Tag Archives: 1 burger

Pickle Juice Sport Extra Strength Shots

[Editor’s Note: Please enjoy this guest review by Malcolm Bedell. He drives a van and writes about stupid food on his website, Spork & Barrel. He’s getting too old for this sh*t.]

I’m certifiably crazy about pickles. That’s right, I said it. When I was a little kid, my mom would catch me sneaking long pulls off the bottle of pickling liquid left in the bottom of the jar, the green brine rolling down my chin as I closed my eyes to savor every drop like a dry drunk who’s finally been reunited with Tanqueray. When I began shopping for my own groceries, a jar of pickles dipped in sour cream made an outstanding last-minute sodium-rich dinner, and in my twenties, I had more than one Friday night fueled by the rocket fuel combination of shots of whiskey followed by shots of pickle juice (what we in New England call a “pickleback”).

Pickle credentials established, I have to make one more immediate confession. I don’t like these “Pickle Juice Sport” shots, marketed as a health (?) and anti-cramping (??) product, by a company called, “The Pickle Juice Company, LLC.” But because I am both a lover of pickle juice AND a sucker for anything that might alter my brain chemistry, conveniently sold in a two ounce portion next to the scratch-off tickets and the expired Butterfingers, I knew immediately that I had to give them a try. From the website:

“A new study has revealed that pickle brine might be more effective than sports drinks at treating muscle cramps, confirming a longstanding assumption in the sports world. Football players, cyclists and triathletes have been sipping dill-flavored drinks, including bottles of The Pickle Juice Company, LLC, for years. Those who downed the brine stopped complaining of cramping within 85 seconds — about 37 percent faster than the water drinkers and 45 percent faster than when they didn’t drink anything at all.”

Now, let’s be clear. I’m…not an athlete. In fact, I’m not even sure I realized that “cramping” was something your muscles could do. I’ve been laboring under the assumption that muscles were just these stringy bits holding my bones together; I’ve never asked too much of them, and they’ve certainly never offered me anything in return. So I can’t speak to the dubious quasi-medical claims being made by The Pickle Juice Company, LLC, and am not going to waste any of the precious time I have to spend thinking up dick jokes for the internet to follow up on any of their published “research.”

I can, however, speak to the taste of the product.

The first thing I noticed is that “Pickle Juice Sport” is stored (and presumably intended to be served) at room temperature. The website claims that it carries an extended shelf life of up to two years, and is so confident that you’ll want to have a ton of the stuff around that they’ll sell you a plastic 55 gallon drum of Pickle Juice Sport for $500. If you haven’t had the pleasure of chugging 2.5 ounces of warm, shelf-stable pickle juice lately, I’ll try to paint you a word picture.

Imagine brining the least interesting, least flavorful pickle you’ve ever tried in a dirty fishbowl full of tepid aquarium water overnight, and drinking the results. That’s Pickle Juice Sport. Imagine blasting a fog of pickle vapor through a car’s malfunctioning Freon air conditioning system, and inhaling whatever comes through the vents of your ’02 Subaru. That’s Pickle Juice Sport. Imagine the sensation of accidentally biting down on a piece of aluminum foil with one of your half-broken fillings while an ancient Polish woman rubs her generations-old family recipe for garlic dills all over your snout. Oh, and you have the flu. That’s Pickle Juice Sport.

It’s got the basic outline of very mild pickle flavor, with what seems like some kind of wildly out of whack pH, so that instead of the acid you’re expecting from pickle juice, it ends up almost chalky, even though the liquid itself isn’t thick; something like artificial pickle flavoring mixed with the taste of old silverware carried in a base of warm unflavored Pedialyte.

I can’t imagine chugging one of these after any kind of intense athletic endeavor (which is to say, I can’t imagine performing any kind of intense athletic endeavor in the first place). There’s certainly nothing about chugging loose pickle water that’s the same temperature as the inside of your body that seems “refreshing” or even “pleasant” on any level. And I can’t say I noticed any increase in my energy levels, or really any sensation at all other than the slight urge to blow hot pickle juice all over the inside of my car’s upholstery. And at $2 per bottle, I can’t imagine favoring one of these over, say, an ice-cold Gatorade, since those also promise to rehydrate and replenish electrolytes while also somehow tasting like Tropical Mango combined with Pure Magic.

As much as I love pickle juice AND not having cramps, “Pickle Juice Sport” is going to be a hard pass for me. Triathletes may find something to like in the product’s alleged muscle rejuvenation properties, but for those of us just trying to catch a legal buzz off a vial of something or other purchased at a gas station? We’ll stick to the dusty bottles of Pomegranate Five Hour Energy and Extra Strength Stacker 3. Y’know, like adults.

Pickle Juice Sport Extra Strength Shots

  • Score: 1 out of 5 aggressive Polish grannies
  • Price: $1.99
  • Size: 2.5 oz. bottle
  • Purchased at: The Shell station down under the highway overpass.
  • Cramping: None.

Whataburger Chorizo Burger and Chorizo Taquito

[Please enjoy this guest review from Robert – Not Bob, a valued sometimes-contributor to Junk Food Betty. Thanks, Robert!]

As I’ve discussed on this site before, Mexican Chorizo has long been absent from most American fast food menu, for a variety of (wildly speculative) reasons.

It is mostly considered a breakfast meat, and Americans already pretty much have their breakfast meat team roster filled, what with “all-star” bacon, “second string” sausage, and “that kid you pick to be on your team before you end up having to pick one of the dorks, geeks, or fatties ” ham.

Chorizo also enjoys a well-deserved reputation as a mystery meat. Even people that love the stuff will joke about the ingredients, which can contain things such as “Pork salivary glands”, “lymph nodes” and the ever-popular “fat (cheeks)”.

Chorizo’s texture, which can range from crumbly to vaguely viscous, probably also sets off a lot of warning flags to most gringos, who like their meat a little more solid.

