NEWS: More Oreo Fudge Cremes Varieties For Those Who Like To Suffocate Their Oreos Before Eating Them

Marvo 6 Comments

Update: Click here to read our review

If fudge dipped Oreos are your only idea of a good time, then get ready for a couple of new Oreo Fudge Cremes flavors to rock your sad, lonely world. I spotted at my local Safeway the new Peanut Butter Oreo Fudge Cremes and Golden Oreo Fudge Cremes.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Oreo Fudge Cremes, Nabisco takes one of the two chocolate cookies (or vanilla cookies) and the Oreo’s creme filling and covers the whole thing in fudge like it’s Agent Strawberry Fields in the James Bond flick Quantum of Solace.

Last year, I gave the Mint Oreo Fudge Cremes a very positive review. Back then the Oreo Fudge Cremes came in an 8.5 ounce box, but these new flavors, along with the Mint and Original, are sold in a new 11.3 ounce packaging that looks similar to what regular Oreos packaged in.

More Oreo Fudge Cremes to enjoy? It looks like my sad, lonely world is about to get rocked.

NEWS: If You Gave Up Bacon For Lent, Denny’s Maple Bacon Sundae Will Be Waiting For You On Easter Sunday

Marvo 7 Comments

Irwindale Liar's Club/Denny's sign

I could write about the BBBLT Sandwich, the Triple Bacon Sampler, Pepper Bacon with Eggs, and Ultimate Bacon Breakfast that Denny’s is rolling out for their bacon celebration called Baconalia, but those sound boring. (Yes, Baconalia is an actual festival.) I could also talk about their slightly unusual Baconalia dishes, the Bacon Flapjacks and Bacon Meatloaf. However, as odd as those two sound, the Baconalia menu item that stands out the most is their new Maple Bacon Sundae.

The dessert, or your drunken menu choice at two in the morning, brings together the Ernie and Bert of flavors, sweet and savory, topping a scoop of vanilla ice cream with maple syrup and pieces of bacon. Even though the taste of the Jones Bacon Flavored Soda still haunts me today, I might be willing to give the Maple Bacon Sundae a try and participate in Denny’s Bacon Fest, Baconival, Bacon Fair, Baconstock, Bacon Festival, Baconpalooza, or whatever they called it.

The Maple Bacon Sundae and the other bacon dishes will only be available for a limited time at participating Denny’s restaurants.

Source: Foodbeast

REVIEW: Limited Edition Hostess Chocolate Creme Twinkies

Drew 23 Comments

Limited Edition Hostess Chocolate Creme Twinkies

I must admit, I’ve always felt like a bit of a traitor eating Twinkies.  See, I grew up in the central Jersey/Philly region, and that’s Tastykake turf.  If you’ve never heard of Tastykake, that just means you live outside the tri-state area — in the old days, the company refused to use preservatives, so their products could only be transported a certain distance before their shelf lives expired.  (This is also why I never bought Tastykakes from vending machines, because seriously, who knows how long that shit’s been in there?)  But as a kid, you don’t care about supporting local businesses or fighting the power — you care about eating the stuff you see on TV, especially if it’s shilled by Twinkie the Kid.  So I ate plenty of Twinkies growing up, both of the regular (mmm) and light (pure, unadulterated taste abortion) varieties.  But in all those years, I never had one that strayed from the vanilla creme standard.  That’s about to change, as Hostess has released two new limited edition varieties of Twinkie, chocolate creme and strawberry creme.  As part of my ongoing quest to never eat a fruit that isn’t apple, we’ll be taking a look at the former.

In contrast to Tastykakes, Twinkies are nothing but preservatives.  If you stripped all the preservatives out of a Twinkie, you’d be left with a 1-inch ball of sponge cake.  It would not surprise me to learn that these “limited edition” Twinkies were originally created to commemorate America€™s bicentennial; they just ended up with a lot sitting around the warehouse afterward, of which you and I are now the lucky recipients.  Not that I care, mind you — no organic food purist I —  but I thought it was worth mentioning.  Really though, people eat Twinkies for nutritional value the same way they go to Hooters for great food at affordable prices.  Let’s just tear into one of these things and see what’s what.

I don’t know if I got a bad batch or if I need to change the prescription on my rose-colored glasses, but the first bite of Twinkie was a huge let-down, and it didn’t improve much from there.  Actually, I suspect it has nothing to do with nostalgia or improper packaging and everything to do with the filling.  Let’s face it, you can get shitty sponge cake anywhere; what people buy Twinkies for is the creme filling.  And as it turns out, there’s a good reason why Hostess uses the vanilla stuff.  I had been laboring under the delusion that chocolate makes everything better, but consuming just one chocolate creme Twinkie showed me just how wrong I was.  It’s my sad duty to report that while chocolate may make MOST things taste better, Twinkies are a tragic exception.  It might just be the flavor combination — I like chocolate creme, I like sponge cake, but put them together and the flavors don’t mesh nearly as well as you’d expect.  If a regular Twinkie is more than the sum of its parts, the chocolate creme Twinkie has to be considered far less.

