Monthly Archives: February 2013

Junk Food

Limited Edition Pop-Tarts Frosted Red Velvet

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Limited Edition Pop-Tarts Frosted Red Velvet BoxHappy Valentine’s Day! Nothing says “I love you” like frosted toaster pastries.

Conversely, nothing says “I want to fatten you up so you lose all of your self-esteem and never leave me” like frosted toaster pastries.

Okay, so these Limited Edition Pop-Tarts Frosted Red Velvet aren’t technically for Valentine’s Day, but they might as well be. They came out about a month ago. They are, as the box screams, limited edition. And they are red and white.

In fact, why didn’t Kellogg’s market these as Valentine’s Day Pop-Tarts? Why isn’t their little toaster mascot wearing a diaper and holding a bow and arrow on the front of the box? Like many people on Valentine’s Day, I feel disappointed. By Pop-Tarts.

Limited Edition Pop-Tarts Frosted Red Velvet

While I’m disappointed by the missed opportunity for a holiday tie-in, I wasn’t disappointed by the appearance of Red Velvet Pop-Tarts. They were looking to emulate a red velvet cupcake, which is the most obvious sentence ever since there’s a picture of a red velvet cupcake on the freakin’ box, but they did do a pretty darn good job of it. Bright white frosting, fun red sprinkles, and a pastry shell that is red as red can be.

Limited Edition Pop-Tarts Frosted Red Velvet Back

While it’s not feasible to make a Pop-Tart to look exactly like a moist cupcake, the back of Red Velvet Pop-Tarts do a great job of looking like a brick, which I consider a plus. If you’ve ever dreamed of making an edible Fire Station, now is your time.

Am I the only person who has never noticed there’s punny little comments on the foil packages of Pop-Tarts, a la Taco Bell sauce packets? One I noticed was “I have a funny filling about this.”

Limited Edition Pop-Tarts Frosted Red Velvet Inside

Funny filling, indeed. Yeah, I’m making a terrible joke about exactly what you think I’m making a terrible joke about. Junk Food Betty is the New Yorker of food review sites.

Pop-Tarts describes their Red Velvet offering as “sweet cream-cheese-flavored filling enveloped by a red velvety crust and topped with vanilla icing and sprinkles. Toast it for a delicious treat your taste buds won’t soon forget.”

Unfortunately, I have to disagree with that last statement. My taste buds found these Pop-Tarts regrettably forgettable. I toasted them, which always makes Pop-Tarts better, but I couldn’t find any red velvet flavor in the pastry shell.

I was really looking forward to the cream-cheese-flavored filling, but what I got instead was a standard vanilla filling full of sugary sweetness. There was a tiny hint of cream cheese flavor, but I really had to concentrate to taste it. Mostly, I just tasted sweet pastry and sweet, gooey vanilla filling.

The frosting and sprinkles on top added a nice crunch to contrast the filling, but again, they added no red velvet aspect to these toaster pastries.

I wanted to like Limited Edition Pop-Tarts Frosted Red Velvet. As I mentioned, I was especially looking forward to the cream cheese filling. Cream cheese icing is the best, and I thought that this taste would really elevate these Pop-Tarts to the top of my Pop-Tarts flavor list, which is a real thing that I keep in my mind.

What I got instead was a perfectly generic Pop-Tart. Sweet frosting, sweet filling, pastry crust…Red Velvet Pop-Tarts nailed all of this, but the fact of the matter is that they’re supposed to taste like red velvet, and they do nothing of the sort.

Red Velvet Pop-Tarts do look pretty, and despite the lack of marketing as such, make a cute Valentine’s Day treat. But if you’re looking for some red velvet, do yourself a favor and go buy a real red velvet cupcake. Use these Pop-Tarts to make that edible Fire Station.

Limited Edition Pop-Tarts Frosted Red Velvet

  • Score: 2.5 out of 5 diaper-wearing toasters (or lack thereof)
  • Price: $1.99
  • Size: Box of 8 toaster pastries
  • Purchased at: Target
  • Nutritional Quirks: With the amount of food coloring that must have been added to these Pop-Tarts, I won’t be alarmed thinking I have bleeding intestines after my next trip to the bathroom. Again, the New Yorker of food blogs, ladies and gentlemen.

Foodette Reviews and The Impulsive Buy also reviewed these Pop-Tarts.

Junk Food

Darkside Skittles

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Darkside Skittles BagDarkside Skittles. Where to begin?

First of all, this is the most entertaining junk food packaging/concept I’ve seen in a long time. “The Other Side of the Rainbow”. What does that mean? I’ve never seen the other side of a rainbow, apparently. Or have I? Which side is the “other” side? I should really consult a leprechaun.

