Dan, Author at The Impulsive Buy

REVIEW: Burger King Buffalo Chicken Fries

November 6, 2015September 4, 2023 Dan 8 Comments

Which would you rather fight in a duel to the death?

A) 1 buffalo-sized chicken
B) 100 chicken-sized buffaloes

Across the span of history, this question has troubled every great thinker, from Plato to Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and even the wisest philosopher of our time: Waldo of Where’s Waldo? fame. We thought we were searching for him in those colorful pages, but he was really teaching us how to find ourselves.

And while I doubt this age-old enigma will ever have a solution, I think it makes for good food for thought while eating Burger King’s new Buffalo Chicken Fries, which combine everyone’s favorite ~~earthworm~~ French fry shaped chicken morsels with fried breading that’s spiced like a buffalo chicken wing.

I want to take a second to applaud the adorable packaging on these Buffalo Chicken Fries. Though PETA may object to the implied idea of a manmade chicken-buffalo hybrid, I prefer to imagine it as the Burger King’s festive doorknocker.

My 9 ~~breaded pool noodles~~ Chicken Fries varied in length from “extended middle finger” to “Dixon Ticonderoga #2,” but they all shared a greasy, semi-soggy texture and wiggly flimsiness. As a result, there’s no crisp bite like you’d find in a McNugget. Instead, the sketchy, spongy mouthfeel is closer to that of an over-microwaved Tyson dinosaur nugget.

Or maybe SpongeBob just fell into BK’s deep fryer.

The tastiness of the breading makes up for this, though. True to Burger King’s online description, the buffalo trinity of pepper, butter, and vinegar are all here. The standard floury and oily taste of the breading has a garlic buttery fattiness that’s spiced up by a modest kick of pepper.

Flavor wise, this kick is one part Cayenne, one part black pepper, and one part “generic red pepper from a Looney Tunes cartoon that made Foghorn Leghorn blow steam out of his ears.”

The mild heat wasn’t strong enough to trample my taste buds, but it still left my tongue feeling as pleasantly tickled as the Elmo dolls people got trampled over on Black Friday. And while the tangy acridness of the vinegar didn’t show up until after my meal, for hours afterwards, my mouth was filled with the flavorful ghosts of dyed Easter eggs and pickle jars.

Unfortunately, this authentic buffalo experience comes at the cost of the actual meat. There was a skinny layer of chewy and bizarrely mealy chicken at the center of each fry, but any poultry flavor is largely stomped out by the brazen hoof of the buffalo breading.

So if you’re like me and are looking for a reliably chicken-y Chicken Fry experience, you’ll need to employ some careful tongue archaeology to extract the flavor of these chickens from their spicy prisons.

But if you’re the kind of buffalo flavor fanatic who rents Mark Ruffalo movies just on the off-chance that the DVD case made a typo, these peppery, buttery ~~Slenderman appendages~~ Chicken Fries might just make you fall in buffa-love.

Either way, I recommend pairing the fragile Fries with a thick dipping sauce to mask the iffy texture. Ranch is a good choice for contrasting the spice with cool creaminess. Plus you get to make everyone around you groan and boo by exclaiming, “Look, I’m a buffalo rancher!”

But buffalo sauce works, too, half because of the added heat and nearly cheesy viscosity, and half because I like pretending that the Buffalo Chicken Fries are vengeful ghouls spewing forth their own fiery, ethereal ectoplasm.

Hey, Halloween might be over for you…

(Nutrition Facts – 9 fries – 270 calories, 140 calories from fat, 16 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 40 milligrams of cholesterol, 850 milligrams of sodium, 17 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 0 grams of sugar, and 14 grams of protein.)

Item: Burger King Buffalo Chicken Fries
Purchased Price: $3.19
Size: 9 fries
Purchased at: Burger King
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Accurate buffalo chicken flavor. Elmo-levels of tickling spiciness. Pairs well with fiery, ethereal ectoplasm. Changing my college major to “tongue archaeology.” An inevitable SpongeBob/Burger King crossover episode.
Cons: Mushy mouthfeel. Asking, “Where’s the chicken?” in my Wendy’s old lady voice. Licking Mark Ruffalo DVDs. Extinction of the dinosaurs via microwave.

