Pop-Tarts Toaster Pastries come in 32 different iterations. You’d think that would be enough, but now there’s Pop-Tarts Limited Edition Frosted Pumpkin Pie Toaster Pastries. Seems like a stretch at first, but hey, stuff some canned pumpkin pie filling into the already existing pastry crust, throw some frosting on top to represent whipped cream, and blammo, you’ve got yourself an autumn gimmick product!
The front of the box has a pretty generic fall landscape, but the real fun is on the back of the box.
Fall Fun! To be more specific. I’d attempt making Pumpkin Pie Pop-Tarts a la mode, which involves mashing up the pastries, lumping them on top of a scoop of reduced-fat frozen vanilla yogurt, and topping that with fat-free caramel ice cream topping, but I only have two Pop-Tarts and I only eat extra-fat vanilla ice cream. I love how Pop-Tarts tries to act like they’re soooo good for your kids. One of these Pop-Tarts has 200 calories, so if you finish off a pack of two you’ve just consumed more calories than are in a Whopper Jr. Not to shatter any illusions or anything.
A more interesting suggestion for Fall Fun, however, is making your own Pumpkin People!
The instructions are pretty easy: grab some little pumpkins or gourds, collect a bunch of nature bullshit like pinecones, leaves and pine needles, and glue that shit together. Unfortunately, I live in the southwest, so I guess if I made Pumpkin People they’d be covered in cactus needles and rocks. That’s depressing.
Pop-Tarts describes this process as “making your new friends”, but these Pumpkin People look like the natives are getting restless. I know the cold seasons can be trying on children who live in colder climates, but surely you could make some more friendly friends to hang out with when it’s snowing. Make your own Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, perhaps? Of course, if you’re going to consider Pumpkin Pie Pop-Tarts a Halloween item, you should make your Pumpkin People as scary as possible. Maybe using cactus needles isn’t such a sad idea after all. Pumpkin Person Pinhead, here I come!
After a brief stint in the toaster oven, I took my Pumpkin Pie Pop-Tart out and cut it in half, and was instantly hit with the familiar smell of…well shucks, it smells like pumpkin pie! And it tastes like it, too! Okay, well not exactly. I am eating a Pop-Tart and not a slice of pie, after all. But the pumpkin pie taste comes through quite strongly, evoking memories of Thanksgiving and all the dishes I had to wash afterwards.
The pastry that holds the filling is largely tasteless, but the frosting adds a nice sweetness to the pumpkin flavor and does its best to make you forget that Pop-Tart crust sucks. It’s no whipped cream, but it’ll suffice in a pinch. I would have preferred my fall-inspired sprinkles to be a little less neon, and last time I checked, purple and hot pink were not fall colors. In fact, let me amend my previous statement: I would have preferred my fall-inspired sprinkles to be a little less not having anything to do with fall.
Honestly, I was impressed at the actual pumpkin pie-ness of these Pop-Tarts, until I realized that, seriously, all they had to do was take canned pumpkin pie filling and shove it into their already existing product. However, Pop-Tarts gets props for at least trying, which is more than I can say for 90% of the other products lining store shelves this month. Seriously, Ritz, where’s my bat-flavored cracker? You suck.
Thanks to the dedicated reader who graciously donated these Pop-Tarts to make this review happen!
Nutritional Quirks: Two Pumpkin Pie Pop-Tarts have almost as much sugar as a can of Coke. Good luck getting your kids to focus on making those Pumpkin People! Now that’s true horror.
Box of Boogers almost didn’t make it to Junk Food Betty. I passed it up as “eh, just another novelty candy”, but then I saw “Ssssnot Your Regular Candy!” and I realized I’d be insane not to buy these. I mean, c’mon, look at this box:
Awesome, right? Look at that insane guy! And they actually use the term “boogies”! I didn’t even notice how much more awesome it got until I got home:
OH MY GOD THEY WERE PICKED OUT ESPECIALLY FOR ME. And check out those flavors! Snottermelon! Sour Green Boogy! Lemon Loogy! Okay, Sour Green Boogy is pretty weak, but I pronounce Snottermelon and Lemon Loogy to be solid. I haven’t seen this many puns about nose mucus since Jimmy Bermond performed his stand-up comedy routine at our fourth grade talent show.
The full-length view of Crazy Monster Chef is much more satisfying than the headshot on the front of the box. I count four different colors of stains on his clothes and spatula, and there’s a big ol’ spider hanging out on his hump. He appears to be cooking up a delicious stew of infant skull, bone of questionable origin, eyeball and earthworm, all in a delicious green sauce. Listen, I’m not super picky about the cleanliness of restaurants I frequent, but somebody should really call the Health Department on Crazy Monster Chef. If his appearance is any indication, I’m betting his kitchen has a number of violations.
Speaking of Crazy Monster Chef, I almost missed this little piece of joy on the side of the box:
He’s not generic Crazy Monster Chef, he’s CHEF GHOULICIOUS! And he has a whole pantry of candy! Chef Ghoulicious, you are the best! I promise not to call the Health Department on you.
The box alone would have been well worth the price, but it turns out there’s actually candy inside!
Expect to see this cocktail napkin again.
Snottermelon and Sour Green Boogy are hard to tell apart at first glance, until you realize the back of the box has a helpful color guide and each of the three flavors has their own unique but uniform shape.
Let’s just get the elephant in the room out in the open now: Sour Green Boogy looks sort of like cock-and-balls. There, I said it. Other than that, the boogers are basically lumpy, shapeless forms with flat bottoms. Still talking about the candy, folks. I’m not sure why the bottoms are flat, but it did make photographing them a bit easier. Chef Ghoulicious thinks of everything.
I like that Chef Ghoulicious kept true to booger colors. The shapes and sizes don’t exactly reflect any mocos I’ve ever mined out of my nasal caverns, but I love the colors. Clear snot is boring, but when you reach Lemon Loogy color, you know something is wrong. Probably coming down with a cold. Sour Green Boogy, you should probably see a doctor about that sinus infection. Snottermelon? I’m assuming that’s the color of mucus that Spiderman spews out whenever he sneezes. Box of Boogers teaches kids about early illness detection.
I forgot that I don’t like gummy candy until I bit into my first Booger. I’ve never eaten my own (or anyone else’s) boogers; or, at the very least, my mom scolded me enough when I was little so that I didn’t become that one kid everyone else made fun of in elementary school who ate her boogers in plain view of everyone. That kid was probably scarred for life, but she made great material for Jimmy Bermond.