I’m pretty sure this is the “darkest”, for lack of a better word, candy concept I’ve ever seen, tie-ins to things like Disney villains notwithstanding. The dark blue packaging. The confusing yet ominous tagline. Even the flavors themselves, which I’ll get to in a moment.

There’s very little information about Darkside Skittles on the Internet, which I’m almost glad for, because it means that I can make up what kind of marketing Skittles was aiming for. I think I’ve actually figured it out, and it’s brilliant.

Darkside Skittles are the first ever commercial anti-Valentine’s Day candy.

Darkside Skittles Bag Broken Heart

I mean, just look at this heart, right on the package. It’s got an arrow through it, and the heart is broken.

The concept of Darkside Skittles is dark. The packaging is dark. The flavors are dark.

This is a candy meant for people who hate Valentine’s Day.

We all know someone who hates Valentine’s Day. Maybe they’re single; maybe they’ve had a nasty divorce or have had a string of bad relationships. Maybe they like to spout the usual rhetoric of Valentine’s Day being a holiday designed by Hallmark and Big Flowers and Candy. Maybe it’s you. Any way you slice it, there’s a large population of anti-V-Day people out there.

And Darkside Skittles are for them.

Or vampires. I can’t decide.

Darkside Skittles Bag Flavors

Let’s take a look at these flavors, which range from theme-appropriate to somewhat confusing to “what does that even mean?”

Darkside Skittles

Dark Berry: I’d file this one under “somewhat confusing”. There are many berries out there that are dark. Which one are you, Dark Berry? Are you blackberry? Blueberry? Boysenberry? Going with blackberry would have been perfect for the theme of these candies. Opportunity missed.

As it is, Dark Berry Skittles closely resemble “Berry Punch” from Wild Berry Skittles. I haven’t had Wild Berry Skittles in a while, but going from memory, they also seemed to be much alike in flavor. I wouldn’t be surprised if Skittles just poached them wholesale.

Dark Berry Skittles were true to their moniker, in that they were definitely berry-flavored but they don’t have a specific berry taste. It was kind of just…berry. Not unusual for a candy, but once I zoned on on the blackberry, it just made me more disappointed, even though I enjoyed the flavor.

Pomegranate: Well, at least this one has a straightforward name. Pomegranate has enjoyed some fad popularity of late, but it seems like an appropriate flavor for Darkside Skittles, as the arils (fancy name for seed coating; haha you just accidentally learned something) of the pomegranate are a deep, dark red. So is the juice, resembling very watery blood, which makes it a perfect choice for the Darkside.

The color of Pomegranate Skittles got pretty close to the real thing, but unlike pomegranate juice, dropping a Skittle on your shirt will not stain it forever, which is a plus. It was also the strongest flavor out of all the Darksides. It was very tart, as is real pomegranate, and actually did a pretty good job of capturing the flavor of the fruit. It lacked the depth of the real thing, but it’s also a bite-sized candy, so just coming close was a pretty good success.

Forbidden Fruit: I love the name, but had no idea what it represented until I ate one and rediscovered Original Sin. Whoops. Sorry, guys. I know, I know – a damn woman ruins things all over again. Figures.

Apparently, the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is darkish blue in hue, and tastes a lot like tropical punch. There was a definite melon flavor, complimented by what could have been a light berry flavor. Honestly, it was kind of hard to pin down, but it was tasty nonetheless. I guess when you’re the candy that got Adam and Eve kicked out of Eden, you’re allowed to be mysterious.

Midnight Lime: Here we come to the “what does it mean?” portion of Darkside Skittles. What the fuck is a Midnight Lime? Do they taste better at midnight? Oooo, do they turn pumpkin-flavored at midnight? Now that would be impressive.

Unfortunately, I’m old and am usually in bed by midnight, so I’ll never know. What I do know is that, at any time other than midnight, Midnight Lime tastes like…lime. Lime Skittles.

Darkside Skittles Midnight Lime Comparison

I just happened to have a bag of regular Skittles around, so I did a comparison, and I found almost no difference in appearance or taste. Okay, Midnight Lime is a little bit darker, and it was actually a teensy less tart, but if I slipped a Midnight Lime into your bag of regular Skittles, I bet you’d never know it.

If anyone who doesn’t fall asleep at 9pm after drinking a warm glass of Metamucil wants to try eating them at midnight, let me know how that goes in the comments section.

Blood Orange: Like Pomegranate, this one goes out to the vampires, or the knife-wielding ex-girlfriends. Blood oranges are orange on the outside and deep scarlet on the inside, and the color of these Skittles seems to be a compromise between the two.

Real blood oranges taste almost exactly the same as navel oranges, but they add a little bit more tart with the sweetness and are 100% more likely to ruin your shirt than regular oranges.

Blood Orange Skittles did a good job at mimicking this, being just a bit more tart than regular orange Skittles. Sure, “orange” is not a flavor that screams darkness, but you add “blood” to that and you’ve instantly got a solid concept, which beats the pants off Midnight Lime.

