Rick's Food Critique

A cool reception for Dunkin' Donuts Frozen Hot Chocolate

2011-07-24T10:59:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I struggled to prepare notes and sort my ideas for a review of two varieties of flavored Cheerios. Techniques that have served me since grade school failed to put my thoughts in order. Outlines, idea webs and note cards all failed me.

Suddenly insight burst forth into my head like a cold water balloon: We're in the middle of a massive heat wave sending the mercury arching into triple-digit territory. No one wants to eat breakfast or even talk about it. Foodies just want something cold to take on the sizzling temperatures outside.

I'm no different from any other foodie, so a quick change of gears saw me at Dunkin' Donuts ordering a Frozen Hot Chocolate. A few sips and I needed no idea web to tell me I had one incongruous beverage in my hands.

You could fry an egg on top of a car Saturday, but the Frozen Hot Chocolate kept things from boiling over.

The Frozen Hot Chocolate is little more than an icy example of contradictions. The one in the name is nothing more than a gimmick -- there's obviously nothing hot about this drink, and it would be better named a slushy, or, in Dunkin' Donuts speak, a Chocolate Coolatta.

Moving beyond the label, the flavor unleashes its own set of discrepancies. At first sip, the Frozen Hot Chocolate comes off as intensely sweet and packed with chocolate. It's impossible to keep from immediately sucking up every liquid drop within reach of the straw. Once all the fluid has found its way into your mouth, however, you're left with half a cup of bland ice.

Give it time, and that ice melts into a tepid brown fluid with just a hint of cocoa. The resulting beverage contains just enough vapid flavor to leave you longing for a shot of Hershey's syrup.

At a fundamental level this isn't a problem unique to the Frozen Hot Chocolate. The end of slushies are classically painful experiences, unless you happen to love pastel chunks of ice drained of all their initial syrupy flavor. I harbor absolutely no love for that ice, and I actually find the Frozen Hot Chocolate to be a step below its fruit-slushy brethren at this stage of the sipping game.

While the end of fruit slushies leaves me longing for the strong sugar of a fresh slushy, the end of the Frozen Hot Chocolate had me wishing I'd ordered a milk shake instead. The recently melted chocolate-milk doppelganger in the bottom of my cup left my palate crying out for richness, a richness I quickly realized never actually existed in the Frozen Hot Chocolate. Sure, it was sweet. Yet all that sugar only covered up a lack of depth.

We have an outline for trouble any time the end of a drink makes you wish you'd ordered something else. Things start out all right before dissolving into a lackluster effort worthy of just two sporks out of five.

If you want to order and actually enjoy the Frozen Hot Chocolate, I'd recommend drinking half of it and chucking the rest. The first part of the drink is a completely different story from the second, and maybe you can keep your tongue from ever realizing the depth of flavor it's missing -- you're better off without that flash of insight.

Biting into Subway's latest $5 Footlongs

2011-07-09T11:13:00.000-04:00

July certainly rolled around quickly this year. It seems like just yesterday Easter Candy graced the store shelves, and already we find ourselves smack-dab in the middle of the steamiest of summer months: July, when heat and humidity meet to form sweat rings that last a lifetime.

Don't listen to those fools who say it's time for barbecues and pool parties. It's far too hot for that. No, this is the perfect month to pick up some cheap eats and soak in a restaurant's complimentary air conditioning. Avoiding hot weather is one of the few ways fast food can be beneficial to your health, after all.

Today I'm here to speak of the fast food that loves to brand itself as healthy: Subway. A batch of one-month $5 Footlongs has come and gone without any review on this blog, which is simply unacceptable. Fear not, loyal readers! I've been dutifully sampling these subs as they achieve their temporary discount status, and I'm about to give you a summary of each one. Just beware that you'll likely have to pay more than $5 for a Footlong if you chance to find a previous month's sub still lurking on the menu.

May: Orchard Chicken Salad

I'm not the biggest fan of fruit in my chicken salad, but this mixture of chicken, apples, cranberries, raisins, celery and mayo turned out to be a pleasant surprise. The apples and cranberries were the true stars here, imparting a sweet, juicy tone that managed to avoid completely burying the savory flavors of the chicken and mayo.