Finally, Chorizo just sorta tastes weird. It’s has a distinctive “twang”, and is a little spicy, but not in the familiar pickled jalapeño way, or even in the becoming more familiar chipotle or sriracha way. I like it a lot, but I will admit it’s a bit of an acquired taste.

In the last few years, however, a few fast food chains have been adding it, albeit in limited capacities. Chipotle had it on their menu for about a year, but recently yanked it, reportedly to make room for queso on their menu. McDonald’s has rolled out chorizo breakfast burrito market tests several times but they have yet to add it as a permanent menu item. Some of the smaller “Mexican” chains, such as Del Taco and Taco Cabana offer it, while the big chains like Taco Bell have pretty much ignored its existence.

What I didn’t really expect is to see chorizo turn up on a fast food burger. However, Whataburger has done exactly that. Here is their description:

“We put perfectly-seasoned chorizo between two all-beef patties, topped them with two slices of Monterey Jack Cheese, grilled peppers and onions and our specially-made Creamy Chili Sauce for a bold flavor with just the right amount of spice.”

Sounds…. Interesting… and potentially messy. I’ve mixed chorizo with my beef while making hamburger patties before with tasty results, but it appears that they are layering it with the patties on this. I am glad to see that they’re opting for Monterey Jack over yucky American or boring Cheddar, and I’m always up for some grilled peppers and onions on my burger. I’m a bit skeptical about the “creamy chili sauce”, but hey, I’ll give it a shot.

First impressions are always a little rough.

I do like Whataburger more than most of the other fast food burger chains, mostly because their burgers seem a little more “old school”. However, one place they’ve long needed an update is in the bun department. Whataburger has stuck by the same mediocre bun for decades; I honestly do not recall them ever trying to jump on the artesian roll / brioche bun / ciabatta / whatever bandwagon. The standard Whataburger bun is what it is, and what it always is is “sorta smooshed”. I typically avoid the Whataburger Bun Blues by always ordering any sandwich from them on their delicious Texas Toast. But, since that’s not the default bun for the Chorizo Burger, and it was for a review, I took one for the team and went with ol’ smooshy.

Under the bun was a lackluster collection of soggy peppers and onions. I usually ask for a side of whatever sauce they’re putting on a new burger so I can try it separately, and this time I forgot. However, the “creamy chili sauce” appeared to be pretty much the same sorta-spicy, sorta-tangy sauce that’s been cropping up on everybody’s spicy burgers and sandwiches the last few years. They might call it “chipotle sauce”, they may call it “spicy mayo”, but it’s all pretty similar.

My attempts to pry the two all-beef patties apart to view the chorizo filling didn’t go so well. The gooey melted cheese had glued them together. I was finally able to pry up a corner to reveal…

….sometimes food just isn’t pretty. But hey, it’s the taste that counts, right?

Cross-sectioned, it basically looked like a Sloppy Joe with a few extra ingredients.

At this point the table and my hands were getting kind of messy, so without further reverse engineering, I gave it a try.

It turned out that actually eating it was less messy than dissecting it, mostly because, as previously mentioned, the glue-like cheese had stuck everything together. Not surprisingly, the bun was soggy, but luckily didn’t fall apart. Mostly what I tasted was the burger patties and cheese, with only a slight touch of chorizo flavor, and was more “tangy” than “twangy”, probably because the “creamy chili sauce” really dominated the flavor. The onions and peppers were lost in the mix. Overall it not only looked like a Sloppy Joe, it kinda tasted like one too.

The next morning, I overcame my disappointment enough to give Whataburger’s Chorizo Taquito a shot.

“A bold take on our breakfast classic. We filled a warm flour tortilla with freshly scrambled eggs, perfectly-seasoned, sizzling chorizo and a slice of American cheese.”

Reading the description didn’t give me much confidence. Who puts a “slice of American cheese” into a burrito? Did they not have access to shredded Cheddar?

First of all, for the better part of $3, this ain’t much of a burrito. [Ed. Note: It’s technically a taquito, but Whataburger’s definition of a taquito is insane and it’s basically a burrito.] It’s about the same size as the Chorizo Burrito McDonald’s test marketed, but they gave you two of them for $3. There was one similarity to McDonald’s burritos, though, and that was the accompanying “salsa” that was fit only for the garbage can.

Cross-sectioned, I did notice a distinct lack or the telltale red of chorizo, and a preponderance of yellow eggs. Tasting the taquito bore this out. I could have eaten the entire thing and not known it was supposed to be chorizo con huevos. It tasted more like “sprinkle of paprika and slice of American cheese” con huevos.

So, there you have it. Two more entries in the “mostly disappointing chorizo fast food” catalog. At this point, I’m not sure if the fast food industry will ever crack the enigma that is chorizo. Thank God (and the Mexicans) for taquerias!

Whataburger Chorizo Burger and Chorizo Taquito

  • Score(Whataburger Chorizo Burger): 2 out of 5 fat (cheeks)
  • Score (Whataburger Chorizo Taquito): 1 out of 5 stupid slices of American cheese
  • Price: I’m a careless idiot and lost my receipts, but the burger (with no sides) was almost $6, and the taquito was almost $3. Pricey!
  • Size: 1 burger; 1 taquito
  • Purchased at: Whataburger #113
  • Nutritional Quirk: Not surprisingly, the default 2-patty Chorizo Burger is a 1140 calorie, 2100mg sodium intestine bomb. Whataburger does offer it in single patty and Jr. sizes, not that that will really make much of a difference.

Limited Edition Mystery Oreo Cookies

Here we are, at peak Oreo. No double-colored creme, no dyes that will turn your poop pink, just two chocolate cookies and some white filling. Just like a classic Oreo.

Except the flavor is a complete mystery. After years of pumping out weird flavors, Oreo just went, “Eh, you guys figure it out.”

Gotta say, digging the packaging, though. Simple yet striking, it definitely stands out in the sea of blues and yellows that are the many other existing Oreo flavors. The light blue swirl is a nice touch. oooOOOooo Twilight Zone! I’d like to think that in this, the month of all things spooky, it was a subtle Halloween nod by Oreo.

