REVIEW: Green Tea (Matcha) Kit Kat (Japan)

Marvo 20 Comments

Is there anything the Japanese won’t use as a flavor for their Kit Kats? Holy cow! And just to let you know, I didn’t type “holy cow” as an exclamation, I typed that because it is probably the next Japanese Kit Kat flavor. Mmm…Beef Kit Kat. You think I’m kidding? This is the country that sells used schoolgirl panties in VENDING MACHINES! If they’re capable of that, then they’re also capable of making a carcass-flavored Kit Kat that you can break apart and share with your friends so they can gag along with you and hold back your hair if you throw up.

I could list all the Japanese Kit Kat flavors that ever existed, but that would be as exciting as watching C-SPAN tally the congressional votes for an amendment to agree to making an amendment to an amendment, but to give you an idea of how low they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, there’s a soy sauce Kit Kat. Of course, Nestle Japan has also produced normal-sounding flavors, like banana and caramel, but usually it’s quirky shit, like this Green Tea (Matcha) Kit Kat.

The Green Tea Kit Kat comes in a color that looks like it’s been hit with a ton of gamma rays, because it’s Incredible Hulk green. Depending on whether or not you’ve had green tea or green tea flavored products before, the Green Tea Kit Kat can either be 2003-Hulk-movie-mediocre or 2008-The-Incredible-Hulk-movie-good. If you’ve never had green tea, this Kit Kat’s slightly bitter, but mostly sweet taste might be a little off-putting.

It basically consisted of white chocolate with green tea flavoring and it tastes similar to green tea ice cream. What’s on the outside and its flavor may seem unusual to most, but the wafers inside were crispy like any other Kit Kat. I personally really enjoyed the Green Tea Kit Kat and I’m hoping to get my hands on more, so it looks like I’ll be asking for partial payment in Green Tea Kit Kats whenever I offer my body company to lonely, middle-aged female Japanese tourists in Waikiki.

(Editor’s Note: Cybele at the Candy Blog reviewed these a few years ago back when fo’ shizzle was actually hip to say.)

Item: Green Tea (Matcha) Kit Kat
Price: FREE
Purchased at: Someplace in Japan
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Very enjoyable. Green tea flavor reminds me of green tea ice cream. Crispy wafers. Possibly getting paid in Green Tea Kit Kats. 2008 The Incredible Hulk movie.
Cons: If you don’t like green tea, you won’t like these. Slightly bitter taste maybe off-putting. Hard to find, unless you’re in Japan or have a kick ass Japanese market in your town. Watching C-SPAN vote tallies. 2003 Hulk movie.

Organic Batter Blaster

Marvo 30 Comments

Depending on who you talk to, I imagine the Organic Batter Blaster instant pancake batter in a can is either awesome or horrible. Food snobs, or foobies as I like to call them, may think that the Batter Blaster is the beginning of the end of home cooked meals, others might think that it could possibly be the greatest breakfast invention ever, and finally there’s a group of teenagers out there who think it’s “the shizzy” because they believe they can get high by huffing the gas from the Batter Blaster can, which would give them another option beyond canned whipped cream, spray paint, or the sweat stained undershirt of an opium farmer.

My opinion lies somewhere near the belief that is it possibly the greatest breakfast invention ever, because I am one lazy mutha’ucka. Some of you might tell me that making my own pancake mix isn’t time consuming, but it takes me less than 30 seconds to pull the Batter Blaster can out of the refrigerator, shake it well, pop off the cap, and spray it onto a well-heated skillet. Just gathering the ingredients for the pancake mix alone would take more than 30 ticks off the clock.

(Editor’s Note: You can also make waffles with the Batter Blaster, but I do not own a waffle iron, but I do own a hair iron. Please do not ask why.)

The USDA Organic certified Batter Blaster is also a time saver in the clean up department since there’s no need to wash bowls, spoons, measuring cups, and my “Good Looking is Cooking” apron. I don’t have time for mixing and measuring, because I’ve got RSS feeds to read, episodes of MythBusters to watch, and naps to take.

Of course, the convenience of Batter Blaster would be moot if it didn’t make decent pancakes, and fortunately for lazy folks, it does make some surprisingly good flapjacks. Every pancake I made turned out soft, fluffy and tasty. If I took a blind taste test with butter and syrup smothered all over them, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell they came from a can, because butter and syrup have the gift of distraction.

