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Junk Food

Thomas’ Bacon Buttermilk Pancake English Muffins

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Why does the idea of bacon buttermilk pancake English muffins seem so weird to me?

Twenty years ago, that would have been a perfectly reasonable line of thought. But these days, food companies have collectively lost their minds, so this should just be another yawner. I guess it’s the idea of Thomas’ going off the deep end. English muffins don’t usually enter the realm of “weird”. Plus, they went with not one but TWO weird flavors for a muffin. Just cramming a full breakfast of flavors into something that is already a breakfast food. It’s just bizarre.

Another thing that’s bizarre: the proclamation that this product will only exist for six weeks. Six weeks from when? I don’t know. That seems like an incredibly arbitrary thing to print on a package. Who is keeping track of these six weeks? Wouldn’t it be easier just to say “only available until X day”?

Six weeks. Six weeks! That’s about half a semester of college. So you could eat some English muffins at the start of school, crave some of these nooks and crannies while studying for your midterms, and not be able to get that sweet savory breakfast treat. Hell, I’ve been learning Spanish on Duolingo for over six weeks and that stupid owl just told me I’ve learned 1% of it. These English muffins are available for less time than learning 1% of a foreign language.

I usually like to take a whiff of whatever I’m about to review before I eat it, but this time I had no choice: as soon as I opened the plastic sleeve, I was assaulted with a smell that was something like if artificial maple flavoring and styrofoam had a baby. It was unlike anything my nose had ever experienced, and it was highly disheartening for the culinary experience that was to come.

Sorry, I’m bad at cutting English muffins. It’s a genetic flaw.

What is going on here? I figured the little pink blobs were supposed to be bacon, but what are these coral-colored splotches? Is that the maple? The pancake? It’s certainly unlike any pancake I’ve ever seen.

Up close, the “bacon” pieces look like the haggard teeth of a witch who lives deep in the forest and tries to lure children to her cabin with weird breakfast pastries.

There’s no good preface to this, so let’s just get going.

It starts out by tasting pretty much like a regular English muffin, then a strange sweetness creeps in. It tastes almost like someone used something sweet to try to cover the faint taste of slightly rotten meat.

What the fuck is happening here? I couldn’t taste any pancake flavor, just a little bit of that weird, sweet maple. There was also some savory, but like I said, it tasted nothing like bacon – just like slightly off meat. And the taste lingered long after the muffin was gone.

Toasting and buttering helped, but that fake sweetness remained, along with that weird, slightly off taste that just stays and stays. An English muffin isn’t that big, but I couldn’t finish it. Also, yes, that’s not a shadow. I burned one side. It’s a genetic flaw.

I’m still trying to figure out the bacon situation. It wasn’t the flavor of meat, more the ghost of bad meat…like that time I must have gotten some raw steak juice in my reusable shopping bag and after a few days everything I put in there smelled really rank. Except I can’t run these English muffins through the washing machine.

Boy, I just make Thomas’ Bacon Buttermilk Pancake English Muffins sound like shit, don’t I? Well, they sure tasted like shit to me. Just a complete failure on the bacon and the pancake part. Sort of tasted like maple syrup, if you want to offend Canadians or whatever people from Vermont call themselves. Any savory aspect of it just tasted tainted.

But, in all fairness, a friend of mine tried them and she said they were “okay”. Not a rousing endorsement, but far from the experience I had. So maybe your mileage will vary? If you can find them within the mysterious six-week window, that is.

Thomas’ Bacon Buttermilk Pancake English Muffins

  • Score: 0.5 out of 5 “someone I know thought they were okay”s
  • Price: $3.49
  • Size: 6 English muffins
  • Purchased at: Fry’s Foods
  • Nutritional Quirk: Contains actual maple syrup. I am gobsmacked. Contains no trace of bacon. I am not gobsmacked.
Junk Food

Cheetos Sweetos Caramel Puffs

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I always love when traditionally savory brands get into the holiday-themed snack game, but man, Cheetos, why did you have to puss out and go sweet on me? I know Frito-Lay has the dark magic ability to make meat-flavored snacks. Couldn’t we go ham, as it were? That’s an Easter classic!

Okay, sorry to start this review out with a rant. While I didn’t get the odd blessing/curse of ham-flavored Cheetos, I did at least get these Cheetos Sweetos. Last year around Easter, Cheetos introduced their first Sweetos flavor, Cinnamon Sugar. Now they’re adding Caramel to the line.

Unlike the bag of Cinnamon Sugar Puffs, Cheetos has erased all trace of connections with Easter. Chester is still as maniacally enthusiastic as ever, but gone are the rabbit ears. Now he’s crazy for what appears to just be an entire bowl of melted caramel. Cool your heels, bro. That amount of caramel is strictly for making caramel apples for Halloween.

