Fast Food

Taco Bell Black Jack Taco

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Black Jack AdThe Black Jack taco is ridiculous. I first heard about it the day before it came out, when Taco Bell started spamming the hell out of my Twitter feed, desperately trying to get me to try it. Well, you’ve won this round, Taco Bell, despite your terrible marketing slogan. “Black is the new black”? Seriously? That’s the best you could come up with? I haven’t seen the commercials yet, but I sure hope they come up with something that doesn’t sound like an Access Hollywood segment teaser.

See, here’s the thing: it is October, and you are releasing a black taco. October. Halloween time. Black taco. Is this setting off any alarms? All you had to do was take another taco shell, dye it orange instead of black, throw some nacho cheese on that motherfucker, and put a ghost on the wrapper. You would have made a friend for life – namely, me. You could have called it the Spooooky Taco Bell Halloween Combo, featuring the Nacho Nightmare and Jack O’Licious tacos. Why do I have to do everything for you, Taco Bell?

Black Jack Description

Instead, they decided to call it the Black Jack taco. Because the shell is black, you see, and there is pepperjack sauce inside. Why is the shell black, you ask? I do not know. Perhaps Taco Bell’s shell manufacturing facility shares warehouse space with a squid de-inking factory, and there was a terrible mix-up, with hilarious results? I’m going to go ahead and call that the most likely scenario. Cue the laugh track.

Black Jack Shell

Despite what you may think from the words above, I didn’t actually expect the Black Jack taco to be bad. I just expected it to be boring. Judging from the promo photo and the 89 cent price tag, I expected it to be pretty much identical to Taco Bell’s “Crunchy Taco”, which is also 89 cents on the Value Menu. There’s nothing wrong with this menu item; it just tastes like 89 cents’ worth of shell, mystery meat, iceberg lettuce and some cheese.

Black Jack Side

Which is exactly what I got on my first few bites of the Black Jack taco. I’d already expected the sauce to be sparse and unexciting, but I had actually expected it to be there. But then, on the third bite, I got a good mouthful of sauce. And you know what? It was actually goddamn tasty! I can actually say that Taco Bell’s use of the word “zesty” when describing the sauce on their website is accurate. It’s got a nice consistency, like creamy nacho cheese sauce, but instead of being spicy, it’s got a twangy zip that makes your taste buds salivate for more. After those first few dry bites, the middle of my taco had just the right amount of the pepperjack sauce. It oozed out the sides, which would have made a great picture, but I was too busy eating it to stop and get the camera. Bob’s taco had a lot less sauce, which was disappointing, but too bad for him. I gots the sauce. I win.

I found myself actually wishing I had another Black Jack taco. No, it’s not the greatest taco in the world – it is from Taco Bell, after all – but if you’re going to eat a shitty 89 cent taco, why not slap some tasty sauce on there, inexplicably dye it black, and give it a stupid name? The point is, I would shell out 89 of my very own cents to buy one again, of my own volition, and that’s not something I can say too often on this site. So, way to go, Taco Bell – you made a retarded gimmick and a moderately tasty taco. Wear your crown of mediocrity proudly.

  • Score: 4 out of 5 hamburgers, all dyed black
  • Price: 89 cents
  • Size: 1 taco
  • Purchased at: Taco Bell
  • Nutritional Quirks: May or may not contain squid ink?
Beverages

Tropicana Strawberry Melon Juice Drink

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Homo sapiens is a compulsively social species. We organize into fiercely loyal tribes, lifelong monogamous mating pairs, and deep-rooted, close friendships that can last a lifetime. One of the most important traits one can possess in order to maximize the benefit of these relationships is the willingness to compromise, to sacrifice for the sake of the friendship.

If my friends are any indication, this trait will be bred out within a handful of generations.

Maybe I’m a sucker, or a doormat. Maybe I’m a closet masochist afraid to put on the nipple clamps attached to the car battery. Regardless of the underlying reason, when a friend of mine plopped down a 20 oz. bottle of Tropicana Strawberry Melon Juice Drink and demand I review it, I agreed. After all, it was free, and free products to review don’t just fall out of the sky. (Shocking Behind-the-Scenes Junk Food Betty reveal: We paid real American currency for Kroger’s Jelly Belly Puddings!)

I should’ve immediately realized that this guy was my friend, which automatically means he’s a treacherous fiend with a consuming drive to do me harm. I suspect that if I hadn’t agreed to review this beverage, he would’ve simply dropped the bottle and hosed me down with the canister of pepper spray he (I have no doubt) was concealing in his other hand.