Limited Edition Hostess Chocolate Creme Twinkies Innards

That wasn’t my only beef… joking aside, these Twinkies might indeed have been produced during the Ford administration for how the sponge cake tasted.  I remember Twinkies from my youth being soft and moist, but these were tougher — not totally stale, but on their way — and kind of dry.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that even if these had had vanilla creme inside them, I still would’ve paused after the first bite to wonder if they’ve changed the way they make Twinkies in the last decade.  If so, I urge Hostess to follow Pepsi’s lead — I want my Twinkies Throwback.

It’s a sad day for any of us when the cherished bits of our childhood are retooled to be more edgy or to have more mass appeal, only to end up sucking harder than letting your wife control the TV.  (We meet again, One Tree Hill.)  We’ve seen it happen with the Transformers and G.I. Joe, with Star Wars, with New Coke.  Fortunately chocolate creme Twinkies are only limited edition, and Hostess has no plans to phase out the regular variety.  That’s good news, and if I were you, I’d stick with the classic.  Points for trying something different, but if you’re going to be ingesting that amount of sugar and carbs, you want it to be worth your while.

(Nutrition Facts — 1 cake — 160 calories, 5 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 220 milligrams of sodium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 19 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein.)

Item: Limited Edition Hostess Chocolate Creme Twinkies
Price: $3.99
Size: 8 cakes
Purchased at: Acme
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Tripping nostalgic.  Being able to keep food on the shelf for longer than a week.  Twinkie the Kid.  Trying something new.
Cons: Bicentennial Twinkies.  Finding out chocolate doesn’t make everything better.  Dry sponge cake.  The Transformers movies.  “Something new” tasting gross.  Brown filling in a Twinkie just looks… wrong.

REVIEW: Glacéau VitaminWater Zero Drive & VitaminWater Zero Glow

Marvo 11 Comments

VitaminWater Zero Drive and Glow

Ugh. I don’t know whether my bladder and mind can take drinking anymore VitaminWater flavors.

Because of my excessive VitaminWater consumption, I’ve been having dreams that involve me standing at a public restroom urinal and peeing a rainbow. Standing at the urinal next to me is the Double Rainbow guy, who’s also peeing a rainbow. Because there isn’t a divider between the urinals, we stare at each other’s rainbow and then we look into each other’s eyes and simultaneously say, “Cross the streams.”

I scoot over a little bit at my urinal to make room for him, and without stopping his rainbow, he moves over to my urinal, spraying some of his rainbow onto the floor. When we both end up peeing into the same urinal, we cross our streams and he says the six words that made him famous, “Whoa. Double rainbow all the way.” I jump up and down with glee, causing me to spray some of my rainbow on the floor, wall, and on the Double Rainbow guy, who, after this happens, pulls out his iPhone and enters a new definition for the term “rainbow showers” into Urban Dictionary.

Then Dr. Egon Spengler busts into the restroom and tells us to not cross streams, but we continue to do so, and as a result, we’re all sent to an alternate universe where there’s no color. Then, the Kool-Aid man breaks through a brick wall and yells the two words that made him famous, “Oh yeah!” He’s followed by Bob Ross who also says, “Oh yeah” but more calmly. Then, Bob Ross uses his magical brushes and paint palette to bring color to the alternate universe, saving the day.

Then, I wake up and go take a leak, which is, sadly, just one color.

The rainbow’s colors differ in my dreams, and depend on which VitaminWater flavors I’ve recently guzzled. The rainbow was primarily orange and pink in my latest dream, because of my consumption of the new VitaminWater Zero Drive and VitaminWater Zero Glow.

VitaminWater Zero Drive, which is blood orange and mixed berry flavored, gets its name because it has natural caffeine and yerba mate, which should give drinkers the “drive” to do something ambitious, but will mostly be used to keep people awake at work or school. A bottle contains 75 milligrams of caffeine, which is slightly less than a skinny can of Red Bull, and significantly less than what caffeine junkies would need to prevent withdrawals.

Drive has an aroma that reminds me of an orange popsicle. Its flavor starts off orange and ends with berry. However, I’ve had blood oranges, and I wouldn’t describe the orange flavor Drive has as blood orange. Instead, I’d consider it just plain orange. Overall, I think for a VitaminWater Zero flavor, it’s good and I’d probably buy it again.

