June 3rd (that’s tomorrow for those of you who can’t read a calendar) is National Donut Day, and both Krispy Kreme and Dunkin’ Donuts are celebrating by giving away free donuts! At participating locations, you can get a donut, or a doughnut, of any variety; Dunkin’ Donuts is kind of being a jerk about it and making you buy a beverage first, but Krispy Kreme will give it to you completely gratis, after you’ve probably waited in a gigantic line for 45 minutes. Go get your cholesterol on!
Category Archives: Miscellaneous
Herr’s Kansas City Prime Steak Flavor Artificially Flavored Potato Chips
Hey, it’s the day after Easter! For some of you dear readers, you may have just finished the holiday tradition of Lent. Whether you abstained from meat on Fridays, gave it up altogether, or just cut out red meat, you can now continue your carnivorous ways.
I figure today seemed like the perfect day to review something I’ve been holding onto for a while. Back in December, I received a bag of chips from a generous friend of mine, who works at a place that apparently considers rib-flavored potato chips a perfectly normal selection for their break room vending machine. Having had some harrying encounters with meat-flavored non-meat items around that same time, I was justifiably nervous, but I reviewed them anyway, and found them to be quite enjoyable, and also free of any creepy meat flavor.
In the process of that review, I took a look at Herr’s website, and found some wacky flavors that I would’ve loved to have gotten my hands on. Unfortunately, I’d never seen Herr’s in my area. A little while back, I found myself outside my normal grocery/convenience store zone, and decided to check out the local Basha’s. To my surprise, they carried Herr’s! I was disappointed that they didn’t have Creamy Dill Pickle flavor, but they did have Kansas City Prime Steak, which I consider a mighty fine consolation prize.
I’ve always been curious about the name of these potato chips. I get the Prime part; in terms of USDA beef grading, Prime is the highest grade a piece of meat can get, and Prime steaks are usually only sold in hotels and restaurants. Prime means quality. But why Kansas City? I didn’t care enough to research before, but now that I’m writing about these chips, I have to. For you. You’re welcome.
According to Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge and my primary care physician, Kansas City (the Missouri one, not the Kansas one, mind you) is famous for its steaks and, more specifically, the Kansas City Strip Steak. The strip steak is the cut of beef where T-bones and Porterhouses come from, just so you know. Deliciousness.
Kansas City became famous for its steaks due to the creation of the Kansas City Stockyards, which were built to give livestock owners better prices for their stock. At the Kansas City Live Stock Exchange, the headquarters of the Stockyards, livestock was sold at auction, which gave owners a chance at getting more money for their cattle. Previously, cattle owners west of Kansas City had to concede to whatever price the railroad was offering.
In the heyday year of 1923, 1,194,527 cattle (45% of the gross cattle sold) were purchased by local packing houses and markets, making Kansas City the place to get fresh, delicious steak. Built in 1871, the Stockyards flourished well into the 1940s. Unfortunately, the Great Flood of 1951 devastated the Stockyards, and they never really recovered, finally closing in 1991.
And now you know why Herr’s chose to call their steak-flavored potato chips Kansas City Prime. I just went all educational on yo’ ass. Take it. LIKE IT.
Back to the chips! From the mouth of Herr Herr: “Take a bite of this unique flavor sensation, Kansas City Prime Steak Potato Chips. Herr’s takes the finest potatoes and cooks them in pure vegetable oil to a golden crispy crunch. We then top them with the flavor of thick and juicy steak. It’s hard to find this bold flavor outside of your favorite steakhouse.”
“Unique flavor sensation” sounds like a phrase I would use to trick someone into eating something nasty. It’s the equivalent of setting your friend up on a blind date and telling him “she has a great personality”! I can read between the lines, here. I’m also pretty sure you won’t be finding this “bold flavor” inside OR outside of your favorite steakhouse.
I just noticed that the picture on the bag is actually a “serving suggestion”. So you’re supposed to serve these steak-flavored chips with…steak? How very meta. I have a feeling that if you served Kansas City Prime chips with a delicious Porterhouse straight from the grill, the chips are going to pale in comparison to the real thing. I enjoy potato chips, but I enjoy a juicy slab of meat a hell of a lot more.
All of that said, I actually have some high hopes for these chips. From my experience with their rib-flavored chips, I know that Herr’s has not yet figured out the dark magic that Frito-Lay uses to make their meat-flavored chips, so I’m not worried about that. I’m hoping for a chip flavored with a dry steak rub, which, in my opinion, would be awesome. Let’s see how Kansas City Prime these chips actually are.