Packaging:

The Tropicana marketing and graphics departments immediately attempt to reassure you that the Tropicana Stawberry Melon Juice Drink contains both strawberry and melon. This is submitted to the consumer in three ways: the name of the product, the superfluous reiteration of “strawberry melon flavored juice beverage” directly beneath said name, and the imagine of a stylized strawberry on top of a stylized wedge of… something greenish.

This brings up my first concern upon inspecting the packaging more closely. What kind of melon are we talking about, here? The melon had its agricultural start in ancient Persia, leaving millennia for the vagaries of individual cultivation. There are scores of melon varieties, with wildly different flavors, and a trip to the ingredients section summoned alternating attacks of trepidation and regret.

First, there is no strawberry, and no melon. There are only “natural flavors”, the food industry’s equivalent of “eyes only”. The only recognizable item on the list I would consider “food” is… pear juice concentrate? My “strawberry melon flavored juice beverage” is, in fact, composed of water, corn syrup, 5% pear juice, and the contents of an Axis Chemicals warehouse.

Dining Experience:

A long inhalation of Tropicana “Strawberry Melon” Juice Drink recalls the piercing, acrid odor of industrial cleaning solutions, mixed with precisely 5% pear juice concentrate. I’m not a pear person – nor am I particularly fond of the flavor of 409 – and my gaze drifted wistfully to the bottle of nerve tonic beckoning seductively from the kitchen counter. I’m not ashamed to admit that this review went on hold for awhile, long enough to build up a bulwark against the pain. However, I had concerns that the beverage would eventually dissolve the plastic bottle, and my refrigerator, and my kitchen floor, if left too long, and I was forced once more into the breach.

Pear. It’s pear Kool-Aid, if that Kool-Aid had been spiked with diluted acetone into which strawberry Nerds had been dissolved. My palate searched frantically for a hint of melon, hoping to ease the grimace which had twisted my face into an agonizing rictus, but there is none. Perhaps the melon they’re trying to sell me is hypothetical, like string theory or Tropicana’s culinary integrity. Perhaps Tropicana is staffed by nothing but rogues and liars.

In short, the drink is vile, and this is compounded by the addition of xanthan gum and gum arabic, which only serve to thicken the already sticky properties of high fructose corn syrup, especially at room temperature. This leads me to the belief that Tropicana “Strawberry Melon” Juice Drink is not actually produced for human consumption. In fact, I’m not sure what possessed the responsible parties to green-light mass production after experiencing the drink.

There is one thing I know. Given the chemical composition of the product, its thick and sugary nature, makes it perfect for the manufacture of homemade napalm, with an appropriate accelerant. Having said this, my friend will be well advised to start wearing flame-retardant clothes.

  • Score: 1 out of 5 hamburgers made out of totally inappropriate pears.
  • Price: Received free, but I’ve paid the ultimate price.
  • Size: 20 ounces
  • Purchased at: A charred ruin that used to be my friend.
  • Nutritional Quirks: Pear.
Junk Food

Kroger Jelly Belly Pudding Snacks

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Kroger Jelly Belly Pudding AllSometimes a food product comes along that’s just so wrong, so repulsive, that I have to eat it. It’s like rubbernecking at a car accident, except instead of just slowing down as you drive by, you yank on your steering wheel and crash into the already existing pile of mangled cars.

That is what purchasing Kroger Jelly Belly Pudding Snacks is like. You know that it is a terrible idea that you will live to regret, but you put them in your basket anyway, filled with guilt and shame as you do so. This train wreck all started when a friend of mine (I’m strongly reconsidering our status as “friends”) emailed me to tell me that he had seen some cotton candy pudding at his local store, and that I should review it. I looked it up to see if it might be available at one of my local stores, since we live in different states, and while I found little information about it, I did find that they are sold under the Kroger brand, which is Fry’s Foods generic brand.

I immediately set out to find it. Amazingly, the Cotton Candy flavor was sold out the first time I looked. Cotton candy pudding, sold out. The mind reels. The second time I looked, however, Cotton Candy was in stock, along with the other three available flavors – Very Cherry, Juicy Pear, and Watermelon. The puddings are meant to taste like the Jelly Belly jelly beans that come in these flavors, which, obviously, are meant to taste like actual foods. It is metapudding. It should not exist. However, I’m here to eat it so you don’t have to, so here I present to you reviews of four of the most eldritch puddings ever to have existed. I will go from what I believe to be least to most repulsive. We’ll see if I’m right.

Kroger Jelly Belly Cotton Candy Pudding Snacks

Cotton Candy

The smell was sickly sweet, with a strong overtone of artificial strawberry flavoring that I wasn’t expecting. Real cotton candy has a light, sugary smell, but this was pretty overpowering. It looked somewhat harmless to me – a nice, soft pink, sort of like the yummy bubble gum-flavored medicine I took as a kid. Or Pepto Bismol.