Real booger consistency aside, Box of Boogers gummy candy are the kind of gummies that challenge your teeth to bite them in half on the first gnash. They manage to be springy, yet firm. I’m sure there are people out there who like this kind of texture, so I’m trying to remain objective and not give my personal opinion, which boils down to “this feels gross”. Then again, we are talking about a box of boogers, so maybe that’s actually an endorsement.
I pushed my distaste for the texture aside and decided to focus on the flavors, which were surprisingly well-developed for a throwaway gag candy. Snottermelon delivered a strong hit of watermelon candy flavoring, which of course tastes nothing like actual watermelon. I immediately thought of a watermelon Jolly Rancher, which is not a bad thing in my book. Sour Green Boogy tasted just like any other green apple candy I’ve ever tasted. It was more muted than the watermelon, and I think the addition of “sour” was extraneous, since all three flavors had that citrusy sour bite to them. I guess they tried to make up for Sour Green Boogy’s weak moniker by making it look like – oh right, we’re done talking about that. Lemon Loogy was probably my favorite. As you may have guessed, it tasted like lemon candy! The fine print on the back of the box clears up any confusion about what these flavors are supposed to be and lists Lemon Loogy as “lemon/lime”, but I think it most resembled a gummy incarnation of Lemonheads, which I enjoyed greatly as a child.
All in all, Box of Boogers gets an A+++ from me. I scored a box for just a buck on sale, and if I were a person of moderate means who wanted to be the talk of the town come November 1st, I’d hand these out to kids dressed up in cheap plastic Iron Man costumes in a second. Chef Ghoulicious and his green infant stew sells itself, and the sour gummies are just icing on the ridiculous gross-out cake. While gummy candies aren’t really my thing, Box of Boogers is my new favorite gimmick candy, at least until Box of Armpit Farts comes out.
Score: 4.5 out of 5 mysterious stains
Price: $1.00 (on sale; regular price $1.49)
Size: 3.5 oz. box
Purchased at: Albertson’s
Nutritional Quirks: No actual boogers listed on the ingredients list, but you never know. YOU NEVER KNOW MUAHAHAHAHAHA
Doritos has decided to team up with Electronic Arts and their colossus series of Madden NFL video games to produce two new “Madden NFL-inspired” flavors: Stadium Nacho and Tailgate BBQ. I’m finding the whole collaboration surprisingly difficult to describe. On the official website, they’re calling it “Change the Game”. I’m not sure what game I’m supposed to be changing. Football? Madden NFL 11, which is the newest game in the series and which seems to be the focus of the whole promotion? Hold on, let me just quote part of the website:
“…for a limited time, redeem exclusive on-bag codes for Madden Ultimate Team rewards from Madden NFL 11.”
Okay, so what the fuck is Madden Ultimate Team? Here’s the website again to help me understand:
“Madden Ultimate Team combines the best aspects of Madden NFL 11 gameplay, card collecting and fantasy football.
Earn, purchase and participate in user auctions to collect player cards, manage your fantasy roster and compete in online matches with your friends.”
I am now more confused than ever. Is it because I’ve never played a Madden game? There’s a card game? You can auction your cards? There’s a Madden-exclusive fantasy football league, or do they just mean fantasy football in general? By online matches do they mean the video game, which I would assume would have online competition functionality to begin with, or do they mean online matches with your cards? Are the cards vital to the fantasy football league? Do you have to collect enough cards, which I’m now assuming have football players on them, to have a full roster before you can engage in any card-playing at all? Is buying Doritos to get the special codes the only way you can get these cards?
To further complicate things, their website takes an intolerable amount of time to load, has an animated intro that tells you nothing, and either has very little information beyond the quotations above or makes it impossible to find any more information.
You know what? Fuck that website, and fuck me for not just reading the back of the fucking bag first.
There. Fine. Enter code. Get cards. But wait, there’s some fine print at the bottom of the bag…
“Collect all 3 ‘Ultimate Team Cards’ for use with EA Sports Madden NFL 11 Video Game with your packaging code…Limit 1 ‘Ultimate Team Card’ per packaging code. Limit 3 (1 of each exclusive ‘Ultimate Team Card’) per email address.”
So there’s only three cards available and you have to buy (or just write down from the bag in the middle of the store) three bags of Doritos to get all three cards but you can only have three per email address. And they have something to do with the video game.
You know what, Doritos? You win. I’ve been able to decipher your opium haze-induced marketing schemes for years now, but you’ve totally lost me with this one. Congratulations, your gimmicks have gotten so fucking complicated, obtuse and downright insane that I am ragequitting trying to figure this one out. I just spent 523 words trying to describe it, and I want to erase them all out of anger and just start the review with this next paragraph.
Doritos has some new fucking chips. The fucking flavors are Stadium Nacho and Tailgater BBQ. They are doing a fucking promotional tie-in with Madden NFL 11. Here is what the fucking chips taste like.
Doritos Stadium Nacho Inspired by EA Sports Madden NFL 11 Tortilla Chips
If you’ve never had literal stadium nachos, because you are a nerd or have common sense or whatever, they’re basically how you would imagine them: generic round tortilla chips with globs of processed cheese sauce. You have to close your eyes and use your imagination to believe there’s any real cheese involved. After laying out your $8 for soggy chips and tasteless chemical goo, you can fight your way through the milling masses of painted faces and foam fingers to the condiment bar, where you can ladle on enough spoonfuls of pickled jalapeño slices to fool yourself into thinking you’ve invested in something with flavor. Of course, by this time, you’re probably on your fourth plastic cup of beer and don’t really give a shit what you’re shoveling into your mouth anyway.
From this perspective, Doritos Madden Stadium Nacho succeeds greatly. I hesitate to say they taste remarkably similar to the classic Nacho Cheese Doritos, since I haven’t actually had a “normal” flavored Dorito in about 15 years, but they do seem to have that flavor, except a little toned down, which is reflected in the toned-down flavor powder colors. There appears to be flecks that would indicate some sort of pepper flavor, but I couldn’t discern anything spicy in the chip, thus ruining my opportunity to rant about Doritos repackaging their cheese/jalapeño flavor over and over again.
So, much like real stadium nachos, Doritos Madden Stadium Nachos are similar to real nacho cheese, but with less nacho cheese flavor. I’m a little conflicted – I mean, they aren’t gross, or bad, they’re just mediocre. If you’re sitting on your couch playing Madden NFL 11 and want to get that real stadium nacho feeling, these would be perfect for you. Like the guy who’s already half-sloshed on overpriced beer, you’re not really paying attention to the taste, anyway. As long as they’re a mild facsimile of the real thing, you’re satisfied.