REVIEW: International Delight Dark Chocolate Hot Chocolate

October 23, 2015August 12, 2023 Dan 5 Comments

I was a dumb kid.

Growing up, I never understood society’s romanticized view of hot chocolate. I wondered why people applauded its chocolaty taste, when every time I made hot chocolate it tasted bland and runny.

And why did they so happily warm their hands with the stuff on winter days, when mine got lukewarm and nasty halfway through?

Oh, that’s right. Because up until I turned [EMBARRASINGLY HIGH NUMBER REMOVED] years old, I thought hot chocolate was made by simply microwaving chocolate milk.

I was a dumb, dumb kid.

Perhaps by reviewing International Delight Hot Chocolate, I can atone for my choco-sins. This new refrigerated hot chocolate dairy beverage (“Hello, is this the Oxymoron Police? Yeah, it’s me again.”) comes in dark and milk chocolate varieties. I chose the former, figuring it was less likely to just be classier chocolate milk.

The drink claims to contain all the goodness of hot cocoa* after only 45 seconds in the microwave.

*In the unending civil war between people who say “hot cocoa” and people who say “hot chocolate,” I’m choosing to remain as neutral as a mug of Swiss Miss.

Pouring out the viscous liquid, I curiously wondered what “Cold Chocolate” would taste like. I also wondered whether “Cold Chocolate” would be a better name for an Android operating system or an Icelandic techno-pop supergroup. But that’s beside the point.

And unlike an actual feline, who would find chocolate quite toxic, curiosity didn’t kill this cat. Rather, I found the syrupy, chilled drink to have a dense, tasty mix of sweet, fatty milk and rich, creamy cocoa. There was no dark chocolate bitterness, though, so I can only imagine how cloying the milk chocolate flavor would be.

I suddenly realized that it tastes exactly like a slightly melted chocolate Snack Pack! I never knew that “pudding milk” was something I needed so badly in my life, but now that I’ve acquired a taste for it, I don’t think I can ever go back. This must be how Count Chocula got his start.

Returning from pudding nirvana, I actually followed the instructions and microwaved my 8 fluid ounces of Hot Chocolate. After a brief stir, I sipped the steaming, frothy liquid, and the first taste set off sad Price is Right trombones in my head. The heating process made the previously lovely goo much thinner and considerably less potent from a chocolate standpoint.

What was once whole-ier than whole milk was now more like hot 2% and Hershey’s syrup. The thin cream taste had processed cocoa notes that required frequent stirring to save from sinking into the brown abyss.

I’m no food scientist, so I don’t know what about microwaving makes this taste so diluted, flat, and even kinda slimy. Do microwaves burn off fat? If they do, those “One Weird Trick To Cut Off Belly Fat” banner ads are about to get a whole lot weirder.

But even a food scientologist can tell this isn’t quite real hot cocoa. Even adding marshmallows didn’t help; it was just putting sugary white lipstick on a pig.

I recommend buying this drink, but only if you immediately cross out the word “Hot” with Sharpie. Like that shameful misunderstanding from my past, it’s best if we all just pretend it didn’t happen and instead happily chug International Delight Chocolate straight out of the refrigerator.

Oh, and if you do, you might want to cross out that whole “200 calories per serving” part, too.

See no evil, no evil goes straight to my thighs, right?

(Nutrition Facts – 1 cup – 200 calories, 1.5 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 320 milligrams of sodium, 38 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 31 grams of sugar, and 8 grams of protein.)

Item: International Delight Dark Chocolate Hot Chocolate
Purchased Price: $2.99
Size: 1 quart
Purchased at: Meijer
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Whole-y cold pudding milk, Batman! Becoming a chocolate vampire. Munching many mini marshmallows. Escaping childhood shame.
Cons: Completely fails at its intended purpose. Pretty much “Microwaved Chocolate Milk 2.0.” Wasting 45 seconds I could’ve spent microwaving Pizza Rolls. Taking the phrase “brown abyss” out of context. Still only owning one glass cup.