Like I said in the intro, I love the design of Darkside Skittles and am firmly convinced they are anti-Valentine’s Day candy, an idea that just delights me. Some of the flavors, like Midnight Lime and Dark Berry, feel a little phoned in. Forbidden Fruit and Blood Orange are flavors that aren’t exactly mind-blowing, but their concepts make them solid. Pomegranate is the one truly unique flavor in Darkside Skittles, and it’s got a color made for the Other Side of the Rainbow. While it doesn’t duplicate its namesake exactly, it gets definite points for coming close.

I have no idea if Darkside Skittles are limited edition or not – if they truly are an anti-V-Day candy, you’ll be seeing them in the clearance aisle soon. If they’re just made for vampires and goth kids, I guess they’ll be sticking around for a while. Hey, even goth kids need a little candy. They can’t subsist on black clove cigarettes alone.

Darkside Skittles

  • Score: 3.5 out of 5 pats on the back for not making one Star Wars reference the entire revie- dammit!
  • Price: $2.69
  • Size: 10.5 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Target
  • Nutritional Quirks: Serious points to Pomegranate Darkside Skittles for mimicking the fruit so closely with artificial flavors.

Candy Blog also crossed over to the Darkside.

Fast Food

Jack in the Box Hot Mess Burger and Hot Mess Wedges

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Jack in the Box Hot Mess BurgerOut of all the fast food marketing currently out there, I’ve always enjoyed Jack in the Box’s the most. I feel like Jack, the walking, talking antenna ball head, should be creepy, but unlike the King, he’s not. He’s personable! And he even makes some commercials that are actually funny. That’s no small feat.

When I saw the commercial for Jack’s new Hot Mess Burger, which aired during the Super Bowl, I instantly liked it. Jack in a hair band named “Meat Riot”? Sounds like something I would make up. Naming your burger after your fake one-hit wonder “Hot Mess”? Giving your burger a derogatory name shows that you can laugh at yourself, and I appreciate that.

After showing the lovingly mocking 1989 music video, the commercial cuts to Jack and his son watching the video. Jack says to Jack Jr., “And that’s how I met your mother.” Imagining Jack and his giant ball head bangin’ some Meat Riot groupie on the tour bus is an image I’m working really hard to keep out of my mind, but it is the perfect ending to the commercial.

What really makes me love the Hot Mess marketing campaign, however, is its website. Seriously. Just click it, even though I’m going to describe it in detail anyways.

It’s cute that you can download the song, and the lyrics, etc., but my very favoritest part is the “Legendary Moves” section. There are four animated .gifs to click on, but what I care about are the names of the moves: “Sourdough Slap”, “Jalapeño Hammer”, “Onion Slicer”, and the one I fell in love with and actually laughed out loud at, “Spicy Spasm”.

I swear to god, this is all stuff my friends and I would come up with whilst sitting around shooting the shit. And I don’t even smoke weed.

It’s hard to make fun of something that’s already making fun of itself, but I will go for the low-hanging fruit and quip that “Spicy Spasm” sounds like something that happens to your colon after eating a Hot Mess Burger. Alternatively, I think I did the Spicy Spasm once when I accidentally inhaled some Tapatio sauce. Don’t ask.

The “Meat Riot Memories” gallery section also has some gems, my instant favorite being Jack rocking out on top of a volcano while lightning shoots from the sky and a dragon and a gargoyle do a little animated .gif dance. There’s a sick part of me that wants to tattoo this upon my person. Thank god I really don’t smoke weed. My decision-making skills are obviously poor enough as it is.

The last little funny part of this promo site is a section entitled “It Still Exists: MYSPACE”, with a button that will, indeed, take you to Meat Riot’s myspace page.

It’s all brilliant.

But what about the burger, you say? Fuck you, forget the burger. 5 out of 5 on the Hot Mess marketing campaign. End of review.

…Okay, fine. I’ll tell you about the damn burger.

Hot Mess Burger

Jack in the Box Hot Mess Burger

The promo picture for the Hot Mess Burger deserves a two-page spread in Food Porn Magazine, but we all know promo pics are a far cry from the real thing. I still found mine enticing, though.

Jack describes the Hot Mess as “Beef patty seasoned with salt and pepper topped with mayo-onion sauce, melted white cheddar and pepper jack cheese, fried onion rings and sliced jalapenos on sourdough bread.”

I love Jack in the Box’s sourdough buns. They always look toasted, but are usually just greasy and buttery. Some might consider this a minus, but I love them. The bun on my Hot Mess burger did not fail to live up to these rather low expectations.