According to the label, each can of Batter Blaster makes approximately 28 pancakes, four inches in diameter. I was able to produce about 24 pancakes with one can, but more importantly I didn’t have to make an entire batch like I would if I made my own pancake mix. With the Batter Blaster, I could make one or two at a time, instead of constructing a tall starchy tower of pancakes that would force me to either eat all of them in one sitting (not recommended) or freeze them (recommended), although turning them into starchy Frisbees would leave me less freezer space for convenient microwaveable frozen foods.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/4 cup – 112 calories, 0.5 grams of fat, 0 grams saturated fat, 0 grams trans fat, 10 milligrams cholesterol, 95 milligrams sodium, 23 grams carbohydrates, 2 grams dietary fiber, 7 grams sugar, 3 grams protein, 0% Vitamin A, 0% Calcium, 0% Vitamin C, 6% Iron, and about 10 Batter Blaster Bikinis)

Item: Batter Blaster
Price: $9.99 (3-pack)
Purchased at: Costco
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Possibly the greatest breakfast invention ever. Surprisingly makes soft, fluffy, and tasty pancakes. Quick and easy to make. USDA Organic. No CFC in the can. No mixing needed. Easy clean up. My “Good Looking is Cooking” apron. Mythbusters. Butter and syrup make everything better.
Cons: Hard to find here on this rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Huffing. Foobies probably think it’s the worst thing in the world.

Taco Bell Melts (Fajita Steak & Jalapeno Chicken)

Marvo 23 Comments

If there’s one thing Taco Bell is exceptional at it’s coming up with unimaginative products that seem like they were created by blindly taking ingredients from their other menu items, flinging it against a wall and whatever sticks is their new product. Other fast food joints would call that a gift, I call that a pain in the ass for the person who has to clean it up. The Jalapeno Chicken Melt and the Fajita Steak Melt are the two newest culinary clusterfucks from Taco Bell.

The Jalapeno Chicken Melt consisted of rice, two types of cheese, tender grilled chicken, pickled jalapenos, and a sauce that was like a spicy barbeque in between a soft flour tortilla. The jalapeno obviously added heat, but just like trying to have a two-way conversation with Tyra Banks, it overwhelmed everything else and was just annoying. In every single bite there was a jalapeno, which is good for those who enjoy heat, which I do, but it really killed the overall flavor. I could only eat two-thirds of it and didn’t feel like devouring the whole thing, but then I looked at the uneaten piece, thought about the skinny, starving models on America’s Next Top Model, then wondered to myself, “I bet their brains are about this small,” and threw the rest away.

Compared with the Jalapeno Chicken Melt, the Fajita Steak Melt was like music from Sugar Ray — pussy mild. It had the typical ingredients found with most fajitas: steak, onions, red & green peppers, and two types of cheese in a soft flour tortilla. I also think there was a sauce because some kind of liquid kept oozing out of it while I tried to eat it. In this “dish,” and I use that term lightly, the steak was tender and the veggies had a slight crunch despite being pretty limp, but the overall flavor of the Fajita Steak Melt can be described in three words: blah, bland, boring.

Perhaps the most disappointing thing about these Taco Bell Melts is that they aren’t as cheesy as their commercials claim, which show cheese being stretched from the melt into the mouths of people who were paid stick it in their mouths, but neither Taco Bell Melt I ate came close to what was in the commercial. Overall, each melt was decently sized and was like a fiesta in my mouth, if that fiesta had no people, an already cracked pinata without any candy on the ground, empty bottles of tequila, and coolers filled with warm Corona Beer without a lime for miles.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 melt – Fajita Steak Melt – 460 calories, 22 grams of fat, 11 grams of saturated fat, 1 grams of trans fat, 60 milligrams of cholesterol, 1310 milligrams of sodium, 40 grams of carbs, 3 grams of dietary fiber, 4 grams of sugar, and 26 grams of protein. Jalapeno Chicken Melt – 520 calories, 22 grams of fat, 11 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 65 milligrams of cholesterol, 1810 milligrams of sodium, 51 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of dietary fiber, 4 grams of sugar, and 29 grams of protein)

Item: Taco Bell Melts (Fajita Steak & Jalapeno Chicken)
Price: $3.29 each
Purchased at: Taco Bell
Rating: 4 out of 10 (Fajita Steak)
Rating: 4 out of 10 (Jalapeno Chicken)
Pros: Decent sized. Chicken and steak were tender. Available for a limited time. The ease of developing future menu items at Taco Bell.
Cons: Not as cheesy as its commercial claims to be. The jalapeno in the Jalapeno Chicken Melt overwhelmed all the other flavors. The Steak Fajita Melt was pretty bland. Trans fat. A fiesta without any people. Trying to have a two-way conversation with Tyra Banks.