Despite the Easter-scrubbing, for some reason Cheetos decided to keep the Puffs egg-shaped, which seems an odd choice given the lack of bunnies on the package. But at least it makes for a structurally sound Puff.

Upon opening the bag of Sweetos, I was struck by the unmistakable smell of Brach’s caramel squares. Points to Cheetos for authenticity on that one!

…And, after tasting them, points immediately taken away. Well, let me expound: the Puffs were absolutely true to the smell. Cheetos Sweetos Caramel Puffs have a super authentic caramel taste, and therein lies the problem.

The Cinnamon Sugar Puffs kind of worked because they were evocative of churros, but these just taste like sweet caramel on top of savory corn puff. It’s highly disconcerting to both the taste buds and the mouthfeel, because something that tastes exactly like caramel should not have this kind of crunchy and airy texture.

I really thought Cheetos Sweetos Caramel Puffs would just be a sort of “meh” experience, but my mouth has been deeply offended. In fact, now I wish waaaay more that Cheetos had come out with some ham-flavored egg-shaped Puffs. That would be infinitely better than these things. Nailing the caramel flavor turned out to be the actual problem.

Blech, I’m going to go drink some milk now to cleanse my palate. These things stick with you, too.

Oh, and unlike the Cinnamon Sugar Puffs variety, there’s no indication on the bag that these are limited edition. So you can not enjoy these all year-round!

Limited Time Cheetos Sweetos Caramel Puffs

  • Score: 0.5 out of 5 Easter Bunny Chester Cheetahs
  • Price: $1.39
  • Size: 2.6 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Target
  • Nutritional Quirk: Contains no actual caramel – just “caramel seasoning” – which makes the authentic taste even more mysterious and, in some ways, insulting?
Junk Food

Great Value Double Decker Chicken & Bacon Sandwich

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As we all know, there are times when life will kick you in the balls. I mean really just get in there hard, like your dick reverberates and even your taint feels it. That’s how nard-kicking works, right?

It is at these times that you think this pain will never end, and there is no joy in the world. Well, dear reader, I want you to remember when you feel this way that there was a time, a time when you were a part of this universe, that Walmart sold a KFC Double Down Sandwich knockoff under their most generic of brands, Great Value.

I want you to always keep this information with you and call upon it in times of sorrow. This is a real thing that happened, while you were alive. And I ate it. My gift to you.

And look at that box design. “Late Night Cravings” and the overall design seem to invoke Jack in the Box’s Munchie Meals, but ALSO completely plagiarizes an old line of Doritos Late Night flavors that included Tacos at Midnight, Last Call Jalapeño Popper and All Nighter Cheeseburger, the latter of which I reviewed waaaay back in the day.

Psh, what was I thinking? Totally different.

Anyways, everything about this item thrills and horrifies me. The idea of someone mimicking the Double Down in frozen form seems clever and almost inevitable, but for Great Value to be the ones to do it? Great Value?! The mind boggles. And with zero fanfare whatsoever. In this zeitgeist of food as clickbait, Walmart just quietly put their Late Night Cravings line on shelves and walked away.

Oh yeah, there’s more of these fuckers. Can you say Donut Cheeseburger? Great Value can. I can’t even remember if my Walmart stocked those or if I only had eyes for the generic Double Down. Or maybe my brain couldn’t handle the idea of eating a Great Value Donut Cheeseburger. I took the lesser of two evils…maybe?

Since this whole line is obviously aimed at stoners and/or drunks, just like Munchie Meals, there are only microwave instructions for it. What surprised me, however, was that there were steps. C’mon, guys, who has time for steps? This is (generic) Hot Pocket-level food and should have been designed to be cooked accordingly.

This did, however, give me a chance to inspect the ingredients of this sandwich. The chicken patties looked fairly okay even frozen, but can we talk about this “bacon”, please? What the fuck is this? The cheese just looked like a bunch of Kraft American squares frozen together, but in what world is this weird, thin, floppy meat-disc bacon? It is not. Much like this generic sandwich, it is generic meat. I’d be more frightened, but it’s so thin that I feel like it can’t do too much harm.

Not off to a great start in the looks department.

When I took the chicken out to assemble and finish cooking it, it was kind of soggy, which gave me worry. However, more cook time and a little bit of time to cool down make the chicken…buns firm up nicely. The breading was only crispy around the edges but it did have a little bit of flavor to it, which was more than I was expecting. What I was expecting was horror, obviously.

The quality of the chicken was about on par with name-brand frozen nuggets, which was also more than I was expecting. Somewhat rubbery with a couple of disturbing bits of gristle. At least the meat wasn’t grey, right guys!