My biggest complaint with the salad still stems from all the fruit, though. I didn't feel like I'd eaten a sandwich after finishing my meal. It was too light and fresh for a sub measuring 12 inches. A few more chunks of chicken would have gone a long way toward providing the sustenance my stomach craved.

June: Chipotle Chicken and Cheese

The Chipotle Chicken and Cheese turned out to be a little more up my alley. For those of you who couldn't guess, this sub consisted of chicken, cheese and Subway's Chipotle Southwest Sauce and is toasted. I'd recommend ordering it on flatbread, which is what I did.

I'd also recommend adding extra Chipotle Southwest Sauce and jalapeno peppers. The standard dose of sauce isn't enough to live up to the sub's name, and even extra sauce doesn't quite pack the wallop it should. The peppers will rectify that situation, however, and you'll have a creamy, spicy, cheesy mess that's ideal when paired with a thick ream of napkins.

July: Italian BMT

You'll recognize the Italian BMT from the non $5 Footlong menu. It's basically a premium Spicy Italian -- in addition to the Spicy Italian's Salami and Pepperoni, this month's featured sub contains ham. In other words, in the month of July you can add ham to a Spicy Italian for no extra charge.

You might as well do so, although I find that the ham covers up my favorite pepperoni flavor a bit. That's really the only nit worth picking, and it's more a matter of personal preference than a fatal flaw. Just keep in mind that this sub contains a ton of processed meat. You may need to go into detox for a few days after eating it.

Chocolate-Dipped Peeps

2011-04-23T14:13:00.000-04:00

As I write this, the Easter Bunny is in his Bahamas candy shop putting the finishing touches on Easter baskets for all the good little girls and boys in the world. His work will bring delight tomorrow morning when chocolate rabbits, cream-filled eggs and jellybeans galore grace living rooms throughout the world.

But what about you, the adults? The ones whose lives aren't touched by the hopping joy brought by this hopping holiday hare? You've seen most of the stalwart Easter candy before, and chances are it's starting to look a little dull.

I'm pleased to report that a few new candies have bounded their way onto shelves for this year's Easter season. Today I'll focus on Peeps, those hunks of marshmallow goodness that turned your childhood into a sticky-fingered mess. Recently I noticed a couple of new-age Peeps at the grocery store: Peeps Chocolate-Dipped Marshmallow Chicks and Peeps Sugar-Free Marshmallow Chicks.

We'll be forgoing an in-depth look at sugar-free Peeps -- making Peeps without sugar is like making liquid without water. It's technically possible, but I doubt you'd want to ingest it. Instead, today's critique will be an examination of the chocolate-dipped Peeps.

The idea's a no-brainer once you hear about it. The execution, however, is a little more nuanced than you might expect. You see, chocolate-dipping Peeps doesn't involve simply dousing them in chocolate. Peeps Chocolate-Covered Marshmallow Chicks already have that ground covered. Chocolate-dipped Peeps are only covered in chocolate at the base. The Peep head and body escapes the cocoa vat unaltered.

As a result, the delicious traditional Peep sugar coating is present in abundance, providing plenty of that texture and flavor you remember from your childhood. It's enriched by the chocolate base coating, which adds a Hershey-esque complexity to the taste.

Chocolate dipping the Peeps also blunts the insane sweetness found in the traditional chicks. There's still plenty of confectionery pop in every bite, it's just not as grating. In addition, the chocolate chips in a bit of substance, offering some weight in every nibble. You feel like you actually have something to chew, rather than a phantom mouthful that dissolves after a few seconds.

The downside to the chocolate Peeps is that they come in pared-down packs. Standard Peeps are sold bunched together in packs of five, while Chocolate-Dipped Peeps sit on shelves in packs of three. What's more, they're surrounded by cushioning plastic casing. Apparently the Peep factory doesn't want its fancy-schmancy chocolate damaged.

Half-sized packaging might be a hidden bonus in this case, however. Normally I'm against contracting the size of a product, as it essentially gives the you less for your dollar. In the case of Peeps, though, fewer chicks will probably prevent stomachaches. You don't really need to eat more than three Peeps in a sitting, but it's nearly impossible to keep yourself from eating an entire pack once it's open. This is a case where we need protection from ourselves.

