Author: Jasper

REVIEW: Cheetos Puffs Honey BBQ

Jasper 17 Comments

Cheetos Puffs Honey BBQ

If all the snacks in the Frito-Lay family got together and played Never Have I Ever, I imagine they would quickly settle into the classic participant archetypes. Rold Gold would be the (pretzel-)stick-in-the-mud who hems and haws for ten minutes before saying something completely boring and inoffensive like, “Never have I ever been to Canada.” Funyuns would be the guy who the whole group would expect to tell wild and entertaining stories (after all, “fun” is his first name), but he’d only end up disappointing everyone. (Really, Funyuns, you’ve only had four flavors in 40 years?)

Cheetos would be that most annoying of Never Have I Ever players, the guy who claims to have done everything. He’s likely more of a liar than a slut, yet no one dares question him for fear of being portrayed as a prude. “Yeah, I was milk-chocolate flavored this one time at summer camp. Who doesn’t have an anthropomorphic mascot that could probably sell cigarettes to kids? You’ve never tried having an interpunct in your name? Bro, did you even go to high school?”

But eventually, it would get to Cheetos’ turn, and he would drop this bomb: “Never have I ever been honey-barbecue flavored.” All the other snacks would go nuts (Cracker Jack especially), but as they listed out all of his varieties, they would slowly come to realize that, somehow, with 100 varieties in 16 countries over the last 60 years, Cheetos has never had a honey-barbecue flavor… until now. Cheetos can put down another of his hypothetical (but sure to be cheese-dust-covered) fingers, as Frito-Lay recently introduced the Cheetos Puffs Honey BBQ.

Cheetos Puffs Honey BBQ Naked

These new Cheetos have a coating of honey barbecue powder in addition to the regular coating of cheese dust. The honey barbecue provided a definite sweetness that stopped well short of cloying, while the smokiness was understated but grew slightly more pronounced the more I ate. The amount of cheese dust had been noticeably scaled back in comparison with regular Cheetos, and the cheesiness, sweetness, and smokiness generally worked well together.

The flavors were well-proportioned, but I think they were all too mild to the point of being unmemorable. After I first opened the bag of Cheetos, I ate about one serving, put the bag away, and didn’t think about it again until I sat down to write this review. These Cheetos were pleasant-tasting but not at all addictive, which seems to run completely counter to the essence and appeal of Cheetos.

A love of Cheetos has become a principal feature of the compulsive gamer stereotype because we all intuitively recognize their addictiveness. A bag of Cheetos should make me feel helpless to my urges and thus compel me to purchase a couple cases of Mountain Dew and start playing online poker again. If I wanted some snacks that let me regulate my appetite so easily, I would have bought a bag of rice cakes or Baked Lays.

OK, obviously I just got weirdly over-the-top there, so let me take a step back: the Cheetos Puffs Honey BBQ were fine but nothing special. If you’re looking for a new snack that you can enjoy in moderation, go ahead and give these a try. Otherwise, you certainly shouldn’t feel embarrassed to leave your finger up if someone says, “Never have I ever tried those new honey barbecue Cheetos.” (Also, that person sucks at playing Never Have I Ever. I bet he’s never even been to Canada.)

(Nutrition Facts – 1 ounce – 150 calories, 90 calories from fat, 10 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 220 milligrams of sodium, 15 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 1 gram of sugar, and 1 gram of protein.)

Other Cheetos Puffs Honey BBQ reviews:
That Bootleg Guy
Stephen Loves Candy

Item: Cheetos Puffs Honey BBQ
Price: $2.99
Size: 9 ounces
Purchased at: Shaw’s
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Nice mild sweetness and smokiness. Flavors played well together. Cheetos finally has a honey and/or barbecue flavor. Writing about the “essence and appeal” of Cheetos. Going to Canada.
Cons: Flavors were all too mild. These Cheetos weren’t addictive. Pretzels are boring and inoffensive. Feeling compelled to play online poker again. Playing Never Have I Ever with that guy who claims to have done everything. Yes, I went to high school, FRANCES.

REVIEW: Wendy’s Berry Almond Chicken Salad

Jasper 22 Comments

Wendy's Berry Almond Chicken Salad

Upon hearing about the subject of my latest review, a friend said to me, “fast food salad = irony.” I didn’t know how to react to that because, despite my zealotry for good grammar, I still have no sense as to when something is actually ironic. All I know is, A) every time I use the word irony, someone is sure to tell me I’m wrong, and B) calling something ironic and calling someone Hitler are somehow equally effective at starting internet comment board flame wars.

So is it ironic that a fast food place makes salads? Would it be ironic for a fast food place to make a really good salad? What if the fast food place were called “We Make Terrible Salads”? And all they played for background music were Alanis Morissette songs, but never “Ironic”?