La Choy Beef Chow Mein

Ace 27 Comments

I feel like I haven’t been putting my Asian-ness to good use on The Impulsive Buy. Crashing my car last month was proof that I‘m giving credence to my heritage in my day-to-day life, but I wanted to take that Eastern expertise to a food review. Luckily for me, Wal-Mart sells various ethnic cuisines of questionable authenticity and it was easy for me to pick something out that looked intriguing.

Usually, “intriguing” for me means “so ridiculously ludicrous and insulting that I bet no other site has reviewed this.” This time, however, La Choy’s Beef Chow Mein genuinely looked like a tasty meal. As soon as I opened it up, though, I soon realized that things out of cans are rarely gourmet and never fresh. The top can, which contained brown gravy with a few specks of beef, resembled a premium soup that Alpo would make for dogs. The bottom can contained blanched bean sprouts, baby corn, carrots, water chestnuts, celery, and red pepper. Almost all of the mix was soggy bean sprouts.

It suddenly occurred to me that this chow mein had absolutely no chow mein in it. Maybe I‘ve been eating too much bastardized Chinese food, but I had always thought that chow mein was basically noodles with some sort of vegetables mixed in. I went to Wikipedia to restore some semblance of sanity to the situation, but they confirmed my initial suspicions that chow mein was indeed noodles. Which begged the question: What the fuck am I eating?

Whatever it was, it wasn’t anything that I would ever order at Panda Express. After mixing the vegetables with the beef sauce and simmering it for a few minutes, I tried some and savored the taste of limp bean sprouts in a sauce that tasted like something from a can of Chunky Soup. Mmm…mmm! I also loved the fact that the small portion seen on the can has more beef than the entire contents of what they’re really selling. That’s what I like to call value for money!


Even through my disappointed sarcasm, I couldn’t help but feel bad about the purchase. Can tasty Asian food ever come out of a can? Are we doomed to be stuck in the realm of takeout food? I pondered these questions as I put my chopsticks in the sink. Even baby corn’s intrinsic awesomeness couldn’t save the rest of the pan from going into the trash.

(Nutritional Facts – 1 cup – 90 calories, 2 grams of fat, 1 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 15 mg of cholesterol, 880mg sodium, 11 grams of carbs, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 2 grams of sugar, 8 grams of protein, 40% Vitamin A, 25% Vitamin C, 4% Calcium, and 10% Iron)

Item: La Choy Beef Chow Mein
Price: $2.50
Purchased at: Wal-Mart
Rating: 3 out of 10
Pros: Comes in two separate cans so you feel like you’re actually making your own meal. Variety of vegetables theoretically make it interesting. You can add more beef or tofu to it in order to make it edible.
Cons: Vegetables have little to no texture. No chow mein in the chow mein. Can of “beef” is almost all sauce.

Fizzy Lizzy Brings the Izzy

Marvo 13 Comments

The founder of Fizzy Lizzy, whose name is Liz (go figure) sent me an email after reading TIB’s review of the Costa Rican Pineapple Fizzy Lizzy. Of course, a lot of the information I gave about the artwork on the Fizzy Lizzy bottle were uneducated guesses and probably inaccurate, because I am an ignorant moron. Liz got a kick out of the review, but she also wanted me to know the truth about the logo. So I thought I’d share what she told me.

According to Liz, the woman in the logo is supposed to be her, although she admits that her hair is not as well-behaved. She also said that in the logo she’s holding a sprig of leaves behind her back and not farting them, like I originally thought. Liz did say that Fizzy Lizzy doesn’t make someone fart, but does make one burp.

Well, that clears things up for me. Thanks to Liz for taking the time to fill me in on the Fizzy Lizzy logo. I learned something new today and I hope you did too.