I have to hand it to the chocolate-dipped Peeps, they hit the perfect balance of nostalgic flavor and sugary innovation. I'm naming them this year's must-try Easter candy and handing out a five spork rating out of a possible five. Even if you're not a fan of Peeps, you're bound to find these interesting.

Double Bacon, Egg & Cheese at Subway

2011-04-18T21:52:00.001-04:00

Hard at work on a sprightly Easter review, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. While counting my jellybeans and cracking into my Cadbury Eggs, an idea kept sprouting in the back of my mind.

I was a little early. There was something I needed to do before preparing an Easter candy extravaganza.

Then it dawned on me. I'd promised you, my loyal readers, a review of Subway's $5 Footlong of the month, the Double Bacon, Egg & Cheese. You may get to try breakfast for lunch all month, but I get to tell you if it's any good.

Omlette you in on the recipe: two fluffy egg patties, four strips of bacon and cheese sit on your choice of bread. While all of Subway's breads are available, there's really only one correct choice, and it's the flatbread. Anything else would swallow up the flavor and texture of the eggs, which would just be silly

This was my first time sampling Subway's flatbread, and it wasn't quite what I expected. It's much more pliant, with a spongy, almost playful texture. I highly recommend it, even if you forgo this particular sub. It's a nice change-up to Subway's usual bread.

The egg patties are enormous in diameter. Seriously, I've seen smaller Frisbees. They're also slightly better than your typical fast-food egg patties: fluffy in their own right and flavorful. They are, however, a bit watery. Still, it's not unpleasant. Don't confuse "watery" with "runny."

My bacon could have used a little more crunch. It was limp rather than crisp. Toasting the sub picked things up a bit, fortunately.

If ever a peppers and onions made a sandwich, this was the one. I topped mine with my personal favorite cocktail of jalapenos, banana peppers and red onions, which added a delicious crispness and captivating level of heat. The vegetables contribute just enough texture to every mouthful, taking what could be a bland bit of biting and turning it into something very satisfying.

It's pretty obvious what Subway's trying to do with the $5 Double Bacon, Egg & Cheese: promote its fledgling breakfast menu. And I recommend taking them up on the offer. At very least it's a good excuse to try the flatbread. At most it will have you leaving the restaurant with your sunny side up. Four sporks out of five.

Moe's Spicy Trio Burrito

2011-04-13T21:17:00.001-04:00

Bear with me, foodies, as I share a lengthy story about burritos. Trust me when I say it will be worthwhile in the end.

Two weeks ago I visited my local Moe's franchise in hopes of sampling a burrito off of the new Spicy Trio Menu, which is anchored by special jalapeno sour cream and spicy queso. As you may guess, the Spicy Trio is made up of three selections: burrito, quesadilla and rice bowl. The burrito -- what anyone in their right mind would try first -- is stuffed with chicken, rice, black beans and pico de gallo, plus the aforementioned spicy queso and jalapeno sour cream.

Alas, when I walked through the door of Moe's I knew all was not right. The workers behind the counter, who typically greet patrons with a semi-enthusiastic "Welcome to Moe's," were silent, their voices lost in feverish concentration as they busily prepared food. I'm willing to forgive this slight oversight of Moe's etiquette -- they were working hard, after all -- but this slip was definitely foreshadowing things to come.

I reached the counter and placed my order, only to be met with devastating news: there was no more spicy sour cream. The worker behind the counter offered to build my burrito with spicy queso, standard sour cream, jalapenos and cilantro instead. Brokenhearted, I accepted.

Fast forward nine days and I stood back at the same Moe's placing the same order after the workers again failed to greet me -- not that I'm complaining. The restaurant was extremely busy.

But being a food critic is tough work. My return to Moe's in the face of no greetings stands as a shining example of the fact that I'm willing to doggedly pursue the subjects of my reviews for the sake of you, my loyal readers. I'm proud to report the dedication paid off. The restaurant had both jalapeno sour cream and spicy queso for my burrito the second time around.