They won’t make you guess the flavor for free, though. They’re running a contest, because of course they are. Guess correctly and you could win a cool $50,000. I think that’s one dollar for every flavor of Oreo they’ve come out with in the last ten years.

Look at them. They look so innocent. Like you’re about to have a nice time with some Oreos and a glass of milk.

Mystery Oreos have taught me that looks can fool you.

All you have to do is stick your snout in the package and the mystery is over. It’s Froot Loops. Or Fruity Pebbles. Pick a multi-colored, very artificially-flavored sugary fruit cereal. Mystery solved, can I have my money now, please?

But that raises the question, what about Fruity Crisp Oreos? They came out just last year, and purportedly tasted exactly like Fruity Pebbles. (Of course, this is one of the flavors I skipped, due to Oreo fatigue. It figures.) So did Oreo just get insanely lazy?

Well, there’s smelling, and then there’s eating. My husband asked the all-important question as he tried a Mystery Oreo with me in solidarity: “Is the cookie part of the mystery?”

I started to say no, but as I popped the creme-less cookie into my mouth, I thought, oh you sneaky bastards. You made the cookie taste like Fruity Pebbles, too, even though they look like the regular chocolate!

Wrong. At least, partially.

The taste of the creme is so overpowering that for the first few chews, I thought it was all fruity, all the time. But then the chocolate flavor started creeping in, and I realized what a real mistake these Mystery Oreos were.

When eaten as a whole, Mystery Oreos are a terrible combination of cloyingly sweet, artificial-tasting fruit cereal and chocolate cookie. This is different from Fruity Crisp Oreos, which used the more neutral Golden Oreo cookie. Attempts to dislodge the flavor from my mouth have been futile. Please leave my mouth, Mystery Oreos.

So the final guess I’m going to make for Mystery Oreos is “That Time As a Kid You Thought Mixing Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles Was a Good Idea, and Lessons Were Learned”.

100% spot on. Now give me my money, Oreos.

Limited Edition Mystery Oreo Cookies

  • Score: 1 out of 5 serious cereal mystery mistakes
  • Price: $3.49
  • Size: 15.25 oz. package
  • Purchased at: Safeway #1717
  • Nutritional Quirk: “natural flavor, artificial flavor, chocolate”. Oreo gives nothing away. Except chocolate.

Limited Edition Peeps Oreo

When I told a friend about Peeps Oreos, the first question out of his mouth was, “Are those Peep-flavored Oreos or Oreo-flavored Peeps?”

The question is 100% fair. Oreo is known for popping out a mind-boggling amount of flavors, but Peeps has developed a prodigious assortment, themselves. If you would have asked me 20 years ago what junk food franchise would go wild with their flavor selection, first I would have told you to fuck off because I was a teenager, and then I would have said literally anything but Peeps.

But for now, at least, the answer to his question is that these are Oreos with Peeps-flavored creme. For now. Expect the opposite soon.

The timing is no accident – Easter is around the corner, and before they were bats and Christmas trees, Peeps were, at heart, chicks.

Our packaging eschews all holiday-related tropes in favor of a more Spring-y landscape. The background pops with bright yellow and white polka dots, and cute little pink butterflies float around our rather solemn-looking Peep. Grass and a white picket fence complete this perfect little scene. Minus Mr. Peep, it’s as saccharine as a Peep Oreo itself!

The whole thing just makes me want to sneeze. But it’s also allergy season and I can actually smell the pollen in the air. These damn plants, always wanting to fuck all at the same time.

The idea of Oreo creme that tastes like a regular Peeps marshmallow is super boring, so they decided to spice things up by adding crunchy sugar crystals to the mix, which makes sense because Peeps are covered in sugar crystals.

As always, I tried the creme by itself before I ate the Oreo as a whole. It was a smart move adding those sugar crystals, because I swear I couldn’t detect a flavor that was any different than a normal Oreo. Peeps and Oreos don’t taste the same, but I feel like they really phoned it in, just adding some sugar crystals to the regular mix.

When eaten as a whole cookie, again, you’re basically just eating a Golden Oreo, although I will say that the crystals added a crunch that was different than just the cookie crunch. It was a more pleasant experience than just eating the creme alone, because it felt more crunchy than gritty.

While the flavor of Peeps Oreo is fairly boring, the color certainly isn’t. One of the first colors of Peeps was pink, and Oreo went PINK with this filling. If you happen to have read the Internet lately, this has caused something that the Internet loves talking about: colored poop!

That’s right, the most notable thing about Peeps Oreos is that, if you eat enough of them, they will turn your poop bright pink. This is due, of course, to good ol’ Red Number 3. So, because of my status as an Investigative Reporter, I had to do my doo-doo diligence…

…and eat a whole row of Oreos at once. Also, sorry about that joke.

A row of Oreos is seven, in case you weren’t aware. And I cheated and only ate the filling, after my initial taste test for the review. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the Barbie playset in my toilet that I was hoping for. There was a faint pink tinge, but that was it.

Now, the accounts I read said they’d consumed a whole PACKAGE to achieve real results on the back end. It was a labor of love for me to just eat one row of filling – who the hell can eat an entire package in one sitting?

Enough poop talk, though. Remember those little tablets your dentist gave you to put in your mouth after you brushed your teeth to ensure you’d brushed properly? The ones that stained any plaque you missed bright pink? It turns out Peeps Oreos have the exact same effect! Thanks, Oreos, for making sure I brushed real real good!

Here are some other things these Peeps Oreos stained:

My tongue (which was another documented side effect, but I wasn’t expecting it to be QUITE that bright)

My toothbrush bristles (permanently, as it turns out – I had to buy a new one)

My sink, after I spit out my toothpaste (luckily, I noticed it was stained and wiped it off before that became permanent also)

So this review has been more about “How can I use Peeps Oreos to dye everything in my life pink?” than the flavor themselves, which speaks volumes about how interesting they were, taste-wise. The only interesting thing were the sugar crystals, and while they added a little extra crunch, I’d much rather have Marshmallow Crispy Oreos than these. And I wouldn’t have to worry about permanently staining my shirt while eating them.