The cheese tasted simultaneously like plastic and nothing, which was right on par. It added a little bit of greasy lube into the mix, if that helps things. I guess it helped things? I’m eating a Walmart Double Down; I’m not sure anything I say is to be trusted at this point.

Floppy meat-disc did exactly what I wanted it to, which was nothing. Well, actually, it did add some artificial smoke flavor, which helped to make things a little more flavorful. But any texture this thin little meat thing would have added completely disappeared between two large hunks of chicken.

The Great Value Double Decker Chicken & Floppy Meat-Disc Sandwich does have one thing going for it, which is that it is quite filling. Each chicken bun has definite heft, and when you squish them together and add cheese, this is no snack – it’s a full-on meal.

Oh, there’s another thing it has going for it: like the Colonel, Great Value also has 11 secret herbs and spices, except the secret is that all of them are fucking salt. Two salty chickens, one disc of what might just be pure salt with Liquid Smoke added, and I’m pretty sure they salted the cheese, too. I love salt more than the next person, but this thing had me downing a good 50 ounces of water and coming back for more. Check the nutritional quirks below to see just how much salt.

Things could have gone so, so much worse with Great Value Double Decker Chicken & Bacon Sandwich. I wouldn’t trust my ass with Great Value toilet paper, so trusting my mouth with this imitation Double Down was a real risk. In the end, it just wound up being a hefty salt bomb. Nothing too scary (as long as you didn’t look at the bacon), but nothing particularly flavorful, either.

I will say this, though: hours later, it was still sitting in my stomach as a ball of unrest, judging me for the lifestyle choices that have led me to this point. Or maybe I was just so, so full of water.

Great Value Double Decker Chicken & Bacon Sandwich

  • Score: 0.5 out of 5 floppy meat-discs
  • Price: $2.98
  • Size: 2 sandwiches
  • Purchased at: Walmart
  • Nutritional Quirk: Get ready for 2,090 milligrams of sodium in your mouth from one sandwich. A real KFC Double Down had 1,380 mg and the Internet was losing its shit about how much salt it contained. At least you won at one thing, Great Value.
Beverages

Jones Limited Edition Peanut Butter and Jelly Soda

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Jones Limited Edition Peanut Butter and Jelly Soda BottleThere was a time when Jones Soda was synonymous with weird food. Oh, sure, they were also one of the only current soda companies using pure cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup before it was cool to do so, but when I think Jones Soda, I think weird. And not just because of their Bacon Soda. Okay, a large part of it is because of Bacon Soda. But it goes back farther than that.

Sit down, kids, because I have a story to tell.

The year was 2004. Junk Food Betty was not even a gleam in my eye, but my heart already belonged to weird foods. It didn’t take any amount of effort to learn about Jones Soda’s Holiday Pack – it was all over the news and the Internet. Despite my crushing desire to try these sodas, which were Turkey & Gravy, Green Bean Casserole, Mashed Potato, Cranberry and Fruitcake, they were sold out immediately, and all I could do was read about them and sigh.

They did it again the next year, with some variations that were equally disgusting, but I was also not privy to that. There were a few more limited edition packs, the aforementioned Bacon Soda debacle, and a random Tofurkey & Gravy Soda year, but other than that, they’ve mostly stuck to Limited Edition Halloween flavors that are generally pedestrian or repeated over the years.

And then, out of nowhere – Limited Edition Peanut Butter and Jelly. I have many questions, like “Why now? And why not bring back those amazing Thanksgiving sets?” But really, I’m just giving thanks that Jones Soda is still keeping it weird, if only for a brief amount of time.

Here’s the description from Jones’ website: “PB&J…. The Jones Way! We took the popular kids sandwich and blended it up for our latest Limited Edition. Enjoy the flavor of Grape Jelly and peanut butter (and sleep well knowing we didn’t use any actual Peanuts or come in contact with peanut materials). This Limited Edition tastes great, whether for Kids who enjoy Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches, or adults reminiscing of their childhood.”

As someone with the mildest peanut allergy possible, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over the inclusion of real peanuts, although I would be more intrigued if they were included. I’m assuming actual grape jelly was also not used, but apparently Jones doesn’t care enough about people with life-threatening grape jelly allergies to mention that.

My mind was torn as to whether or not to pre-judge this soda as disgusting. On the one hand, peanut butter and jelly already has a sweet quality to it, and grape soda isn’t that bad. So there was a chance that it wouldn’t be that bad…right?

But on the other hand, it’s peanut butter and jelly soda. So things could, indeed, go very badly.

The label itself is both simple and adorable. The peanut butter side (chunky style, by all appearances, which is a bit unsettling when you’re about to be drinking the soda version of it) and the jelly side, moments before joining together in joyous edible copulation. I’m not making this sound any more appealing.

