Fast Food – Page 225 – The Impulsive Buy

REVIEW: Dunkin’ Donuts Oreo Vanilla Bean Coolatta

Drew / August 1, 2012 / Reviews / 6 Comments

So I’ve had cookies on my mind lately.

It started when I volunteered to review Dunkin’ Donuts’ latest summer creation, the Oreo Vanilla Bean Coolatta, which I’ve had at least four of in recent weeks. Then we brought Chips Ahoy! to my family reunion, always a massive affair thanks to my great-grandparents being really great at procreating. Finally, my wife had me watch Cookie Monster’s cover of “Call Me Maybe” because one of her old sorority sisters is a background dancer in it. Now every day I find myself humming, “Hey, me just met you, and this is crazy / But you got cookie, so share it maybe?” (On the plus side, he harmonizes better than Carly Rae Jepsen.)

As you might surmise from my multiple trips to the well, there are a lot of good things to say about the Oreo Coolatta. It’s always nice when I’m able to review something I was planning to try anyway, and this for sure qualifies. Non-coffee drinkers sometimes struggle to find something at DD to wash down a nice chocolate glazed, and the vanilla bean Coolatta was the answer to my prayers, so long as I don’t mind having the shakes for the rest of the day. Which I don’t. Still, I’ve always believed variety is the spice of life, as long as it’s an incredibly minor modification of something you already know you like. And I was pretty sure this would essentially be just a Vanilla Bean Coolatta with Oreo pieces mixed into it.

Which, as it turns out, is pretty much what it is. There are two new Coolatta varieties, Oreo Coffee Coolatta and Oreo Vanilla Bean Coolatta. I didn’t try the coffee variety, though one might infer that it would taste a bit like a mochaccino with a different, grittier kind of chocolate. But if you’ve ever had a standard Vanilla Bean Coolatta before, you have a pretty good idea what to expect, which is to say: pure awesomeness. They have (at least at the beginning) a great consistency, not too thick to slurp through the straw, but not so liquid-y that it’s like drinking a soda. Except in terms of sweetness, because damn. I know I joked about it earlier, but seriously, you need a hearty sweet tooth to enjoy this beverage. People content with an apple as their main sweet for the day need not apply.

So with the excellent Vanilla Bean Coolatta as its base, it was just a matter of making sure the addition of Oreo didn’t throw things out of whack, right? Potential problems might’ve included the Oreo pieces being too large to comfortably fit through the straw, leading to blockages or making the overall consistency too thick. But that wasn’t an issue — the Oreo bits, while easily visible, are small enough that the overall consistency remains the same.

The texture, however, is a bit grittier, as you’d expect. And the taste is understandably similar, though not identical. Still extremely sweet, but with that highly distinctive chocolate flavor that I’m struggling to describe other than “tastes like an Oreo.” It’s not quite as rich as an actual Oreo cookie, but it still makes the Coolatta a bit more nuanced than the regular Vanilla Bean variety. It also creates a distinct aftertaste, leaving you tasting the chocolate well after the vanilla bean has faded from your tongue.

I should clarify that I can’t say for a fact that this is just the standard Vanilla Bean Coolatta with Oreo bits in it. Oreos obviously have a creme filling too, and it’s possible DD has added a little of that creme to the vanilla base. I honestly can’t swear to it one way or the other, but if they have, it’s fairly subtle. Which should not in any way dissuade you from trying what has turned out to be one of this summer’s best treats. The price is a bit steep and it goes without saying you’re not allowed to drink one without an insulin IV, but you can’t quibble with the taste. Om nom nom!

(Nutrition Facts — 1 small Coolatta — 420 calories, 80 calories from fat, 9 grams of fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 20 milligrams of cholesterol, 230 milligrams of sodium, 88 grams of carbohydrates, 75 grams of sugar, 1 gram of fiber, and 3 grams of protein.)

Item: Dunkin’ Donuts Oreo Vanilla Bean Coolatta
Purchased Price: $2.99
Size: 16 fl. oz.
Purchased at: Dunkin’ Donuts
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Doesn’t taste like coffee. Oreo bits are just the right size. Chocolate is a nice addition but doesn’t overwhelm the beverage. Very minor variety. Let’s get skim milk flowing, we’ll start this snack going, baby.
Cons: A little pricey. Really, really, just crazy really sweet. Not nearly as enjoyable when it starts melting. Family reunions where they order about 8 mushroom pizzas and only one plain, like, WTFingF?

