It’s been a REALLY busy week for me, so I apologize for not having any reviews this week. No, I don’t have a whole bunch of Match.com dates lined up this week. No, I’m not in jail for soliciting a transvestite hooker. No, I’m not a witness in the Britney Spears child custody case.
TIB will return next week with reviews, including my Match.com review and I’ll FINALLY announce the winners of TIB’s third anniversary prize drawing.
See you next week!
If a complete dinner in less than two minutes doesn’t appeal to you, then you’re either lying to me or to yourself. People barely have time to put on their pants before they get out of the house, a problem that has cost me several hundred dollars and a few restraining orders.
Hormel understands and they have introduced a line of Compleat meals that come out hot and ready in 90 seconds. That’s how long it used to take me to spike my ridiculously bad Asian hair in junior high (Note to self: travel back in time and slap self). By any standard of convenience, taking a box out of the cupboard and microwaving it the length of a couple commercials is pretty damn easy. But as exciting as it may seem, not all things turn out the way you want them to.
Shocking, I know.
You mean a 90 second meal doesn’t set the culinary world on fire? Well, no, unless that fire is started by me after I take my molotov cocktails over to the Hormel factory. Everything about this meal is offensively horrible in the worst way imaginable. Even worse, the cooking directions are all off. I can deal with crappy food, but when the crappy food comes out so cold that I keep having to taste it to see when it’s ready, I just begin an all out vendetta with the thing.
All in all, it probably took five solid minutes to heat the thing through. By that point, the edges of the mashed potatoes were crisp and the center was unpleasantly tepid. I understand that contrasts in texture makes food interesting, but the principle doesn’t exactly apply here.
So now that I figured out that it really takes the same amount of time to cook as a regular frozen dinner, it had to be really damn good to not make me chuck it at the neighbor’s annoying dogs. I’m sad to say that it disappointed me deeply.
The meat was dry, almost like beef jerky, and came apart in flakes. Yes, flakes. You know, like how really well cooked fish does, but only completely awful and from a cow. Not only is that disgusting, it is confusing to the taste buds.
The gravy wasn’t any better. In fact, it was completely tasteless and worthless. The mysterious sauce was watery and contained only hints of beefy goodness. It’s hard to describe…the best way I can describe it is that it tasted like “brown” with perhaps some celery thrown in. It covered the beef and a sizable bed of mashed potatoes.
I was actually pleasantly surprised with the potatoes at first because they were lumpy like homemade mashed potatoes. This was before I realized that it was just undercooked potato flakes that were just dense and mealy. My disgust at this revelation was the breaking point. In my growing hysteria, I threw the bowl against the wall and watched it slowly drip down towards oblivion. You’ll have to take my word for it, but it was very dramatic.
All in all, my hopes were crushed and it will be a long time before I can truly dream again. It was a lesson learned the hard way: gourmet meals aren’t cooked in 90 seconds. Especially ones that appear to be designed for bomb shelters and emergency kits.
Item: Hormel Compleats Roast Beef and Gravy
Price: $2.04
Purchased at: Wal-Mart
Rating: 2 out of 10
Pros: You can use the plastic bowl as a 7 layer dip container after you’re done.
Cons: Cold and flavorless food. Spiky hair. Ridiculous promises regarding cooking length. Public indecency.
Update: We also tried it in 2022! Click here to read our updated review.
Whoever was the marketing guru responsible for naming the Oreo Cakesters must’ve been inspired by their hours spent watching professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, who went by the self-given nickname, “The Hulkster.”
I don’t know if they realized it, but it’s an appropriate name, since the Oreo Cakesters look like they’re regular Oreos on steroids, much like “The Hulkster” was in the 1980s.
I’m surprised the swollen-looking Oreo Cakesters didn’t have an enlarged forehead, shrunken testicles, ‘roid rage, or hit 74 home runs in a season.
Oreos are one of my weaknesses, just like female asian classical instrument musicians, especially those who like to put a cello in between their legs. I don’t know what it is about those black and white discs of sugary comfort that warms my heart and spikes my sugar levels, but whenever they’re around I’ll eat one or two or however many I can stuff in my mouth during an episode of The Daily Show.
