Degree Burn: Blazin’ Jalapeño

Hm.  These certainly taste familiar.  Where have I experienced this unique taste before?  Oh, I think I remember!  I think they remind me quite strongly of Doritos Late Night Last Call Jalapeno Poppers. Or maybe I’m thinking of Doritos Poppin’ Jalapeño! No, that can’t be it, I didn’t even know that was a flavor of Doritos until about five minutes ago. Well hey, maybe it was Doritos 3Ds Jalapeño & Cheddar, part of a brief and apparently unsuccessful gimmick from the mid-2000s!

What I’m trying to say here, and I think you’ve all pretty much guessed it by now, is that there’s nothing new in Blazin’ Jalapeño. I could go on a giant tirade about Frito-Lay constantly recycles their flavors into new gimmicks, but I don’t even want to get started, because that would then become half the content of this website.  I just need to accept it and move on.

I don’t see that actually happening.

For those of you who haven’t tried any of these other iterations, the flavor is pretty straightforward – spicy heat with an undertone of artificial cheese flavoring. I actually like them quite a bit, and they pack a surprising amount of heat. Jalapeño pepper powder is listed as one of the ingredients, and it’s definitely not shy.  Anyone who is not a big fan of capsaicin definitely would not like these.  They’ve got a good burn, but not so much so that the flavors are overwhelmed.

I don’t really have a lot more to say about 1st Degree Burn Blazin’ Jalapeño, other than that we’re off to a pretty promising start.  If this is 1st degree, I’m eager to see how much my tongue hates me as we move on!

2nd Degree Burn Fiery Buffalo

I wondered briefly why 1st Degree got the Blazin’ moniker and Doritos didn’t take alliterative advantage (heh heh) and call these Blazin’ Buffalo. And then I remembered why.  I swear I’ve had Blazin’ Buffalo & Ranch Doritos before, and I don’t recall the buffalo chips being hot at all.  Just sufficiently buffalo-flavored.

Holy crap!  Holy crap these chips are hot!  The first chip delivered a blast that immediately hit my sinuses in a way 1st Degree didn’t.  It was a feeling akin to what happens when you put too much wasabi on a sushi roll.  As I kept eating them, the burn kept building.  I ate about a half dozen of them and my whole mouth was on fire.  My lips were burning, and continued to do so for minutes afterwards.  I actually had to sniffle a few times, as the heat was making my nose run a little.

I have to say, I’m honestly blown away.  These are the hottest chips I’ve ever eaten.  I didn’t know you could actually make tortilla chips this hot.  I’m not getting a lot of buffalo flavor (although the “fiery” part certainly is present), but I could see how these would be really great with a nice, thick ranch dip.  I’m sorry, but throwing some Cool Ranch Doritos into the mix won’t help this time – you’re gonna need a pretty serious dairy product to cut through the heat.

The flavor is really kind of hard to describe…”burny” is all that comes to mind.  But it’s kind of a good burn.  I’ve always poo-pooed those people who like to eat super hot hot sauce.  What’s the point of eating something if all you taste is pain?  And yet, I really liked 2nd Degree Burn.  The little masochist inside of me enjoyed the slow build of torture.  I don’t think I would eat them all the time, but honestly, if I had some good ranch dip around, I could really lay into these guys, watching tv with a box of Kleenex nearby so I could blow my nose as snot runs down my face.

I’m impressed!  And now terrified of 3rd Degree Burn Scorchin’ Habanero.  I’m actually going to have to wait a while before eating them to get some feeling back in my mouth.

3rd Degree Burn Scorchin’ Habanero

Okay so seriously I’m a little scared.  Take a look at what I’m up against:

AHHHHHHHHHHH

When I was taking pictures, before any actual tasting started, I saw these and thought, oh, these are just going to be like Flamin’ Hot Doritos, because of the coloration.  I’ve never had Flamin’ Hot Doritos, but I’ve had the Cheetos, and they are delicious, but not really that hot.  The most threatening thing about them is that the violently brightly colored flavor powder stains your fingers, letting the world know that you have recently indulged in some form of Flamin’ Hot junk food.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Now, I am not so sure.