Limited Edition Peeps Oreo

  • Score: 1 out of 5 toilet Barbie playsets
  • Price: $1.88
  • Size: 10.7 oz. package
  • Purchased at: Safeway
  • Nutritional Quirk: Gotta give it up to Red No. 3. Always.

Galerie Fries Before Guys Marshmallow Fries

“Hey Sharon, happy February 14th! I mean, fuck Valentine’s Day, right?”

“Well Carol, it’s my first Valentine’s Day without John, so I’m feeling-”

“It’s just a stupid Hallmark holiday anyways, amirite?”

“I mean, it’s my first Valentine’s Day without him, so I-”

“You know what? We should have an anti-Valentine’s Day girls’ night out! That’s right, I said anti!” How awesome would that be?”

“Carol, I’m not really feeling up to-”

“And to celebrate, I got all my gal pals these. Screw guys, amirite? We’re gonna do so many shoooooots!”

[quiet sobbing as Sharon holds her Fries Before Guys]

And that little play was pretty much what I thought of when I first saw Fries Before Guys. Listen, I get it. I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day. I have a person that I love deeply (gross) and for one V-day we went to the shooting range (interesting and informative) but ultimately, it’s just a day. I won’t go on preaching, because to be perfectly honest I have another review to write because I’m a slave to consumerism who will buy any new Valentine’s-

Aw, dammit.

These things aren’t really designed for the taste, but just for the hell of it, here you go: it’s pretty weird to eat a marshmallow french fry. The taste and texture is sort of like you went cheap and got generic marshmallows instead of good ol’ Kraft Jet-Puffed, and if there’s any vanilla there, I couldn’t detect it. It was just a spongy, vaguely sugary fry thing.

And that’s it; that’s the gimmick. The real crime here is that there’s no “ketchup” packet to go with my “fries”. What are fries without ketchup? (I personally don’t like ketchup but the rest of the country disagrees, so I’m going with it.) This hokey candy might have won my heart if it came with a little packet of, say, raspberry syrup. That would have put it waaaay over the top.

Happy Anti-Valentine’s Day!

Galerie Fries Before Guys Marshmallow Fries

  • Score: 1 out of 5 sobbing Sharons
  • Price: $1.79
  • Size: 2.65 oz.
  • Purchased at: Target
  • Nutritional Quirk: It’s a marshmallow. It’s sugar.

Lay’s Do Us a Flavor Finalists 2015: New York Reuben, Southern Biscuits and Gravy, Wavy West Coast Truffle Fries, Kettle Cooked Greektown Gyro

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist 2015 BagsSo, apparently Lay’s is doing their Do Us a Flavor contest every year now, which is perfectly fine by me, minus the fact that I have to keep typing “Do Us a Flavor” which makes me want to murder the entire Frito-Lay marketing division. But as long as the weird flavors keep coming, I’ll keep buying them!

Are you curious about these four new 2015 finalists, but don’t want to spend $10+ and take up an entire shelf of your cupboard? Well, that’s why I’m here to break them down for you in one giant post. And poke a little fun at the people behind the flavors in the process, because that’s just how I roll.

New York Reuben

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist 2015 New York Reuben Picture

I gotta hand it to Lay’s, the photos of the actual food on the bags look goddamn delicious; so much so that I wanted to showcase each of them more closely. They almost look too delicious, in that, after staring at the bag, I wanted to eat the actual food and not just a chip pretending to be the food.

There was a method to the madness that was tasting all these flavors, but I can’t remember what it was. I ate so many potato chips. Regardless, I started with New York Reuben, an iconic sandwich served in delis. And if you live in New York, one particular deli. (Hint: it’s the one where Meg Ryan faked an orgasm.)

Let’s look at the man behind the flavor first:

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist 2015 New York Reuben Creator

Meet Jeff Solensky of DuBois, PA. Before you start ranting about how Jeff isn’t even from New York, please note that he grew up in Long Island. He buries this lead by starting off telling you he works in a restaurant. I feel like Jeff is being real defensive, here. “Hey, I work in a restaurant and I’m from New York, so I know what corned beef should taste like, motherfuckers.”

I shouldn’t put words in Jeff’s mouth, though. He looks like a very nice man.

A traditional reuben sandwich consists of corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Russian dressing on rye bread. Knowing this, I was expecting a tangy chip with cheese and maybe a faint, unsettling beef flavor.

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist 2015 New York Reuben Chips

I got none of that. Well, that’s not entirely true. What I did get was an overabundance of rye. Rye! Out of all the core aspects of a reuben, it wasn’t the bread that I was expecting to dominate the flavor of the chip.

If I closed my eyes and imagined real hard, there was a teensy bit of twang that could resemble Russian dressing, or maybe an off-base version of kraut. But in the end, it’s all rye all the time. You know those addictive Gardetto’s Roasted Garlic Rye Chips? It was like eating a flimsy version of those, except with no garlic flavor at all. So I guess the best thing I can say about Lay’s New York Reuben is that they sure did nail rye bread, and that makes for just as boring of a chip as you’d imagine. You could say this flavor went a-rye.

Southern Biscuits and Gravy

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist 2015 Southern Biscuits and Gravy Picture

From the Northeast we now travel to the South! In case you didn’t quite catch on, this year’s DUaF has a regional flair to it. I had mixed feelings before opening this one – on the one hand, I sure do love a good plate of biscuits and gravy. On the other hand – sausage chips.

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist 2015 Southern Biscuits and Gravy Creator

This flavor comes to us via Hailey Green of Noblesville, IN. Again, you might be wondering what the hell somebody from Indiana is doing talking about southern cooking, but, like Jeff, she has a good reason: her grandparents are from Tennessee, and her Nonnie makes some kickass biscuits and gravy. You know this shit is serious because she calls her grandma “Nonnie”.

Wait, I just looked it up and apparently “Nonnie” is Italian for “grandmother”. I thought it was some sort of Southern term of endearment. What the hell, Hailey?