Doritos Tailgater BBQ Inspired by EA Sports Madden NFL 11 Tortilla Chips
I went into Tailgater BBQ with low expectations. I’ve had bbq chips before. Who hasn’t? I consider Lay’s Barbecue chips to be as iconic as regular Cheetos, or, to tie this review together a little, Doritos Nacho Cheese. I see the appeal – they really do taste a lot like barbecue sauce – but I’m just not into it. Maybe I’ve grown bored of the flavor. Maybe I’m just not into that hint of sweetness. Either way, barbeque is barbeqboring. Wow that was horrible.
I figured I’d just be a little disappointed and also mention that bbq flavoring doesn’t belong on tortilla chips, but this was not the case. Tailgater BBQ goes further than just BBQ, and this is something I have said before, and will continue to say:
DORITOS: STOP MAKING MEAT-FLAVORED CHIPS. PLEASE. I BEG OF YOU.
This should be a large lesson for me as a reviewer in not going into foods with expectations. I’ve been around the Doritos block so many times now that I feel like I could write any review about their chips without opening the bag. Stadium Nacho taught me I was wrong with their lack of jalapeño flavor, and I should have taken that as a warning. Tailgater BBQ really brought the message home. Oh yes, there’s a definite barbeque flavor, although a little more subtle than a chip like Lay’s Barbecue, but there’s also a distinct meat flavor. Particularly, pork. Doritos Madden NFL 11 Tailgater BBQ tastes like barbeque ribs.
I have to say, kudos to Doritos for teaching me a lesson on expectations and also managing to create a tortilla chip that tastes like bbq pork ribs. I have no idea how much effort goes into achieving such a feat, but in my mind it seems like it would take a lot. Hundreds of hours in the flavor lab, trying to nail that balance between barbecue and meat. Not just any meat – distinctly pork. Kind of amazing, really.
After having a few more chips and thinking this over, I feel kind of bad for yelling at Doritos. I got blasted in the comments for giving Doritos Late Night All-Nighter Cheeseburger such a poor rating, and I’ve thought about it occasionally, because these are the things I think about. And I think they’re right. Doritos nailed the cheeseburger taste, and they shouldn’t be penalized for the fact that I think meat-flavored chips are disturbing. In fact, I think I may be coming around a little to the idea of eating meat chips. It challenges the palate in a way that I should embrace.
Okay, Doritos. You know what? You’ve won me over. I still hate your convoluted Madden NFL 11 promotional game with an inappropriate amount of passion, but your barbecue pork rib chips are a-okay in my book. I may not finish the bag or even eat another chip out of it, but you’ve done an impressive job on flavoring and I can’t deny that any longer.
However, I do have one more thing to yell about, now that I’ve changed my mind:
DORITOS: WHERE THE FUCK ARE MY BACON-FLAVORED CHIPS?!
Doritos Stadium Nacho Inspired by EA Sports Madden NFL 11 Tortilla Chips
Score: 3 out of 5 plastic cups filled with overpriced beer
Price: $3.99
Size: 11 1/2 oz. bag
Purchased at: Safeway #1717
Nutritional Quirks: Not much quirky going on here. They’s just cheese chips, yo.
Doritos Tailgater BBQ Inspired by EA Sports Madden NFL 11 Tortilla Chips
Score: 4 out of 5 spiritual revelations about meat chips
Price: Free (Buy one get one free sale with Stadium Nacho)
Size: 11 1/2 oz. bag
Purchased at: Safeway #1717
Nutritional Quirks: Contains no actual pork. You clever Doritos flavor lab bastards. Not sure if this is a relief or not.
Note: The Impulsive Buy has also reviewed Doritos Stadium Nacho and Tailgater BBQ Inspired by EA Sports Madden NFL 11 Tortilla Chips, with a much shorter review title. So has Food Junk, and he found the spice mine seem to lack.
I’m inappropriately excited about reviewing these Doritos 1st, 2nd and 3rd Degree chips. You see, I’ve been seeing 1st and 2nd Degree Burns in at least two separate stores. But wherever I looked, I just couldn’t seem to find the 3rd 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…3rd 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.
1st 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.
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.
Well now, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? I apologize for that. But we’re back! And with a review of a junk food genre I haven’t written about thus far!
“Mystery flavor” food items are always a fun gimmick. Off the top of my head, the only mystery flavor junk foods that have come out are the Airheads “White Mystery”, which, if I recall correctly, came out sometime in the early 90s, and, of course, Doritos’ Quest and X-13D, which were Mountain Dew and hamburger flavored, respectively. However, Google’s delightful autofill dropdown feature also reminds me that there’s another other mystery flavored junk food: Dum Dums, which have a mystery flavor for an interesting and utilitarian reason. Writing this website has given me access to countless pieces of information that I will never actually need to know, until I watch an episode of Jeopardy that contains a junk food category. I will kick ass when that happens.
The newest mystery flavor on the block is Stride’s Mega Mystery Gum. Stride is one of the newer kids on the block when it comes to chewing gum; the brand launched in 2006, going up against heavy-hitters like Trident, Extra and Juicy Fruit, which have been well-known for decades. Stride’s marketing slogan, “The Ridiculously Long-Lasting Gum”, seems to have met with success, as the brand has done quite well since it was launched. I’m sure you’re all familiar with their commercials, wherein Stride executives beg you to spit out your damn gum and chew another piece already, or where people chewing the gum are tackled violently in order to get them to expel the gum. It’s a clever marketing campaign, I have to admit, and their commercial for Mega Mystery follows in the same vein. Some guy is webcamming, or vlogging, or whatever the fuck, that he knows what the mystery flavor of Mega Mystery is. Suddenly, three men wearing suits and helmets, riding ostriches, burst through the walls, ransacking the guy’s room. An ostrich pecks the terrified nerd in the chest on command, and its rider hisses at him to “zip it”. You can view the commercial on Stride’s website.
I have absolutely no idea when they are actually going to reveal what the mystery flavor is, but I’ll be sure to let you know when they finally announce it. I asked Google, but I didn’t find anything, and all the links were too spoiler-y on how the gum tastes. I need a clean palate for this. No outside influences.