At least the color of the soda leans towards the jelly portion, a deep purple that suggests grape soda innocence. I appreciate that they didn’t go with the unhealthy-poop brown color of peanut butter. Small favors.

Jones Limited Edition Peanut Butter and Jelly Soda

Man, I wish I’d saved a dinosaur Welch’s jelly glass from my childhood, just for this occasion. Google it if you don’t know what the hell I’m blathering about.

I should really learn to stop smelling potentially-gross things before I taste them, but I can’t seem to help it. What my nostrils grabbed here was the unmistakable scent of grape jelly. Not grape soda. Grape motherfucking jelly.

And then I had to go and put it in my mouth, because I decided to start a website where I do that and then write about it.

Jones Limited Edition Peanut Butter and Jelly Soda Glass

Oh my god, immediately came the peanut butter. It was there, and it was fucking letting you know it. There was a moment when it first hit my tongue where I was fooled into thinking, “oh, this is very grape soda-ish”, and then BAM! Peanut butter takes over. Unmistakeable. My mouth was flooded with peanut butter, and then, after I swallowed, I got a grape jelly exhale out my nose. Oh my god, why is this happening.

And the peanut butter stuck around, too, just like real peanut butter sticking to your mouth. It doesn’t go away. It just clings to my taste buds, tormenting me long after I decided that three gulps was more than enough to really establish the flavor of this soda for review purposes.

Oh my gosh, it’s so bad, it won’t go away, even as I write this and have already put the glass down, far away from me. It’s not like good peanut butter, either. It’s like that super cheap peanut butter you find in off-brand Halloween candies shaped like dismembered body parts.

The jelly part tasted like melted jelly, which is bad. Why is this so bad? That shouldn’t be so bad, right? And yet, it is. I am actually making a sad face as I type this. It’s involuntary. My mouth is sending sad signals to my brain, probably wondering what it did to deserve this. I’m sorry, mouth. I’m so sorry. It was wrong of me to do this and you didn’t deserve it.

I really didn’t expect Jones Peanut Butter and Jelly Soda to be this bad, but it is, it’s so bad. I mean, I guess if you’re like, super into peanut butter and jelly, it might not be horrible, but Jones took two flavors that are so right for each other and turned them into an abomination. And then they added carbonated water.

I thought this might turn out okay, but I was very wrong. My forehead hurts from furrowing my brow. I am not aging gracefully. Thanks, Jones Soda.

Jones Limited Edition Peanut Butter and Jelly Soda

  • Score: 0.5 out of 5 “I guess if I only exhale the grape jelly it’s better”s
  • Price: $1.49
  • Size: 12 oz. bottle
  • Purchased at: Cost Plus World Market
  • Nutritional Quirk: It’s been made very clear that this soda contains no peanuts but it won’t leave my mouth whyyyyy
Junk Food

Lay’s Do Us a Flavor Finalists: Sriracha, Cheesy Garlic Bread and Chicken & Waffles Potato Chips

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Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalists Sriracha, Cheesy Garlic Bread and Chicken & Waffles Potato Chips BagsThe three finalists for Lay’s “Do Us a Flavor” contest have been out for a little while now. And for me, “been out” is a literal term – I first spotted all three of them at my local store and picked up the Sriracha flavor, thinking at the time that I’d review each flavor separately. When I went to the store a few days later, there was a handful of Srirachas and one Cheesy Garlic Bread bag on the shelves, which I grabbed.

After that? Nothing.

It was like they’d gotten one shipment and that was that. I couldn’t find Chicken & Waffles, the obvious crazygonuts flavor of the three, anywhere. I looked, I waited, and yet…nothing.

Just when I’d resigned myself to only reviewing two of the three flavors, leaving a large, probably-disgusting-tasting chip-sized hole in my heart, I found them. I did an actual pirouette in the store. My husband pretended he didn’t know me, which is not unusual.

So here they are. The Do Us a Flavor finalists, chosen out of 3.8 million fan submissions last summer. Lucky for me, the three people who are up for a million dollars or 1% of their flavor’s 2013 sales if they win are plastered all over each of the bags, so I get to make fun of them and/or blame them for their choices.

So let’s get to these chips, presented by coincidence in order of purchase and what I anticipate to be the best-to-worst flavors.

Sriracha

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist Sriracha Potato Chips Bag

Sriracha is blowin’ up right now. One might say it is on fire, if one were to make puns about hot sauce. I used to only find it at the Vietnamese market, but now it’s pretty common on your everyday grocery store shelves. You’ve probably seen it – it’s the one with the rooster on the label, which gives everyone with a 5th grade sense of humor (me) carte blanche to call it “cock sauce”.