As for the strawberry and guanabana flavored VitaminWater Zero Glow, it contains biotin and vitamins A, C, and E, which are supposed to help support and maintain healthy skin, hair, and nails. So just like movies starring Meryl Streep, it sounds as if it’s meant for women. It has a tropical scent, which I thought was kind of strange until I did some research and found out guanabana has a flavor that, according to Wikipedia, “has been described as a combination of strawberry and pineapple with sour citrus flavor notes contrasting with an underlying creamy flavor reminiscent of coconut or banana.”

I could definitely taste the strawberry and a little bit of citrus in this VitaminWater, but overall I think its flavor tastes like what I imagine the color pink would taste like, if one could taste colors or if shredded Hello Kitty sandwiches existed. VitaminWater Zero Glow has an artificial sweetener aftertaste that I’ve had with beverages containing sucralose or aspartame, but it doesn’t contain either of them. Overall, I think it’s a decent VitaminWater flavor, but I’m skeptical the biotin and vitamins it contain will help one’s looks, unless you drink a bottle regularly.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to pee.

(Nutrition Facts – 8 ounces – VitaminWater Zero Drive – 0 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of sodium, 1 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of sugar, 0 grams of protein, 100% vitamin C, 40% vitamin B6, 40% vitamin B5, 40% vitamin B3, and 40% vitamin B12. VitaminWater Zero Glow – 0 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of sodium, 1 gram of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of sugar, 0 grams of protein, 20% vitamin A, 20% vitamin E, 40% vitamin B6, 20% biotin, 40% vitamin C, 40% vitamin B3, 40% vitamin B12, 40% vitamin B5 and 10% zinc.)

Other VitaminWater Zero Drive and Glow reviews:
Foodette Reviews
Drink What

Item: Glacéau VitaminWater Zero Drive & VitaminWater Zero Glow
Price: $1.27
Size: 20 ounces
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Drive)
Rating: 5 out of 10 (Glow)
Pros: Drive is tasty, contains sweet, sweet caffeine, and is an excellent source of vitamin C. Zero calories. Glow has a decent strawberry/citrus flavor. Peeing rainbows. Both are good sources of B vitamins. Bob Ross bringing color to my dream.
Cons: Peeing rainbows. Glow probably isn’t effective if not consumed on a regular basis. Drive’s orange flavor doesn’t taste like blood orange. Glow also has an artificial sweetener aftertaste. Shredded Hello Kitty sandwiches. Having dreams of sharing a urinal with someone else. Crossing the streams. Waiting for Ghostbusters 3.

NEWS: Hardee’s New Turkey Burgers Make It Seem Like Happy Star Had A Lot of Thanksgiving Leftovers

Marvo

I learned two things from my subscription to Men’s Health Magazine, when I read it during the late 1990s:

1. Reading about how to do exercises is significantly less effective than actually doing the exercises.

2. How to be a better lover.

So I hope when Hardee’s teamed up with Men’s Health Magazine to create their new line of turkey burger, they also learned how to be a better lover.

The turkey burgers come in three varieties: Original, BBQ Ranch or Mushroom & Swiss. All three burgers come with a thick, charbroiled turkey patty and a toasted wheat bun. The Original Turkey Burger also contains red onions, tomato, lettuce, ketchup, mustard, mayo, and dill pickles; the BBQ Ranch has Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ Sauce, red onions, tomato, lettuce and buttermilk ranch sauce; and the Mushroom & Swiss also includes sauteed mushrooms and two slices of Swiss cheese.

All Turkey Burger varieties have less than 500 calories, which to some may still sound like a lot, but for Hardee’s that’s impressive since many of their beef burgers exceed 700 calories.

The Original Turkey Burger weighs in at 254 grams and contains 480 calories, 17 grams of fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, 930 milligrams of cholesterol, 47 grams of carbohydrates, 4 grams of fiber, and 31 grams of protein.

The BBQ Ranch weighs 261 grams and has 460 calories, 15 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 950 milligrams of sodium, 52 grams of carbohydrates, 4 grams of fiber, and 31 grams of protein.

The Mushroom & Swiss weighs in at 246 grams and contains 480 calories, 17 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 1380 milligrams of sodium, 44 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, and 37 grams of protein.

Update: Carl’s Jr. will also be adding Turkey Burgers to their menu. Along with the Original Turkey Burger, Carl’s Jr. will have the Guacamole Turkey Burger, which features freshly-prepared guacamole, pepper-Jack cheese, tomato and lettuce, and Teriyaki Turkey Burger that has teriyaki sauce, grilled pineapple, Swiss cheese, red onion, tomato and lettuce.