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, but I do know that Wendy’s new Berry Almond Chicken Salad is absolutely delicious. I recently ordered the full-size salad for lunch. A pre-made serving of greens and berries had been sitting in the fridge in the back, but the chicken was freshly cut and added, and I received the almonds and dressing in separate packages.

Wendy's Berry Almond Chicken Salad Dressing

As you can see from the photo, the salad included hearty servings of strawberries and blueberries, and the fruits’ texture and color suggested that they were fresh and never frozen. The greens were crisp and seemed to have a solid assortment, though I have no idea if there were truly 11 varieties, as the Wendy’s website claims. Asking me to pick out a dozen types of greens is like asking me to name a dozen Alanis Morissette songs. (Actually, I might be able to do that. It’s more like asking me to name a dozen Alanis Morissette ex-boyfriends. Ryan Reynolds, Uncle Joey from Full House… you know what, let’s just say I can’t name that many greens, OK?)

The warm and appropriately-sized chicken wedges were juicy and flavorful, which was to be expected since the chicken was just a diced up breast from one of Wendy’s regularly tasty chicken sandwiches. The asiago cheese shavings added some sharpness without being overpowering, and the almonds contributed much-needed crunch and a subtle nuttiness to the salad. I thought the only thing that didn’t really work was the raspberry vinaigrette; it wasn’t tart enough to bring a new taste dimension to the table, and its sweetness just sort of distracted my attention from the real stars, the strawberries and blueberries.

Another complaint: the salad container was packed to the brim, and I imagine most people will have a very difficult time tossing this salad without spilling anything. Also, by not addressing this salad-tossing problem and thereby compelling me to mention it, Wendy’s has forced me to use a lot of self-restraint in not making any salad-tossing jokes. Luckily, I’ve managed to get to this paragraph’s back end without any slips of my tongue. (…goddammit.)

On the positive side again, the Berry Almond Chicken Salad contains only 450 calories and 16 grams of fat. $6.99 might feel pretty expensive for any item on a fast food menu, but it is tasty and filling enough to be worth the price. I would definitely recommend you go out and try it. And if a normally salad-phobic, fast-food-burger-loving guy strongly recommending a fast food salad isn’t ironic, then I don’t know what is. (No, but seriously. I really have to figure this irony thing out.)

(Nutrition Facts – Full size – 450 calories, 150 calories from fat, 16 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 95 milligrams of cholesterol, 1300 milligrams of sodium, 42 grams of carbohydrates, 7 grams of fiber, 31 grams of sugar, 38 grams of protein, 80% vitamin A, 70% vitamin C, 30% calcium, and 15% iron.)

Item: Wendy’s Berry Almond Chicken Salad
Price: $6.99
Size: Full size
Purchased at: Wendy’s
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Lots of fresh strawberries and blueberries. Crisp and varied greens. Chicken was warm, juicy, and flavorful. Asiago cheese added sharpness and almonds added crunch. Only 450 calories and 16 grams of fat. Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know” was about Uncle Joey.
Cons: Raspberry vinaigrette didn’t really work. Pretty pricey. Salad was hard to toss. I have no self-restraint. Not understanding irony. Comment board flame wars.

REVIEW: Colgate Effervescent Mint MaxClean SmartFoam with Whitening

Jasper 11 Comments

Colgate Effervescent Mint MaxClean SmartFoam with Whitening

Whoa, a toothpaste review! I know what questions are swirling in your head. “Is it bacon flavored? Did I accidentally visit theresponsiblebuy.com? What’s next, advice on my 401(k)?” No, no, and you can’t go wrong with index funds. Occasionally, TIB likes to offer reviews for products that can cleanse your bodies of all the sweets and fats we usually recommend. And since all of our Taco Bell posts already double as laxative reviews and I refuse to try out the Shake Weight until after a third date, I figured a toothpaste review best fits the bill.

According to the Colgate website, the new MaxClean with SmartFoam can clean hard to reach places because it has 30 percent more penetrating foam than regular toothpaste. For the purposes of this review, I guess we’ll just assume that more foam actually is better for cleaning your teeth, even though a quick Google search provides unsatisfactory evidence. I’ll also assume that Colgate decided to use this specific combination of capitalization and spacing in the product title because it somehow makes the toothpaste better at cleaning your teeth, and NOT because they wanted to make me incredibly angry by randomly mangling basic rules of English. A quick Google search on this question also provides unsatisfactory evidence, so I’ll let you decide which of these assumptions is a bigger stretch.