REVIEW: Mtn Dew Game Fuel Berry Lime

October 16, 2015August 12, 2023 Dan 17 Comments

I’m a bit past my gaming “wonder years” when I would spend hours on end using one hand to make Kirby eat his enemies whilst blindly stuffing corn chips into my own gaping maw with the other.

Growing up means learning to manage my time more wisely. Gobbling down Doritos with two hands is way more efficient!

Despite this, I’ve vowed to never become that uncool adult who calls every Xbox “a Nintendo” and insists Pokémon is pronounced “Pokee-mans.” So to stay hip, I’ve decided I need to start drinking Mtn Dew Game Fuel again.

Wait, kids don’t say “hip” anymore? My apologies. I believe the correct term is “#$wag.”

I haven’t had a sip of Game Fuel since it was first released in Citrus Cherry flavor to promote Halo 3 in 2007. I’ve mentioned before how I still have 3 cans of sealed Halo 3 Dew in my basement, and while they probably have the corrosiveness and flavor of Xenomorph blood now, they remind me of a simpler time when Mtn Dew actually spelled out the word “Mountain.” Back in my day, vowels were cool! Whippersnappers!

But now in its 6th iteration, Game Fuel is back to promote Call of Duty: Black Ops 3. Citrus Cherry has returned, as usual, but 2015’s flavor n00b is Berry Lime.

With the color of a melted Gumby, the tempting turquoise liquid hissed at me as I cracked it open. And as I took a sip, that hiss became a bite. The fizzy carbonation here is strong enough to lift you into the ceiling, which now has to be washed and sterilized! So you get nothing! You lose! Good day, sir!

But the burn of the bubbles is paired pleasantly with the initial hit of berry flavor. The berries form a potent good cop/bad cop duo: first, a wave of bright, friendly blueberry sweet-talks your taste buds, but then a puckering tang of blue raspberry lays the smack down on ‘em with a surprise suplex from behind.

It’s a charming one-two punch that segues smoothly into the palpable lime aftertaste. More light and tropical than it is sour, this lime is what really appeals to me, because it tastes almost exactly like a liquefied Lime Skittle. And everyone knows Lime was the best Skittle before it was unceremoniously killed off and replaced with that bastard Green Apple Skittle.

R.I.P., Lime Skittle: I’ll pour a little bit of Dew out for you, my homie.

As the candied lime flavor peters out, I’m left again with the unfortunate back-of-mouth-funk and throat-stickiness that all new Dews seem to give. But unlike the grittiness of the recent Mtn Dew Black Label’s real sugar, the corn syrup here leaves my throat feeling slimier than a ’90s Nickelodeon game show.

The whole experience really is a bit like a more carbonated (thumbs up) and more artificial (thumbs down) version of Black Label. But it’s still as addictive as Minesweeper, and it’s hard to stay mad at a drink that simultaneously reunites me with my dearly departed Lime Skittle while also making me feel like I’m a vampire suckling on the life essence of a Blue Raspberry Jolly Rancher.

So while it probably won’t make me a Major League Gamer, this nostalgic and tasty Dew will at least make sure I don’t confuse Mario with Chef Boyardee.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 bottle – 280 calories, 0 grams of fat, 85 milligrams of sodium, 75 grams of carbohydrates, 74 grams of sugar, 0 grams of protein, and 113 milligrams of caffeine.)

Item: Mtn Dew Game Fuel Berry Lime
Purchased Price: $1.79
Size: 20 fl oz bottle
Purchased at: Campus convenience store
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Two berries of blue in my Dew = woo-hoo! Lime Skittle memories. Willy Wonka levels of carbonation. Flavor suplexes. Repeatedly whispering the phrase “tempting turquoise” to myself in an empty room.
Cons: Nickelodeon levels of throat sliminess. Probably too sweet to drink with Doritos. Whpprsnpprs. “Thank you Chef Boyardee, but our princess is in another pasta can.”

REVIEW: Starbucks Toasted Graham Latte

September 28, 2015August 25, 2023 Dan 10 Comments

As dawn breaks over the picturesque landscape, a farmer, with cup in hand, approaches the docile, grazing Teddy Graham that he has been raising since it was a wee cub. The Graham eyes him indifferently as he fills his cup with milk from the giant, bear-shaped cracker. He pats it on the back lovingly and carries the cup towards a counter in the distance.