After the disappointment of New York Reuben, I had cautious optimism about Southern Biscuits and Gravy. As I mentioned, I really like this food, so I hoped it would go well and not horribly wrong.

Upon opening the bag, my nostrils were filled with the smell of promise. These chips smelled exactly like country gravy. My mouth started watering.

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist 2015 Southern Biscuits and Gravy Chips

And I gotta say, the taste did not disappoint. If it seems gross to describe the flavor of a potato chip as creamy, keep in mind that sour cream and onion is one of the most popular potato chip flavors out there.

Which is interesting, because while Southern Biscuits and Gravy totally tasted like country gravy while I was chewing, there was a little sour cream and onion taste afterward.

Admittedly, there wasn’t much of a biscuit flavor happening, but the creamy gravy flavor was definitely there, complete with a nice black pepper kick (you can see little black flecks on the chips). There’s even a hint of sausage, but not disturbingly so.

Lay’s often uses dark magic to make their chips taste like other foods, and this is one of those times. The little sour cream and onion at the end was not off-putting, nor was the hint of sausage. These chips nailed the Southern Biscuits and Gravy flavor without hitting that Uncanny Valley flavor that can sometimes happen with weird-flavored chips. I will definitely be finishing these.

Wavy West Coast Truffle Fries

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist 2015 Wavy West Coast Truffle Fries Picture

First off, I had no idea that truffle fries were a thing before I saw these Lay’s chips, and I grew up on the west coast. Not that that makes me an expert on all things culinary from that region, but I feel like I should at least know that these things exist. I guess I’m just not highfalutin enough.

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist 2015 Wavy West Coast Truffle Fries Creator

Luckily, Angie Fu of Irvine, CA knows all about them. Angie has a compulsion disorder to immediately order truffle fries any time she sees them on a menu, so it makes sense that she would submit this idea to Lay’s. “Please enable my crippling addiction to truffle fries by making them available in my pantry at all times,” she pleads, desperately wringing her hands.

In case you are in the dark as I was, truffle fries are french fries tossed with truffle oil and often topped with parmesan cheese, black pepper and parsley. Ingredients may vary, but this seems to be the most popular application.

And, in case you don’t know what truffle oil tastes like, which I also have never experienced, it apparently has a very earthy taste and aroma, akin to mushrooms. Which, believe it or not, I have tasted. So at least there’s that.

The first whiff was promising: cheesy, a little musky, and overall mouth-watering. Every year, Lay’s seems to follow the formula of two regular chips, one Wavy and one Kettle Cooked, and they chose Wavy for West Coast Truffle Fries, which I believe was a good choice, because truffle fries tend to be steak-cut and the thicker texture of Wavy Lay’s sort of emulates that.

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist 2015 Wavy West Coast Truffle Fries Chips

And that first smell was spot-on. The parmesan flavor was the most prominent, making for a great flavor that wasn’t just generically “cheesy” but actually tasted of parmesan.

As I chewed, the truffle came in. With a strong aromatic like that, it could easily overwhelm all the other flavors, but it came in subtle, adding that trademark earthiness of truffles. I could even taste (and see) the little flecks of parsley playing backup.

And the ingredients list reads just as exotic as the chips’ namesake: romano and parmesan cheeses, duck fat, and actual black truffle. If these chips taste authentic, that’s because they used authentic ingredients, which is probably why I enjoyed the hell out of this flavor.

I hope you’ve stocked your pantry, Angie.

Kettle Cooked Greektown Gyro

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist 2015 Kettle Cooked Greektown Gyro Picture

Next, we head to…Greektown, wherever that is.

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist 2015 Kettle Cooked Greektown Gyro Creator

Oh, according to James Wagner of Wichita Falls, TX, it’s in Wichita Falls, TX. Or, more accurately, “there’s a great little Greek place in town”, which makes it qualify for Greektown.

You know, there’s more than one place near where I live that offer some pretty awesome gyros. Does that mean I also live in Greektown? Have you ever had a good gyro, and if so, does that mean you also live in Greektown? Perhaps with this flavor, Lay’s is sending us a message: “We’re all Greektown, America! We don’t need to fight over regional foods!”

Which kind of goes against the previous three flavors, but hey.

Just because We Are All Greektown doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve tried a gyro from your local Mediterranean joint, so I will help you out. A gyro is a magical thing, consisting of spiced lamb meat cooked on a giant vertical spit, onions, tzatziki sauce, onions and tomatoes. (And sometimes lettuce.) It’s all wrapped in a warm pita, and dammit just talking about it makes me want one right now.

Remember how I talked about the Uncanny Valley of junk food with Southern Biscuits and Gravy? Well, Lay’s used their dark magic again, and managed to make Kettle Cooked Greektown Gyro taste exactly like everything I just described above. This time, however, they went too far, and they fell straight into the Valley.

When I first opened the bag, my nose was confused. Nothing really stood out, it was just a murky mess of odor that smelled like nothing I could accurately describe. This left me suspicious.

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist 2015 Kettle Cooked Greektown Gyro Chips

It also left me unprepared for what was to come when I put the first chip in my mouth. Kettle Cooked Lay’s seem to be the best at gripping flavor dust, and each Greektown Gyro chip was loaded with it. Unlike the murky smell, the flavor was very distinct.

First came the tzatziki sauce, that bright flavor of Greek yogurt, cucumber and dill. And then, tomatoes. As I delved further into the bag, onion joined the party, and last but certainly not least, the distinct flavor of gyro meat.

It was all there. A gyro in a chip. An amazing accomplishment, but unfortunately, also an unsettling one. I could only eat a few chips at a time before I had to put them away, my mouth confused, pleased, disturbed. Then I’d go back to them and get the same feeling.

So if you’ve been seriously hankering for all the wonderful elements of a gyro packed into one tiny chip, Kettle Cooked Greektown Gyro is your thing. Just be ready for a serious flavor shock to your mouth.