Colgate Effervescent Mint MaxClean SmartFoam with Whitening Naked

MaxClean with SmartFoam had a classically pleasant electric blue color, and the intensity of its mint flavor was pretty standard toothpaste fare. But within 20 seconds of brushing, I could notice a significant difference in foaminess. “30% extra foam” may have been a serious underestimation, as I had a really hard time not letting the foam dribble out of my mouth. After I was done brushing, my mouth felt much cleaner and tingly-er than it normally does. I suppose the toothpaste actually could have cleaned more hard to reach places than my regular toothpaste does; more likely, the overflow of foam just reached a greater surface area around my face and left my mouth feeling zestier more on the outside than within. Even if it’s the second explanation, I think that’s a big positive – in addition to cleaning my teeth, I want my toothpaste to make me feel refreshed after I use it.

On the negative side, the overflow of foam means I probably left dried toothpaste spots all around the sink and annoyed my roommate. Sorry about that, David. Oh, and thanks for buying toilet paper last week. If I wrote for theresponsiblebuy.com I would probably remember to buy basic household necessities at the supermarket instead of walking around the snack aisles asking the store associates if they know whether the next shipment of Twinkies will include the Strawberry Crème ones. (They never know.)

Anyway, if you’re like me and want your toothpaste to help you feel awake and refreshed in the morning, definitely buy the Colgate MaxClean SmartFoam. If you’re skeptical about the assumption that more foam is actually better for your teeth, find a good scientific answer and let us know. And if you’d prefer for me to go back to reviewing greasy and ridiculous foods, come back in two weeks and I promise I’ll revert to form. Who knows, maybe those Strawberry Crème Twinkies will finally have arrived!

Item: Colgate Effervescent Mint MaxClean SmartFoam with Whitening
Price: $2.50
Size: 6 ounces
Purchased at: Kmart
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Produces a lot of extra foam. Leaves your mouth feeling cleaner (even if it’s not really any cleaner). Theresponsiblebuy.com. Index funds for your 401(k). Shake Weight commercials. My roommate buying toilet paper last week.
Cons: Unclear if more foam is better for your teeth. Capitalization and spacing of the product title makes me angry. Leaving dried toothpaste spots everywhere. Creeping out the supermarket store associates.

REVIEW: Berry Burst Ice Cream Oreo

Jasper 36 Comments

Berry Burst Ice Cream Oreo

Spring has finally sprung in the Northeast, so all sorts of great things are happening! Grass is rising. Birds are singing. People are getting tan. My hay fever is so bad that I am wondering if cutting off my nose would really be all that spiteful to my face. Most importantly, “Writers from New Jersey review new Oreo flavors” Week is going on at The Impulsive Buy! (All of our themed weeks are incredibly wordy, exactingly descriptive, and don’t follow the normal Sunday-Saturday week schedule.)

Nabisco’s latest non-fudge-covered Oreo is the Berry Burst Ice Cream edition. I can’t find any information online about this new flavor, so we’re left to our own devices when it comes to figuring out which berries are included in the “Berry Burst.” I was hoping for a combination of blackberries (fruit), Blackberrys (phones), and Halle Berry circa 2001.

Once I actually bought and opened the package, it became obvious that the primary and perhaps only berry flavor involved was strawberry. Despite my stuffy nose, I was hit by a strawberry aroma that strongly reminded me of Special K Red Berries cereal. The scent was very pleasant and surprisingly not-too-artificial.

Berry Burst Ice Cream Oreo Naked

The filling did taste like a really sweet batch of strawberry ice cream. There were little red specks that I imagine were supposed to be tiny berry shards, but they didn’t add anything in texture or taste. Since these Oreos seemed to be single stuffed rather than Double Stuf, the strawberry flavor became a bit too understated when I ate the cookies whole (“whole” meaning without taking them apart, not meaning eaten in a single bite… though, you know, there’s no wrong way to eat an Oreo).

I never got a chance to try the limited edition Strawberry Milkshake Crème Oreos in 2008, and I have a sneaking suspicion that they’ve recently been re-named and re-packaged. Even if that’s the case, these Berry Burst / Strawberry Milkshake Oreos are fairly tasty, so if you love Oreos to begin with, go ahead and give them a try. Apologies that this review is on the short side, but I really have to get going – X-Men, Swordfish, and Monster’s Ball aren’t going to add themselves to my Netflix queue.

(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, 120 milligrams of sodium, 60 milligrams of potassium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 13 grams of sugar, 1gram of protein.)

Other Berry Burst Ice Cream Oreo reviews:
Grub Grade

Item: Berry Burst Ice Cream Oreo
Price: $2.99
Size: 15.25 ounces
Purchased at: Kmart
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Pleasant and not-too-artificial smell. Filling tastes like strawberry ice cream. Spring has sprung. Halle Berry circa 2001. Eating cookies whole. TIB theme weeks.
Cons: Flavor becomes too understated when you eat the cookies without taking them apart. Not really any berries other than strawberries. Might just be the same product Nabisco came out with three years ago. Seasonal hay fever.

