QUICK REVIEW: Taco Bell Grilled Stuft Nacho

Taco Bell Grilled Stuft Nacho

Purchased Price: $1.79*
Size: N/A
Purchased at: Taco Bell
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Great value for its size (each side is about seven inches). Super cheesy thanks to TWO nacho sauces (the usual Taco Bell nacho cheese sauce and their new zesty nacho sauce). It smells like the wonderful Crunchwrap. Six grams of fiber.
Cons: There isn’t much flavor beyond the seasoned beef and cheese. Most of the red tortilla strips were soggy. New zesty nacho sauce wasn’t zesty enough for me. Seems like another Taco Bell product except in a different form. Reduced fat sour cream gets lost among the two nacho sauces and is just lubricant that allows the seasoned beef to fall out easier. The word “stuft” still bothers me and my computer’s spellcheck.

*Because I live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, things are a bit pricier here. You’ll pay less than I did.

Taco Bell Grilled Stuft Nacho Innards

Nutrition Facts: 570 calories, 290 calories from fat, 32 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 35 milligrams of cholesterol, 960 milligrams of sodium, 56 grams of carbohydrates, 6 grams of fiber, 5 grams of sugar, and 14 grams of protein.

QUICK REVIEW: Jack in the Box Southern Style Biscuits (Bacon, Egg & Cheese and Sausage, Egg & Cheese)

Jack in the Box Southern Style Biscuits (Bacon, Egg & Cheese and Sausage, Egg & Cheese)

Purchased Price: 2 for $4.00*
Size: N/A
Purchased at: Jack in the Box
Rating: 4 out of 10 (Bacon, Egg & Cheese)
Rating: 5 out of 10 (Sausage, Egg & Cheese)
Pros: Reasonably priced at 2 for $3 (or $4, if you live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean). The biscuits are tasty and have a nice, mild buttermilk flavor. It’s available all day. The Sausage, Egg & Cheese is better than the Bacon, Egg & Cheese because the sausage does a better job of trying to get its flavor past the biscuit. Biscuit doesn’t have a lot of trans fat like a particular fast food chain’s does.
Cons: I understand the biscuit is the highlight, but it shouldn’t overwhelm the other ingredients, especially the sausage and bacon. Jack in the Box bacon is subpar and wasn’t spread evenly on my sandwich. Egg flavor and it’s butteriness isn’t there thanks to the biscuit. Biscuit falls apart a bit too easily.

*Because I live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, things are a bit pricier here. You’ll probably pay less than I did.

Jack in the Box Southern Style Biscuits Sausage, Egg & Cheese

Jack in the Box Southern Style Biscuits Bacon, Egg & Cheese

Nutrition Facts: Bacon, Egg & Cheese – 410 calories, 227 calories from fat, 25 grams of fat, 12 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 242 milligrams of cholesterol, 1176 milligrams of sodium, 188 milligrams of potassium, 26 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 3 grams of sugar, and 16 grams of protein. Sausage, Egg & Cheese – 534 calories, 340 calories from fat, 38 grams of fat, 16 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 264 milligrams of cholesterol, 1240 milligrams of sodium, 228 milligrams of potassium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 3 grams of sugar, 18 grams of protein.)

REVIEW: Domino’s Sandwich Slices (Italian Club and Garden Chicken Club)

Domino's Sandwich Slice Box

When it comes to new fast food items in test markets, I’ve always been a bridesmaid, never the bride. Seeing other people in test markets get to try delicious (or not) new menu items made me unreasonably jealous.

Well now it’s my turn, bitches! Eat it! Oh wait, you can’t yet. But I will. And I’ll leave any further bragging out of the rest of these paragraphs.

When I first got the promotional email from Domino’s advertising their new Sandwich Slices, I was interested; but once I read the bottom of the email, I went from interested to excited: “We don’t mean to brag, but we think our new Sandwich Slice is pretty amazing. And we want you to be one of the first people in Phoenix – actually one of the first people in the world – to try it.”

I felt like a pizza princess! Or, in this case, the Sovereign of Sandwich Slices.

The promo email also called them “The best thing since sliced bread. Literally.” If we’re going to go down the literally meme hole, I’d think maybe Alexander Fleming would object to this statement; although, you could argue that sliced bread played a part in the discovery of penicillin, so…penicillin, sliced bread, Domino’s Sandwich Slices. Sharing the spotlight.

Getting to the Slices themselves – when I saw them, I was immediately reminded of Stouffer’s French Bread Pizzas. The concept is pretty much the same: the foundation seems to be part of Domino’s Oven Baked Sandwiches, which is then topped like a pizza.

Domino’s advertises four different Sandwich Slice varieties: Pepperoni Garlic Bread, Ham & 4 Cheese, Garden Garlic Chicken and Italian Club, but you can create your own with whatever toppings Domino’s has to offer.

I went with the Garden Garlic Chicken and Italian Club, because Domino’s suggested them and that meant I wouldn’t have to make any agonizing topping choices on my own.