Well, there’s only one thing to do about it, and that is to eat them.  Let’s get on with it, then!  I feel like I should have some sort of spotter or sitter nearby.  Maybe a LifeAlert necklace.  C. Everett Coop is looking down at me disapprovingly from the afterlife.

Here we go…

SPOILER ALERT: I’m alive!  And I didn’t even have to go to the hospital (yet).  I actually feel like 3rd Degree is about as hot as 2nd Degree.  Of course, 2nd Degree could have turned my tongue into a charred wasteland, rendering me incapable of noticing heat differences.  I got the mouth and lip burn.  Less sinus irritation; only one sniffle came out of it.  But I did get some eye tearing with 3rd Degree, and I definitely feel it more in the throat area.  While I was eating them, I got that choking, burning feeling, like when you accidentally swallow some hot, spicy pho broth the wrong way.  Like I need to cough, or gag. Or make that gross “HUUUKKKGGGHHH” sound uncivilized guys make right before they hock a loogie on the ground.  Even after having not eaten them for a little while, my esophagus feels a tad scorched.  Scorchin’!  Well done, Doritos.

I actually got a little more flavor (other than “ouchy”) out of 3rd Degree than 2nd.  They taste a lot like Spicy Nacho Doritos.  Spicy Nacho Doritos are the wimpy kid in middle school who gets bullied on his way home one day, and the next day his older brother, Scorchin’ Habanero, comes out and absolutely kicks the shit out of those little assholes, sending them running home crying to mama.  Apparently my mouth is the gaggle of bullies, in this scenario.  My mouth is misunderstood; life at home is hard, and…oh, nevermind.  The burning isn’t going away as fast this time and I think it has spread to my brain and I can no longer think straight enough to complete an already poorly constructed analogy.

Doritos 1st, 2nd and 3rd Degree Burns kicked my ass, and I’m happy to say that.  I’m so used to fast food gimmicks claiming to be hotter than Hades winding up being about as spicy as your grandmother’s love life that I severely underestimated Doritos.  Frito-Lay comes out with a new gimmick approximately once a week, and it’s usually the same flavors we’ve seen before with a shiny new bow and a poorly-executed concept.  This time, however, they took a solid concept and really ran with it.  Okay, so 1st Degree Blazin’ Jalaepeño was a total rehash, but it still fit perfectly into the progression of Burns and is still a tasty product, even if this is its fourth iteration.  Heck, even if 2nd and 3rd Degrees are also rehashes and I just don’t know/remember it, the overall theme is solid, fun, and goddamn painful.  Painfully delicious!

Ask me to say that again tomorrow when I’m on the toilet cursing every good thing I ever said in this review while my digestive tract stages a grassroots rebellion against Frito-Lay.

Oh, and as a side note, Doritos Burns has a little cross-promo with Pepsi Max, which claims it will “cure the burn”.  I think they would have been better off striking a deal with Hidden Valley.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, my mouth has a date with a wad of gauze.

Doritos 1st Degree Burn Blazin’ Jalapeño Tortilla Chips

• Score: 3.5 out of 5 failed 3D snacks
• Price: $0.99
• Size: 2 1/4 oz. bag
• Purchased at: Circle K #2821
• Nutritional Quirks: Magically reanimated flavor!  Zombification ingredients not listed. 

Doritos 2nd Degree Burn Fiery Buffalo Tortilla Chips

• Score: 4 out of 5 surviving taste buds
• Price: $0.99
• Size: 2 1/8 oz. bag
• Purchased at: Circle K #2821
• Nutritional Quirks: Addition of ranch dip will significantly up the grams of fat, but it’s worth it.

Doritos 3rd Degree Burn Scorchin’ Habanero Tortilla Chips

• Score: 4.5 out of 5 charred taste buds
• Price: $0.99
• Size: 2 1/8 oz. bag
• Purchased at: Fry’s Foods
• Nutritional Quirks: FIRE IN MY MOUTH!  HALP!