Phew! Lotta words, right guys? But we got through all four of this year’s Do Us a Flavor finalists. What did we learn? First off, I will say that I’m thankful there were no fruit- or coffee-flavored entries this year. I also learned that New York Reuben skipped pretty much everything that makes a reuben a reuben and went straight to the rye bread, for some reason.

I learned that the junk food Uncanny Valley is a fine line, and Southern Biscuits and Gravy skirted that line to delicious success, while Kettle Cooked Greektown Gryo crossed that line, tasting too much like a gyro for my mouth to handle.

And finally, Wavy West Coast Truffle Fries taught me that I might actually want to try truffle fries in the future. This was easily the most snackable flavor out of the four, and used authentic ingredients to achieve that. I can see Truffle Fries winning this thing, and I’d gladly pick up another bag if it does (or before that, since I’m currently running on crumbs).

Lay’s Do Us a Flavor Finalists 2015

  • Score (New York Reuben): 1 out of 5 wry rye jokes
  • Score (Southern Biscuits and Gravy): 4 out of 5 Southern Nonnies
  • Score (Wavy West Coast Truffle Fries): 4.5 out of 5 truffle compulsion disorders
  • Score (Kettle Cooked Greektown Gyro): 3 out of 5 Uncanny Valley chips
  • Price: $2.48 (each)
  • Size: 8 oz. bag (each)
  • Purchased at: walmart.com
  • Nutritional Quirk: While most of the ingredients lists said things like [name of flavor] seasoning, Wavy West Coast Truffle Fries included duck fat and black truffle. So fancy!

Snack Factory Pretzel Crisps Dark Chocolate and Mediterranean Sea Salt Crunch

Snack Factory Pretzel Crisps Dark Chocolate and Mediterranean Sea Salt Crunch BagI’m not sure why these Dark Chocolate and Mediterranean Sea Salt Crunch Pretzel Crisps are special for Christmas, but they’re new and their packaging is obviously Christmas-themed. Shiny red-and-green packaging, and you can’t tell me it’s a happy accident that that pile of sea salt just so happens to look like a mound of snow.

And, of course, there’s good ol’ Saint Nick, who appears to be tiptoeing across the front of the bag for fear of waking the sleeping snacks. Santa is begging you to “Rethink your pretzel!”, which I assume is a reference to the “crisp” part of these Pretzel Crisps.

In case you aren’t aware, Pretzel Crisps are like pretzels that have had the middle sliced out of them and then the outsides stuck back together. Sort of like if a pretzel and a cracker had a baby – they’re thinner and lighter than regular pretzels, but they keep all the good parts, like the crunch and the distinctive flavor.

Snack Factory Pretzel Crisps Dark Chocolate and Mediterranean Sea Salt Crunch

These Pretzel Crisps have been dipped in dark chocolate and covered in sea salt, supposedly of the Mediterranean variety, although I cannot verify that claim.

The Crisps themselves maintain their crunchy texture, even having been subjected to a heavy chocolate. I would say that this goes well with the texture of the chocolate, but the chocolate is of the very cheap variety, which is one of the biggest problems with these Pretzel Crisps.

In addition to lacking the smooth texture of good dark chocolate, it also lacks the depth of flavor. Instead of being dark and rich, it is instead just plain ol’ bitter, overshadowing the chocolate notes.

Snack Factory Pretzel Crisps Dark Chocolate and Mediterranean Sea Salt Crunch Close-Up

The other problem with these Pretzel Crisps is the salt. Salt and chocolate can go very well together, but the salt here was just overwhelming, even more so than the bitterness of the chocolate.

I don’t know if this was some sort of superpower Mediterranean sea salt, but after just a few pretzels I had to drink a full glass of water, and I’m general a salt vampire, so that’s saying a lot.

Pretzel Crisps can be quite tasty for the reasons given above, but Dark Chocolate and Mediterranean Sea Salt Crunch fails to deliver on both of the flavors in its name. The chocolate is too cheap and bitter, and the salt is too…salty, which is a weird thing to say about a pretzel. Maybe the Santa on the package is trying to sneak past so he can deliver his presents without having to eat them.

Snack Factory Pretzel Crisps Dark Chocolate and Mediterranean Sea Salt Crunch

  • Score: 1 out of 5 hastily gulped glasses of water
  • Price: $2.99
  • Size: 4 oz.
  • Purchased at: Target
  • Nutritional Quirk: If you can get through an entire 4-ounce bag, you’ll have consumed almost 80% of your recommended daily amount of sodium. Sounds about right.

Kraft Philadelphia Bacon Cream Cheese

Kraft Philadelphia Bacon Cream Cheese PackageWhen Kraft came out with two new Philadelphia Cream Cheese flavors last year, Spicy Jalapeño and Chipotle, I was over the moon. Not a fan of sweet cream cheese flavors and immensely bored with the other savory options, I was hoping they would be the answer to my prayers.

And they were! They were fabulous flavors, and I continue to consume them to this day. They’re pretty much the only cream cheese flavors that have graced my bagels since.

But now Philadelphia has a new savory flavor: Bacon. Which leads me to say something I never thought I’d say – I’m tired of bacon.

Please, put down your Internet weapons! And by that I mean, your comments. Listen, I love bacon. I will always love bacon. But you can’t just throw bacon into everything. I mean, you can, but that doesn’t mean you should. Bacon mints. Bacon gum. Devices that will turn bacon into a cup.

Okay, if somebody offered me a bacon cup, I can’t say I’d turn it down. But people are just baconing for the sake of bacon, these days. The Internet is beating a dead pig.

Of course, after all this bitching and moaning, here I am, reviewing bacon cream cheese. Does this qualify as bacon for the sake of bacon? Quite possibly. On the other hand, I am happy to see another savory flavor offering on the shelves. Hey, if it tastes good, it tastes good. I’m not going to complain just to sound too cool for bacon.

The package says this cream cheese is made with real bacon and shows tantalizing strips of bacon on it, but upon inspection of the ingredients, it contains, more specifically, “bacon bits”. While these still technically qualify as bacon, I was highly disappointed upon reading this.