Cotton Candy Close-Up

The taste? Urgh. Not as sweet as I thought it would be, but instead, you get hit with the strawberry flavor, but with a foreboding chemical undertone that makes me wonder if I’m going to die. This tastes nothing like a Cotton Candy Jelly Belly, let alone actual cotton candy. The jelly beans do a pretty fair job of replicating the taste of cotton candy, but really, that’s not hard to do. Sugar. Boom. You’re done. If you gave this to a child at an amusement park or fair, they would cry, then later throw up.

I only took two bites, but I already feel a little unsettled. I thought this would be the least offensive of the puddings. I angrily throw the cup in the trash and curse every state fair I’ve ever been to.

Kroger Jelly Belly Very Cherry Pudding Snacks

Very Cherry

At the store, I commented to my fiancé that this seemed to be the least offensive of the bunch, and he looked at me like I’d just suggested that there was a least offensive flavor of Kroger Jelly Belly Pudding Snacks. He asked me what would ever possess me to think such a thing, and then I realized that I was trying to associate pudding with Jell-o. Pudding and Jell-o: not the same thing, not the same acceptable flavors. I think my brain was desperately trying to make justifications. It fell out of favor as the potentially least offensive, at that point.

Very Cherry Close-Up

Okay, let’s peel back the cover, and…it smells like cough syrup. Encouraging. I don’t know what’s worse, the smell or the fact that it looks like compote gone bad. I never thought my life would come to this.

When you first taste it, you think everything’s going to be okay. The smell was a false alarm. Well, you are fucking wrong, buddy. It tastes like you just swallowed half a bottle of cherry Nyquil and chased it with a commercial-sized bag of Sweet’N Low. I would say sugar, but it doesn’t taste like sugar, it tastes like something that people who can’t eat sugar shudder at and then dump into their iced tea, because they have made poor life decisions and now they have type II diabetes and they’re probably going to lose all their toes even if they stop giving all their money to Hostess. It does taste closer to a Very Cherry Jelly Belly than an actual cherry, but that is because every cherry-flavored candy always tastes a little bit like cough syrup. There. We all think it. I just said it.

I can’t stop staring at it, even after I’ve stopped eating it. It glistens unnaturally. It looks like some Vietnamese dish Anthony Bourdain ate on No Reservations, where he sucks the marrow out of the bone of some unknown animal. It is not of this world.

The sight and taste of this pudding have induced queasiness. I ate almost half the cup, because I was trying to figure out just the right way to describe the vague, unnameable horror. I furiously throw the cup in the trash and write a furious letter to Cherry from Punky Brewster for being associated with this product in even the smallest of ways.

Kroger Jelly Belly Juicy Pear Pudding Snacks

Juicy Pear

Juicy Pear and Watermelon duked it out for potentially worst Kroger Jelly Belly Pudding Snack, but Watermelon won, because I seem to remember Juicy Pear Jelly Bellys being a little tastier than Watermelon. Mind you, I haven’t had a Jelly Belly in years, but I’m confident that I can still sort of remember the flavors. I’m also confident that none of these puddings will taste like those jelly beans to begin with, so the point is moot.

Juicy Pear Close-Up

I wish I could have gotten a better picture of the pudding, but let me assure you, it looks like a cross between lemon custard and the ectoplasm that Slimer leaves behind. Lemon custard is tasty, and Slimer is fun, but neither of these are reassuring when we’re talking about pear pudding. Actually, nothing is reassuring when talking about pear pudding. Like a lamb with two heads, pear pudding should not exist.

I don’t even want to know what these puddings smell like anymore. I don’t need a sneak preview in pain. So I will just eat some.

HUUUUURGH. What the fuck. Who the fuck would ever, ever think that this was a good idea? It tastes like a mix of perfume made out of sweet farts and artificial banana flavoring. I am going to tie down every single member of the Kroger and Jelly Belly marketing team, feed them each an entire 4-pack of Kroger Jelly Belly Juicy Pear Pudding Snack, and demand to know where the pear is in this disgusting, slimy concoction. It is made from the tears of neglected kittens with infected eyes and the blood of baby koalas who are force-fed bananas from birth.

My stomach has tried to crawl out of my throat with each bite I have taken. For some reason, I find myself asking for forgiveness for pushing down that girl who had a lisp in the fourth grade. Enraged, I throw the cup in the trash and use a proton pack to zap Slimer out of existence.