Okay, so it’s like, two weeks late, but I just wanted to say that JFB turned one year old on July 13th!  Hooray!  I know I haven’t been posting a lot lately, but I’ve got some good stuff backlogged (stuffed in my cupboard), and I’m hoping to rev up a little more soon.  I’ve really enjoyed seeing my baby grow, from milestones like my first flame war to having the honor to write for The Impulsive Buy.

Thanks to everyone who has read my blog, especially those who left comments. I love getting comments, whether they be funny, informative, or just telling me I’m a horrible writer. I hope to be informing the Internet about horrible and/or wacky junk food for years to come. Cheers!

I’d love to lie to you and say that I picked up Kool-Aid Fun Fizz Drink Drops Partyin’ Punch strictly for review purposes, but honestly, the exact opposite is true. As you might be able to tell from the picture, the pouch has already been opened. Sometimes JFB contributor Bob picked these up on a whim. The truth is, we are both people inching perilously close to the age of 30, and we still make Kool-Aid. No, there are no children in this household. Just two semi-responsible adults who make Kool-Aid.

I should have seen the potential for a review right off the bat, but it wasn’t until Bob tried these Drink Drops that I realized they would be perfect for a review. It’s a fucking Alka-Seltzer that makes Kool-Aid! What’s not to love? Or mock?

The tablets come individually wrapped in their own little packets, which I wasn’t expecting, but makes sense for those who want their Kool-Aid on-the-go.  As you can see, on the back of the packet, the tablet has a little smiley face on it, much resembling the Kool-Aid Man’s perpetual grin.  Wouldn’t it be great if that was what the tablets actually looked like?

OH YEAAHH!

OH MY GOD I GET TO DROWN THE KOOL-AID MAN!  …Which is kind of weird, since he’s already filled with nothing but liquid, but…whatever.  Give me my right to pretend I’m drowning a beloved mascot and I’m down.

When he made his cup of Fun Fizz, Bob just dropped one of the tablets into a random amount of water. He then complained that it was too…well, watery. I advised him that maybe he should follow the directions on the back of the pouch, which read, “Put 1 drink drop into 8 fl oz glass of water and watch it fizz. OR Put 2 drink drops into 16 fl oz bottle of water.” However, don’t ever, ever drop 2 drink drops into a 16 oz glass of water, or else you threaten to open a wormhole that leads to a bizarro world, where chicken replaces bread on all sandwiches.

This time I made sure I had exactly eight ounces of water, as the back of the package demands. I dropped in our little Kool-Aid Man tablet and watched the excitement unfold!

I wasn’t timing it, but it took about three or four minutes for the Drink Drop to dissolve completely. It was kind of fun watching all the bubbles come up as it dissolved. My favorite part was when the tab went from sitting at the bottom of the glass to slowly floating up to the surface, where it turned into a frothy blob before dissolving completely. I likened it to watching a dead body writhe free of the chains that had been holding it to the bottom of a lake, slowly and ominously drifting up to the surface, ready to traumatize a group of carefree prepubescents for life when they discover it. Except this time, the body dissolves completely in under five minutes. The perfect crime.

OH NOOOO!

The taste of it was distinctly fruit punch, but it had an interesting fizzy texture that went with it, unlike regular Kool-Aid. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it carbonated; it was more like a brief pop on the tongue before I swallowed the liquid. Almost like when you have a mouthful of Pop Rocks and you get that one last, faint pop out of one of the little guys before they completely dissolve. I am probably the only person under the age of 16 who actually remembers that feeling, because I’m the only person nearing the age of 30 who has had Pop Rocks within in the last decade. I’m also drinking fizzy Kool-Aid. What do you want.

While the drink does have a nice, distinct tropical punch flavor, the sweetness of it is absolutely cloying. The nice thing about making your own Kool-Aid is that you can add as much sugar as you want to it. I tend to lean towards the less sugary side, to the point where the Kool-Aid is almost tart. Looking at the ingredient list is like looking at the chemicals needed to produce…I don’t know, something really sciency, and aspartame is included in that list, which explains the mouth-coating, long-lasting, not very pleasant oversweetness.