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist Sriracha Potato Chips Tyler

Hello, Tyler Raineri from Lake Zurich, IL. I’m not going to make fun of people’s pictures, because you can’t pick your genetics, but you can pick your words. And if these quotes were what these people decided would be the best blurbs to represent them on chip bags nationwide, you can bet I’m going to dig in to them.

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist Sriracha Potato Chips Tyler Quote

Grandma’s chips and sriracha seem like an odd combination, but hell, I’d put sriracha on just about anything, so I’ll let it slide.

What really gets me is the last sentence. “Nothing’s better than old memories.” It sounds bizarre and mildly sinister, for reasons I can’t explain. We all have “old memories”, but I wouldn’t say they are literally the best thing ever. I get this weird vibe that grandma’s desiccated corpse is sitting in Tyler’s basement or something, but maybe I’ve just seen too many horror movies.

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist Sriracha Potato Chips

Onward to the chips. I was actually excited to try Lay’s Sriracha, because, as I mentioned, I love the cock sauce, and it seemed like a flavor that would marry well with potato chips. It’s mostly chili, vinegar, and a hint of garlic, but it has a very unique and delicious taste.

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist Sriracha Potato Chips Close-Up

Unfortunately, my hopes were quickly dashed. Not just dashed, but obliterated. The chips had a bit of heat to them, and a faint garlic taste, but there was also the strong presence of cream cheese and sour cream flavors.

What? What the hell is that? I checked the ingredients, and, according to Lay’s, “sriracha seasoning” contains, among other things, sour cream, cream, onion powder, cream cheese, paprika extract, cheddar cheese, and swiss cheese.

What the fuck?

With my mouth expecting sriracha, all these cheese flavors made my taste buds instantly revolt. These chips tasted wrong, wrong, wrong. So wrong, in fact, that I went and looked at some other reviews of Lay’s Sriracha Chips – something I don’t normally do until after I finish a review, for the sake of objectivity.

To my surprise, several reviewers gave these chips high marks for tasting like the hot sauce. I’m not going to pull out my “I liked sriracha before sriracha was cool and I’m a cock sauce expert” card, but I have to say, these chips taste nothing like sriracha, and the addition of all that cheese flavoring was incredibly disconcerting.

I went back and revisited Lay’s Sriracha Chips a little later, after my mouth had had time to calm down. If you pretend these chips are called “Spicy Cheese Chips” instead of “Sriracha Chips”, they’re actually not so bad. But if Tyler’s grandma could taste these chips, she’d probably roll over in her grave. Or in her rocking chair in Tyler’s basement. Either way.

Cheesy Garlic Bread

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist Cheesy Garlic Bread Potato Chips Bag

With my hopes of sriracha-flavored chips crushed, I turned my attention to Cheesy Garlic Bread. I expected these to be a very middle-of-the-road flavor – take some cheese, take some garlic flavor, and there you go. However, after the sriracha disaster, I was starting to feel nervous.

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist Cheesy Garlic Bread Potato Chips Karen

Meet Karen Weber-Mendham from Land o’ Lakes, WI, a bold woman who is not afraid to hyphenate her name post-marriage and is also from a place that I didn’t think actually existed outside of the realm of butter.

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist Cheesy Garlic Bread Potato Chips Karen Quote

Everything about Karen’s quote is hilariously stupid. First off, I’m 100% positive her “favorite Italian restaurant” is the Olive Garden. It’s just one of those hunches I feel deep down inside.

Second, she’s WAITING FOREVER. That’s just bad customer service. Plus, the breadsticks are supposed to be there for when you are waiting forever. Karen, you need a new Olive Garden.

The last sentence is the icing on the cake. “Finally, the breadsticks come & they save your life!” I can’t stop reading that and laughing out loud. They save your life, people. You are sitting in a booth at the Olive Garden for so long that you are literally starving to death. I think Karen has a fondness for being melodramatic.

One more thing to nitpick about – breadsticks and cheesy garlic bread are not the same thing. If we’re taking the picture on the front of the bag to be said bread, I’ve never been to an Italian restaurant that will rock out free garlic bread like that. Maybe I was wrong about Karen’s favorite Italian restaurant. I guess I’d be more willing to WAIT FOREVER if I could get free cheesy garlic bread like that. To save my life.

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist Cheesy Garlic Bread Potato Chips

A strange thing happened with Lay’s Cheesy Garlic Bread Chips. They didn’t taste like cheese garlic chips at all. After the sriracha fiasco, you’d think this would have pissed me off. But quite the opposite.

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist Cheesy Garlic Bread Potato Chips Close-Up

Instead of tasting like cheese and garlic-flavored chips, these tasted like cheesy garlic bread. Seriously. I know it sounds weird and kind of stupid, but it’s damn true. Lay’s made a chip that tastes like a piece of bread slathered in strong garlic butter and topped with Parmesan.