Kraft Philadelphia Bacon Cream Cheese

My trepidation only grew as I opened the package. Ignore the yellow fluid – that just happens with cream cheese. What really got me was that there were no visible chunks of bacon; just little black flecks on the surface.

My first bite confirmed my fears and suspicions. The cream cheese had a very fake-tasting bacon flavor to it; if you’ve ever had a sour cream-based jarred bacon dip, it’s similar to that flavor. I attribute this to the liquid smoke used, presumably to “enhance” your flavor experience.

Kraft Philadelphia Bacon Cream Cheese Bacon Bits

The bacon bits are, well, bacon bits. Big enough that there’s a noticeable change in texture, but not big enough for your mouth to actually register it as bacon. Basically, just the right size for getting stuck in your teeth and being annoying.

Despite all this negativity, I continued to eat the stuff. Ugh, this always happens. I blame it on the cream cheese, which I love so very much. I’ll keep eating cream cheese even if whatever it’s flavored with is sub-par.

If I were to recommend this cream cheese at all, I’d recommend it more as a cracker dip than a bagel spread. That said, I can’t in good faith recommend it for anything. The cream cheese itself is so fakony in flavor, tasting mostly like liquid smoke and sadness, and the bacon bits are small and “real” only in the vaguest of terms.

I guess if you enjoy that faux-bacon flavor, then you’d enjoy Philadelphia Bacon Cream Cheese. For me, this was a disappointing addition to the savory Philadelphia line, and it will not be gracing my fridge shelves again. I’m sticking with my Spicy Jalapeño and Chipotle, which both taste like and contain said ingredients.

Kraft Philadelphia Bacon Cream Cheese

  • Score: 1 out of 5 bacon bits stuck in my teeth
  • Price: $2.49
  • Size: 8 oz. tub
  • Purchased at: Fry’s Food
  • Nutritional Quirks: “Rendered bacon fat” is listed as an ingredient, which sounds gross, but I wish I could taste rendered bacon fat in this.

Lay’s Do Us a Flavor Finalist: Cappuccino Potato Chips

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist Cappuccino  Potato Chips BagLay’s is at it again with another “Do Us a Flavor” contest. The first one garnered a lot of attention, and the winner wound up being Cheesy Garlic Bread, which was surely better than Chicken & Waffles, but more boring than Sriracha, although those didn’t even taste like- you know what, not going to get into that again.

Here’s the thing, though – after the contest was over, they continued to sell all three of the flavors in stores. I feel like Lay’s betrayed us. How can I trust them again after that? What’s the point of a contest if all the flavors are just going to wind up on the shelves anyways?

Well, regardless, I feel it is my duty to cover this round of flavor finalists. This time there are four instead of three. I shall be covering all four, and I figured I shouldn’t bury the lead. So here we go, with cappuccino-flavored potato chips.

Cappuccino is, of course, is the crazywacky entry for Do Us a Flavor. There’s one in every batch. It’s the flavor that will never win, but that everyone will talk about for the weirdness factor.

I predict this will be the worst flavor, which is kind of like predicting the sky will be blue tomorrow morning. I bet it will also get a ton of votes, because people on the Internet are ridiculous, but I’m also sure this whole voting thing is rigged, so it doesn’t matter. Again: the Internet.

While we don’t get pictures or quotes on the bags this time, we get even more detail this year on the voting website.

Meet Chad Scott, a visiting lecturer at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Now you know exactly where to send your angry letters after eating his chips. What does he lecture on? I have no idea, but “creating awful chip flavors” seems the most obvious guess.

He apparently submitted this flavor because “cappuccino is his lifeblood”. I hope tasting his own chip creation does not turn him off of his lifeblood forever, because then he will die.

Each flavor finalist has a “fun fact”, and Chad’s is that he didn’t like his name as a youth so he introduced himself as Corey. This is more weird than fun, and raises many questions. Why Corey? Where did Corey come from? Was Corey more charismatic than Chad? Would Corey have taken a life path divergent from Chad, one that led him away from thinking cappuccino-flavored potato chips was a good idea? Maybe I should write a letter.

Okay, time to get to the chips. I guess. Do I have to, mom?

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist Cappuccino  Potato Chips

Upon opening the bag, all I could smell was that familiar Lay’s potato chip odor. But I was not fooled. The flavor dust looked exactly as you’d expect – a brown, speckled dusting that spoke of things to come.

I’m a little confused as to whether or not I should praise Lay’s for this next statement. Cappuccino Potato Chips tasted exactly as they’re supposed to. It’s so ridiculously easy to describe: take a bag of regular Lay’s, sprinkle in one of those high-end instant coffees (something like Starbucks VIA comes to mind), and you’ve got these chips.

What makes this especially detrimental is that this isn’t straight coffee, so more than the flavor of that caffeinated beverage, you get prominent notes of milk and sickly sweet vanilla. These are not things that you want to taste on your salty potato chip.

So Lay’s nailed the flavor, but, as we’ve seen in the past, this is not always a good thing. Cappuccino is a great example of that. While they weren’t so bad that they made me gag, they were disgustingly sweet and I threw them away as soon as I’d nailed down the flavor profile, which was quickly.

Oh, by the way, Lay’s wants you to know very firmly that these potato chips do not contain caffeine. That’s a shame, because that would have been the only redeeming quality about these chips. Unless vanilla-milk-coffee-flavored chips are your thing. Which they shouldn’t be.

Lay’s Do Us a Flavor Finalist: Cappuccino Potato Chips

  • Score: 1 out of 5 mysterious visiting lectures
  • Price: $1.49
  • Size: 2 7/8 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: 7-Eleven #21821
  • Nutritional Quirk: No caffeine. Lame.

Wendy’s Spicy Chipotle Crispy Chicken Sandwich, Spicy Chipotle Jr. Cheeseburger and Natural-Cut French Fries with Sea Salt

Please welcome special guest reviewer Robert (Not Bob).  A little while back, GrubGrade broke the news that Wendy’s had some new items in test markets. One of these items was being tested in the Dallas area. My friend Robert lives around there, so I asked him if he would try it out and write a review for me. To my astonishment, he actually did! Enjoy this sneak peak of what may someday come to a Wendy’s near you!

