Author: Dan

REVIEW: Arby’s Smoke Mountain Sandwich

Dan 12 Comments

Arby’s Smoke Mountain Sandwich

Smoke Mountain? Really?

I have to question Arby’s name choice for their mammoth new Frankenmeat sandwich. To me, “Smoke Mountain” sounds like an ‘90s RPG level. Or a rundown laser tag arena that’s gotten progressively seedier since the ‘90s. Or a ‘90s punk band that broke up when the drummer’s dad kicked them out of the garage.

Maybe “Meat Everest” would’ve been a better name, since this the tallest stack of meat I’ve ever held between two buns. Plus I’ve always wanted my lunch to conjure up mental images of Sherpas scaling skyscraping mounds of salted protein.

But I guess “Smoke Mountain” isn’t all bad. It also sounds like the name of a late ‘90s reality show, and this sandwich features all three of Arby’s smoked meats—turkey, brisket, and their freshly debuted pork belly—living together under one bun, Real Housewives-style. Plus it did instantly make my car smell like a smokehouse, so much so that I half-expected a pot-bellied butcher to appear in my back seat and call me “Lloyd” in a Brooklyn accent.

I carefully handled my Smoke Mountain like a quiet mountaineer, trying to prevent an avalanche that would spill three kinds of animal onto my carpet. I bisected my beastly ‘wich—which was roughly the size of a baby Mayor McCheese’s head—for a better look (and taste). Slicing through it felt downright surgical.

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The durable star-cut bun does a good job of holding its meaty tenants, and even though its chewy, densely floured innards don’t taste like much, the bun never turns to meat juice-soaked mush. The crimson barbeque sauce pocket slathered on the bun provides a welcome layer of peppery tang. It’s zippy, yet not offensive or spicy, like a grown-up Sweet Baby Ray’s.

Arby’s should bottle this sauce and call it “Angsty Teen Ray’s.”

As the world’s second biggest fan of onions (the first is Shrek), I loved the onion strings that bathe in the Smoke Mountain’s barbeque sauce. They’re oily and crisp, yet compellingly lengthy. The kid inside me wanted to slurp them up like onion ring-flavored spaghetti. These noodles lay on a bed of gummy, flavorless cheddar cheese that only gives the Smoke Mountain structural support.

Now that we’re past the window dressing, we can talk meats. The turkey is the most boring. It’s got a bit of Cajun zest that dances around its edges, but other than that, this bird just feels like filler.

The brisket is more complex. It tastes like barrel-aged roast beef, with woodsy notes and the smokiest aftertaste of any ingredient here. If this meaty ménage à trois were a sitcom instead of a reality show, the beef brisket would be its Ron Swanson.

The pork belly is the undeniable best of the bunch, as the diced bits are super juicy and savory, with an indulgent touch of fattiness. Each juice-oozing pig nugget tastes like the salty lovechild of a bacon slice and a BBQ spare rib. And given the size of every piece, the pork belly these oinker wedges came from must’ve been chunkier than my backseat butcher’s.

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But even though each part of the Smoke Mountain has its own flavorful intricacies, most people who buy a sandwich called “Smoke Mountain” aren’t gonna stop to smell the Cajun-zested roses. When this sandwich is eaten at once, only the pork belly and onions prevail, with a lingering barbeque sauce aftertaste. I enjoyed the sandwich, but you’re probably better off just buying Arby’s Smokehouse Pork Belly Sandwich.

Unless, of course, you planned on making an “I Climbed Arby’s Smoke Mountain” novelty t-shirt.

(Nutrition Facts – 800 calories, 46 grams of fat, 18 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 135 milligrams of cholesterol, 1910 milligrams of sodium, 50 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 13 grams of sugar, and 49 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $6.99
Size: N/A
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Using “fatty pig nuggets” as a sincere compliment. Brisket that tastes aged enough to be my father. Onion ramen. Humming the Price is Right cliffhanger music while I eat.
Cons: A pork belly that swallows up every other flavor. Cheese with the texture of a Fruit Roll-Up. A bun and turkey with as much personality as action movie henchmen. Giving birth to a burger-headed baby.