Jack in the Box Hot Mess Burger Inside

If I was meant to take the words “Hot” and “Mess” literally, I would definitely credit Jack in the Box for getting the second word right. The sauce complimented the melted cheeses nicely, and boy was there a lot of melted cheese. It seems almost impossibly melted, like some cheese slice/sauce hybrid. It will get on your hands. It will possibly get on your shirt. And it was the shining star of the Hot Mess Burger. There’s not much heat from the pepper jack, but it was still a gooey delight.

Jack in the Box Hot Mess Burger Inside Close-Up

As you can see, the onion rings and jalapeño slices were present, as promised. They positioned the rings well, since I got a piece in almost every bite. Unfortunately, the crunchiness that should be present in a fried onion ring didn’t stand a chance against the sauce and melted cheese, so while it did add a nice fried flavor, the texture wasn’t really there.

The onion string inside also added some nice flavor, although I had some problems preventing the entire string from sliding out upon my first bite, which is a component of onion rings I’ve always found annoying.

The “Hot” part is mainly supposed to come from the jalapeños. When I got one in a bite, it did add some pleasant heat and even a little crunch. The key problem here is the word “when”. As you can see, my burger had four jalapeño slices. This is most definitely not enough.

I really liked the Hot Mess Burger – enough to order it again, even. There were some flaws – mainly the sogginess of the onion rings and the lack of jalapeño slice coverage – but the messy, gooey cheese and the sourdough bun worked so well with the burger itself that even the bites that weren’t spicy were still satisfying. I’m glad that I enjoyed this burger so much, because making a “hot mess” joke about the Hot Mess Burger would be a horrible thing to have to do.

Hot Mess Wedges

Jack in the Box Hot Mess Wedges

Reviewing Hot Mess Wedges is kind of an afterthought; I ordered them because I’ve always liked Jack’s Cheddar Bacon Potato Wedges, so I figured, why not?

Jack describes them as “Potato wedges topped with a melted white cheddar and pepperjack cheese sauce and sliced jalapeños.”

Notably, they use the phrase “cheese sauce” here. Since the cheese on my wedges was pretty identical to the cheese on my burger, I’m now wondering if my mouth (and my napkins) were right – is it a cheese sauce, or melted cheese? It is a delicious, gooey mystery.

Jack in the Box Hot Mess Wedges Close-Up

Hot Mess Wedges suffer some of the same faults as the burger, and a problem all too common with Jack’s Wedges – three or four of the wedges are absolutely coated in cheese, and the rest remain sadly dry, although still crunchy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. There were also exactly three jalapeños to cover at least a dozen wedges, which just doesn’t cut it.

Instead of spreading the sauce love thin, I’ve come to enjoy Jack’s saturated wedges on their own and then dipping the dry ones in some ranch dressing or mustard. This is obviously not ideal, since an order of Hot Mess Wedges should be able to hold their own, especially if you’re going to be eating them somewhere where extra condiments aren’t an option.

The best parts of Hot Mess Wedges are pretty much the best parts of the Hot Mess Burger – gooey sauce and crunchy, hot jalapeño slices. Like the burger, they suffer a severe jalapeño shortage; unlike the burger, however, the Wedges suffer a serious lack of cheese distribution. Maybe if I ordered some Hot Mess Wedges with double the toppings next time, they’d be more worthwhile. But also more expensive.

Despite its flaws, I very much enjoyed the Hot Mess Burger. The combination of buttery sourdough, excessive amounts of melty cheese, onions, and jalapeños all combined to make a tasty, messy burger. I would have liked to have seen more come from the onion rings as well as the jalapeños, but that crazy cheese was what really got me.

As for the Hot Mess Wedges, they suffered from a severe lack of topping distribution, which is not uncommon for Jack in the Box Wedges. The toppings that were there were just as tasty on the wedges as they were on the burger, but I’d probably opt out on them next time around.

The real winner here, however, is the Hot Mess marketing campaign. I’m scoring the food, of course, but the mythos surrounding the burger is a definite 5 out of 5. Jack in the Box’s ability to make fun of itself and create an extensive and well-crafted marketing campaign is a skill that I wish other fast food corporations would pick up. I’d like to give them all a Sourdough Slap.

Jack in the Box Hot Mess Burger

  • Score: 4 out of 5 …What else? SPICY SPASMS
  • Price: $4.29
  • Size: 1 burger
  • Purchased at: Jack in the Box #1165
  • Nutritional Quirks: Get your daily recommended intake of saturated fat all in one burger!

Jack in the Box Hot Mess Wedges

  • Score: 3 out of 5 Sadly absent Jalapeño Hammers
  • Price: $2.69
  • Size: 1 box
  • Purchased at: Jack in the Box #1165
  • Nutritional Quirks: 44 delicious grams of fat from one innocent box of potato wedges.

Man Reviews Food and The Impulsive Buy also got messy with the Hot Mess Burger.