REVIEW: KFC Original Recipe Bites

Adam / July 25, 2012 / Reviews / 8 Comments

As a quirky 20-something looking to recapture my childhood in the nutritionally devoid menace of fast food, you might say I live with unrealistic expectations of fried chicken products which harken back to my childhood. And, as a 20-something reluctant to embrace the finality of entering the “real world,” you might say I have unrealistic expectations of my parents to put up with my avoidance of grown up stuff.

Thankfully, KFC has offered me the chance to proliferate both of these unrealistic expectations with their new Original Recipe Bites. Marketed for “a distinctly grown up taste,” they feature the Colonel’s secret recipe of herb and spices applied to “100 percent white meat.” They also, apparently, will allow millions of Xbox playing bums living in their parents’ basements to prolong their bygone dreams of winning the Heisman trophy in the alternate world of NCAA 13. And while I hardly live in my parents’ basement (Please, I’m above that. No, literally. We all live on the same floor), I am well versed in putting off actual adult things in favor of rushing for 700 yards a game in a video game.

In the world of fast food chicken, the “bite” is a relatively recent if not overplayed phenomenon. Not quite a nugget, not exactly popcorn, and clearly not a finger or a tender, the best comparison for what KFC’s Bites actually are would be Chick-fil-A’s nuggets. Like Chick-fil-A’s moist, juicy, succulent, and nutty-sweet nuggets, KFC’s Bites have a breading that’s lighter than popcorn chicken, but still crunchy in spots. The flavor is classic KFC, which is to say a little pepper here, and little garlic here, and, obviously, a lot of salt all around. Not prone to the same burning or dried out effect that has plagued some versions of McDonald’s “McBites,” they come in an order of either six or ten with your choice of dipping sauce.

For the most part, the bite sized pieces aren’t bad, albeit a little small. My order – which is supposed to be 100 grams – clocked in at a pedestrian 78 grams, although the meat to breading ratio was much more respectable than McDonald’s aforementioned Spicy McBites. That being said, you can clearly see some crunchy ends jutting out of the main “bite.” Crunchy but hardly meaty, they tend to be saturated in oil. Speaking of oil, as someone who has long given into the seductive peanut oil infused taste and melt-in-your-mouth texture of Chick-fil-A’s nuggets, I can’t help but measure KFC’s Bites against them. And when it comes to matching Chick-fil-A’s nuggets, KFC just can’t do it. There’s no sweet aftertaste imparted from the oil, and the white meat itself, while not dry, is plain in flavor and nothing to write home about. All things considered, it’s about as “grown up” as Tommy Pickles in the Rugrats cartoon offshoot.

I probably wouldn’t order KFC’s Original Recipe Bites all by themselves, but the six-piece $3.99 combo deal provides me with enough of an excuse to indulge in one of fast food’s most guiltiest pleasure: KFC’s potato wedges. Potato-ey, greasy, and probably filled with enough chemicals to keep a high school science class happy; they’re not much to behold, but damn are they good.

All things considered, KFC’s Original Recipe Bites probably won’t stave off getting “the talk” about actual life responsibility from your parents, and probably aren’t good enough to convince those parents to invest one more year in exorbitant electric bills earned through Xbox Live play in their basement. Nevertheless, if you’re looking for something with a little more meat than a McDonald’s McBite, or you just want an excuse to eat KFC potato wedges, you could do a lot worse. Like, you know, grade school shake-and-bake nugget worse. Thankfully, I’m too grown up for grade school chicken nuggets.

(Nutrition Facts – 6 bites – 200 calories, 80 calories from fat, 9 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 gram of trans fat, 60 milligrams of cholesterol, 660 milligrams of sodium, 7 grams of carbohydrates, 27 grams of sugar, 1 gram of fiber, 0 grams sugar, and 22 grams of protein.)