At first, this had the opposite of the intended effect. It was so realistic, it was off-putting. Lay’s Cheesy Garlic Bread is in the uncanny valley of chips. The more I ate, however, the more I grew to accept this, and embrace it for its cheesy, garlicky, buttery goodness. Lay’s must be using some sort of dark magic, but I don’t care. It’s delicious dark magic.

Chicken & Waffles

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist Chicken & Waffles Potato Chips Bag

Well, here we are. The Do Us a Flavor Finalist everyone’s buzzing about. Chicken & Waffles. Fuck.

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist Chicken & Waffles Potato Chips Christina

Meet Christina Abu-Judom from Phoenix, AZ.

…Of course. Of course she’s from the Valley in which I live. Because Phoenix doesn’t get shat on enough as the asshole of the United States, and if you are to believe television shows and movies, every murderer and child molester comes to Arizona to hide out from the cops. Thanks so much, Christina, for improving our image.

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist Chicken & Waffles Potato Chips Christina Quote

Aaaaaand her quote is stupid, too. Also, either her nephew is a total dick, or Christina likes to really blow things out of proportion. Can you imagine the Abu-Judom family gatherings? Either her nephew brings up this most insignificant part of his life so much that everyone tells him to shut the fuck up, or Christina herself can’t talk about anything else. “Hey nephew, remember how you never let me live down that one time I stole a bite of your waffle?” Everyone rolls their eyes and goes back to talking about how much the construction sucks on Central Ave.

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist Chicken & Waffles Potato Chips

I’m sad to say that there are no surprises, here. These chips are disgusting. The overwhelming taste is that of maple syrup, with undertones of a buttery waffle-like taste and just a smidge of chicken bouillon. If that sentence grossed you out, congratulations, you have a modicum of common sense.

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Finalist Chicken & Waffles Potato Chips Close-Up

I ate the barest of bare minimums of Lay’s Chicken & Waffles Chips just so I could explain the flavor to you, dear reader. I’ve eaten several very disgusting things in my time as a food reviewer, and these are honestly close to the top. If taste buds could throw up, I believe mine would have, which probably would have made my stomach throw up, resulting in one of those chain-reaction vomits that would fill my entire apartment with maple-smelling bile.

“The overwhelming taste is that of maple syrup, with undertones of a buttery waffle-like taste and just a smidge of chicken bouillon.” I just wanted to repeat that sentence to emphasize how utterly repulsive these chips are. I knew I was in for a bad trip when I bought these, but this was like, bat country bad trip.

I can’t even give much credit to Lay’s for getting the Chicken & Waffles flavor right. The syrup flavor was dominant and cloying, and the chicken very subdued, for which my taste buds were thankful. You could taste a bit of butter and waffle, though, so at least there’s…that.

I feel bad for Tyler, because his Sriracha Lay’s wound up tasting nothing like the hot sauce and more like a spicy cheese chip.

Karen got her wish, because Cheesy Garlic Bread tastes eerily like what it’s supposed to taste like. I was put off by this at first, but came to embrace the accuracy and tastiness of these chips.

I hate Christina for her stupid story and her even more stupid flavor suggestion, but I hate Lay’s the most for picking it as a finalist. You know they did it just to be jerks, and they succeeded.

I find it hard to believe that out of 3.8 million submissions, these three people made unique suggestions – especially sriracha. Regardless, you can vote on your favorite on Lay’s Facebook page until May 4, 2013. If I were the Facebook voting type, which I am not, you’ve probably gathered that I would vote for Cheesy Garlic Bread. That way, Karen could keep a bag in her purse at all times and never have to worry about starving to death again.

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

  • Score: 2.5 out of 5 opportunities to say cock sauce
  • Price: $3.19 (on sale; regularly $3.49)
  • Size: 9 1/2 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Fry’s Foods
  • Nutritional Quirks: It bears repeating: contains sour cream, cream, onion powder, cream cheese, cheddar cheese and swiss cheese,none of which are actually in sriracha hot sauce

Lay’s Do Us a Flavor Finalist: Cheesy Garlic Bread Potato Chips

  • Score: 4.5 out of 5 uncanny valleys of snack food
  • Price: $3.49
  • Size: 9 1/2 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Safeway #1717
  • Nutritional Quirks: Dark magic not listed as an ingredient, but gouda cheese is. Fancy!

Lay’s Do Us a Flavor Finalist: Chicken & Waffles Potato Chips

  • Score: 0.5 out of 5 fuck you Christina
  • Price: $1.99 (on sale; regularly $3.49)
  • Size:9 1/2 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Safeway #1717
  • Nutritional Quirks: It’s gross. Also contains “natural flavor (including chicken flavor)”, which is not a phrase I find at all comforting.