The Oreo Cakesters are significantly different than their older, harder brethren. First off, they’re soft, like cake or anything by Metallica after 1990. This means you can’t crush these to make an awesome Oreo cookie crust for a pie, an ice cream topping, or something snortable through a rolled up hundred dollar bill.
Instead of coming packaged on a tray with three rows of ebony and ivory goodness, Cakesters come in a box with six twin-wrapped packs. These packs make it easier to take some on the go, but make it hard when you want to pelt someone with Oreos. The amount of time spent opening each pack means more time for your target to run away, unless your target is Britney Spears, because she does everything lethargically now, like putting on clothes, parenting, and MTV VMA performances.
The biggest difference between these new fattening Oreo Cakesters and regular fattening Oreos is that they don’t taste like Oreos. If you enjoy ho hos and ding dongs from hostess bars, I suggest you get checked for sexually transmitted diseases regularly, but if you like Ho Hos and Ding Dongs from Hostess, you will probably like the Oreo Cakesters because they taste like those wonderful chocolate cake products.
Not having the Oreo flavor is disappointing, but I do think they taste delicious and if I wanted to look like Rosie O’Donnell for Halloween, I might just use the Oreo Cakesters to help build body mass. Sure, steroids would probably give me faster results, but I want tastier results without the ‘roid rage, and I think the Oreo Cakesters would be able to provide that.
Besides, I already have a enlarged forehead from my huge brain filled with worthless information and Metallica song lyrics.
(Nutritional Facts – 2 cakes – 12 grams of fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 2.5 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 6 grams of monounsaturated fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 260 milligrams of sodium, 125 milligrams of potassium, 36 grams of carbs, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 23 grams of sugars, 2 grams of protein, a measly 2% RDA of calcium, and 8% RDA of iron)
Item: Oreo Cakesters
Price: $3.50
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Tastes like Hostess Ho-Hos and Ding Dongs. Soft and cakey. Tastes good. Zero trans fat. The Hulkster.
Cons: They look like Oreos on steroids. Don’t taste like Oreos. Unhealthier than regular Oreos. Shrunken testicles. Can’t make Oreo cookie crust with them. Twin-wrapped packs makes it hard to pelt people with Oreos. Britney Spears’ VMA performance.
I don’t know a lot about the South, but if the Food Network has taught me anything it’s that the food is good because it has a lot of soul in it. Sort of like Shang Tsung from Mortal Kombat, I guess. Other than that, my knowledge of the region is limited to popular culture. It would be far too irresponsible to fill this review with southern stereotypes. I could talk about how Michael Vick and Miss South Carolina have set any progress back about 150 years, but all of that would be too easy, ignorant, and fun.
It’s a lot better to focus on the positive, like this tasty meal from our friends from Banquet, which I have a sordid and confusing past with. It’s filled with twists and turns and maybe even a few liaisons with other brands. Banquet started selling their fried chicken meals with one big thigh instead of a drumstick and a wing. That crushed my saturated fat and cholesterol-filled soul. For the past several years, I have felt betrayed. Even though I received fewer grease burns from eagerly picking up chicken pieces, eating was never quite as fun or interesting.
However, Banquet has now unveiled two new chicken meals that have found a way into my heart. They have this southern fried chicken meal, which is something I’ve been waiting for my whole life, and one featuring two drumsticks. I can only imagine that they’ve been keeping all of the spare drumsticks in some warehouse for the past 5 years. Since I didn’t feel like eating chicken that has been around since I was in high school, I opted for the southern variety.
If you’ve ever looked at a supermarket ad, you will notice that Banquet is perpetually on sale at 10 for $10. While this is awesome for the person on a budget, it also causes a great deal of shame at the checkout line when your cart is a sea of red boxes and everyone else has real groceries. I usually throw in a bell pepper so I don’t feel as bad, but the cashier sees right through me.
I will never understand why the company calls itself Banquet. Obviously, you’re not meant to serve it at an actual banquet. Are you supposed to sit on your beanbag chair and pretend to be at a fancy affair as you shovel corn into your mouth? I have come to the conclusion that Banquet exists to humiliate me.