REVIEW: Limited Edition Cinnamon Donut Chewy Chips Ahoy Cookies

Dan 2 Comments

Limited Edition Cinnamon Donut Chewy Chips Ahoy Cookies

The judge pounds his gavel: “I hereby call this court to order. Today we’ll handle the case of Dan vs. Nabisco. The prosecutor may present his case.”

I’ve decided to represent myself. No lawyer would understand: “Your honor, I’m suing Nabisco’s new Chewy Cinnamon Donut Chips Ahoy! cookies for their misleading packaging design.”

The judge looks at me, as I rustle through my bag and spew crumbs onto the courtroom floor: “If you’re suing them, why are you still eating the accused cookies?”

I roar to life, passionately spraying another projectile sandstorm of sugary cinnamon crumbs across the room: “Because I expected so much more!

“Ladies, gentlemen, and anthropomorphized snack food mascots of the court, I love these Cinnamon Donut Chips Ahoy! cookies. In fact, I love them so much that they’re probably the best limited edition cookies I’ve tasted in years. But it’s the ones we love the most that end up hurting us.

“I present Exhibit A: a package of these backstabbing cookies. Aside from the massive cinnamon donut on the front — which doesn’t actually appear inside — the primary offenders here are the ‘Limited Edition’ leaves. You see, my mind has been conditioned by Mrs. Buttersworth to equate orange and yellow leaves with maple syrup flavoring.

“So imagine my shock and disgust when these Cinnamon Donut cookies contained no maple flavoring whatsoever. All they had was a whole lot of deliciously doughy, buttery, and bakery-fresh donut flavor!

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“But the lies don’t stop there. These disks roped me in with an authentically decadent cider mill aroma, but they don’t even look like real cider donuts! Where are the buxom, golden fried curves? Where’s the coyly puckered hole in the middle?

“They’re both gone and replaced by a granular, hyper-chewy texture that melts in my mouth like half-baked pastry dough. And don’t get me wrong, your honor, these cookies taste like cider donut dough, too. The buttered and browned base is both sugary and eggy, with sweet bursts of cake flour.

“But the apple and cinnamon donut-flavored chips suckered me in for the long con, trying to distract me from Nabisco’s shamelessly maple-free fraud. See, these creamy chips are like coagulated cones of cream cheese glaze. They explode with flavor like a Cinnabon center stuffed with applesauce!

“Their inconsistency betrays them, though. These cookie con men will sometimes lose their subtle apple taste, and sometimes they’ll taste like waxy, floral ‘Fall Harvest’ scented candles from Bath & Body Works. Heck, a couple times I even swore they tasted like pumpkin cheesecake.

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“So yes, your honor, Cinnamon Donut Chips Ahoy! are great limited edition snack cookies. They have all the goodness of raw sugar cookie dough without the salmonella, and all the goodness of a cider mill without the handsy haunted house workers.

“However, it’s tough to justify buying them over real apple cider donuts, unless you’re a maple-loving masochist or the type of person who can’t finish a dozen donuts without them going stale. Because at the end of the day, these Cinnamon Donut Chips Ahoy! aren’t donuts. They’re merely cookies wearing donut Halloween costumes.

“And that, your honor, is both their gift and their true crime.”

The judge, clearly affected by my plight, wipes away a single tear: “I declare Cinnamon Donut Chips Ahoy! cookies guilty, for covering up their felony of syrup deception behind a thick alibi of deliciousness. How would the defendant like to see them executed?”

I pull out my thermos and pour a hot cup of coffee. I’ve already known the answer to that question for days.

(Nutrition Facts – 2 cookies – 130 calories, 50 calories from fat, 5 grams of fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 85 milligrams of sodium, 15 milligrams of potassium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 12 grams of sugar, and less than 1 gram of protein..)

Purchased Price: $2.49
Size: 9.5 oz package
Purchased at: Meijer
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Authentic cinnamon donut pantomime. An edible trip to the cider mill in late summer. The first ever complimentary use of the word “coagulated.” Coming soon from The Impulsive Buy: 12 Angry Kool-Aid Men!
Cons: Not maple-flavored. Playing for second place against real donuts.. Unexpected Yankee Candle flavor outbursts. Sobbing and bobbing for more apple flavor. A criminal lack of corrugated, scrunched-up donut holes.