Other Do Us a Flavor Finalist reviews: The Impulsive Buy (Chicken & Waffles, Sriracha, Cheesy Garlic Bread), Junk Food Guy, So Good, Fat Guy Food Blog

Junk Food

Limited Time Only Pringles Cinnamon & Sugar and White Chocolate Peppermint

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In my last post about Pumpkin Pie Spice Pringles, I mentioned that Pringles went insane three times this holiday season, and that I would get to the other two at another time. Well it turns out that time is now!

Reviewing Pringles twice in a row is a bit of a challenge, since I blew my preamble wad on the last review, what with the discussion about feeling like a cheap whore after eating Pringles since they are not actually chips and what have you. A friend of mine suggested some freestyle rapping, at which point I grabbed his face, got Batman Close, and asked him if I looked like the kind of person who would freestyle rap.

After he ran away crying, I looked at the blinking cursor mocking me on my monitor and actually gave it some consideration.

Realizing that it was sad that it had come to rapping about poppin’ and not stoppin’, I decided maybe it would be best to just jump into things. Then I realized Kris Kringle rhymes with Pringle, and hit ctrl+b before I lost my shit completely. Oh my god, I can’t stop rhyming. Please help me.

Limited Time Only Pringles Cinnamon & Sugar

Sometimes I feel like the title of my posts ruins the fun. It’s a necessary evil, but it’s a total spoiler. I just want to get the elephant in the room out of the way and say that Cinnamon & Sugar Pringles are not the most exciting part of this review. Sorry guys, but it’s true.

However, in my family we had a rule on Christmas morning that you had to open your stocking before you could open your presents. So let’s wade through this metaphorical menagerie of oranges, toothbrushes, Hot Wheels and dollar bills before we get to the big-ticket item. It’s only proper.

 

Now, don’t get me wrong – cinnamon sugar flavored potato crisps are still sound weird and unnatural, even if they may seem tame in comparison to the other Pringles in this review. But then I remembered last year’s experience with Mission Sugar Cinnamon Tortilla Chips and realized that maybe I shouldn’t judge a can by its cover.

That said, let’s judge a can by its cover.

Like Pumpkin Pie Spice Pringles, Cinnamon & Sugar gets all meta with their can-on-a-can design. C&S doesn’t get anything as cool as a can-shaped pumpkin, though; instead, they get some little swirlies that don’t have much to do with cinnamon, sugar, or Christmas in general. Pft.

As if to make up for this, the metacan is stuffed to the gills with cinnamon sticks. I’ll admit that it’s probably difficult to represent sugar in any way that wouldn’t make it look like a pile of snow and/or blow (the rhyming, it haunts me), so I guess those little twinkles on top of the sticks are supposed to be sugar. That, or magic.

Trust me, it’s not magic. As I popped the top, I was met with the odor of cinnamon almost as strong as those damn pine cones they put in the front of grocery stores every Christmas that make me sneeze. I was okay with that, though; I took it as a good sign.

And indeed it was. There was a heavy dusting of both cinnamon and sugar on each potato crisp, and both flavors were pleasant and worked well with each other. Because the flavors were so strong, they blocked out most of the flavor of the actual potato crisp, which was a good thing.

Note the word “most”, though. You can’t keep a mediocre potato crisp down, so inevitably I got some Pringles flavor creeping in at the end, ruining the fun cinnamon and sugar party.

Limited Time Only Pringles Cinnamon & Sugar aren’t completely awful, they just aren’t in any way impressive. Furthermore, there’s no real reason for them to exist. Do you want Pringles? Buy some Pringles. Do you want cinnamon and sugar? Buy a coffee cake or some shit. But really, who wants Pringles and cinnamon/sugar? The answer is no one. Well, there’s probably someone out there. But not the type of person I’d want to associate with.

Limited Time Only Pringles White Chocolate Peppermint

We’ve arrived. White Chocolate fucking Peppermint fucking Pringles. Again, there is no reason for these to exist. This is a road that can only lead to bad things.

To add insult to injury, this was my White Whale. Call me Ahab. I went to two different Walmarts and two different Targets just to find these goddamn things. Like I didn’t hate the idea of eating them already, they made me go to two Walmarts. In the spirit of the Christmas season, I mangled a public domain song in their honor:
Pringle bells, oh Pringle bells
Pringle hate in my heart
Oh, how sad it is to walk
With an empty goddamn cart

Yeah, it’s no good. I should have stuck with Kris Pringle.