Kroger Jelly Belly Watermelon Pudding Snacks

Watermelon

I just noticed as I pulled the 4-pack of Kroger Jelly Belly Watermelon Pudding Snacks out of the fridge that two of them are dented. Maybe I will get a horrible case of Botulism from them and die. One can only dream.

Well, this is the last one. I feel as though I am standing before the ninth circle of Hell, after having already passed through the third, fifth, and seventh circles. There is no saving my soul now.

I have no choice but to smell the watermelon pudding, as the odor hits my nose as soon as I peel back the lid. It is…surprisingly reassuring. Just your standard fake watermelon flavor, nothing ominous hidden underneath. But then I really examine it…

Watermelon Close-Up

Look at the way the pudding slides down the spoon, in one big clump. When I picked up the spoon after taking the picture, I accidentally tipped it to the side, but when I picked it up, there was no pudding residue left on the towel. Holy shit, Jelly Belly Watermelon pudding is The Blob! I am going to die.

Oh my god, what is happening here. After I took the first bite, I actually squeezed my eyes closed, like someone was physically flagellating me. This is…this is not watermelon. This is not even fake watermelon. It tastes like…oh god, I can’t even tell what it tastes like, which means I have to take another bite.

It tastes like melted plastic mixed with Novacaine, without the blessed numbness that my mouth is currently begging for. It tastes like decomposing animal flesh blended into a smoothie of rotten eggs and rubber tubing. It tastes like year-old Nickelodeon Slime engulfed a gag gift rubber sewer rat, slowly dissolving it into a toxic, semi-solid soup. Not only that, it looks like something they would use to cast dentures.

It is very, very terrible.

I have started hallucinating. My world is a hellish dreamscape of impossible colors and disturbing scents. Giant, malformed blob-monsters form and dissolve on the peripherals of my vision. Every surface glistens with an unnatural, slimy shine. With a cry of primal rage, I throw the cup in the trash, only to find that another one has taken its place. Gallagher suddenly appears before me, and I smash him with a large mallet, over and over, until he is nothing more than the mush that has been the fate of so many watermelons at his hands. The tiny pieces of his ruined body turn into jelly beans.

  • Score: 1 out of 5 eldritch horrors for all, what were there, 400 of them?
  • Price: $1.59, $0.99 on sale, I should have been paid to eat them, not the other way around
  • Size: 4 3.5 oz. cups
  • Purchased at: Fry’s Foods
  • Nutritional Quirks: Everything
Junk Food

Doritos Collisions Cheesy Enchilada/Sour Cream

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Doritos Collisions Cheesy Enchilada Sour Cream FrontSay what you will about Doritos’ crazy flavor ideas, and I do, frequently, but at least they aren’t content to rest on their laurels. For better or worse, Frito-Lay releases a new Doritos flavor every three days, which makes it difficult to keep up. That’s why, when I saw these Doritos Collisions Cheesy Enchilada/Sour Cream tortilla chips, I wasn’t sure if I’d missed the boat or found a new Collisions flavor. The Hot Wings/Blue Cheese and Zesty Taco/Chipotle Ranch versions of Collisions had been a staple in my local grocer’s snack food aisle for years now, and I thought that was the end of the story, but the Doritos team wasn’t done colliding deliciously compatible flavor powders yet! According to Wikipedia, there’s also Pizza Cravers/Ranch, which I vaguely recall seeing somewhere, and Habanero/Guacamole, which I have never seen but hope to, since it sounds wonderful, and, of course, Cheesy Enchilada/Sour Cream, which I hold in my hands today. Oddly, the official Doritos website doesn’t seem to recognize Pizza Cravers/Ranch or Habanero/Guacamole Collisions, which makes me wonder if both Wikipedia and my dubious memory are lying to me.

Snack Strong Productions does recognize Cheesy Enchilada/Sour Cream Collisions, however, and according to them, this flavor combo was launched in 2009, which means that I haven’t missed the boat and that the Collisions series is an ongoing Doritos project. As you can see, the front of the bag says “2 flavors – 1 bag”, which, if you’re anything like me, immediately brings up disturbing thoughts about girls and cups.

Let’s just leave that one alone and move on. As you can deduce from the front of the bag, the two powdered flavors are not combined, but are dusted separately on individual chips and then thrown into one bag together. Of course, as they rub up against each other, the powders will mix. I’m not sure if this is actually the point of Collisions or not. If it is, why bother dusting the individual chips separately? If not, then are you supposed to eat one chip at a time and enjoy the progression of flavors, or pick out one chip of each flavor and cram them both into your mouth at once, like some sort of bleary-eyed stoner sitting on his couch at 2am watching the Magic Bullet infomercial and stuffing everything within arm’s reach into his maw?