REVIEW: Hostess Original Golden Deep Fried Twinkies

Dan 7 Comments

Hostess Deep Fried Twinkies

As someone who grew up in a town that hosts the so-called “Biggest Small Town Fair in the Country,” I’m familiar with novelty fried foods. And oxymorons, apparently.

So yes, I have had a deep-fried Twinkie before, and for all I know, that barely digestible monstrosity is still hanging out somewhere inside me. It probably has a better memory of Summer 2004 than I do, too.

That’s why I wasn’t scared of Hostess’ new Deep Fried Twinkies. I mean, these things are pre-fried, frozen, boxed, and conveniently stocked in Walmart’s freezer aisle endcap! “That’s like eating fried food on easy mode!” my inner Twinkie shouted from somewhere in my large intestine.

Hostess Deep Fried Twinkies 2

But I shouldn’t have treated these Deep Fried Twinkies like declawed kittens. Because despite their sad frozen appearance, which is like Han Solo in carbonite crossed with a belt-sanded fish stick, these unassuming Twinkies are more like rattlesnakes wearing silencers.

Ever-curious, I took a nibble of a still-frozen cake. It tasted like a Krispy Kreme doughnut stuffed with frozen custard. That was all the heart-fluttering inspiration I needed to fire up my toaster oven* to 350° and spend the next eight minutes eagerly glued to my warmly radiating fried food boob tube.

The Deep Fried Twinkies’ packaging warns not to over bake them, as the cream inside can disappear. Not wanting my Twinkie’s hot, buttery goo to transcend this earthly plane, I wondered how long to wait. But right as I actually spoke the words, “How do I know if it’s done?” aloud, the golden tube leaked a prophetic drop of sizzling crème onto the toaster’s bottom.

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As emergency rescue, extraction, and cooling of my Twinkie began, I drank in its authentic county fair aroma like a Looney Toon next to a windowsill pie. Once my Deep Fried Twinkie’s leaky wounds cauterized, I dug in.

DMG! (Dough My Goodness!) What was once a chewy, doughnutty shell was now crispy, oily, and buttery sweet—like the shell of a cannoli or the wrapper on a dessert egg roll.** But the oil didn’t leak into the fluffy, warm, and golden sponge cake inside. This created a tasty puff pastry blanket around the cream center instead of the oily mess you might find in other deep fried treats.

I’m looking at you, Taco Bell Cap’n Crunch Delights.

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And can we talk about my Deep Fried Twinkies’ crème filling? Because it was fantastic. It tasted just like the creamy vanilla innards of a normal Twinkie, except half-liquefied. It had the flavor of whipped cream mixed with doughnut glaze and the viscosity of runny maple syrup.

This means that you can squeeze the delicate treat and quite literally suck up the crème like the world’s most dangerous Capri-Sun juice box. And I’ll proudly testify in front of a judge and jury that this, your honor, is exactly what I did with my Deep Fried Twinkie.

Maybe it’s my hometown nostalgia talking, but I adore these Deep Fried Twinkies (which have a Chocolate variety, too). They have a charming novelty with the part-doughnut, part-Twinkie, part-funnel cake taste to back it up. You owe it to your inner child to give one of these a try.

And I promise, that’s not just my inner deep-fried Twinkie talking.

*Note: You can also oven bake or actually deep fry these. I chose a toaster oven because I was impatient and thought McDonald’s would kick me out if I asked to use their fryer.

**Note: I made up the term “dessert egg roll” for this review, but apparently it’s a real thing. What a time to be alive.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 cake – 220 calories, 80 calories from fat, 9 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 20 milligrams of cholesterol, 300 milligrams of sodium, 32 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 16 grams of sugar, and 3 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $4.79
Size: 7 cakes
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 10 out of 10
Pros: The buttery lovechild of a county fair, a bakery, and a snack cake aisle. Wanting (and planning) to pour this crème onto a Belgian waffle. Frozen custard cylinders. Winning my town fair’s pie-eating contest in high school.
Cons: Being unable to decide whether to eat my next Twinkie frozen or hot. Only come 7 to a package. Smelling burnt crème in my toaster oven for the next two weeks. Shuddering memories of Cap’n Crunch Delights.