I’ve never bought Stride gum before, but the package design is ingenious. Of course, all gum brands with this kind of packaging could have been doing this for forever. I haven’t bought or chewed gum in like, a decade. Anyway, the idea is, once you finish the lower section of the pack, the perforation on the seam allows you to tear that part away, and a little slit on the lower part of the top pack let’s you still close it, making for a smaller, more pocket-friendly pack. Ingenious! Those pieces are really stuck in there, too. No chance of them falling out. You can’t tell in the picture, but I actually had to rip the wrapper to get a piece out. Speaking of the wrapper, how cute is that? I feel like I own a piece of The Riddler. Or, better yet, Matthew Lesko.
The gum itself is white, which is standard issue for any mystery food. Wouldn’t want to give it away by coloring it pink or anything, like…hundreds of other gums of wildly varying flavors.
So, what is the goddamn mystery flavor already, you ask? I hesitate to answer. I’m not afraid of being wrong, but getting the flavor totally and completely wrong would be pretty embarrassing. Since this website is all about reviewing food and analyzing flavors and all that. It’s obviously fruity, you can tell that just by smelling the box. I think I can detect some watermelon. It’s gotta be a combination of fruits, but it’s not as easy as you’d think, trying to tell one artificial fruit flavor from another, when you’ve got absolutely no frame of reference. Taking a wild stab, I’d guess strawberry-watermelon, but that’s not exactly the most exciting flavor combination for a mystery flavor. I feel like a mystery flavor should be something totally unexpected. Mystery flavors should BLOW MY MIND. Does Stride feel that way, though? I’m getting paranoid over gum. This is my life.
I guess I’ll stick with my strawberry-watermelon conclusion. Or maybe just strawberry-melon. Berry-melon? I’m trying to be as broad as possible to save face, in case you haven’t noticed. Regardless, we’ll find out whenever Stride reveals the flavor, sometime in the nebulous future. No matter what it is, mystery aside, it’s a pretty sold flavor for a chewing gum. Like I said, I haven’t chewed gum for years, but I’m pretty sure “generically fruity” is hard to screw up. And I got to blow bubbles, so how bad can it be? Oh, and it is sugarless, for those of you concerned about your teeth rotting out of your head. Suck down a Diet Coke, chew some Mega Mystery gum, and enjoy the aspartame!
Score: 3 out of 5 guys in suits riding ostriches
Price: $1.39
Size: 1 pack of 14 sticks of gum
Purchased at: Circle K #2821
Nutritional Quirks: The back of the pack says “Calorie content of this size piece has been reduced from 5 to 3 1/2 calories. In the nutrition facts area, the calories are listed as <5. That’s…odd.
I know it’s hard to believe, but I remember a time, way back in my youth, even before I knew what the Internet was, when Goldfish Crackers were simple: you had your iconic cheddar, maybe the plain kind (but really, who eats those), and I seem to vaguely remember seeing a pretzel variety, although I don’t know when they arrived on the team. Everybody ate cheddar Goldfish; it was a brown paper bag lunch staple.
However, Pepperidge Farm is not immune to the contagious madness that continues to spread amongst big name snack manufacturers. As I grew older, Goldfish crackers slowly faded out of my life. For this reason, I was generally unaware that Pepperidge Farms had succumbed to the madness, until I was walking down the cracker aisle one day. I stopped in my tracks, mesmerized and somewhat horrified. A rather generous section of shelves, from top to bottom, was filled with all kinds of crazy Goldfish flavors. “Flavor Blasted”? “Xplosive Pizza”? “Blazin’ Buffalo Wings”? What the fuck is going on here? I expect it out of Doritos, or even Mountain Dew, but you, Pepperidge Farm? I respected you. You make Milanos.
Now would be a good time to start mocking their website, but let’s face it – Goldfish, whether classic or XTREME, are made for kids, and thus, their website is designed to be silly and ridiculous. I mean, come on, it’s got a whole section devoted to assuring parents that it’s a safe site for their kids to play on, and even goes so far as to create “Ad Nooze”, which warns kids that there’s an ad that’s designed to sell you something. I can’t mock something that disgustingly wholesome.
I will say though, that after I’d had the site open but dormant for a little while, going about my business elsewhere, some basketball player named Dwayne Wade suddenly popped up on the screen, scaring the shit out of me by yelling at me to stop clicking around on the Goldfish website and go outside and play, goddammit. He didn’t say goddammit, of course, but he was pretty serious. I almost ran out of my apartment, frantic to find the nearest basketball court. But then I remembered I have no pants on. And I don’t own a basketball. Sorry, Dwayne Wade; it’s too late to save me. Good luck with the kids, though.
He also told me to “put down the remote”, which makes me wonder what kind of crazy gadgets professional basketball players use to navigate the Internet.
With so many strange flavors to choose from, you may be wondering when I’ll stop blathering and actually tell you what I’m reviewing. Well, that makes you stupid, because it’s in the title of the fucking article. Good friggin’ gravy, try to keep up, here. Anyways, today I’ll be talking about Goldfish S’mores Adventures, which is not a cracker at all, but rather a baked graham snack. You know, like Teddy Grahams. Except fish. If everything I’ve learned from Animal Planet is accurate, you should definitely keep your graham bears and your graham fish separated. Trust me, it wouldn’t end well for Finn and his friends. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, some of the different flavors are characters. I won’t even bother going into that right now.
I chose S’mores Adventures, a seemingly tame flavor in comparison to some other options, a.) because the bag said “new” on it (unlike the stock photo up top), although it seems they came out maybe mid-2009, and b.) because Bob, sometimes JFB contributor, reacted to the idea of Goldfish s’mores snacks like they were an abomination, and affront to nature, something that should be put down like a rabid dog. I’m not really sure why this is – they’re graham, chocolate, and marshmallow crackers. What could go wrong?
Awww, they look…kind of weird, actually. The graham Goldfish look just like a regular Goldfish cracker, smiling, always cheerful. I hadn’t really given any thought to how the marshmallow part of s’mores was going to fit in here. A red light should have gone off in my head when I wrote the words “marshmallow crackers”. That is not a phrase that should exist. Now that I see them, they look like they belong in a box of bizarre Lucky Charms. They’re about 50% smaller than the graham fishies, and their faces are blank; emotionless. I’m a little more trepidatious now. Trepidatious is not a word.
Never one to disobey the bag, I tried all three at once, which is obviously the point of the snack. It’s called “S’mores Adventures”, not “Graham and Chocolate Crackers with Strange White Things Adventures”.
True to my above comment, the marshmallow fish disintegrated immediately and tastelessly upon impact with my molars, just like Lucky Charms marshmallows do. I don’t feel the need to go any further about that, since I believe every person ever born has tried eating a dry Lucky Charms marshmallow. It is just something that happens. Human nature.