Doritos Collisions Cheesy Enchilada Sour Cream Back

The back of the bag declares that I control the ultimate Doritos (DORITOS) flavor combination. It’s comforting to know that I’m in control of my junk food experience. I hate it when Big Chip tells me how to snack. At the bottom, the Doritos team  begs me to tell them what Collisions (COLLISIONS) combo I will unleash. Exactly what kind of options do you think I have here, Doritos? I have purchased your bag of Collisions Cheesy Enchilada/Sour Cream Doritos. My options are pretty limited, here. Are you expecting me to buy all of your Collisions flavors and get freaky? Maybe a little Pizza Cravers/Zesty Taco action? How about some Blue Cheese/Guacamole?

Perhaps giving me so much control wasn’t such a good idea after all.

The bag shows the chips as having distinctive physical characteristics, namely that Cheesy Enchilada is violently orange and Sour Cream looks exactly like Cool Ranch. If my “getting intimate in the bag together” theory is correct, I won’t actually be able to tell them apart. Let’s find out.

Doritos Collisions Cheesy Enchilada/Sour Cream Chips

Well what do you know, there really is a difference between the appearance of the two flavors. Cheesy Enchilada is an unnaturally bright orange with a heavy coating of flavor powder, while Sour Cream is more subtle, letting its tortilla nature shine through a milder coating of white powder dotted with little green speckles. I’ve never had sour cream with green speckles in it before, but, depending on the expiration date on the container, I might not be adverse to it.

The smell coming off the chips is nearly identical to the smell of Nacho Cheese Doritos, which doesn’t bode well for Cheesy’s success in capturing all the different flavors of an enchilada. I decided to try them separately at first, and then employ the stoner method. I tackled Sour Cream first, since its appearance and assumed lack of contribution to the aroma told me it would probably be more muted.

I guess appearances don’t lie, because Sour Cream tastes almost exactly like Cool Ranch. Maybe a bit more mellow, but that initial bit of zip, or tang, or whatever you’d like to call it, from Cool Ranch is exactly what is present here. I really don’t taste any of the essence of what real sour cream tastes like. Which doesn’t mean they’re bad, mind you; I like Cool Ranch Doritos just fine. I just don’t usually put ranch on my enchiladas, is all.

Now, let’s try Cheesy Enchilada.  Hey! They’re not exactly like Nacho Cheese Doritos! Color me pleasantly surprised. There’s a definite cheesy flavor present that is reminiscent of the Nachos, but it’s a little less overpowering. Which is great, because that allows the second flavor to come through – a hint of smoky spiciness that stays with you after the chip is gone. The two flavors really play nicely with each other, creating a tasty snack with a bit of complexity.

And now, of course, for the true test: the Collision. To ensure accuracy, I took two similarly-sized chips and shoved them into my mouth together, creating a rain of crumbs on my kitchen counter and the uncomfortable feeling that someone could see me doing this. It is quite the flavor explosion, although I can’t say that the two flavors marry very well. There’s a lot of cheese and ranch, and even a little bit of the smokiness comes through, but at no point did I close my eyes and get transported to a fine Mexican restaurant, where I was eating a delicious cheese-filled tortilla smothered in enchilada sauce with a dollop of sour cream on top. Instead I was a woman, disgraced, standing alone in her kitchen, mangling two chips together so they would both fit into her mouth at once.

As a tag team, Doritos Collisions Cheesy Enchilada/Sour Cream chips don’t really work, which is sad because that is the whole premise of this gimmick. Apart, however, they are both tasty tortilla chips. It’s like being friends with a married couple who should have gotten divorced years ago; together, they are constantly at odds, and you are mildly embarrassed to be seen with them as they quarrel in public.   However, separately they are both fun, decent people. Plus, there’s a lot less crumbs involved.

  • Score: 3 out of 5 hamburgers Collided; 4 out of 5 hamburgers separately
  • Price: $3.29, $2.88 on sale
  • Size: 11 3/4 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Fry’s Foods
  • Nutritional Quirks: Not much surprising here, although sour cream is actually listed as an ingredient.  Mud on my face, I guess.  COOL RANCH-FLAVORED MUD.
Fast Food

Junk Food Freebie: T.G.I. Friday’s Buffalo Wings

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TGIFridaysLogoSunday, September 13, and Monday, September 14, you can head down to your local participating T.G.I. Friday’s and score six free buffalo wings.  Apparently, you must be sitting at the bar, but we all know that’s where you’d be anyway, sipping that fabulous green appletini.  I guess this is supposed to promote the start of the NFL season with the “Largest Kickoff Party In the U.S.A.”  Yeah, baby!  Go Raiders!

