Category: Late to the Party

LATE TO THE PARTY: Just Egg

Marvo 19 Comments

Just Egg Bottle

Late to the Party posts are about first time experiences with products or brands that have been around for a while.

Just Egg, a plant-based egg substitute, is made from mung bean. If this is the first time you’ve ever heard of mung bean, I want to let you know that I was in your shoes back in 2018 when I first read about this product. If you’d like to take up some space in your brain to learn about it, here’s the Wikipedia link.

While I’ve known about Just Egg for years and have wanted to try it for the same amount of time, I just never came across it. That ended while pushing my virtual cart through the aisles of my local Whole Foods via the Amazon website to find out what kinds of dairy-free milk alternatives it offers. (Side note: It’s A LOT.)

Why would I want to try not-eggs? While some people are fascinated with Star Wars, I’m that way with products that attempt to recreate meat and animal products using plants. Yes, you’ll regret asking me what my hobbies are at a party.

Just Egg Ingredients

While an egg is just, well, an egg, Just Egg has (takes a deep breath) water, mung bean protein isolate, expeller-pressed canola oil, dehydrated onion, gellan gum, natural carrot extractives (for color), natural flavors, natural turmeric extractives (for color), potassium citrate, salt, soy lecithin, sugar, tapioca syrup, tetrasodium pyrophosphate, transglutaminase, and nisin (a preservative).

All those ingredients create something that looks and feels like scrambled eggs. You might notice that I didn’t include “tastes” in the previous sentence. I’ll get to that later.

Just Egg Liguid

When it’s poured out of its bottle, it looks like an Egg Beaters product, but grainer. But the magic begins when the product starts to curdle in the pan. The liquid’s pastel yellow color turns into a vibrant yellow, it looks like scrambled eggs, and it has a soft scrambled eggs-like texture.

Just Egg Cooked

Just Egg Soft

While Just Egg can fool my eyes, it cannot fool my taste buds. The instant they got to experience the plant-based egg product, they knew something was up. Its flavor is like vegetables, although seasoned vegetables. But I think the way it looks and feels has my brain thinking it’s an omelet with A LOT of vegetables.

I’m fine with the way it tastes. So much so that if chickens went extinct for some reason, like bird flu or way too many foxes protecting all the chicken coops, I’d be okay with eating Just Egg for the rest of my life.

LATE TO THE PARTY: Jack in the Box Potato Wedges

Marvo 5 Comments

Jack in the Box Potato Wedges Plated

Update 9/30/21: It appears Jack in the Box’s Potato Wedges have been taken off the menu. Such a sad day.

Late to the Party posts are about products or brands that have been around for a long time, but I’ve only experienced recently for the first time.

I think Jack in the Box’s fries are mediocre.

But I can’t help but think they’re supposed to be that way. I don’t want to start any fast food conspiracies, like Grimace is actually an extremely expired ketchup packet, but perhaps they’re average because Jack really wants us to order the better tasting, and slightly more expensive, curly fries.

Look, I’m suggesting that without even knowing the curly fries’ profit margins. And I might be boring you with talk of profit margins. So let me get straight to the point. There is a fried potato product on Jack in the Box’s menu that I believe is superior tasting to its regular AND curly fries AND is cheaper — Potato Wedges.

Jack has had these on his menu FOR YEARS, so I’m super late to the party. It wasn’t until last year, when I started mobile ordering from the Jack in the Box app that I learned I could swap the standard fries with potato wedges, and do so without an upcharge like there is with curly fries. I haven’t had Jack’s regular fries since.

When I first tried them, I was blown away by how much better tasting they were. The coating has a light seasoning that’s good enough that I don’t need to dip them into anything if I forget to ask for ketchup packets. It also gives the finger food a pleasant crispiness that doesn’t get limp during the trip home.

Jack in the Box Potato Wedges Closeup

But I think what I’ve been impressed by is how crispy the exterior and fluffy the interior has been every time I’ve purchased them. Although, there was that one time, and I don’t know if this is a bonus or not, or something that happens regularly or not, they tasted like Jack in the Box tacos.

I assume the potato wedges’ freshness is the result of being fried when ordered and not produced in large batches that sit like the French and curly fries.

Unfortunately, while the wedges are cheaper than French fries if you order them a la carte, they don’t lower the cost of a combo meal if you swap them in.

To some of you, the greatness of Jack in the Box’s Potato Wedges may not be a revelation. But now I know about them, and it makes me sad that I could’ve been eating these wonderful potato wedges all this time instead of Jack’s inferior fries.