Kool-Aid Fun Fizz Drink Drops is an interesting concept that’s fun to watch and I’m sure will make kids clap their hands together like a bus full of autistic children heading off to “special” summer camp. And I’m sure that was the point, so Kool-Aid has succeeded nicely on that front. Kids might also like the overwhelming sweetness, but I’m not sure how they’ll feel about the aspartame aftertaste. Then again, children are forgiving, so watching the Kool-Aid man slowly dissolve to his doom might make them forget about all that. I suppose the portability makes it useful, but Kool-Aid already makes a product called Singles that fills that niche well enough.  For me, I’ll just stick to making Kool-Aid the old-fashioned way, like a normal, responsible adult.

• Score: 2.5 out of 5 bloated corpses and traumatized children
• Price: $1.99
• Size: 1 bag of 8 Drink Drops (0.53 oz.)
• Purchased at: Safeway #1717
• Nutritional Quirks: Citric acid, sorbitol, potassium and sodium bicarbonate, aspartame.  Contains less than 2% of natural and artificial flavor, ascorbic acid, sucralose, acesulfame potassium, potassium and sodium carbonate, magnesium oxide, soy lecithin, red 40, blue 1, sodium benzoate and BHA.  Oh, sorry, that’s actually just the entire ingredient list.

Hooray, today is Cow Appreciation Day! Or Appresheeation. Whatever. The whole gimmick is retarded. But if you want to dress up like a cow, use terrible grammar, and get…something for free at Chick-fil-A, today is your day. Straight from the stupid cow’s mouth:

“It’s become a holiday for Chick-fil-A fans. Just come to any one of our 1,400+ restaurants today fully dressed like a cow (you know, to prove that you’re no chicken), and we’ll give you a FREE Chick-fil-A meal! And bring the kids, because calves get free meals too!”

Nowhere on their website could I actually find what the definition of a “meal” is. So I encourage you to wear your stupid cow costume down to your nearest Chick-fil-A and demand one of everything on the menu. You deserve it, because you’re dressed like a fucking cow. To get free chicken.

Oh, and I almost forgot: if you’re not creative enough to figure out how to make your own cow costume, Chick-fil-A has generously provided a starter kit for you here. How kind of them.

I’m going to murder whoever designed Sonic’s website and hunt down every last relative of that person with a Bowie knife clenched between my perpetually gnashing teeth.

Perhaps that’s not the best way to start out a review, but it’s how I feel right now, after having attempted to do the bare minimum research on the product about which I will be talking. If I’m lucky, after ten minutes the home page for Sonic Drive-In’s website will load. If I’m unlucky, I get a server error page. I’m unlucky more than I’m lucky. C’mon, people, you’re a national fast food chain. Make a fucking website that works, for Christ’s sake.

Nerd rage aside, I was finally able to struggle through the steaming, fetid bog of Sonic’s site to find the information I needed. First, I wanted to write a statement along the lines of “I never saw a Sonic before I moved to Arizona; apparently, my home turf of Orange County thought itself too good to allow them.” I figured I’d fact check that last part before dozens of angry, well-tanned OC residents left outraged comments. It turns out that while my former comment remains true, there was a Sonic within two miles of the house I spent the first 22 years of my life living in. Apparently, I’m just a clueless, unobservant fuck.

That aside, I’ve now lived within THREE miles of a Sonic for the last six years of my life, and the only thing I’ve ever ordered from there was a SuperSONIC Breakfast Burrito (the only breakfast burrito I’ve ever found that could support itself as a decent food item when you order it without eggs) and a blue Powerade Slush. Both are great for hangovers, by the way. I’m sure the flavor of the slush is not actually “blue”, but really, you all know what I mean. Nobody actually identifies sports drinks by flavor. Yellow, blue, purple, orange. These are your choices.