Other KFC Original Recipe Bites reviews:
An Immovable Feast
Brand Eating

Item: KFC Original Recipe Bites
Purchased Price: $3.99 combo with 1 side and a drink
Size: 6 pieces
Purchased at: Kentucky Fried Chicken
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: 100% breast meat. Better than shake-and-bake nuggets. Decent meat to breading ratio. Crunchy end pieces. 11 herbs and spices. Excuse to eat KFC potato wedges. Never having to grow up.
Cons: Not as hefty as advertised. No where near Chick-fil-A nuggets in terms of interior moisture or flavor. Kind of bland. Oily. Celebrating a fast food product that celebrates, essentially, bumdom.

Fast Food KFC

REVIEW: Jack in the Box Mini Corn Dogs

Marvo / July 24, 2012 / Reviews / 4 Comments

Thanks to Jack in the Box’s new Mini Corn Dogs, I can now enjoy county fair food without having to deal with county fair crowds, county fair parking, county fair wait lines, and county fair vomit from county fair visitors riding county fair rides after eating county fair grub.

Of course, Jack in the Box picked one of the least exciting deep fried foods county fairs have to offer. A sausage dipped in cornmeal batter and then deep fried may have been a crazy idea in the 1950s, but, today, it’s overshadowed by dozens of foods you can’t believe have been dunked in hot oil, all of which Jack in the Box should’ve introduced instead. And here are 50 of them in no particular order:

Deep-Fried Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich
Deep-Fried Pineapple Rings
Deep-Fried Oreos
Deep-Fried Cereal Bars
Deep-Fried Spam
Deep-Fried Trix Cereal
Deep-Fried Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal
Deep-Fried Brownies
Deep-Fried Fruity Pebbles
Deep-Fried Bubble Gum
Deep-Fried Salsa
Deep-Fried Avocado
Deep-Fried Twinkies
Deep-Fried Coke
Deep-Fried Cheese Curds
Deep-Fried Dill Pickles
Deep-Fried Ice Cream
Deep-Fried Snickers
Deep-Fried Mac & Cheese
Deep-Fried Latte
Deep-Fried Cookie Dough
Deep-Fried Guacamole
Deep-Fried Beer

…

Oh, I’m sorry. I just threw up in my mouth a little. Back to the list.

Deep-Fried Cheeseburger
Deep-Fried Cinnamon Rolls
Deep-Fried Red Velvet Cake
Deep-Fried Skittles
Deep-Fried Jolly Ranchers
Deep-Fried Gravy
Deep-Fried Watermelon
Deep-Fried Cap’n Crunch
Deep-Fried Pudding
Deep-Fried Caramel Apples
Deep-Fried Energy Drink
Deep-Fried Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
Deep-Fried Girl Scout Thin Mints
Deep-Fried Girl Scout Samoas
Deep-Fried Butter
Deep-Fried Kool-Aid Balls
Deep-Fried Klondike Bar
Deep-Fried S’mores
Deep-Fried Corn on the Cob
Deep-Fried Cheesecake
Deep-Fried Bacon
Deep-Fried Lasagna
Deep-Fried PB&J & Banana Sandwich
Deep-Fried Milky Way
Deep-Fried Hostess Ho Ho
Deep-Fried Hostess Cupcake
Deep-Fried Pop-Tarts

An order of Jack’s Mini Corn Dogs came with five pieces that weren’t on sticks like county fair corn dogs. Each bite-sized corn dog was about two inches long and an inch wide. All looked like they were lovingly dipped in scalding oil, which created a crispy, golden brown crust.

The sausage inside wasn’t good enough to make me yell out the easily misinterpreted words, “I WANT MORE SAUSAGE IN MY MOUTH!” However, its savoriness went well with the sweetness of the Mini Corn Dogs’ crispy exterior. The snack comes with either ketchup or mustard. I prefer mine with mustard, but they were good with ketchup.

Jack in the Box’s Mini Corn Dogs are a nice addition to Jack’s snack lineup, which also includes stuffed jalapeños, egg rolls, and mozzarella cheese sticks. Unfortunately, they’ll also be an unpleasant deletion from Jack’s snack lineup since they’re available for a limited time.