With marshmallow out of the picture, honey and chocolate duel it out for flavor dominance in my mouth. Chocolate wins, but just barely. The two flavors marry nicely. Imaging shoving a honey and a chocolate graham cracker into your mouth at the same time. That is what it tastes like, and that is exactly what I did. Goldfish S’mores Adventures has liberated me by telling me I can shove two different flavored graham crackers in my mouth at the same time. The underground double-flavor-graham-cracker eaters out there can come out of hiding. It’s okay now. Pepperidge Farms says so.
But hey, we’re not done yet – we haven’t looked at the back of the bag!
EVEN CAMPING?! HOLY SHIT! Fuck all those faeries and unicorns and pirates and buried treasure and astronauts and shit, your imagination can take you CAMPING! Just imagine, camping…your dad can’t figure out how to put the tent up, so he takes it out on your mom, who starts crying…the hard, hard ground, every rock sticking into you through your inadequately insulated sleeping bag that leaves you shivering all night long…all the insects, mosquito bites, strange, ominous sounds…walking through poison ivy so you can take a dump leaning against a tree covered in fire ants…CAMPING!
Oh yeah, and I guess sometimes you make s’mores when you’re camping, too. Adventures!
Here’s some of the characters I mentioned earlier, trying to emulate Abbott and Costello and instead sounding like retards. Finn gets special mention and a hat, because he’s cheddar, and everybody knows that cheddar Goldfish rule, Flavor Blasted be damned. Pretzel guy on the left is called Gilbert. I don’t know what he does, or why he is named Gil- oh wait, I just got the joke. Awwww. Good one, Pepperidge Farm. You got me.
Now that I’ve wised up to they’re tricks, I’ll introduce you to Brooke, the parmesan cheese Goldfish on the right. You can tell she’s a girl because she has eyelashes. Little know fact: female goldfish have eyelashes, but the males lack them. Isn’t nature amazing? I don’t know what parmesan cheese has to do with femininity. Probably just figured they’d throw in a chick to get feminists off their backs.
Lastly, there’s X-Treme, who doesn’t get a pun in his name, because he is TOO XTREME. Obviously, he represents the Flavor Blasteds. More like Flavor Bastards, am I right? I don’t know which weird-ass flavor he actually is, but he appears to be raising his non-existent eyebrow suggestively. I find it X-Tremely unsettling.
Down at the bottom ya gotcha fake fire. Remember, this is imaginary camping. No real fire allowed. Around the fake bonfire, there appears to be several magical orbs, indicating that the Goldfish are about to engage in some sort of ritual. Possibly Wiccan, possibly Satanic. I’m not sticking around to find out.
I think Goldfish S’mores Adventures is actually a pretty clever idea. At the very least, it’s something original in concept, and the idea of taking different flavors of Goldfish and putting them in your mouth all at once must appeal to kids. Kids eat that shit up, no pun intended. If you can make a food product change color, be a color it’s not supposed to be, or come with simple instructions, it’s guaranteed that kids are going to have to have it. While the idea is solid, the execution falls apart pretty quickly. Obviously, they’ve addressed all of the ingredients of a s’more, but two graham crackers and a Lucky Charms marshmallow do not a s’more make. There’s no way you can give Goldfish the flavor of gooey melted chocolate and marshmallow. I don’t think anything pre-packaged could accomplish that task. But Goldfish tried, and while they failed, they still got two flavored graham crackers and a marshmallow…thing that makes me reminisce about eating all the dry Lucky Charms marshmallows first and then being disappointed by a cereal bowl full of oat pieces. So, there is that.
Note: If you want to see a little bit of weird, check out Goldfish’s Wikipedia page. It’s a wonderful, sloppy mess.
Score: 2 out of 5 Dwayne Wades yelling at me
Price: $2.39
Size: 6.6 oz. bag
Purchased at: Albertsons #980
Nutritional Quirks: What the hell are those little dry marshmallows made out of? I’m too scared to find out.
I have to start out this review by saying that it would not have happened were it not for the courageous efforts of the man who mailed this bag of Doritos Late Night All-Nighter Cheeseburger Chips to me. A friend of mine alerted me to this new flavor of Doritos, saying that his friend had recently consumed them. Soon afterward, said friend emailed me, urging me to review them. I was more than willing to do so; alas, due to my location, which gets no love from the test market homies, I was unable to procure this product.
All hope was not lost, however. This friend-of-a-friend generously offered to mail me a bag, and so I gave my mailing address to a man that I had corresponded with via email exactly twice, relying on my friend’s word that he is a reputable member of society. Don’t tell my mother; she’ll have a heart attack.
A box arrived in my mailbox soon after the email. I have to mention that I am amused to no end at the image of a big city District Attorney, on his lunch break, resplendent in his pressed business suit, possibly with his DA ID tag still hanging off his lapel, going down to his local Post Office and declaring to the employee at the counter that yes, I am mailing a bag of Doritos Late Night All-Nighter Cheeseburger Tortilla Chips. I’m sure it was one of the prouder moments in his life. I thank you, good sir, for debasing yourself on my behalf. Your efforts are greatly appreciated.
Fortunately for me, the box did indeed contain a bag of chips, and not a decomposing severed head, or a bomb, or a decomposing severed head with a bomb in it. That would have been a much more difficult review. Maybe. I haven’t actually tried the chips yet, so we’ll see. We’ll also see if the bag contains actual chips and not just a mass of crumbs, due to its travel cross-country courtesy of the US Postal system.
I’ve commented on the insanity of Doritos’ marketing team before, and I’m sure that they will continue making bizarre products that will cause me to comment on it again. However, in all fairness, I have to say that their Late Night line of chips was the impetus that finally motivated me to stop just talking about making Junk Food Betty and actually get it up and running. You see, this is not the first Late Night offering. Before All-Nighter Cheeseburger, there were two other offerings – Tacos at Midnight and Last Call Jalapeño Popper. You can read a review of the former here and of the latter here. I’d love to be able to link you to my own reviews of both of these chips, but back then, I was doing reviews on my sad little LiveJournal account, and I have too much pride to link you to that. Suffice to say, writing about these two Late Night offerings finally convinced me that the world needed to see the insanity that is the junk food world, and LiveJournal was not the way to make that happen. Thank you, Doritos, for being so insane. You inspired me to make a real website that makes me spend money on ridiculous foods and brings in zero income. Thanks. Really.