All this blathering about NOT going to Sonic has a vague purpose, in that I’ve never actually had a Sonic burger. Until NOW. Sonic recently released a limited edition burger called the Ched R Pepper SuperSONIC Cheeseburger. I’d seen the commercial for them a few times and gave it a dismissive wave of the hand, figuring Sonic thinks they’ve reinvented the wheel by adding a little more cheese and maybe some jalapeños to whatever regular goddamn burger they’ve got on the menu. But then I saw the commercial again one day and something caught my eye, so much so that I had to rewind my DVR and pause it at this moment:

Holy shit, they put jalapeño poppers on a burger! More specifically, “Ched R Peppers”, which I didn’t even know were on Sonic’s menu, since they’re not listed on the website. First of all, what a fucking terrible name. Ched R Peppers? Really? Not even gonna, you know, maybe throw an apostrophe in there? Fuck Ched R Peppers. I reserve the right to call them poppers throughout the rest of this review.

Furthermore, on their official YouTube video of the commercial, they call it a “Cheddar Pepper Burger” several times. Even Sonic itself is embarrassed.

I was repulsed and intrigued at the same time. On the one hand, putting random snack food inside a burger is ridiculous. On the other hand, putting random snack food inside a burger is awesome, and I love ridiculous. So, I knew I had to try one.

First of all, the burger is MASSIVE. It’s also probably the messiest burger I’ve ever eaten, due, in part, to the bottom bun falling apart in my hands. Poor bottom bun, it just couldn’t handle the responsibility of two giant patties, AND a ridiculous amount of cheese, AND two Ched R Peppers. It was doomed from the start. Actually, I think the real problem there is that they put all the lettuce, tomatoes, dressing, and everything else underneath the meat and poppers. There’s probably a reason they’re usually on top.

Aw, look! There they are!

Epic battle with sliding toppings and chipotle mayo-covered hands aside, I quite liked the burger. The meat was superior to McDonald’s but probably wouldn’t hold up to In-N-Out’s standards. I’d give it a medium on the scale of rat meat patties to hand-grilled burgers at a barbeque. The cheese, well, the cheese was plentiful. Between the two thick slices on the burger and the cheese inside the poppers, ooey gooey goodness was everywhere. The chipotle mayo added a muted flavor and was pretty abundant, which was nice, except I think I licked more of it off of my hands than I actually ate inside the burger, once again due to the bottom bun rolling a crit fail. Bottom bun is Black Leaf.

I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised with how well the poppers played with the burger. The deep-fried breading on the poppers gave it a nice crunch, sort of like the way onion rings would, except on most burgers I’ve had with rings, the rings are so soggy that they deliver no crunch at all. Maybe that’s why the condiments were all on the bottom of this burger. Keeping the poppers dry preserved that crunch. So, both a good call and a bad call on Sonic’s part. You can’t win them all.

Actually, I just realized that there’s a burger on top already protecting the poppers, so putting the condiments on top wouldn’t have made a difference. It makes no sense. Ched R Peppers.

The jalapeños add their delicious flavor and a little bit of heat, but not as much as if you’d put a bunch of jalapeño slices on the burger. This could be because the fat in the cheese binds to the capsaicin molecules in the pepper, thus reducing their potency. SCIENCE!

Or it could be because Sonic buys milder jalapeños, because all fast food chains think Americans can’t handle actual spicy food. Whatever.

Sonic wins points for the Ched R Pepper SuperSONIC Cheeseburger being insa- uh, creative, but loses points for being poorly constructed, resulting in a burger you should never, ever eat in your car, on your way to an important interview. Then again, if you’re eating a cheeseburger on your way to an interview, you’re probably applying at Sonic Drive-In, so have at. I was pleasantly surprised at how well the poppers played with the burger, and I also liked how plentiful and complimentary the chipotle mayo was. The meat and the abundant cheese were also satisfying. Putting jalapeño poppers on a burger may seem ridiculous, but consider that they’ve been doing it in New Jersey for about 40 years, so maybe it isn’t so crazy, after all. As a matter of fact, I’d like other fast food chains to start stepping up their game and stuffing their burgers full of various kinds of bar food. It’d keep me in business for months!