REVIEW: Limited Edition Swedish Fish Oreo Cookies

Dan 21 Comments

Limited Edition Swedish Fish Oreo Cookies

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

Dr. Ian Malcolm famously spoke this line in Jurassic Park, and ever since, it echoes in my brain whenever a particularly weird, strange, or repulsive snack food is released. But I bet even Dr. Malcolm would choose an ocean cruise in a plesiosaur’s stomach over a tall stack of Swedish Fish Oreo Cookies. Nabisco might as well have printed the word “WHY?” on the side of every wafer.

But I plan to eat these Oreo cookies with an open mind. Why?

Because I may not be a Jurassic paleontologist, but I am a self-described gummy-ologist. I’ve documented every species of gummy bear. I once caught a 30-pound blue gummy shark with a single gummy worm. Heck, I even rallied for gummy octopus rights when I discovered their intelligence was nearly on par with humans.

Limited Edition Swedish Fish Oreo Cookies 2

But Swedish Fish Oreos are an entirely different creature. Even though they have Oreo’s iconic, pleasantly crunchy, and cocoa buttery chocolate cookie wafers, Swedish Fish Oreo have a unique creme filling the world hasn’t tasted since the Paleozoic era.

Or so I’m assuming, since the decision to make Swedish Fish Oreo could’ve only been made by either a Neanderthal or a giant roulette wheel in Nabisco’s office.

See, this creme isn’t perfectly pillowy, soft, and squishy. It’s a little more sticky, chewy, and dare I say…slimy. It cracks and falls apart like a child’s Play-Doh diorama of the Berlin Wall, and each Oreo I opened contained a different Rorschach test image in its pasty folds. Below I see Donald Trump angrily looking out a castle window:

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The creme’s taste, though, is just like Swedish Fish. It has potent, puckering pops of candied cherry and a slightly off-putting finish of waxy gelatin. I could probably recreate it with a box of Swedish Fish and a blender, but like shooting fish in a barrel, eating fish in an Oreo is way easier.

I can’t say if it’s more pleasant, though. Eating the cookie and creme together, I can really only taste the overpowering cherry creme. There’s a processed chocolate aftertaste, but even then, it has to battle for supremacy with the cherry cough syrup layer that the creme plastered on the back of my throat.

I really wanted to like Swedish Fish Oreo, but the “crispy fruit medicine puree” textural contrast is too much for even a quasi-licensed gummy-ologist. I thought dunking them might intensify the chocolate flavor, but I worried that dipping these bizarre things in milk might make the beverage renounce Oreo as its favorite cookie.

So since I already felt ridiculous, I dipped ‘em in Kool-Aid instead.

Limited Edition Swedish Fish Oreo Cookies 4

Surprisingly, it wasn’t even bad. When soggy, the cocoa wafers are “activated,” and the whole Oreo starts to taste like a vaguely pleasant Dirt Pie.

Remember Dirt Pies? Those chocolate pudding cups with scattered Oreo crumb soil and gummy worms on top? The desserts you haven’t had since your cousin’s 4th grade Halloween party? They’re delicious, and after squinting my eyes and eating a juice-soaked Swedish Fish Oreo, I relived a little of that nostalgia.

For 99 percent of people, these cookies will be a major “no.” The texture’s weird, the flavor’s medicinal, and the smell would scare a coyote. But for those rare one percent who are eternal kids-at-heart and want to scratch a doozy off their “Culinary Adventure Bucket List,” then oh boy, does Nabisco have an Oreo for you.

As for me? I’m just gonna lay down and dream about Dirt Pies for a week.

(Nutrition Facts – 2 cookies – 140 calories, 60 calories from fat, 7 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 85 milligrams of sodium, 35 milligrams of potassium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 13 grams of sugar, and less than 1 gram of protein.)

Purchased Price: $2.99
Size: 10.7 oz package
Purchased at: Kroger
Rating: 3 out of 10
Pros: Wistful Dirt Pie memories. Completing my Gummy Pokédex. Cookie creme ink blot tests. Googling pictures of plesiosaurs to cleanse my palate.
Cons: Chemical cherry fish paste. Chocolate flavor that disappears faster than Houdini. Scraping the bottom of the flavor idea fish barrel. “Oreo: Milk’s Recently Divorced Cookie.” The falling Frankenstein piñata that broke my nose at my cousin’s 4th grade Halloween party.