…Who am I kidding.  I hate football and I hate T.G.I. Friday’s.  But I do love free food.  So, if you’re willing to tolerate throngs of jerkoffs yelling at a flat-screen television in order to score six buffalo wings for free, go for it!

Fast Food

Junk Food Freebie: Chick-fil-A Original Chicken Sandwich

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FreeChickfilALogo

Get a free original chicken sandwich from Chick-fil-A on Labor Day.  Not so fast, though, hoss – there’s a catch.  You must be wearing some item of clothing (or a tattoo?  Face paint?  The promo wasn’t too clear on that) that contains a sports logo.  If you’re a sports fan, this should be no problem.  If you’re a giant nerd, you’ll feel debased and ashamed as you borrow your brother-in-law’s Raiders jersey just so you can get a chicken sandwich.  Either way, it’s free!

ChickfilASandwichEquation

Junk Food

Jalapeño Cheddar Tortilla Combos

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Combos Jalepeno Cheddar TortillaCombos have a special place in my heart. As a child, I was absolutely in love with their Pizzeria Pretzel flavor. Maybe it was the alliteration that captivated me. Who knows? There was just something about the salty pretzel combined with the tastes-nothing-like-pizza filling.

Sometime in my teens, Pizzeria Pretzel Combos disappeared, at least where I was living at the time, and I was heartbroken. I sat alone in my room, listening to The Cure, wondering what I had done wrong. Had I not bought enough to ensure their continued existence? Surely that could not be the case. As time went on, I eventually got over it, and Pizzeria Pretzels became nothing more than a distant memory, something I got misty-eyed about only after a few too many margaritas. I do the same thing when I remember my sordid love affair with Planters Cheez Balls. Prepare to be embarrassed if you ever take me to a T.G.I. Friday’s.

They eventually brought them back, but by then, I was older, more mature. I had moved on to more sophisticated fare, like shoving my face into a bag of Flamin’ Hot Funyuns.

…Okay, that is obviously a lie. Which is why, when I saw a bag of these new Jalapeño Cheddar Tortilla Combos, my mind harkened back to all the good times I had with Pizzeria Pretzel, and I knew I just had to get them. I haven’t had Combos in many years; will I fall in love all over again? Will that crunchy outer shell and creamy, ever-so-artificial filling sweep me off my feet?

Before we get to that, I have something important to tell you about. You know, it’s always nice when I pick up a fairly ordinary snack food and think, “What am I going to write about this to make it something more than just a description of what it tastes like?” And then there’s something on the packaging or their website that makes my head explode.

Such is the case with the Combos website. I don’t even know where to begin. Their home page can’t decide if it’s trying to look manly or Cold War-era Communist. In the middle of the page is “A Guide to Combivore Living”. What? Combivore? I understand trying to create a catchy new word that will associate your product with something people enjoy (Chocl-O-Bots and Delect-O-Cons come to mind), but seriously Combos, you’re trying way too hard. Combivore is a terrible, terrible word. Furthermore, there’s only one kind of Combos that’s even vaguely carnivore-related, and that’s pepperoni. Pepperoni is a pussy. Steak beats pepperoni up at recess every day and takes its lunch money.

I just realized that “Combivore” sounds a lot like “combover”. If you’re trying to project machismo, Combos, invoking thoughts of a man’s desperate attempts to conceal his dwindling virility by pasting the last few strands of his hair across his bald head is not the way to go about it.

There are so many more horrors, I can’t even describe them all, or this post would be 700 paragraphs long, so we’ll skip past the very obviously male-skewed marketing (in addition to “Combivore”, there’s a NASCAR promotion, a “Man Zone”, and a contest to win the “Ultimate Mancation”) and get right to the part that really made my head explode: the Combivore Tools section. It claims to have “blueprints for the Combivore lifestyle”. What it really contains is the blueprints for madness. I can’t even begin to describe these pictures, so I’ll just show you:

Combos Combrero

I appreciate that they illustrate the man wearing the Combrero as having giant jowls and probably weighing upwards of 500 pounds. Truth in advertising is so rare these days. The optional beverage holder is a nice touch. Wouldn’t have to want to actually reach out to grab your beer to wash down all those Combos you are eating OUT OF A FUCKING HAT.

Combos Tuxeato

Nobody who is looking at this website has, or ever will, wear an actual tuxedo.