• Score: 3.5 out of 5 Fat Kokos (Don’t know what that means?  You’re the jerk who doesn’t click the links!)
• Price: $4.69
• Size: 1 burger (418 grams)
• Purchased at: Sonic #3517
• Nutritional Quirks: 1,899 milligrams of sodium.  Suck it, Double Down!

Cheetos, widely known as being the favorite snack of nerds, has been on a roll these past few years, releasing several different twists on their traditional gnarled, neon orange, dust-covered “snacks”. They’ve gone giant, they’ve gone white, and now, they’ve gone tiny and, uh, zinged.

Earlier this year, Frito-Lay introduced Cheetos Mighty Zingers. There are two flavors: Ragin’ Cajun & Tangy Ranch and Sharp Cheddar & Salsa Picante. Their press release states that “Cheetos lovers are in for the ultimate treat, because Chester Cheetah is today unleashing a new cheesy innovation called Cheetos Mighty Zingers – the tiniest Cheetos snacks ever made and marketed.”

I’m sorry, are you looking for a gold star or maybe a smiley-face sticker? Congratulations, you made Cheetos that are smaller than normal Cheetos. Holy shit, alert the press! Wait, that’s actually exactly what they’re doing. You’re already annoying me, Cheetos.

Mighty Zingers’ gimmick is one that seems to be gaining popularity: take two differently-flavored products of the same type and pack them into one bag. The general idea seems to be to have one spicy flavor and one cooling flavor, like the classic buffalo wings and ranch combo. Nobody’s ever sat me down and explained it to me, but I’m assuming you’re supposed to shove them both into your mouth at the same time to achieve the spicy-then-soothing effect. Your results may vary. The idea here seems to be more in the category of complimentary flavors. Who doesn’t love salsa con queso? Communists, that’s who. Don’t be a pinko; eat the fucking chips. Er, snacks.

One thing I love about these snacks right off the bat is that they have taken an age-old snacking problem and finally found a solution for it. The problem: I want to get as much processed food into my mouth as fast as I can, but when I tip back the bag and start pouring them into my giant, unhinged maw, chips start flying everywhere and I get flavor dust in my eyes! The solution? Well, again, I think Cheetos’ press release says it best: “There’s even a playful perforated ‘pouring tab’ up top, making it easier than ever to pop a delicious handful of Mighty Zingers straight into your mouth.”

I think we all know that they don’t intend for you to ever be touching these Cheetos with your hands. That bag, with its “playful pouring tab”, is going straight to your lips. I assume this is why they have made these the tiniest Cheetos ever(!) Easier to pour them into your mouth. Who has time for things like reaching into a bag? There’s a motherfucking raid going on with my guild over here, folks! Of course, this does eliminate the need to suck sticky flavor dust off your fingers. So maybe they are on to something, here.

Somebody on the Cheetos marketing team thinks they’re Charles fucking Dickens, because there’s a goddamn novel written on the back of the bag. Since the picture is probably too small and probably blurry (thanks again, metallic bag), I’ll write it all out for you:

DON’T CALL THEM SMALL.

These tiny Cheetos Snacks are mighty in taste.

THE SHARP CHEDDAR WILL MAKE YOUR TASTE BUDS TAKE NOTICE, AND THE SALSA PICANTE IS TOO ROWDY TO RESIST.

Together these Cheetos Snacks create a cheesy flavor that’ll shove your tongue around.

Their numbers will amaze you. Their tastes will astound you.

There are endless ways to enjoy this mixture of mightiness. Sort them, combine them,

BUT DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF CHEETOS MIGHTY ZINGERS SNACKS.

I can’t tell if Mighty Zingers are going to delight my palate or come out of the bag and kick my ass like Guido coming to collect on an outstanding loan.

I expected the playful pour tab to rip down the entire side of the bag, creating a giant mess, but it tore almost exactly on the perforation, creating just the right hole to pour these little choking hazards right down your gullet. The cheddar does indeed look sharp, and the salsa, picante, so they got the colors right, at least. Let’s check the flavors.