To me, Wendy’s seems to be the “Red Haired Step-Child” of fast food chains. They’ve even acknowledged this by choosing a red haired, and presumably gap-toothed, hayseedish-looking child as their mascot.

Unlike your usual reviewers, I’m not a habitual frequenter of fast food restaurants. But the 3 or 6 times a year I do consent to go to one, I never even consider Wendy’s. Hell, they can’t even make their hamburger patties the right shape.

A quick look at the Wikipedia page for Wendy’s tells me that it’s the third largest hamburger chain after McDonald’s and Burger King, which surprises me, because I personally can’t find anyone that’ll admit to frequenting their establishment. As for myself, I honestly think that the last time I visited one was about 20 years ago, when I was dirt-poor and in college, and discovered their cheap-and-surprisingly-good chili. Most of the people I talked to about Wendy’s seemed to share the same opinion, which is “They have a couple of things that are pretty good, but when I want a burger, I go elsewhere.”

At this point, I’ll pause to point out that the sole qualification I have for writing this review is that I live in North-Central Texas, where Wendy’s is test marketing a couple of new menu items.

Like every other chain, Wendy’s is rolling out a spicy chicken sandwich. Since chipotle is the “go-to” spicy of fast food, they’ve jumped on that bandwagon too, resulting in the “Spicy Chipotle Crispy Chicken Sandwich”.

The first thing I noticed when I stepped into a local Wendy’s is that the average age of their patrons appears to be hovering around the 65~70 mark. Maybe that’s the secret of their success. The geezers don’t want to dodge the kids at McDonalds and they don’t want to associate with the potheads at Taco Bell, so they’ve made Wendy’s their destination restaurant. Hey, they actually have “Old Fashioned” as part of their subtitle, so that may actually be the market they’re playing for.

The second thing I noticed was that my target sandwich is a 99-cent item and has a companion menu item, the 99-cent Spicy Chipotle Jr. Cheeseburger. I decided to take one for the team and try them both. I also decided to give their much-hyped Natural-Cut French Fries with Sea Salt a shot, so you get a bonus review, even though it’s a review of something that’s been around for six months.

Let’s take a look under the hood of the Spicy Chipotle Crispy Chicken.

As expected, there’s the orange-y chipotle sauce that shows up so often on “spicy chipotle” fast food items. A quick by-itself taste test reveals that it’s not as spicy or tangy as most. In fact, it appears that the main thing it brings to the party is “orange”. The chicken looks to be a standard, un-spicy pre-formed patty and the cheese is maybe white American or Swiss.

The real surprise is the jalapeños. Didn’t see that one coming. As a food item billed as “chipotle”, it’s supposed to get it’s spicy from a sauce or seasoning from dried, smoked jalapeños, not from fresh or pickled ones.

After tasting the sandwich, I can say that it’s a good thing they’re there. The chicken patty itself is fine, although you’d never mistake it for the vastly superior chicken of Chik-Fil-A. As expected, the sauce really didn’t add much spice, just kept the overall sandwich from being overly dry. Even in that function it didn’t do very well, since its application was a little sparse for my taste. The jalapeños, however, held up their end of the bargain and added a decent amount of bite. Much like the presence of Patrick Warburton in a substandard kiddie movie, they made a mediocre offering palatable, even mildly enjoyable.

Ok, time to look at the Spicy Chipotle Jr. Cheeseburger, which features the exact same ingredients, but with the weird square patty instead of the chicken.

After only one bite I finally, instantly understood why Wendy’s hamburger patties are square.

It’s a warning. Like the brilliant colors on a poison dart frog, it’s nature’s way of saying “Don’t Touch”. The meat had an unhealthy, “off” taste that seriously made me unable to even taste the jalapeños, let alone the bland chipotle sauce.

Shuddering at the memory, I cleansed my palate and moved on to the Natural-Cut French Fries with Sea Salt.

I’m not a big french-fry eater. I honestly think they’re an over-rated side, and that their success is mostly due to their portability and America’s love affair with salt and dipping food into other food.

However, I must say, these were some pretty tasty fries. The left-on skin gave them a hardier, more potato-y flavor than you usually get out of a fast food fry, and the use of sea salt instead of table salt was noticeable, if only slightly. Wendy’s got it about right on these.

In conclusion, I’ll say that the Spicy Chipotle Crispy Chicken is a fairly decent offering for a 99-cent value-meal item (even if it’s name is a lie) and the Natural-Cut French Fries with Sea Salt live up to their name. However, the Spicy Chipotle Jr. Cheeseburger is literally uneatable, due to the nasty-tasting beef that Wendy’s apparently uses. However, if you decide to try any of them, I recommend bringing along this if you actually want to taste anything that even vaguely resembles chipotle.

Spicy Chipotle Crispy Chicken Sandwich

  • Score: 3 out of 5 surprise jalapeños
  • Price: 99-cents
  • Size: 1 sandwich
  • Purchased at: Wendy’s, Fort Worth, Texas
  • Nutritional Quirks: Sauce apparently more ornamental than functional.

Spicy Chipotle Jr. Cheeseburger

  • Score: 1 out of 5 poisonous amphibians
  • Price: 99-cents
  • Size:1 burger
  • Purchased at: Wendy’s, Fort Worth, Texas
  • Nutritional Quirks: Square hamburger patties preferred by the geriatric.

Natural-Cut French Fries with Sea Salt

  • Score: 4 out of 5 Lot’s wives
  • Price: 99-cents
  • Size: 1 value-size container
  • Purchased at: Wendy’s, Fort Worth, Texas
  • Nutritional Quirks: Sprayed with sodium acid pyrophosphate, dusted with dextrose corn sugar and boiled in oil containing dimethylpolysiloxane.  Oh, and there’s presumably some sea salt in there somewhere.