While I chose two Slices with different toppings, they shared some fundamental similarities. First of all, the sandwich bread-to-pizza ratio was just right – there wasn’t so much bread that it overwhelmed the toppings, but the bread was able to support the toppings without caving or becoming soggy. That said, it wasn’t at all tough and had that oven-baked quality to it.

Each Sandwich Slice was 7-8” long. The banner outside my local Domino’s declared that they are “great for lunch!”, with which I both agree and disagree. On the one hand, it sucks when you’re at work craving pizza and nobody else wants to get in on that with you, at which point you can either get a sad personal pizza or a regular-sized pizza and look like a giant glutton.

Sandwich Slices seem like a great solution to this problem, except I found that one Slice wasn’t quite filling enough, but two Slices would have given me a case of Work Itis, which is never good.

Perhaps someone with a larger appetite than mine would have found two to be just right, but I think if they’d just extended their slices out to maybe 12 inches, that would have been the perfect lunch portion.

That said, I was pleased that the toppings did a good job of reaching all the edges of the bread. I hate when the first bite of a sandwich is nothing but bread. Well, the cheese at least did a good job.

Here’s the thing: if you’ve ever been in a situation where there are communal pizzas, you’ve probably done the Instant Topping Calculation – that thing where your eyeballs scan the pie, looking for the pieces that were blessed with the most toppings. Don’t act like you haven’t done it.

With the Sandwich Slice, you have to take your chances, much like you would hope that ordering a jalapeño burger from a drive-thru would result in getting more than one pepper slice on it.

Here is where we get to the individual Slices.

Domino's Sandwich Slice Italian Club

Domino’s describes the Italian Club Sandwich Slice as “Salami, ham, bacon and vine-ripened tomatoes over a creamy ranch sauce. Baked with a cheese blend of 100% real mozzarella and provolone on a slice of our signature rustic bread.”

I’m going to quietly ignore the fact that ranch sauce has absolutely no business belonging on something called an Italian Club, but I will say that it did work surprisingly well with the meats, possibly because it was very understated twang. While I enjoyed that, I guess ranch fans might have wanted more.

Domino's Sandwich Slice Italian Club Halves

Speaking of more, what I would have wanted more of was salami and bacon. My Italian Club Sandwich Slice was very ham-heavy; while this made for an enjoyable sandwich vibe, I do find it the most pedestrian of the three meats.

Domino's Sandwich Slice Garden Garlic Chicken

As for the Garden Garlic Chicken, Domino’s calls it “Grilled chicken breast, vine-ripened tomatoes and fresh baby spinach over a garlic parmesan sauce and a cheese blend of 100% real mozzarella and provolone. Baked on a slice of our signature rustic bread.”

I much preferred the Garden Garlic Chicken over the Italian Club. There was a piece of tender chicken in pretty much every bite, complimented nicely by the juicy tomatoes.

Domino's Sandwich Slice Garden Garlic Chicken Halves

The real star here was the garlic parmesan sauce. It went great with the toppings and was so garlicky I’m pretty sure I could have fended off a vampire from a hundred feet away. The spinach seemed to disappear into the background, but the sauce combined with the cheese and the other toppings more than made up for this deficiency.

All in all, I found Domino’s Sandwich Slices to be a success. While there were some faults, like the slightly too-small size of the Slice and the fast food vagaries of the toppings, but each Sandwich Slice was covered well and the bread base held up well in both taste and topping support. Not a bad deal for a $2.99 lunch treat.

(Nutrition Facts – Not available on Domino’s website.)

Item: Domino’s Sandwich Slices (Italian Club and Garden Chicken Club)
Purchased Price: $2.99 each
Size: N/A
Purchased at: Domino’s Pizza
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Italian Club)
Rating: 8 out of 10 (Garden Chicken Club)
Pros: Nice bread-to-toppings ratio. Being in a test market! The garlic and chicken were delicious together. Penicillin. Toppings reached all edges of the sandwich. Instant Topping Calculation.
Cons: Not quite big enough for a satisfying lunch. Getting Work Itis. Not enough salami or bacon on the Italian Club. Bridesmaid dresses. Spinach seemed to disappear on the Garden Chicken Club.

REVIEW: Dunkin’ Donuts Red Velvet Latte

Dunkin' Donuts Red Velvet Latte

I’m a man who likes my coffee black, espresso sans milk and if I need to spike it with anything, bourbon will do over the Irish cream. Putting sugar in my coffee is like stamping the head of a penis on my forehead. I really do not like that.

What I really like…In fact, what I really love is red velvet cake and I’m particular about it. The cream cheese frosting is everything to me. A tad savory and not too sweet is a hard act to juggle (like tastefully mushroom stamping someone on the forehead). It’s a perfect combination of taste and sight as the red cake, contrasted with the ivory frosting, draws most people’s attention.