The first impression I got from these chips was holy balls these chips are salty. That’s a bold statement coming from a salt vampire like myself. I would go so far as to call them excessively salty. The second impression was holy balls these chips are garlicky. It took a few mouthfuls before I could detect the more subtle flavors in the seasoning. Namely, that it tastes like they tossed the chips in a combination of beef ramen seasoning and garlic powder. There’s definitely a beefy taste, but it’s artificial, like you’re sucking on a cube of beef bullion.
This may not seem like a ringing endorsement for Kansas City Prime, but I found myself rather enjoying the chips. This probably puts me in the minority; I’m pretty sure most people wouldn’t want to get intimate with a bag full of chip that taste like beefy garlic salt. I don’t even know how many I could eat before I reached the limit of my admittedly high sodium tolerance, but I could see myself having a handful or two here and there. I also like the texture of Herr’s chips; they’re thick and deliver a nice crunch, but not so thick that shards of potato pierce your gums like shrapnel every time you take a bite.
That said, as a reviewer, I have to be objective, and in the end, not only do Herr’s Kansas City Prime Steak Flavor Artificially Flavored Potato Chips taste nothing like steak, they’re also too salty and remind me of being poor and having 17 cent ramen for dinner. On the plus side, there’s enough garlic in them to ensure that nobody will kiss you for the rest of the day, so if your boyfriend has severe halitosis and you’re too nice to break it to him, these chips will assist you nicely.
- Score: 2.5 out of 5 totally interesting and not at all boring facts about the history of steak in Kansas City, Missouri
- Price: $2.99
- Size: 8 oz. bag
- Purchased at: Basha’s #19
- Nutritional Quirks: It’s the inclusion of salt and MSG that really makes the chips pop! Also contains butter (what?) and “extractives of tumeric”, which sounds like an ingredient you would need to hunt down if you were concocting a brew to put a curse on someone.
Food News: McKFC Double Deuce Deluxe
Update: This was obviously an April Fool’s joke, but if you actually printed out the coupon and tried to use it, I’d love to hear from you! Also, serious thanks to my friend Randy, who helped me brainstorm and also doctored up the fake coupon for me. He obviously did a fantastic job. As thanks, I’ll bump the website to a movie he made called Burning Annie!
McDonald’s and KFC announced today that they’ll be joining forces to create a new sandwich, which they’re calling McKFC’s Double Deuce Deluxe. According to the press release, “The sandwich itself is a burger-wrapped bacon-breaded Original Recipe slider with Olive Satsuma Pickle Relish and Queso Oaxaca Melt.”
Sounds like quite a mouthful, if you ask me. As Burger King and McDonald’s continue to war over creating new and innovative burgers, I see this as a response to Burger King’s BK Stuffed Steakhouse Burger. If you think stuffing a burger with chicken is ridiculous, go do a Google search for turducken. Stranger things have happened.
I’m interested to see how the bacon breading works out. The pickle relish is also an interesting choice that might overwhelm the palate, but I love that they’re using Oaxaca, which is a Mexican cheese that I personally have always enjoyed.
McKFC, as I guess they’d like to be called, at least for this product, has released limited nutritional information, but from what I’ve read, each slider contains 1,853 calories, 32 grams of fat, 14 grams of saturated fat, and 1,420 milligrams of sodium. Definitely not a diet food, considering these are just sliders. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Internet goes bonkers about these little fatty salt bombs, considering how much they had to say about KFC’s Double Down.
The McKFC Double Deuce Deluxe sliders come in packs of 3, 9, or the gut-busting 20-piece “Party Pack”. I couldn’t find any set pricing, but below is a coupon for $1 off any size purchase that you can print out and take to any McDonald’s OR KFC. This shit be loco. Oaxacaloco!
Food News: Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme for 88 Cents
After all the controversy over the amount of meat in Taco Bell’s seasoned ground beef, Taco Bell has been on a mission to let everyone know that it’s signature meat is 88% beef and the rest is delicious crack seasonings and…other stuff that make the beef so addictive tasty.
As part of this campaign, Taco Bell is offering its Crunchwrap Supreme, which contains said seasoned ground beef, for just 88 cents. The Crunchwrap Supreme usually goes for $2.39 (may vary by location), so this is a great deal. You’d be hard pressed to find another fast food offering as hearty for such a low price. The 88 cents, of course, is in honor of the 88% beef contained within.