Doritos’ press release for All-Nighter Cheeseburger actually sheds a little light on how the Late Night line was born. “We’ve learned that snacking at night is important to our loyal consumers because they’re usually hungry after a night out with friends, and it serves as a key social occasion to relax and unwind with those friends…The trick was to find out what they were eating at night and then turn those foods into delicious Doritos flavors.” This comes from the mouth of Associate Marketing Manager Julia Wells.
A well-worded explanation. However, I think I can translate this comment into what really happened:
“Kids these days,” said some middle-aged white guy sitting in a meeting room full of other middle-aged white guys at 8am on a Monday, “Kids these days, they stay out all hours of the night, drinking their Jaegermeisters and their tequila, whooping and hollering and carrying on. We need to find out what these drunken layabouts eat before they crash out on the bathroom floor at 4am, and we need to turn it into chips, and give it a hip name that will make them say, ‘Hey, these chips have a name that sounds like you should eat them when you’re drunk! And the flavor sounds like things I eat when I’m drunk! I need to buy these chips!’ That is what we need to do to bring in those no-good lushes.”
And so, Tacos at Midnight, Last Call Jalapeño Popper, and now, All-Nighter Cheeseburger were born. I’m on tenterhooks waiting to see what they come up with next. Let’s be honest, here; drunken college-aged kids will eat anything when they stagger home late at night. I’d like to see some more realistic offerings in the future. Here are just a few of my suggestions:
Late Night 24-Hour Diner Greasy Bacon and Eggs
Late Night Lost Pants Cold Can of Refried Beans with a Spoon
Late Night Sleeping Roommate Pizza That’s Been Sitting on the Stove for Three Days (although, to be fair, they already have that flavor in Collisions Pizza Cravers and Ranch)
Late Night Didn’t Score Improperly Microwaved Ramen
Doritos, if I see any of these flavors on grocery shelves in the future, I’m expecting some serious kickbacks from you guys!
The night is calling, people, and you better answer the damn phone before it goes to voicemail, or else the night is going to be super pissed, because it knows you’re home, and it’s tired of you blowing it off to hang out with the daytime. What’s so fun about daytime, anyways? Ohhh, she’s got a sun, and the mall is open. Big fucking deal.
Oh, no, wait, I read that wrong. You’re supposed to satisfy your craving with these chips. Phew, close call. Anyway, I always obey the back of chip bags, so let’s get on with this.
Hooray! Lots of chips, not so many crumbs! I had my doubts when I was handling the bag. Way to pack, big city District Attorney! If that whole prosecuting criminals thing falls through, you have a bright future at The UPS Store.
The flavor powder is pretty consistent with other Doritos; some get an over it, some are underflavored, but the majority have a fairly even coating. The smell when you open the bag is overwhelmingly of ketchup and pasteurized processed cheese product. Which is good coming from the angle of replicating a shitty burger bought at 2am, but not so great when you realize that these are chips. Not a good chip smell. Not good.
I forgot to mention earlier that this is not the first time Doritos has produced a cheeseburger-inspired chip. In 2007, Doritos introduced the “X-13D Experiment”, another crazy-ass marketing gimmick wherein you have an “objective”. The bag was simple and black, and had a little hint on the front that said “Tasting notes: All-American Classic”. Basically, they were implementing the “guess the mystery flavor” trick. On that other website I don’t like to talk about, I described them as tasting like “crappy McDonald’s hamburgers”. Which is exactly what All-Nighter Cheeseburger chips smell like. Will I be reliving that wonderful experience I had in 2007?
Answer: yes. I have to say, they really did nail what a shitty cheeseburger tastes like. As soon as you start chewing, there’s a bouqet of flavors assaulting you. The ketchup hits first, then the crappy cheese, along with an unsettling meaty flavor that makes you seriously wonder what ingredients have been added that would give a tortilla chip the ability to taste “meaty”. That’s just wrong. There’s even an faint onion/pickle finish as you break the chip down. How are they doing this? There’s only one answer: Doritos has finally turned to the dark arts. God help us all.
I gotta hand it to Doritos, black magic or no, they fucking nailed cheeseburger. I don’t know how they did it, but it’s all there. During some of the more destitute times of my life, I relied heavily on the $1 double cheeseburger from McDonald’s Value Menu in order to, well, not die. I am intimately familiar with how that burger tastes, and this chip tastes like that hamburger. I happen to appreciate the taste of McDonald’s shitty double cheeseburger, but I can see how other people would not. There’s just something about that crappy, terrible burger that I really enjoy. Now that I’m moderately less poor, I can afford bigger and better hamburgers for sustenance, but the shitty burger is still an occasional guilty pleasure.
So, you’re thinking to yourself, Junk Food Betty is all thumbs up on the Doritos Late Night All-Nighter Cheeseburger Chips, right?
Answer: no. Here’s the long and short of it: just because you can make something, doesn’t always mean you should. These chips are literally unsettling. It’s like that scene in Alien Resurrection where Ridley comes upon that room with all those fucked-up clones of herself. These chips are an abomination that never should have happened. It’s not about tasting bad; it’s about tasting wrong. Good for you, Doritos, you made a tortilla chip taste just like a cheeseburger. Except now your creation is writhing around on the floor, its deformed and contorted body leaving a trail of bloody mucus behind it as it struggles just to move, dragging its unnatural form pathetically as it cries out in a garbled voice, “kill me”. Doritos Late Night All-Nighter Cheeseburger Tortilla Chips, you’re making everyone very uncomfortable.
Score: 1.5 out of 5 decomposing severed heads with bombs inside
Price: Free! I don’t know whether to thank big city District Attorney again or track him down via the return address on the box and beat him with a sock full of Doritos and batteries.
Size: 11 1/2 oz. bag
Purchased at: My mailbox
Nutritional Quirks: I could read the back of the bag and find out exactly what ingredients make a tortilla chips taste meaty, but I fear for my sanity. Some things are better left unknown.
Note: Foodette Reviews also a review of All-Nighter Cheeseburger Doritos. She favored them much more than I did.
Today, we’re looking at Cheetos Crunchy Wild White Cheddar Snacks. I like that they just call them “snacks” on the bag, because I was wondering what exactly to call them. Chips? Weird lumpy corn sticks? No. Snacks. Cheetos is the Herb and Jamaal of the snack world. Approximately one person reading this will understand that joke.