REVIEW: Nabisco Chips Ahoy Thins Cinnamon Sugar Cookies

Dan 11 Comments

Chips Ahoy Thins Cinnamon Sugar Cookies

Whether they’re about a tree falling in the forest or a bear dropping logs in the woods, there are plenty of age-old questions to ponder. One of my favorites is: “What do holiday cookies do once Christmas is over?”

Some answers are obvious: speculoos fly home to visit their Dutch families, gingerbread men work as security guards at the Keebler Elves’ Hollow Tree, and butter cookies are melted down into a fine paste to make mannequins for Madame Tussauds.

But the secret life of snickerdoodles (which sounds like it could be the name of Pixar’s next movie) has long been a mystery -— until now. Now we know that during the summertime, snickerdoodles everywhere hit the treadmill to become Cinnamon Sugar Chips Ahoy! Thins.

During the winter, snickerdoodles need to be thick in order to supply Santa with enough energy to travel 650 miles per second and reach every home in one night. But now that it’s cookie bikini season, snickerdoodles have to stay competitive with every other trendy treat.

I mean, have you seen Oreo’s midriff in that dark brown two-piece?

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Each Cinnamon Sugar Chips Ahoy! Thin is thin. And I don’t mean the “someone pushed the spatula down a little too hard” kind of thin. This is the “touched by an old gypsy woman from a Stephen King novel” kind of thin.

The Thins have the girth of 2-3 stacked dimes, but they’re far from sterling when it comes to fragility. They’ll shatter into bits the moment you so much as think an unflattering thought about their mother, so don’t pack these as a snack before a half marathon or Slipknot concert. This crumbliness also gives them a mildly crisp, yet disappointingly light “crunch.” It’s like eating that last, awkwardly browned cookie in a batch.

You know, the one that was just barely large enough to justify baking instead of gobbling down the raw, doughy evidence?

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The flavor is a two-part deal. The Chips Ahoy! Thins’ plain sections are half-sweet, half-bland and sandy, as if they were the result of some deluded 8-year old’s entrepreneurial quest to invent a cookie you can make while relaxing on a hot beach.

Thankfully, the overall size and dense chip ratio of these one-bite wonders means that there’ll rarely be a nibble without one or more creamy cinnamon baking chips. The slightly buttery, mildly milky, and faintly spicy chips smack of cinnamon sugar goodness, and their icing-esque nature is what makes these Cinnamon Sugar Chips Ahoy! Thins taste like abridged snickerdoodles.

But the problem with these crumbly Thins is that they’re all payoff and no buildup. The sugary cinnamon punch strikes fast and is vaporized into oblivion just as quickly—don’t expect any layers of complex flavor that unravel as you chew. It’s like a rollercoaster that instantly drop you 100 feet before booting you off the ride. Your only choice is to get back in line, or in this case: clear another line of cookies.

Despite my complaints of fleeting ecstasy, I think Cinnamon Sugar Chips Ahoy! Thins are a step in the right direction for condensed cookies. They use their size to their advantage; if this gimmick were tried in full-sized Chips Ahoy! cookies, the goodness of the chips would get lost in a desert of boring dough.

Plus, their airy crispness makes them taste exactly like the imaginary “Snickerdoodle Toast Crunch” cereal I always put on my Christmas list. One of these days, General Mills Claus will inevitably deliver, but in the meantime…

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Ho ho ho.

(Nutrition Facts – 4 cookies – 150 calories, 7 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 60 milligrams of sodium, 20 milligrams of potassium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 12 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein.)

Purchased Price: $2.49
Size: 7 oz.
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: The surprisingly creamy wallop of microcosmic snickerdoodle chips. Gloriously milk-soaked cinnamon sugar shards. Cookie swimsuit competitions. Posing with a butter cookie paste replica of Bill Murray.
Cons: Rare nibbles of Saharan cookie dryness. The Chips Ahoy! equivalent of a Top Thrill Dragster ride. Accidentally eating thirty 30¢-thick cookies. The unlikelihood of Gingerbread Toast Crunch. Sandy selling sandy Sandies by the seashore.