Of course, this is a limited time offer – this deal will only last until March 5th. I’ve never actually had their Crunchwrap Supreme, but this seems like the perfect time to try it out.
Food News: Taco Bell Meat Only 35% Meat; Taco Bell Patrons Neither Shocked Nor Concerned
I first heard about this yesterday from a Tweet made by Fast Food Maven. I thought it nothing more than funny, but apparently it’s become kind of a Big Deal in the media, so I figured I should bring it up here.
Some lawyers at Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles (their business cards must have very small font) are filing a lawsuit against Taco Bell, alleging that Taco Bell uses binders and fillers in its meat and that the “meat” itself actually contains only 35% real meat. Taco Bell, of course, is refuting this. Their website lists the ingredients of their seasoned beef as “ Beef, Water, Seasoning [Isolated Oat Product, Salt, Chili Pepper, Onion Powder, Tomato Powder, Oats (Wheat), Soy Lecithin, Sugar, Spices, Maltodextrin, Soybean Oil (Anti-dusting Agent), Garlic Powder, Autolyzed Yeast Extract, Citric Acid, Caramel Color, Cocoa Powder (Processed With Alkali), Silicon Dioxide, Natural Flavors, Yeast, Modified Corn Starch, Natural Smoke Flavor], Salt, Sodium Phosphates. CONTAINS SOYBEAN, WHEAT.”
Hm. Can’t imagine that anyone would think there’s fillers in there!
Let’s be honest, Taco Bell’s regular patrons are neither surprised or alarmed by these allegations. As a Taco Bell regular myself, I’ve known any time Taco Bell used the word meat in text that it should have quotation marks around it. In fact, I think all this talk about Taco Bell is making more people crave a fourthmeal rather than be outraged. I could go for a Meximelt, myself.
Update: Taco Bell is handling this in just the right way – with a sense of humor. They recently Tweeted a link to Stephen Colbert’s take on the situation. I particularly enjoy the phrase “beef-adjacent”.
On January 27, Taco Bell posted a YouTube video featuring Taco Bell’s President, breaking down exactly what goes into their seasoned ground beef. Furthermore, they sent out what I guess you could call a press release with the title, “Thank you for suing us.”
Taco Bell knows their customers. They know, just like I do, that Taco Bell patrons don’t really give a shit. They’re turning this lawsuit into a laughingstock, and I’m laughing right along with them. Way to go, Taco Bell!
Junk Food Betty 2010 Top Ten
Now that I have my laptop back, hopefully for good, I’m going to use it to rip off several other food review sites and several thousand other media companies to do a little 2010 top ten list. These are the ten most viewed pages on Junk Food Betty for 2010! Try not to fall out of your chair with excitement!
While this may not seem like the most exciting product I’ve ever reviewed, I have a pretty good idea why it got viewed so much – there’s a disturbing amount of people who find JFB by searching for “tiger jumping through hoops”. In this review, I did, indeed, include a screenshot of the KFC commercial for their new wings, which included a tiger jumping through a hoop. I don’t know why tigers jumping through hoops are so popular, but hey, whatever floats your boat.
9. SNEAK PREVIEW: Denny’s Fried Cheese Melt
I’m glad this review got on the list, because it was one of my prouder moments as a little-known food blogger. The background story is one near and dear to my heart. From the training session to the Fried Cheese Melt I shouldn’t have been able to get, it was a story of love, loss, and trainers with no inside voices. One of my personal favorites.
8. Carl’s Jr. Grilled Cheese Bacon Burger
Not exactly a thriller, but it did introduce me to Carsl’s, which is a personal joke amongst my friends and myself that will probably last forever. They still haven’t changed it on their receipts, by the way. I am totally fine with that.
I learned a lot about Mountain Dew during this review. Gran’ Pappy and his rifle will live on in my heart forever.
6. Tostitos Prepáralos a Tu Gusto Salsa Verde (Tostilocos)
As of writing this, my review of Tostilocos rests seventh on Google’s front page when you search for tostilocos. It is also the #1 search term of all time that people used to find my blog. My husband speculates that this is because my blog is the first link on Google to actually use Spanish, so Spanish speakers click on my blog, expecting a Spanish website, and are only met with English and poorly-taken pictures. I just hope I’ve educated gringos on what is apparently a Mexican tradition. I know I learned a lot that day, and I hope you did, too.