I hope these Mini Corn Dogs sell well enough that Jack in the Box decides to bring them back again or makes them a permanent menu item. Or I hope they sell enough of them that Jack decides to give their other products the county fair food treatment and perhaps make a deep-fried Sourdough Jack.

(Nutrition Facts – Not on website yet.)

Item: Jack in the Box Mini Corn Dogs
Purchased Price: $1.99
Size: 5 pieces
Purchased at: Jack in the Box
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Wonderful combination of sweet and savory. Inexpensive. Great with mustard; good with ketchup. Crispy exterior. No sticks. Deep-fried Sourdough Jack.
Cons: Available for a limited time. One of the most boring county fair foods. Sausage isn’t memorable. County fair vomit. Creating a bucket list that includes the list of deep-fried foods in this review.

Fast Food Jack in the Box

REVIEW: Jack in the Box Waffle Breakfast Sandwich

Marvo / July 18, 2012 / Reviews / 4 Comments

Haffles.

I think that’s what I’m going to call the waffles Jack in the Box uses as buns for their new Waffle Breakfast Sandwich.

Or, maybe, waffakeles. Okay, maybe not.

Why haffles? Well, it’s as if Jack’s waffle iron doesn’t have a top or a Dr. Moreau-type successfully combined a waffle with a pancake, because one side looks like an Eggo, but if you flip it over, it’s as flat as a table.

So if you happen to be in the extremely rare situation where you don’t have a coin to flip and need to determine who bats and who bowls in a game of cricket, but have a Jack in the Box Waffle Breakfast Sandwich, you can flip the bun. Actually, since cart-wheeling stump, corridor of uncertainty, cow corner, dibble doubly, flat-track bully, luncheon, mullygrubber, pie chucker, platinum duck, rib tickler, and silly nanny are all cricket terms, “flip the bun” might already be one.

Jack in the Box’s Waffle Breakfast Sandwich features a fried egg, American cheese, and Jack’s new country-grilled sausage in between two lightly sweetened maple haffles. Jack in the Box isn’t the first fast food chain to use starchy breakfast food as buns for a breakfast sandwich. Dunkin’ Donuts offered a waffle sandwich and one that used French toast. Also, McDonald’s has their McGriddles, which use pancakes. Personally, I’m waiting for someone to come out with a breakfast sandwich that uses hash browns as buns.

Although the nutrition facts for Jack’s Waffle Breakfast Sandwich look like it’s for a hefty burger, the sandwich is a bit small. So if you believe breakfast is the most important meal of the day, I’d suggest you order the combo with hash brown sticks and a drink since the sandwich by itself isn’t a filling meal.

The haffles and country-grilled sausage create a wonderful balance of sweet and savory. I don’t remember what Jack’s old breakfast sausage tasted like (or whether it was grilled in the city), so I don’t know if the new stuff is an improvement, but I did enjoy its flavor and texture. The haffles didn’t have a crispy exterior like most waffles, instead it was as limp as a handshake between Indian and Pakistani cricket players. As for their flavor, I don’t know if I would consider them to be maple-y. However, I do think they were perfectly sweetened to complement the sausage.

The American cheese was like Major Toht’s face in Raiders of the Lost Ark — melted beyond recognition. It also didn’t have much flavor. As for the fried egg, its flavor was noticeable, but my tastebuds mostly ignored it and focused on the sweet haffles and savory sausage.

I can’t say I’ve enjoyed Jack in the Box’s other breakfast sandwiches, so I ordered the Breakfast Waffle Sandwich with low expectations. But, it was, surprisingly, very good. Or as they say in cricket, it was a Michelle.

(Nutrition Facts – 479 calories, 306 calories from fat, 33 grams of fat, 11 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 271 milligrams of cholesterol, 983 milligrams of sodium, 230 milligrams of potassium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 6 grams of sugar, and 19 grams of protein.)

Other Jack in the Box Waffle Breakfast Sandwich reviews:
So Good Blog
Brand Eating

Item: Jack in the Box Waffle Breakfast Sandwich
Purchased Price: $5.69 (small combo)
Size: N/A
Purchased at: Jack in the Box
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Very good. Great balance of sweet and savory. Available all day. Finally, a fast food sandwich with completely melted cheese. Cricket references. A Michelle.
Cons: Available for a limited time. Smallish. Indo-Pakistani relations. Awesome source of sodium. Awesome source of trans fat. Waffles were haffles.