Red velvet cake is like carrot cake’s more complicated poetry writing sister who wears black horn-rimmed glasses and still listens to Bikini Kill. The ingredients are not as mosaic as carrot cake because it’s simply a chocolate cake with red dye. Yet it is deceptively simple because the flavors evoke an umami-like profile, mostly in thanks to the cream cheese frosting.

But drinking a red velvet cake? The flavored coffee drinks and lattes are blurring the lines since a lot of them taste like variations of milkshake flavors. I don’t know…maybe if you like those so much, you really don’t enjoy coffee.

Ah…Who am I to judge? Yet, I don’t think you do because the coffee/espresso flavors are often buried underneath that heavy syrup. It makes me sad because it’s the same as drowning a ribeye in steak sauce or when the priest guy got buried in The Omen (1976 version, damn it still haunts me).

It’s like when people tell me they love whiskey and then say there’s a great honey or an apple pie variant. Why don’t you just tell me to “do my mom in the garage” instead? With all due respect, it’s gross.

I don’t want my whiskey flavored any more than my coffee and I’m not sure I want to consume a red velvet cake that requires no chewing.

However, not to be outdone by Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts is really trying to make a dent with its own lattes. Some hit, others miss as miserable as Spike Lee’s version of Oldboy. Honestly, have you seen that dreck?

Needless to say, I was a bit more repulsed when I heard Dunkin’ Donuts created a Red Velvet Latte but my senses were dulled by Sharlto Copley’s manic and awful acting, I needed some sort of stimulus so I can feel again. I haven’t seen this over the top acting since Dominic West’s “Jigsaw” in Punisher War Zone (Best line, “I don’t speak vampire” to some Russian thugs).

It also doesn’t help the coffee looked like the remnants of a liver that was soaking in milk to mellow that “nickel” flavor. You ever see that stuff? It looks like eraser remnants mixed with milk.

Despite the pinkish brown color of the coffee, the wafting scent of a deep roasted espresso was enticing. It permeated the air around me and I thought, “This ain’t so bad.” The temperature radiating nicely in my hand was at the Goldilocks zone of just right. Dunkin’ Donuts seems to be pretty consistent on the hot temperatures of their coffees. I have to give them big ups for that.

Upon my first sip, I was surprised at the subtle flavor of the cream cheese frosting. It was shockingly yummy. It was followed by mellow yet rich milk chocolatey tones that washed away the frosting taste.

Although pleasant, I enjoyed that the cream cheese frosting flavor does not linger. However, what does hang around like a clingy in-law is the overwhelming sweetness of the coffee. Most drinks such as these, whether it’s from Starbucks or your local coffee house, falls victim to the gummy sugary dreck that chokes the coffee with no remorse.

The latte was akin to an over the top CGI action film where “bullet time” is used so much, it bores or annoys you to death (i.e. The God-awful Underworld series). With each subsequent sip, the sweetness was magnified to the point I got those awful “tingles” in my cheeks. It’s too bad because I was hoping to like this drink.

I would definitely recommend trying it since you have to experience “sipping” on cream cheese frosting, but the novelty wears off immediately due to the heavy handed sweetness that encompasses the entire latte. If Dunkin’ Donuts would dial the sweetness back, I would order this again. Besides, there are other coffee drinks I would rather inflict on myself before this one.

(Nutrition Facts – small with skim milk – 180 calories, 5 calories from fat, 0 grams of fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 120 milligrams of sodium, 36 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 35 grams of sugars, and 8 grams of protein)

Item: Dunkin’ Donuts Red Velvet Latte
Purchased Price: $2.29
Size: Small (10 oz.)
Purchased at: Dunkin’ Donuts
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Cream cheese flavors are subtle and nice. The roasted espresso smell is there. Original movies are mostly better. Milk-chocolate taste is rich yet mellow. Sharlto Copley in The A-Team.
Cons: Too damned sweet. The pinkish brown color is disgusting. Remakes of foreign films mostly suck. You’ll get a better experience eating a red velvet cake and downing it with coffee. Sharlto Copley in Oldboy.

QUICK REVIEW: McDonald’s McCafe White Chocolate Mocha

McDonald's White Chocolate Mocha

Purchased Price: $3.60
Size: Large
Purchased at: McDonald’s
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Chocolatey, milky, and coffee flavor equally balanced. Available with nonfat milk, which will make the nutritional numbers below less eye-popping. Comes topped with whipped cream. Gave me a nice caffeine jolt, but that could’ve been due to the fact that I drank a large one. Made using espresso from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms.
Cons: Couldn’t taste white chocolate; it’s tastes more like a regular mocha. Might not have enough coffee flavor for some. Whipped cream melts quickly when lid is placed on top. Holy crap! I drank a large one! I drank 9 grams of saturated fat!

McDonald's White Chocolate Mocha Closeup

Nutrition Facts: Large (w/whole milk) – 480 calories, 140 calories from fat, 16 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 50 milligrams of cholesterol, 250 milligrams of sodium, 70 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber 65 grams of sugar, and 17 grams of protein.