Combos Handset Feeder

What is happening here? Is he yelling at the Combo? Surely he is not yelling at the Combo, unless he’s saying, “GET IN MY FUCKING MOUTH!” I guess he’s yelling at whoever is on the phone with him because their call interrupted his Combo eating. Except that’s not a real phone, it’s the Combos equivalent of those little plastic cell phones with the candy inside. This man is obviously insane.

Like I said: madness. I can’t even look at this website anymore. You can view a few more blueprints for unraveling the very fabric of reality at the official Combos website.

In order to give Combos a shot at reclaiming my heart, I’m going to pretend that the Combos marketing team that made that website is Combos’s crazy mother-in-law who collects Richard Nixon memorabilia and always smells like boiled cabbage. I have to visit her occasionally, but she lives in a special needs home far, far away, and I can pretend she doesn’t exist most of the time.

So, let’s see what you’ve got, Japaleño Cheddar Tortilla Combos.

Jalapeno Cheddar Tortilla Combos

Well, yeah, those are Combos, all right. What you see is pretty much what you get – a somewhat-creamy filling surrounded by a tubular shell of, in this case, crunchy tortilla. They smell strongly of artificial cheese flavoring. Anyone with half a brain and a desire not to die at age 30 of cardiac disease would find this smell mildly repulsive. It’s an innate warning sign, like the bright coloring of poisonous animals – stay away. Here there be danger. But I obviously have some sort of defective gene, since I find the smell kind of attractive. Fortunately, I’m sure evolution will step in at some point and ensure that I never procreate and infect the gene pool with my inferior survival instincts.

In spite of the strong cheesy smell, it’s actually the jalapeño that hits you upon first bite. These things are actually spicy! I was expecting the usual cheddar cheese Combos flavor with maybe a hint of bite on the back end, but the jalapeño just bursts in and takes over the joint. The flavor is somewhat akin to the juice that pickled jalapeño slices soak in. It’s hard to even tell what the cheese tastes like, but from what I can tell, it’s a lot like Cheddar Easy Cheese. If that gives you no frame of reference because you’ve never eaten cheese out of a can, then fuck you. Get off my website.

As I mentioned before, I haven’t had Combos in a long time, but if my memory serves correctly, the shell tastes exactly like a Combos cracker shell. Which is to say, it tastes like nothing. There’s absolutely nothing tortilla-esque about them. Honestly, I think they just slapped the word “tortilla” on the package and just used regular ol’ cracker shells. The front of the package really wants to tell me about how they’ve used stone ground corn, so I guess that’s the difference? Regardless, I probably couldn’t tell them apart in a blind taste test. It’s not to say they are bad – they just aren’t anything more than a solid, handleable vessel for the filling.

Did I mention these are spicy? It hits you right away and lingers well after you’ve finished eating them. Jalapeño Cheddar Tortilla Combos really aren’t fucking around.

On the scale of “how bad for me is this junk food product”, Combos just strikes me as being quite low on the spectrum. They just taste wrong. It’s just impossible to eat them without feeling like the guy wearing the Combrero, which is to say, wondering what you are doing with your life and taking your eyes off the tv for one second to contemplate the very real possibility of dying alone and nobody finding your body until the neighbors report a funny smell two weeks later. When you eat Cheetos, you feel like you’re indulging in a snack food craving. When you eat Combos, you feel like you’ve made some very poor life decisions.

So, did Jalapeño Cheddar Tortilla Combos reclaim my heart? Well, judging from the numbness that’s radiating down my left arm, I guess you could say they have, in a way.

All that aside, they are very spicy!

  • Score: 2.5 out of 5 hamburgers
  • Price: $2.29 (yeesh, seriously?)
  • Size: 6.30 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Circle K
  • Nutritional Quirks: If you eat the whole bag at once, which is what I used to do as a child, you will be consuming 840 calories.  Dude, seriously, put the Combrero down and go get a Big Mac or something.

Miscellaneous

News: Gizmodo’s Taste Test Week

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The folks over at Gizmodo are running a little thing they call Taste Test. I’ll let them explain it best:

Taste Test is our weeklong tribute to the leaps that occur when technology meets cuisine, spanning everything from the historic breakthroughs that made food tastier and safer to the Earl-Grey-friendly replicators we impatiently await in the future.

They explore everything from turning fast food into gourmet creations to Duracell’s energy drink, with lots of interesting stuff in between.  I strongly suggest you check it out!

Fast Food

News: KFC Double Down – I want it

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Holy cow.  The KFC Double Down.  According to this LA Times post, it’s only available in Omaha, NE and Providence, RI right now, which makes me weep. Two fried chicken fillets sit where the two pieces of bread on a sandwich would be, and in between them are slices of cheese, bacon, and Colonel’s Sauce.  Amazing.