When I finally found these Pringles, it was a bittersweet victory, for obvious reasons. As I was checking out, the cashier rang up the can, and then looked at it, seemingly puzzled. “Huh, I’ve never seen these before,” he said, which is telling, since he worked there. I take this as proof that I was the first and only person to buy these, because they are stupid.

I should know better than to engage people in conversations when I’m buying review food. Case in point: the Double Down incident.

But I never learn my lesson, and for some reason I felt the need to explain my purchase, so I casually mentioned that I review weird foods on the internet.

Whoops.

The cashier then launched into this thing about how when he likes to try weird foods, a statement that I for some reason found unsettling from the start, he goes to the nearby Vietnamese market, where you can “try things like durian”. He was super into telling me about this place, which really had nothing to do with what I’d said, and which I already knew existed. For some reason he left the can of Pringles on the counter as he bagged the rest of my purchases.

This left me wondering if he’d just become distracted, or if he left them out like some half-drank water bottle somebody picked up while they were shopping. Did he think I would be needing them immediately? That I would have the urge to rip off the top and start munching on them in the parking lot? I have no idea. I just wanted him to stop talking. So I bagged them myself, which for some reason felt even more embarrassing than just buying them.

Also, you can’t fool me, Target cashier. I know what durian is.

The White Chocolate Peppermint Pringles can is deceivingly cute. Awww, it’s a candy cane can, with white chocolate melting out over the top, and a bunch of candy canes inside! The white chocolate also resembles the top of a Christmas stocking, or maybe snow. Or maybe it’s trying to escape, because it knows it doesn’t belong in a can of Pringles.

Even the Pringles man seems to be looking up at the candy canes with an expression that says, “Really? We’re going to do this?”

So yeah, here are these fucking White Chocolate Peppermint Pringles. They look fairly innocent. I am not fooled.

When you pop open the can, there’s a smell akin to ripping open a box with a Barbie doll inside on Christmas morning. Just vague plasticness. There’s really no peppermint or white chocolate smell at all. Is this a good sign or a bad sign?

Oddly, there were little black flecks sprinkled on most of the otherwise white dust-covered Pringles. If Pringles were chips, I’d chock that up to a little bit of burning during the frying process. But Pringles are like plyboard, and I’d never seen these flecks on any other Pringle. Why are they there? Then again, we’re talking about White Chocolate Peppermint Pringles. None of these things should be there.

I had no idea what to expect when I tasted these Pringles. There are times when I hope something will actually taste like what it says it tastes like, and then there are times when I pray that things taste nothing like what they’re supposed to taste like. In the case of White Chocolate Peppermint Pringles, I was hoping for the latter.

Unfortunately, my hopes were dashed.

These Pringles tasted exactly like how they’re supposed to, and my taste buds wanted to go to their special place and pretend this wasn’t happening. They tried desperately to pretend they were experiencing the best spinach artichoke dip in the world, or the most juicy, flavorful steak.

But try as they might, my taste buds could not deny what was happening. There was no happy place. Immediately upon hitting my tongue, there was the unmistakeable and rather strong flavor of white chocolate.

This was soon engulfed by a strong peppermint. But not just any peppermint – it really did taste like candy cane peppermint. In fact, it tasted like someone had shoved a candy cane right in my mouth. Unwillingly. The flavor powder got on my lips, so that even after I’d choked down the chip, it felt like I’d just applied a coating of holiday-themed lip gloss, complete with mild mint burning sensation. My poor lips, even they were not safe.

Should I give points to Pringles for nailing a flavor so unlikely for a potato crisp? No, because they’re gross. They’re gross and disturbing. Do you pop a mint right before you dive into a plate of nachos? Of course not. White chocolate and peppermint have their place in the Christmas flavor spectrum. They even go well together. But Limited Time Only Pringles White Chocolate Peppermint are so very wrong, and I’m sure they were created purely for the Internet hype machine that loves bizarre foods. If you don’t trust me, make a batch of instant potatoes and stir in a white chocolate candy bar and some crushed candy canes. Enjoy, you freak.

Limited Time Only Pringles Cinnamon & Sugar

  • Score: 2 out of 5 piles of blow. I mean snow. I mean sugar.
  • Price: $1.50
  • Size: 6.38 oz. can
  • Purchased at: Walmart
  • Nutritional Quirks: Both cinnamon and sugar are listed as ingredients, which makes the flavor powder on these Pringles more “real” than the crisps themselves.

Limited Time Only Pringles White Chocolate Peppermint

  • Score: 0.5 out of 5 Kris Pringles looking disgusted
  • Price: $1.52
  • Size: 6.38 oz. can
  • Purchased at: Target
  • Nutritional Quirks: Is it the anhydrous milk fat or the sweet cream solids that make these so magical? I can’t decide!

Dinosaur Dracula, So Good and The Impulsive Buy also braved these holiday Pringles.