The flavor of this gum wasn’t that exciting, but the mystery was. To this day, I still have no idea what Stride Mega Mystery Gum actually tastes like. I did a quick search a few months back to see if Stride had actually revealed the flavor yet, and I found no evidence that they have. Mysteries are cool, but they just get boring when you’ve finished your dinner and the butler still hasn’t been fingered as the killer.
These chips lived up to their promise of burning, and the comments section of this review is on fire (yes I did) with people who are plagued with the same problem I had – namely, getting all three burns together in a room at the same time. This is an ongoing problem and I have no idea why Doritos isn’t solving it. Regardless, I wish the best of luck to all you Doritos completionists out there, and no, I don’t know where you can find them.
3. Doritos Late Night All-Nighter Cheeseburger Tortilla Chips
No idea why these are so popular, but I’m cool with that. I support any effort that leads Doritos to believe they need to come up with more and more outlandish chips. It’s my bread and butter, baby.
2. Milky Way Simply Caramel Bar and 3 Musketeers Truffle Crisp Bars
I thought this was a seemingly innocuous review, but apparently the Internet takes its candy bars very seriously. So seriously that “3 musketeers truffle crisp” is the fifth most searched for phrase of all time that led to my blog. Admittedly, those truffle bars were quite good. Looking back, I would have bumped them up to a 4.5. Apparently others would kill a bitch to get their hands on one. Again, I don’t know where you can find them in your hometown of Bug Tussle, Oklahoma. I’m sorry.
Unsurprising but pleasing nonetheless, everyone’s favorite love-to-hate fast food item of 2010 was the most viewed page on JFB. My favorite review so far for probably obvious reasons, it was long awaited and spawned my first and only flame war in the comments section. I feel like I should have more to say about it, but I think it speaks for itself. Bunchick for President 2012.
Well, that’s it. I hope you enjoyed our little trip down memory lane. Actually, I don’t care if you enjoyed it or not; I had a lot of fun looking back at my own awful jokes and terrible photography. Here’s hoping 2011 will be just as awful awesome.
Announcement: Very Small Hiatus
About a week ago I watched my laptop died in my arms. Blue screen after blue screen, error after error, it slowly bled out. I sobbed, holding it close to my chest, trying to will it not to die. My cries went unheard.
Then I took it to Best Buy and shoved it into the hands of a Geek Squad member, waving my warranty in his face and demanding he resuscitate it. Turned out to be a hardware issue. Probably committed suicide after having to hold all those pictures of Bacon Soda.
Point being, dude said it’d take about two weeks to get it repaired, so all reviews are on hold until then. I didn’t want anyone to think I’d just up and abandoned JFB, so I figured I’d just let y’all know that we’ll be back in business, hopefully in about a week.
In the meantime, why don’t you check out some of the fabulous sites in the Links section over there? —–> I’m sure they’d be happy to see you.
We’re Back!
Junk Food Betty is back in business! Sorry about that little problem over the past few days, hopefully that’s gone and done with forever and we can all pretend it never happened.
Get ready for some more Halloween treats, coming soon!
Box of Boogers
First Halloween review of the month! Hooray!
Box of Boogers almost didn’t make it to Junk Food Betty. I passed it up as “eh, just another novelty candy”, but then I saw “Ssssnot Your Regular Candy!” and I realized I’d be insane not to buy these. I mean, c’mon, look at this box:
Awesome, right? Look at that insane guy! And they actually use the term “boogies”! I didn’t even notice how much more awesome it got until I got home:
OH MY GOD THEY WERE PICKED OUT ESPECIALLY FOR ME. And check out those flavors! Snottermelon! Sour Green Boogy! Lemon Loogy! Okay, Sour Green Boogy is pretty weak, but I pronounce Snottermelon and Lemon Loogy to be solid. I haven’t seen this many puns about nose mucus since Jimmy Bermond performed his stand-up comedy routine at our fourth grade talent show.
The full-length view of Crazy Monster Chef is much more satisfying than the headshot on the front of the box. I count four different colors of stains on his clothes and spatula, and there’s a big ol’ spider hanging out on his hump. He appears to be cooking up a delicious stew of infant skull, bone of questionable origin, eyeball and earthworm, all in a delicious green sauce. Listen, I’m not super picky about the cleanliness of restaurants I frequent, but somebody should really call the Health Department on Crazy Monster Chef. If his appearance is any indication, I’m betting his kitchen has a number of violations.
Speaking of Crazy Monster Chef, I almost missed this little piece of joy on the side of the box:
He’s not generic Crazy Monster Chef, he’s CHEF GHOULICIOUS! And he has a whole pantry of candy! Chef Ghoulicious, you are the best! I promise not to call the Health Department on you.