Cheetos are famous, of course, for being the favored snack of video game-playing nerds living in their mothers’ basements. I don’t know how or why this happened, but it’s true. Cheetos doesn’t really fuck around with flavors; there’s the classic orange, Flamin’ Hot, and a couple of other ones that nobody’s heard of or cares about. Unlike Doritos, who releases a new flavor every two days, the original Cheetos are immediately what you’ll think of when you hear the name. Cheetos. Orange dust-covered fingers. Nerds.
But now there’s Wild White Cheddar, which, according to Frito-Lay’s official press release, has existed before. I had never heard of them before, but Frito-Lay says it was a “popular flavor”, so I guess I’m just an asshole who hasn’t been paying attention. It’s also available for a limited time only, starting in late January and ending mid-February. That is, indeed, a very limited time. Kind of makes you wonder why they’re releasing them at all. Hardly seems worth the effort. I guess they’re banking on tools like me, who will buy any junk food that has a limited run. I can’t imagine there are that many of us out there.
I’m not entirely sure what makes this flavor so “wild”, but hey, I’m all for alliteration. Chester does seem pretty damn enthusiastic about putting that Cheeto in his mouth, even though it actually seems larger than his already enormous mouth. Actually, if you look closely, it looks like we’ve caught Chester in the act of tripping over a Wild White Cheddar Cheeto laying on the ground. Maybe he’s reaching out desperately towards the Cheeto, trying to grab onto it in the hopes that it will stop his fall. That Cheeto cannot help you, my friend. Your face has a date with the floor. Maybe he’ll get lucky and land on that wedge of white cheddar down there. I could think of worse surfaces on which to perform a faceplant.
Flipside gettin’ crazy with the fonts, yo. It’s a little hard to read from the picture, so let me help you out:
CAUTION!
These CHEETOS snacks are DANGEROUSLY CHEESY
So if you need to keep your hands clean, don’t even THINK about opening this bag!
BUT…
if you’re willing to get some
WHITE
CHEESY
DELICIOUSNESS
all over your fingers, open up
AND ENJOY!
I can’t tell if they’re trying to entice me to eat the snacks or terrify me into running out of the chip aisle of my local grocery store, blathering incoherently about my hands being unclean, so unclean. People with OCD, Wild White Cheddar Cheetos are not for you. But you’ve probably already figured that out.
I’m also not very comfortable with the sentence “If you’re willing to get some WHITE CHEESY DELICIOUSNESS all over your fingers, open up and ENJOY!” Think, Cheetos marketing team. Just…just take a few moments in the meeting and think about the words that you are putting together to form a sentence.
Not much of a cheesy smell present when you open the bag. What comes through more is the smell of corn meal, which is what Cheetos are made of. It’s kind of weird to see Cheetos not dressed up in their signature neon orange powder. The white cheddar powder is barely visible on the light yellow Cheeto, causing them to look naked. I’m sorry you have to suffer this indignity, Cheetos.
The cheese taste in Wild White Cheddar Cheetos is much more subtle than it is in original Cheetos, and it’s also less tangy. The snacks taste mostly like that generic artificial cheese flavor that you’d find on other foods, with just a hint of what could pass for white cheddar. They’re not bad, but they’re not exactly exciting. The more understated flavor of Wild White Cheddar means that more of the corn meal taste of the Cheeto comes through, which could be a good thing or a bad thing, I guess. For me personally, it’s a negative. Ninety percent of the time, when I’m eating a snack food, I consider the chip (or “snack”) to be nothing more than the delivery vessel for the flavor powder, and if it’s a naked chip, it belongs in a dip. Maybe that makes me a jerk, I dunno. That’s just the way I feel.
Cheetos Crunchy Wild White Cheddar Snacks are boring. There, I said it. If I had a serious hankering for a cheese-flavored snack and these were the only things available, yeah, I’d eat them. Like I said, they’re not bad, they’re just old news in the flavor department. Despite supposedly being white cheddar, they end up tasting like just another artificially cheese-flavored product. On the plus side, the white powder won’t stain your fingers like original Cheetos (or especially Flamin’ Hots) will, so you don’t have to hide the secret shame that you’ve recently been shoving Cheetos down your maw.
According to Frito-Lay, these snacks are only going to be available for a couple more weeks. So if you have a burning desire to see for yourself what mediocrity can taste like, you better move fast.
Score: 2 out of 5 teeth knocked out of Chester’s mouth after his fall
Price: $2.99
Size: 8 oz. bag
Purchased at: Fry’s Foods
Nutritional Quirks: White cheesy deliciousness all over your fingers. That doesn’t really have anything to do with nutrition, I just wanted to type it again.
I should have mentioned this in my last post, but the Coconut M&M’s, Milky Way Simply Caramel Bar and 3 Musketeers Truffle Crisp Bar were all released this month from Mars. The Coconut M&M’s were a re-release, but the latter two are brand new offerings. I bought all three at the same time, and apparently there was some sort of promotional coupon for doing so, but the cashier at my local convenience store and I had some language barrier problems, so when I looked at the receipt when I got home, there were all kinds of mysterious discounts. I guess I got one free for buying all of them at once. Who knows.
The point is that these guys are kind of related, and while Coconut M&M’s got a whole website for me to make fun of, both Milky Way and 3 Musketeers don’t even mention their new products on their website. Way to promote, guys. So, with little information to go off of beyond the wrapper and my own taste buds, I decided to combine the two into one review, since apart, they would probably be pretty short reviews. Consider it a twofer!
Milky Way Simply Caramel Bar
Milky Way Simply Caramel is described on the wrapper as “Real milk chocolate surrounding nothing but rich delicious caramel”. For any of you out there who grew up with parents who refused to allow you any sugar, never went trick-or-treating, and grew up to be the same kind of hippy douchebags as your parents, a regular Milky Way bar is a thick layer of nougat topped by a thinner layer of caramel, all coated with milk chocolate. Simple, tasty, familiar. So basically, all they’ve done is removed the nougat, leaving caramel to stand on its own.
I probably should have tried to pull the bar apart instead of cutting it, to better represent the gooeyness of the caramel, but I used a knife, so deal with it. Trust me, though, it is gooey. Very gooey. The caramel is super thick; chewing it will get you nothing more than a bunch of teeth coated in caramel. You have to sort of roll it around in your mouth, letting the caramel and chocolate melt and slide down your throat. It’s very akin to eating one of those Brach’s Milk Maid Caramel Cubes, except you get the chocolate in there, too. You gotta work at it. You can’t just muscle through this candy bar, unless swallowing a big hunk of caramel whole is your thing, in which case, that’s just weird and I hope you choke on it.