“One Toasted Graham Latte for Dan?”

That’s is how I like to imagine the folks at Starbucks make their new Toasted Graham Latte, and if I hadn’t seen them mixing it together with my own eyes, I would have believed it, too.

This latest concoction from the ‘Bucks blends graham, steamed milk, cream, and espresso with a topping of cinnamon graham crumbles. It’s available in both hot and iced forms, but I chose the former, since the oxymoronic idea of having a drink be “iced and toasted” makes my brain freeze and fry.

Prying away the lid of my cup, I marvel at the InstaGraham worthy cinnamon and graham cracker dust that looks like it was gently scattered by some hypocritical, tooth-rotting Tooth Fairy.

After sipping this top layer, I suddenly realize why the Toasted Graham Latte was released so close to Halloween time: it’s just like that infamously NSFW hot tub face-melting scene from Halloween 2, but with Michael Meyers murdering a Cinnamon Teddy Graham in a steamed milk Jacuzzi instead.

The faint spice of cinnamon and the earthier, honey graham sweetness of the crispy crumbles pleasantly balance the hyper sugary vanilla onslaught of the whipped cream.

But once the crumbs are all slurped up, things get a little…crummier. Without the complexity of the graham pieces to counteract the cream, the middle third of my TGL simply became an uncomfortable, cloying mess of melted cream and milk.

After begrudgingly sucking this part down, I realized there was hope in the final third of the drink. Like a caffeinated Atlantis, all the espresso and graham syrup flavor had sunk down into the bottom. After many milliliters of hardship, my submarine tongue was happy to discover it.

When making my drink, the Starbucks barista excitedly exclaimed how it “smelled just like a s’more!” I half expected her to verbally add a *heart eyes emoji* to the end of her sentence.

But now I see that she was right. The bitter darkness of the espresso imparts woodsy notes on the sticky, leftover cream, making it quite like a toasted marshmallow.

This, along with the artificial and rich graham syrup, left me with a tasty, liquid s’more facsimile, albeit one where someone swapped the Hershey’s chocolate with coffee beans (I don’t care what kind of pranks they pulled in the ‘20s, Grandpa: it’s not funny!)

So like the Earth, a well made taco salad, and Shrek, the new Toasted Graham Latte from Starbucks has layers. From the blended cinnamon and sugar top, to the disturbing primordial soup in the middle, all the way to the liquefied campfire classic on the bottom, your enjoyment of this drink will likely hinge on how deep into it you’re willing to go.

Since exactly two-thirds of the latte is good, I should technically give it an infinitely repeating 6.66 out of 10. But since I’m an Internet food reviewer and not a mathematician, I guess I’ll have to round up.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I have a box of Teddy Grahams that need a good melting. *bear emoji* *fire emoji* *skull emoji*

(Nutrition Facts – 12 oz with 2% milk – 230 calories, 60 calories from fat, 7 grams of fat, 4.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 30 milligrams of cholesterol, 160 milligrams of sodium, 32 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 31 grams of sugar, and 10 grams of protein.)

Item: Starbucks Toasted Graham Latte
Purchased Price: $4.51
Size: 12 oz.
Purchased at: Starbucks
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Teddy Graham giblets on top. Caffeinated s’more cocktail on bottom. Imaginary snack cookie dairy farms. Filing a patent for “Milk Jacuzzis.”
Cons: Overly sweet nastiness in the middle. Speaking in emojis. Trying to milk a real bear. Not being able to give Halloween snacks a 666/10.

REVIEW: Nabisco Limited Edition Toasted Coconut Oreo Cookies

September 18, 2015August 30, 2023 Dan 12 Comments

I can picture it now. Nabisco marketers frantically running up and down supermarket aisles, whispering to themselves in a panic:

“Gotta find another cookie idea! What haven’t we tried yet? Coffee? Rutabaga? Could we cram some creme between two Doritos-flavored cookies for the Super Bowl?”