Photo courtesy the LA Times
Photo courtesy the LA Times

You’d better believe I’m going to get one of these on my hands as soon as possible.  Is there anything that better represents this great country?  America!

Junk Food

Cheez-It Pepper Jack Baked Snack Crackers

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Cheez-It Pepper Jack Box

The box of my Cheez-It Pepper Jack crackers claims to be new, but according to my somewhat dubious research, it’s been out since the beginning of this year. No matter, they’re new to me! Besides that, I’m inclined to believe anything that snack product packaging tells me. So, let’s check out some NEW! Cheez-It Pepper Jack Baked Snack Crackers.

Cheez-Its are one of the world’s greatest snacks. Cheesy and salty, you can take them anywhere. You can eat them while driving on a long road trip and not get greasy fingers. They are the perfect size and always the same shape, and the box keeps most of them from being broken. What more can you ask for?

I have not yet tried the Pepper Jack Cheez-Its, but I am predicting that this review will be pretty short, because really, how much can you say about Cheez-Its?  Even the pepper jack ones. How bad can they be? I’ve tried the Hot & Spicy and the White Cheddar varieties, and I found them both to be satisfactory, although their flavorings come in the form of a powder on the cracker, so I’d stick with the original if you’re driving, or if you’re on a date and don’t want your potential new lover to see you sucking a thick layer of seasoning off your fingers. Of course, if you’re on a date and you’re eating Cheez-Its, something has already gone very wrong.

Well, let’s crack this puppy open and get started!

Cheez-It Pepper Jack Crackers

Upon opening the bag inside the box, I’m greeted with that familiar Cheez-It smell. Nothing smells spicy, but I attributed that to an initial characteristic which surprised me: instead of the pepper jack flavoring being delivered via a powder resting on the surface of the Cheez-It, the flavor had instead been baked into the cracker. Score one for keeping a box of these in the car, if you are the type of person who feels they need to have snack food in their car at all times.  Don’t laugh; these people exist.

Cheez-It Pepper Jack Close-Up

You can see the little pieces of pepper inside the cracker. It does seem to look a bit like a little square of pepper jack cheese, with the bits of green and red peppers spread throughout, although some of the crackers had barely any visible peppers. They seem to be paler than normal Cheez-Its. I also noticed that these Cheez-Its had less salt on them. On regular Cheez-Its, you can see little crystals of salt covering the cracker, but those were mostly absent here.

I was really disappointed by the first few Pepper Jack Cheez-Its I ate. They tasted just like regular Cheez-Its, except blander, and you could definitely notice the lack of salt. I kept eating them, because hey, bland Cheez-Its are better than no Cheez-Its, and that’s when the pepper flavor hit. The more I ate, the more it built up, until I had a nice spicy heat sensation in my mouth. These guys really do taste a lot like pepper jack cheese. I can see now why they went easy on the salt – by making them less salty and toning down the cheese flavor, the peppery heat is really allowed to shine. My one complaint is that they might have toned down the cheese flavor a little too much – I think a little more cheesiness could have stood up to the heat, and been a nice compliment.

Of course, I’m just being a dick about that point – real pepper jack cheese is made with Monterey Jack, which is traditionally mild in flavor. And, true to its namesake, Pepper Jack Cheez-Its do contain Monterey Jack, although it seems the main cheese used to flavor these crackers is white cheddar. Perhaps I should be thankful – without the cheddar, there might not have been any cheese flavor coming through. Red bell peppers, green bell peppers, natural jalapeño flavor and red pepper are also listed as ingredients. Sounds pretty on par, if you ask me.

Well, looks like I managed to pull a pretty decent-sized review out of this box, after all. Cheez-It Pepper Jack Baked Snack Crackers are a-ok in my book. Will they be replacing regular Cheez-Its as the cheesy cracker staple in my household? Probably not. Regular Cheez-Its are tasty but largely inoffensive; these crackers pack a bit of a punch, enough that anyone with a palate sensitive to capsaicin-related heat might actually find themselves reaching for a glass of milk. These people are pussies. However, I think if I’m sitting on the couch, watching a nine-hour marathon of Law & Order in my pajamas, I’d prefer the cheesy saltiness of regular Cheez-Its over the spicy, but more mild and less salty flavor of Pepper Jack Cheez-Its.

  • Score: 4 out of 5 burgers
  • Price: $4.59
  • Size: 13.7 oz.
  • Purchased at: Albertson’s #980
  • Nutritional Quirks: Real cheese and real peppers, even if they were listed in the “contains less than 2% of” section.

Junk food and fast food reviews from a leftist perspective. We eat it so you don't have to!