I also probably shouldn’t have left the candy bar in my special picture-taking place while I went to check out the photos and start the review on the computer. Silly me, thinking a cat would take no interest in a chocolate and caramel bar. A few minutes after that picture was taken, the plate was on the floor, the top half was nowhere to be found, and my cat was licking his lips compulsively. I marveled at how a cat could eat that much candy bar that fast, but the intrigue evaporated approximately 30 seconds later, when he barfed up a giant, half-chewed piece of caramel and chocolate. So I guess he is one of those guys mentioned in the paragraph above. I’m glad he barfed instead of choking, but I do want to choke him a little bit for almost ruining my review.
Perhaps I should thank him for taking half, though, because there’s no way I could finish this whole candy bar on my own. The combination of chocolate and caramel is obviously tasty, but it is so rich. The caramel is very thick, and sweet, and each bite takes about three minutes to fully melt in your mouth. My jaw and tongue were exercised to their limits on the one half that I ate, and I felt like I was going into sugar shock.
Milky Way Simply Caramel Bar is a tasty choice if you’re in the mood for a candy bar. Caramel and chocolate always go great together. But you’d better have a friend (or cat) that’s got a serious hankering for some caramel too, because Simply Caramel ain’t playing around. If I had to choose between Simply Caramel and the regular Milky Way bar, I’d choose about one fourth of the Simply Caramel. But if someone had a gun to my head and demanded that I eat the entire bar, which, by the way, happens so often it’s getting ridiculous, I’d go for the original Milky Way. I’m not terribly fond of nougat, but its inclusion in the original Milky Way makes the candy bar lighter, and lets the caramel come through without you feeling like you just sucked your way through an entire bag of those caramel cubes. So, give it a try with some of your caramel-inclined friends, or wait until the fun size version comes out, because that would be the perfect portion of the Milky Way Simply Caramel Bar.
3 Musketeers Truffle Crisp Bars
Quite the departure from an original 3 Musketeers bar, 3 Musketeers Truffle Crisp Bars are described on the wrapper as follows:
I’ll be honest with you, I don’t exactly know what chocolate truffle means. I’d imagine they aren’t literally truffles, as in, the fungus that pigs are famous for finding. So I looked it up! According to ehow.com, they are not, in fact, truffles, but are called that because the cocoa-dusted ones resemble truffles.
Okay then.
I like the use of the word “enrobed”. I imagine the 3 Musketeers Truffle Crisp Bars wearing a silky milk chocolate smoking robe, a glass of scotch on the table beside it as it sits in its red velvet, high-backed chair before the fireplace, nonchalantly smoking his fine wooden pipe. 3 Musketeers Truffle Crisp Bars is the shit, and it knows it.
Anyways, the bars look pretty much like they do on the wrapper. Kind of enticing, really. They smell very rich and chocolaty, a much higher quality of chocolate than you’d typically find when sniffing a candy bar. This could be the chocolate truffle coming into play.
When you bite into the bar, it gives very easily, and the texture is very delicate. There’s a fun little snap when you hit the crisp. The crisp bottom part of the bar is much lighter than, say, the crisp of a Kit-Kat, and it plays well with the smooth chocolate of the truffle part.
I’ve never had a chocolate truffle, so I can’t honestly say if 3 Musketeers has hit the mark on the taste, but it’s definitely tasty. Satiny, and with a more refined taste and texture than the chocolate you’ll find in most other candy bars. The crisp part doesn’t really have much of its own flavor; instead, it takes on the flavor of the truffle, and adds that little crunch that plays with the smooth chocolate.
3 Musketeers Truffle Crisp Bars are quite different than other candy bars. I feel like I should hold my pinky out while I bite into the bar; it’s light and delicate, the chocolate is silky, and it melts quickly and easily in your mouth. It’s like the polar opposite of the Milky Way Simply Caramel Bar. I’ve got more of a salt tooth than a sweet tooth, so I don’t buy candy bars often, but if I did get that rare chocolate craving, this would rank high up on my list when it came time to decide what impulse item to buy. If you’re in the mood for chocolate, but don’t want anything too heavy and also don’t want to go down the more expensive road of fancier chocolates, I would definitely recommend you try a 3 Musketeers Truffle Crisp Bar.
Milky Way Simply Caramel Bar
Score: 2.5 out of 5 jaw workouts
Price: $1.19, $1.00 on sale
Size: 1.91 oz. bar
Purchased at: Circle K #2821
Nutritional Quirks: Cats can swallow it whole.
3 Musketeers Truffle Crisp Bar
Score: 4 out of 5 times I had to think of a synonym for the word “smooth”
Price: Free, I guess? Something here was free.
Size: 1.1 oz. pack of 2 bars
Purchased at: Circle K #2821
Nutritional Quirks: 85 calories per bar ain’t bad. Also: smooth.
Junk food and fast food reviews from a leftist perspective. We eat it so you don't have to!
Pop-Tarts Toaster Pastries come in 32 different iterations. You’d think that would be enough, but now there’s Pop-Tarts Limited Edition Frosted Pumpkin Pie Toaster Pastries. Seems like a stretch at first, but hey, stuff some canned pumpkin pie filling into the already existing pastry crust, throw some frosting on top to represent whipped cream, and blammo, you’ve got yourself an autumn gimmick product!
Well now, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? I apologize for that. But we’re back! And with a review of a junk food genre I haven’t written about thus far!
I know it’s hard to believe, but I remember a time, way back in my youth, even before I knew what the Internet was, when Goldfish Crackers were simple: you had your iconic cheddar, maybe the plain kind (but really, who eats those), and I seem to vaguely remember seeing a pretzel variety, although I don’t know when they arrived on the team. Everybody ate cheddar Goldfish; it was a brown paper bag lunch staple.
I have to start out this review by saying that it would not have happened were it not for the courageous efforts of the man who mailed this bag of Doritos Late Night All-Nighter Cheeseburger Chips to me. A friend of mine alerted me to this new flavor of Doritos, saying that his friend had recently consumed them. Soon afterward, said friend emailed me, urging me to review them. I was more than willing to do so; alas, due to my location, which gets no love from the test market homies, I was unable to procure this product.
Today, we’re looking at Cheetos Crunchy Wild White Cheddar Snacks. I like that they just call them “snacks” on the bag, because I was wondering what exactly to call them. Chips? Weird lumpy corn sticks? No. Snacks. Cheetos is the Herb and Jamaal of the snack world. Approximately one person reading this will understand that joke.