After a few hours of stewing and self-loathing, I get over my paranoia and start to enjoy the meal. The chicken actually tastes pretty good out of the microwave. Obviously, it isn’t crispy, but it’s also nice and peppery. This is a welcome change of pace from the ultra-salty fried chicken in the regular meals. Instead of corn, you get a decent amount of green beans. I’m not sure if green beans are more southern than corn, but at least it’s edible, which is far more than I can say about the corn in these meals. A cup of fake mashed potatoes rounds out the meal quite nicely.
If there’s anything bad I can say about the meal, it’s that it costs 25 cents more than a regular Banquet meal. However, not even my cheap ass can reasonably complain about the price hike. In fact, even the biggest college lowlife can afford the extra quarter for a frozen dinner.
Unless you’re from the South.
Just kidding.
Item: Banquet Southern Fried Fried Chicken Classics
Price: $1.25
Purchased at: Stater Bros.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Tasty, flavorful chicken that will actually remind you of good fried chicken. Side dishes that are actually edible. Great value for the price.
Cons: Not even close to banquet-quality food. Southern stereotypes. The humiliation of a diet consisting of 95% frozen dinners. An extra 25 cents per meal.
Chocolate recently has become something like a sexually transmitted disease in the cereal world. Just like one out of four will receive an STD by the age of 25, it seems like chocolate has been infecting one in four cereals.
Take a trip down the cereal aisle and you’ll see them: Special K Chocolatey Delight, Cocoa Puffs, Life Chocolate Oat Crunch, Cocoa Pebbles, Bran Flakes Chocolate, Cocoa Krispies, and many more. Another that has been recently infected with chocolate is good ol’ Chex cereal.
To be honest, I’ve never eaten Chex cereal any other way besides Chex Mix, just like I’ve never eaten regular Rice Krispies in any way other than Rice Krispies Treats. Chex Cereal comes in a variety of flavors, but I never had the desire to consume the checkboard cereal with milk until now with the new Chocolate Chex. I guess I believe chocolate makes everything better. That is why I will eat some chocolate when I’m a father and am forced to watch Disney’s High School Musical 8…for the tenth time.
According to the box, Chocolate Chex has a touch of cocoa, which was basically cocoa powder toasted into it, but I really wished instead of a touch it had a welcomed fondling or groping of cocoa. Not all the pieces were chocolatey. It seemed like there was an equal amount of chocolate and plain Chex cereal in the box. The chocolate cereal pieces were obviously chocolatey, but the non-chocolate pieces were unexciting.
If the cereal was chocolatey throughout, it probably would’ve been a better cereal. Instead it was decent cereal that seemed to lose some of its chocolatey flavor when eaten with milk. The chocolate did make the milk chocolatey-looking, but not very chocolatey-tasting.
Actually, eating Chocolate Chex dry was much better than eating it wet. This makes me believe that it would make an awesome Chocolate Chex Mix with chocolate-covered pretzels and chocolate-covered peanuts.
With chocolate finding its way into more cereals, I wonder how long it will take for Chocolate Raisin Bran, Chocolate Grape Nuts, or Kashi Chocolate Good Friends Cereal to become a reality. If chocolate helps those cereals become better, we may see a chocolate epidemic spread throughout other products.
(Nutrition Facts – 3/4 cup serving size – 2.5 grams of fat, 0.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 230 milligrams of sodium, 60 milligrams of potassium, 26 grams of carbs, less than 1 grams of fiber, 8 grams of sugar, 17 grams of other carbs, 2 grams of protein, and a shitload of vitamins and minerals.)
Item: Chocolate Chex
Price: FREE (14.25 ounces)
Purchased at: Received from some nice PR people
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Tastes better without the milk. Would make a mean Chex Mix. Kosher and Pareve (for my Jewish friends). Full of vitamins and minerals. Part of a complete breakfast or part of a lazy bachelor’s dinner. Chocolate makes everything better. Bras.
Cons: Not all of the cereal is chocolate covered. Loses some of its chocolatey flavor when eaten with milk. No chocolate milk. High School Musical 8.