A worried mother protects her children from the sweating marketer. She tells him he’s gone “crazy in the coconut.” He cracks an inspired smile and steals away into the night.

And so, Toasted Coconut Oreo Cookies were born. Rejecting my own brilliant idea for “Back to School PB&J Oreo Cookies,” Nabisco avoided the low-hanging fruit and reached higher up the palm tree.

To mimic the taste of a coconut creme pie, these cookies use Oreo’s vanilla-flavored Golden cookies instead of the chocolate. I’m guessing this choice angered all the Mounds bar lovers of the world. All four of them.

Because single stuf Oreo cookies are now the MySpace of the cookie aisle, Toasted Coconut Oreo are stuffed with a double helping of white creme that is specked with darker gold shavings of “real toasted coconut.” This creates a complex filling that looks like a petri dish of e. coconut specimens.

The package lacks the traditional lift-n-peel opening, so like Tom Hanks and his coconut in Castaway, I first tried to open this by throwing it against a wall and smashing it with a rock. After finally struggling it open, my nose was assaulted by vanilla and sugar.

Uh-oh. Any fellow Oreo connoisseur knows this is a bad omen. My fears came true when I bit into a cookie. The powerful Nilla Wafer taste of the cookie stomps out the creme’s subtle coconut flavor like a Vanilla Godzilla.

The faint coconut taste that attempts a futile rebellion against its Orwellian cookie overlord doesn’t give the distinct, tropical, and nutty experience you’d get from a Mounds or coconut scented soap, either. It’s closer to the cloying, heavily sugared richness of sweetened, shredded baking coconut.

The “coconuttiest” part is the creme’s texture, as there is a noticeable gritty chewiness. But any intended “toasted” notes are completely obscured by the pure, unadulterated confectioner’s sugar sweetness of the creme.

But I thought maybe my personal coconut-o-meter was just broken. So I asked a few taste testers — and by “asked,” I mean, “aggressively shoved cookies into the face of” — and got these responses:

“I don’t get it…it’s just a cookie?”

“It’s only like coconut when you lick the creme.”

“It tastes like a really sweet piña colada Dum-Dum sucker.”

So perhaps these divisive Oreo cookies just require a more sophisticated palette to bring out the coconut. If I ever fulfill my dream of hosting a ritzy lecture series called “Oreos & Orators,” I’ll be sure to accompany the heated discourse on the social commentary of Robinson Crusoe with these thematically appropriate coconut confections.

Overall, they taste like a plain vanilla creme pie that a coconut just happened to sneeze on. I found it pleasant, but since it’s easier to sell a used Toyota to a manatee than to recommend coconut to coconut haters, regular Golden Oreos are probably a safer, crowd pleasing option.

Meanwhile, those who like coconut will be left wanting a more pronounced taste. This leaves Toasted Coconut Oreo Cookies suspended in limbo. And not the fun, luau kind of limbo, either. I think Hunter S. Thompson said it best when he called them “too weird to live, too rare to die.”

Wait, what do you mean he’s been dead for 10 years?

Guess I’m gonna need to book a new orator for next month.

(Nutrition Facts – 2 cookies – 150 calories, 60 calories from fat, 7 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 80 milligrams of sodium, 15 milligrams of potassium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 12 grams of sugar, and less than 1 gram of protein.).)

Item: Limited Edition Toasted Coconut Oreo Cookies
Purchased Price: $2.99
Size: 10.7 oz
Purchased at: Meijer
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: All the goodness of Golden Oreo Cookies. Fun creme texture. Cookie kaiju. The under-appreciated genius of PB&J Oreo Cookies.
Cons: Little reason to buy them over Golden Oreo. Only a ghost of coconut toast. Non-luau limbos. The inevitability of nacho cheese-flavored Oreo.

Author: Dan

REVIEW: Burger King Buffalo Chicken Fries

REVIEW: International Delight Dark Chocolate Hot Chocolate

REVIEW: Mtn Dew Game Fuel Berry Lime

REVIEW: Starbucks Toasted Graham Latte

REVIEW: Nabisco Limited Edition Toasted Coconut Oreo Cookies

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