The box alone would have been well worth the price, but it turns out there’s actually candy inside!
Snottermelon and Sour Green Boogy are hard to tell apart at first glance, until you realize the back of the box has a helpful color guide and each of the three flavors has their own unique but uniform shape.
Let’s just get the elephant in the room out in the open now: Sour Green Boogy looks sort of like cock-and-balls. There, I said it. Other than that, the boogers are basically lumpy, shapeless forms with flat bottoms. Still talking about the candy, folks. I’m not sure why the bottoms are flat, but it did make photographing them a bit easier. Chef Ghoulicious thinks of everything.
I like that Chef Ghoulicious kept true to booger colors. The shapes and sizes don’t exactly reflect any mocos I’ve ever mined out of my nasal caverns, but I love the colors. Clear snot is boring, but when you reach Lemon Loogy color, you know something is wrong. Probably coming down with a cold. Sour Green Boogy, you should probably see a doctor about that sinus infection. Snottermelon? I’m assuming that’s the color of mucus that Spiderman spews out whenever he sneezes. Box of Boogers teaches kids about early illness detection.
I forgot that I don’t like gummy candy until I bit into my first Booger. I’ve never eaten my own (or anyone else’s) boogers; or, at the very least, my mom scolded me enough when I was little so that I didn’t become that one kid everyone else made fun of in elementary school who ate her boogers in plain view of everyone. That kid was probably scarred for life, but she made great material for Jimmy Bermond.
Real booger consistency aside, Box of Boogers gummy candy are the kind of gummies that challenge your teeth to bite them in half on the first gnash. They manage to be springy, yet firm. I’m sure there are people out there who like this kind of texture, so I’m trying to remain objective and not give my personal opinion, which boils down to “this feels gross”. Then again, we are talking about a box of boogers, so maybe that’s actually an endorsement.
I pushed my distaste for the texture aside and decided to focus on the flavors, which were surprisingly well-developed for a throwaway gag candy. Snottermelon delivered a strong hit of watermelon candy flavoring, which of course tastes nothing like actual watermelon. I immediately thought of a watermelon Jolly Rancher, which is not a bad thing in my book. Sour Green Boogy tasted just like any other green apple candy I’ve ever tasted. It was more muted than the watermelon, and I think the addition of “sour” was extraneous, since all three flavors had that citrusy sour bite to them. I guess they tried to make up for Sour Green Boogy’s weak moniker by making it look like – oh right, we’re done talking about that. Lemon Loogy was probably my favorite. As you may have guessed, it tasted like lemon candy! The fine print on the back of the box clears up any confusion about what these flavors are supposed to be and lists Lemon Loogy as “lemon/lime”, but I think it most resembled a gummy incarnation of Lemonheads, which I enjoyed greatly as a child.
All in all, Box of Boogers gets an A+++ from me. I scored a box for just a buck on sale, and if I were a person of moderate means who wanted to be the talk of the town come November 1st, I’d hand these out to kids dressed up in cheap plastic Iron Man costumes in a second. Chef Ghoulicious and his green infant stew sells itself, and the sour gummies are just icing on the ridiculous gross-out cake. While gummy candies aren’t really my thing, Box of Boogers is my new favorite gimmick candy, at least until Box of Armpit Farts comes out.
- Score: 4.5 out of 5 mysterious stains
- Price: $1.00 (on sale; regular price $1.49)
- Size: 3.5 oz. box
- Purchased at: Albertson’s
- Nutritional Quirks: No actual boogers listed on the ingredients list, but you never know. YOU NEVER KNOW MUAHAHAHAHAHA
Announcement: It’s Halloween!
Okay, so Halloween isn’t until the end of the month, but it’s my favorite holiday, so I hereby consider the entire month of October to be Halloween. I can do that, because this is my website.
I’m hoping to have lots of reviews (or mini-reviews) during this month that are Halloween-related. There may be some non-Halloween posts too, but I’ll try to pretend they’re spoooooooky too.
In this vein, I’d also like to request that my readers to let me know of any weird/new/cool Halloween junk food products you may come across. You can leave a comment or email me at junkfoodbetty at gmail dot com. It would also be helpful if you let me know where you came across the item.
I hope to hear from all of you (that’s right, ALL OF YOU) and have lots of creeeeeeepy content this month. If not, the clip art animated GIFs will continue. Yes, that is a threat. oooOOOOooooo!