Fast Food Jack in the Box

REVIEW: McDonald’s Dipped Cone

Adam / July 5, 2012 / Reviews / 19 Comments

Having survived the Great Mid-Atlantic Derecho of 2012 and discovered my stash of home bound ice cream to have turned into soup once the power came back on, you might say I’ve been in a cautious mood when buying ice cream over the last week.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have a great appreciation for the richest and most indulgent dairy I can get to blow my savings on, but seeing mold in the viscous brown goo that used to be your Belgian Milk Chocolate Gelato will make you think twice before spending the big bucks again. Thankfully, that’s why places like McDonald’s exist.

McDonald’s has been selling soft serve since pretty much forever (heck even Wikipedia didn’t have a start date) but so far as I can tell, they’ve only recently launched the Chocolate-y Dipped Cones to the nationwide audience. Nope, that’s not a typo. It’s “Chocolate-y” as in does not contain actual chocolate (read: cocoa butter not included) but instead is made from a mixture of sugar, coconut oil, hydrogenated coconut oil, and cocoa.

Man, talk about a step down.

Still, with temperatures approaching a billion degrees in the Mid-Atlantic, I felt inclined to try it out. Also, I figured McDonald’s had invented some proprietary magic shell chocolate dispenser to coat the “reduced fat soft serve” in, but watching the girl behind the counter dunk the cone into a bucket of liquidity chocolate goo pretty much debunked that theory. Nevertheless, the coating clung to the soft serve tighter than a lid on a pickle jar, creating a hard reflexive sheen that could probably fry an ant if angled correctly toward the summer sun.

It was into that sun which I cautiously stepped, hoping my cone would last for a few worthwhile licks before the heat and humidity extracted its revenge on my summer bliss.

One, of course, faces an eating dilemma with soft ice cream encapsulated in hard ice cream form, but I found it worthwhile to approach the chocolate shell as if I was trying to get to the center of a tootsie pop. The chocolate flavor is sweet, a tad cool, and surprisingly smooth for being so artificial, reminding me of a chocolate ice cream bar with an especially thick chocolate shell. Not as pronounced and richly indulgent as a Magnum Bar, mind you, but this is McDonald’s and it’s 1,000 degrees out, so I’m willing to overlook that.

In any case I eventually ventured to splinter the shell and take a whack at the soft serve. Like Han Solo released from carbonite, the vanilla soft serve is not completely melted, and still retains its sweet and cool shape. Neither bursting with vanilla bean flavor nor having the lickable richness and smooth mouthfeel of egg based soft custard, it’s serviceable on its own, but delicious when combined with the shell.

It’s a treat worth savoring for a good five minutes, and the only real downside of the whole experiences come once the integrity of the binding site between the shell and cone is broken. At this stage you might as well stuff the rest of the cone into your face as quickly as possible, or else you risk an afternoon of sticky fingers, much like I did.

McDonald’s Dipped Cone is a surprising find in a fast food dessert market saturated with oversized milkshakes and coffee drinks disguised as milkshakes. It’s also an affordable option should you be looking to cool down without having your cool down treat immediately melt all over you.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 cone – 270 calories, 110 calories from fat, 12 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 0 gram of trans fat*, 15 milligrams of cholesterol, 80 milligrams of sodium, 35 grams of carbohydrates, 27 grams of sugar, 1 gram of fiber, 5 grams of protein, 15% calcium.)

*Contains Hydrogenated Oils

Item: McDonald’s Dipped Cone
Purchased Price: $1.49
Size: 4.5 ounces
Purchased at: McDonald’s
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Chocolate-y shell has smooth sheen and lickable, bittersweet cocoa flavor. Tastes like a really thick chocolate bar. Soft serve ice plays well with with hard coating. Doesn’t melt even under intense heat. Affordable dessert that won’t break the calorie bank.
Cons: Soft serve is run-of-the-mill. No actual chocolate involved. Contains hydrogenated oil. “Volcano effect” of melting ice cream once shell is compromised.

Fast Food McDonald's