ANNOUNCEMENT: Go Vote For Food Junk For Best Food Humor Blog At Saveur’s Best Food Blog Awards

Marvo

Remember a few weeks ago when we kindly asked you to nominate The Impulsive Buy for a Saveur Magazine Best Food Blog Award?

Well, I’d like that thank all of you who nominated us. Unfortunately, we weren’t selected to vie for an award. But that’s okay because Impulsive Buy reviewer Steve and his funny Food Junk blog is a finalist for the Best Food Humor Blog Award, and it would be awesome if you voted for it.

Why?

1. Because his blog is funny and has awesome photos.

2. Steve is a really nice guy.

3. He had the balls to review 22-year-old Batman cereal.

If you want to help Food Junk, click here to visit the Saveur Food Blog Award page, then curse the internet gods for having to register at Saveur.com in order to vote (but registering takes seconds). Once you’ve done that, just go back to the Saveur Food Blog Award page, click on the “Best Food Humor Blog” category in the right hand column, and cast your vote.

Voting ends on April 26, 2012.

Thank you.

NEWS: P.F. Chang’s Home Menu Appetizers Give You The Option of Not Having To Face That Scary Horse Outside P.F. Chang’s Locations

Marvo 1 Comment

PF Chang's Home Menu Spring Rolls in freezer

I’ve been to P.F. Chang’s a couple of times. But ever since I learned about this army of stone Chinese soldiers, the stone horse outside of many P.F. Chang’s restaurants has been freaking me out and I’m afraid to go back.

However, thanks to P.F. Chang’s desire to let people experience their food at home, I’ve been able to avoid stone horses with their Home Menu frozen meal line. But the P.F. Chang’s home experience has been lacking without the option of appetizers. But that changed recently with the introduction of P.F. Chang’s Home Menu Spring Rolls and Dumplings.

The frozen appetizers come in five varieties.

General Chang’s Chicken Spring Rolls – Grilled chicken, broccoli, and cabbage.

Teriyaki Chicken Spring Rolls – Grilled chicken, cabbage, red pepper, and grilled onion..

Shrimp and Seafood Dumplings – Seafood with cabbage, scallions, and ginger.

Chicken and Vegetable Dumplings – Chicken, bok choy, and shiitake mushrooms.

Pork and Leek Dumplings – Pork, leek, cabbage, and scallions.

The spring rolls come with a packet of sweet and sour sauce, while the dumplings come with sweet soy sauce. They can be prepared on a stove or in an oven. They recommend you not microwave them, but they include microwave instructions anyway. There are five pieces in each bag.

Two Teriyaki Chicken Spring Rolls have 180 calories, 3 grams of fat, 0.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 660 milligrams of sodium, 30 grams of carbohydrates, 10 grams of sugar, and 9 grams of protein.

NEWS: It’s Easier For Your Kids To Become Lemonade Tycoons With Lemonade and Blueberry Lemonade MiO

Marvo 6 Comments

2012-05-24 04.08.31

When I was in sixth grade, I opened a lemonade stand in my neighborhood to make money so that I could buy Choose Your Own Adventure books. Unfortunately, not a lot of foot and car traffic went through my neighborhood, it’s a pain in the ass to squeeze lemons, and I didn’t understand the concept of ratios. My lemonade ended up being either too sour, too watery, or too cavity causing.

If only I had the new MiO Lemonade and Blueberry Lemonade Liquid Water Enhancers back then…or Countrytime lemonade powder mix…or the courage to shoplift, then I would’ve had all of the Choose Your Adventure books.

Like the other MiO flavors, these two new varieties have 0 calories and can make 24 eight-ounce servings per bottle. But more importantly, there’s no seeds to worry about or lemon juice flying into my eyes. Just squeeze the instructed amount into eight ounces of water and voila!

NEWS: Dunkin’ Donuts Revamps Their Bagels and Adds The Word ‘Artisan’ To Their Name

Marvo 1 Comment

What’s with the word “artisan”?

It appears to be the hot marketing adjective right now. It’s been used to describe pizza, breakfast sandwiches, and tortilla chips. Now Dunkin’ Donuts is attaching “artisan” to their improved bagels.

Dunkin’ Donuts new bagels feature “a soft and chew texture with bolder flavors.” They come in the same varieties they came in before such as Plain, Multigrain, Sesame, Poppy Seed, Blueberry, Salt, Onion, and Cinnamon Raisin.

Along with the normal flavors, Dunkin’ Donuts introduced two new limited time only flavors, Sun Dried Tomato and Pumpernickel. Oh, but that’s not all the bagel news coming from Dunkin’. They also introduced a new reduced fat Artichoke Spinach Cream Cheese.