I tried them individually at first, of course, because I’m such a rebel. I had a hard time distinguishing Sharp Cheddar from regular-flavored Cheetos, but I guess that makes sense. Regular Cheetos are already neon cheese-flavored, so why go through the trouble of making up a new flavor? I did detect a little bit of spice, but I think that’s from getting intimate with Salsa Picante in the bag. I could see little red dots on the Sharp Cheddar pieces where the powder had rubbed off onto them. This is why you shouldn’t put two flavors together in one bag; you don’t know what’s going on once you’ve vacuum sealed those two edges together. Cheetos be gettin’ freaky on the store shelves. This is making “sticky Cheeto fingers” even more unappealing.

Uh oh. I should have seen this coming. I should have known. I should have chosen Ragin’ Cajun & Tangy Ranch. I have chosen…unwisely.

SALSA PICANTE IS FLAMIN’ HOT CHEETOS! (Spoiler alert.) It’s not like I haven’t run into this before; Doritos has repackaged its Cool Ranch as just about every flavor under the sun. But usually they at least try to make something about one of the flavors a little bit different. Not so here. You know what Cheetos Mighty Zingers Sharp Cheddar & Salsa Picante Snacks really are? Cheetos All the Little Pieces You Find at the Bottom of the Bag That You Wind Up Throwing Away Cheese & Flamin’ Hot Cheese-Flavored Snacks.

I am outraged.

Maybe I shouldn’t be, but there are several factors here. First and most obvious is the recycling of the flavors. Then there’s the gimmick that “oh we made them small!”, when, seriously, these could just be leftover broken pieces from the factory for all I fucking know. The real coup de grace is that, unless you literally are pouring these directly from bag to mouth, they are practically impossible to eat. I’ve been snacking on the ones I poured out in the picture, and even my tiny, delicate, feminine fingers can’t manage to pick up more than one at once without Cheetos flying everywhere half the time. So I’m supposed to pour them into my hand, eh? Oh okay, let’s do that. Then I can lick the flavor powder off my palm like I’m cosplaying Chester fucking Cheetah grooming himself at a fucking furry convention. Okay, yes, I will stand in my kitchen with no pants on and pour these little fucking choking hazards that I could have gotten by buying two bags of differently-flavored Cheetos straight into my mouth, but you know what I won’t do? You know where this person, this person who has eaten AN ENTIRE SMOTHERED MEAT PATTY, draws the line? Licking my hand after eating handfuls of broken-up Cheetos, and then looking down to see my cat performing the same action. I just can’t go there. My cat also licks his own ass.

One more little factoid you should probably know about Cheetos Mighty Zingers Sharp Cheddar & Salsa Picante Snacks – Flamin’ Hot Cheetos turn your fingers red. For like, the rest of the fucking day. I don’t care how many times you wash your hands, your fingers tell the world, “I ate an inappropriate amount of an unhealthy spicy junk food.” Hence, if you eat these Mighty Zingers in handfuls, you’ll literally be caught red-handed. JUST LIKE I CAUGHT YOU RED-HANDED IN A WEB OF DECEIT, CHEETOS.

• Score: 2 out of 5 broken bits of boring old Cheeto flavors in a stupid metallic bag
• Price: $2.99
• Size: 9 1/2 oz. bag
• Purchased at: Fry’s Foods
• Nutritional Quirks: I dunno, just go read a regular bag of Cheetos and account for a “broken-up handful” serving size, I guess.

Today, Friday, April 16, 2010, you can go to Jack in the box and get a free small fry!  It’s Free fry Fryday!  GET IT?  I knew you would.

Why the random free fry giveaway, besides the obvious opportunity for what I would call a low-level pun?  Apparently JitB has gone and modified, they might say “improved”, their fry recipe.  I haven’t had JitB fries in quite a while, but I seem to remember them being pretty good, so I’m interested in what “improvements” have been made.  Don’t fuck it up, JitB.

You can watch the commercial right on their website.  It has a puppy in it!  Jack is smart.  He knows nobody can resist puppies.

So go get your fry on today.  Fryday.  And let me know what you think about Jack’s new fries!