REVIEW: Dunkin’ Donuts Stuffed Breadsticks (Pepperoni & Cheese and Cheeseburger)

Jasper 6 Comments

Dunkin' Donuts Stuffed Breadsticks

For those of you who have busy Mondays, here’s a short review, in haiku form, of the Dunkin’ Donuts Stuffed Breadsticks:

Like bad Hot Pockets
Less filling, blander tasting
Same burns in my mouth

For those of you who are looking to waste some time on Monday, stick around for further elaboration (and rest assured that it will be elaborate).

I believe it was Tolstoy who once wrote, “Tasty fast food items are all alike; every crappy fast food item is crappy in its own way.” To this principle I must add a corollary which shall forevermore be known as the Stuffed Breadsticks Corollary: “… but some crappy fast food items are crappy IN EVERY WAY POSSIBLE.”

Dunkin’ Donuts is offering their newest concoction in two flavors, Pepperoni & Cheese and Cheeseburger. Both varieties of Stuffed Breadsticks had very little stuffing, and all the tiny chunks of meat had slid down to the bottom of the breadsticks by the time I started eating. To set up the second photo, I had to dig around the breadsticks with my fork like I was trying to reach the fruit at the bottom of a yogurt container.

Dunkin' Donuts Stuffed Breadsticks Innards

I ate multiple bites of only bread before reaching any meat. The bread was tasteless, too chewy, weirdly pale where it hadn’t been toasted, and droopy to the point of shape-shifting. So it failed on the dimensions of taste, visual presentation, texture, and even shape, which hadn’t struck me as a significant feature of bread until just now. (Now that we’re heading off on a tangent, what would you say are the best and worst shaped breads? After careful consideration, I would nominate Challah bread as the best and – you guessed it – these breadsticks as the worst.)

Things didn’t get any better once I finally got to the stuffing. The Cheeseburger breadstick supposedly contained ground beef, cheese, and mustard, but all these ingredients were so bland that I couldn’t really taste anything. If I had to pick one taste sensation that I felt, I’d say there was a sort of sweetness to the filling. That doesn’t speak very well to Dunkin’ Donuts’ ability to recreate the taste of a cheeseburger; I’d estimate that I’ve said “Sweet, cheeseburgers!” (interjection to express excitement over anticipated cheeseburger consumption) roughly a million more times than I’ve said “sweet cheeseburgers” (descriptive phrase to communicate actual flavor of previously consumed cheeseburgers).

The Pepperoni & Cheese breadstick was definitely the better tasting of the two, but that’s about as much of an accomplishment as being the most useful poopy-flavored lollipop, or being the most entertaining re-appropriated Ben Stiller movie quote, or being the TIB writer who uses the fewest commas. The pepperoni pieces look and taste exactly like the meat in pepperoni Hot Pockets. They add a certain zest to the breadstick’s overall flavor, but the cheese and sauce contributed nothing to the eating experience except the burning destruction of my mouth.

Even the price was crappy. With each Stuffed Breadstick costing $1.79, two breadsticks and a small iced tea will run you over $5, which is enough to get you a much heartier and tastier combo from any number of fast food restaurants, Dunkin’ Donuts itself included.

In case I haven’t made myself clear yet, here’s another haiku to wrap things up:

These Dunkin’ Donuts
Breadsticks fail in taste, look, cost
DON’T GET THEM, EVER.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 stuffed breadstick – Pepperoni & Cheese – 210 calories, 7 grams of fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 15 milligrams of cholesterol, 380 milligrams of sodium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 2 grams of sugar, and 11 grams of protein. Cheeseburger – 200 calories, 6 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 10 milligrams of cholesterol, 400 milligrams of sodium, 28 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 2 grams of sugar, and 9 grams of protein.)

Item: Dunkin’ Donuts Stuffed Breadsticks (Pepperoni & Cheese and Cheeseburger)
Price: $1.79 each
Size: N/A
Purchased at: Dunkin Donuts
Rating: 1 out of 10 (Cheeseburger)
Rating: 3 out of 10 (Pepperoni & Cheese)
Pros: Pepperoni pieces were sort of tasty. Haikus. Challah bread. “Sweet, cheeseburgers!” as interjection.
Cons: Not much stuffing in either Stuffed Breadstick. Bread was bland. Cheeseburger stuffing was bland. Pepperoni & Cheese stuffing burned my mouth. Kind of pricey. “Sweet cheeseburgers” as descriptive phrase. Poopy-flavored lollipops.