The Artisan Bagels are available all day long.

I shall end this post with a couple of facts about Dunkin’ Donuts bagels.

1. Dunkin’ Donuts is the number one retailer of bagels in the United States.

2. A Dunkin’ Donuts Artisan Salt Bagel has 3,350 milligrams of sodium. If you top it with the new reduced fat Artichoke Spinach Cream Cheese, the amount jumps to 3,550. Take that, every Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s burger!

REVIEW: International Delight Original Iced Coffee

Marvo 68 Comments

International Delight Original Iced Coffee

I’m gonna find me a long straw and make me a sessanta coffee with this half gallon of International Delight Original Iced Coffee.

What’s a sessanta?

What? You don’t stick random words into Google Translate when you’re bored? For those of you too lazy to click this link and then hit your browser’s back button when you’re done, here are a few hints to help you figure out what sessanta is. If venti is Italian for twenty, trenta is Italian for thirty, and a half gallon contains 64 ounces, then sessanta is…

That’s right, you guessed it…a bladder-filling amount of coffee.

Well, the International Delight Original Iced Coffee isn’t just coffee, there’s also dairy…lots of dairy. If you like your iced coffee as black as I like my iPads, you will not enjoy this.

There’s possibly an udder’s worth of dairy. How much dairy is that? Let’s just say when you’re drinking it you shouldn’t be around one of those people who might say in a douchey tone, “Would you like more coffee with your cream?”

Actually, it shouldn’t be surprising it tastes like it’s mostly dairy since International Delight is known for making the poor excuse for coffee your damn co-worker makes every morning taste better with their liquid coffee creamers that come in flavors like hazelnut, French vanilla, Cinnabon, and Cold Stone Creamery Sweet Cream.

But what about the coffee?

It’s made with 100 percent premium Arabica coffee, which is known for its never-bitter flavor and it’s the same variety of beans Starbucks uses. So if the International Delight Original Iced Coffee uses the same coffee as Starbucks, it must have a Starbucks-like price. For a half gallon, you’d think it would cost about a kigillion dollars, but a carton is around the same price as a trenta-sized Starbucks iced coffee.

As I said earlier, International Delight went heavy on the dairy by adding skim milk and cream to the coffee, both of which gave the iced coffee a pleasing creamy consistency. Or it could’ve been the ingredients gellan gum and carrageenan that gave it its viscosity. The iced coffee is also very sweet, thanks to the sugar and corn syrup added.

International Delight Original Iced Coffee Closeup

A cup of International Delight Original Iced Coffee tastes like I’m drinking melted coffee ice cream. But I don’t know if that’s a good thing or bad thing. Because while this stuff is really yummy, I can’t help but think how unhealthy it would be to drink this creamy beverage regularly.

Yes, regularly.

International Delight is hoping you drink their iced coffee instead of visiting Starbucks, which for some of you is a daily ritual. Sure, by not going to Starbucks you avoid long lines, easy listening music, and the possibility of having your name horribly misspelled on your cup, but a 12-ounce sweetened Starbucks iced coffee with whole milk has 90 calories, 1.5 grams of fat, and 18 grams of sugar, while a 12-ounce glass of International Delight Original Iced Coffee has 225 calories, 3.75 grams of fat, and 34 grams of sugar.

Also, the carton says nothing about its caffeine content. I need to know how much caffeine it has because I need to supplement if it has too little, and if it has too much I need to make sure I don’t do any spontaneous parkouring to burn off the excess energy. After drinking it, I did feel a slight energy boost, but I’m not sure if it was the caffeine from the coffee, the sugar, or both.

Again, the International Delight Original Iced Coffee is damn good. It’s so good that will hold an open carton above my open mouth and bang the carton’s sides with my other hand to get every last drop of it. However, because of its high sugar content it would be a horrible idea to stick a straw into one and make it a sessanta iced coffee.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 cup – 150 calories, 25 calories from fat, 2.5 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 10 milligrams of cholesterol, 105 milligrams of sodium, 29 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 23 grams of sugar, 4 grams of protein, 15% calcium, and 4% iron.)

Item: International Delight Original Iced Coffee
Price: $4.99
Size: Half gallon
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: My goodness, it’s yummy. Creamy. Smooth. It’s like drinking melted coffee ice cream. Cheaper than Starbucks. It’s a frickin’ half gallon of iced coffee. Google Translate.
Cons: Too easy to drink. Lots of dairy. Lots of sugar. Don’t know caffeine content. It’s like drinking melted ice cream. Your co-worker not knowing how to make coffee.