All this back story basically means I'm able to evaluate the individual impacts of the spicy queso and jalapeno sour cream -- a position I wouldn't be in if I hadn't tasted the burrito with and without said sour cream. Burritos are great at mashing up ingredients and confusing flavors, after all.

For starters, I can tell you that the jalapeno sour cream is good but not earth-shattering. Being both a sour cream and jalapeno enthusiast, I was ready for the worker building my meal to spoon on gobs of the sour cream to smother my burrito in a creamy-yet-hot symphony. Instead she picked up a bottle -- the kind they keep ketchup in -- and squirted some sour cream on my burrito. That spread out the cream and left me wanting more densely packed areas.

The spicy queso, on the other hand, is positively glorious. It's cheesy, hot and gooey, leaving every bite slathered in fantastic flavor. I could rave about it for paragraph upon paragraph, but I'll spare you from any long-winded odes. Just go out and try some for yourself.

In the end, I suppose it shouldn't come as a surprise that the spicy queso is stronger than jalapeno sour cream. After all, queso and heat go together like peas and carrots. And you can't run away from a match made in heaven.

Four sporks out of five for the Spicy Burrito. If I'd been able to get both jalapeno sour cream and spicy queso on my first visit, this could easily have been a five-spork item.

To be honest a little welcome as I walked in the door wouldn't have hurt matters, either.

Subway Meatball Pepperoni

2011-03-30T20:41:00.000-04:00

With April just around the corner, Subway is getting ready to introduce a new Featured $5 Footlong -- bumping a new sub into temporary placement on the $5 Footlong menu. Next month's sub du jour will be the Double Bacon, Egg and Cheese, which looks to be worth scrambling to your nearest sub shop to try.

Naturally, that means I'm ready to review the Meatball Pepperoni -- March's $5 Footlong.

Don't look at it as tardiness on my part. Look at it as my sparing you from another litany of egg jokes after beating you up with too much ovular humor in last week's Snicker's Egg post. Look at it as having a full day left to try the Meatball Pepperoni, if what I'm about to describe catches your fancy.

Should it catch your fancy? That depends on how much you like the standard Subway Meatball Marinara. Because to be honest with you, the pepperoni layered on the bottom of the sub is like the acting in a Nicholas Cage movie: It contributes so little that it might as well not be there.

Before you drive away angrily, let me tell you the sub's undoubtedly good. Subway's venerable meatballs and stalwart marinara sauce form the rock of the components, delivering a very satisfying spaghetti-outlet flavor. Get it toasted, like I did, and your provolone cheese will melt and infuse goodness throughout the sauce.

What won't be infused is pepperoni taste. The treated meat makes a few cameo appearances when you find a bite that's short on sauce, but it largely loses its face off with the bigger flavors on the bun and plays apprentice to the sorcery of the meatballs. At times I almost forgot I was eating March's Featured Footlong and thought I had accidentally ordered off of the standard $5 menu.

Perhaps the only major difference the pepperoni delivers is negative. It makes the sub harder to bite -- the lunch meat straddles the space between meatballs and is difficult to gnaw in half, resulting in some situations where you have to yank the pepperoni out from under a meatball in order to take your bite. As you can imagine, this is a treacherous situation similar to jerking the tablecloth out from under a full set of china -- only instead of breaking the china, a misstep will soil your shirt.

Flipping the sub and eating it upside down doesn't rectify the problem, either. The pepperoni still maintains traction on the meatballs, inching them toward your spotless clothing with each nibble and threatening that the cleanliness of your shirt will be gone in 60 seconds. If nothing else, it makes lunch exciting.

Knowing all that, I can assert that the Meatball Pepperoni isn't bad, per say. It's just a virtual flavor clone of the Meatball Marinara. Something with pepperoni needs to be more to be more than that. Three sporks out of five.

Bring the lunch meat into the spotlight by slathering on more pepperoni or fix the eating issues gnawing at the sub, and we'd have a footlong that might be worth labeling a national treasure.

Snickers Egg

2011-03-24T22:53:00.000-04:00

With us hopping down the trail toward Easter and seasonal candy packing the store shelves, it's time we take a peep at some holiday candy.

But what to review? Jellybeans are passe. I've covered the Cadbury Creme Egg in words and Marshmallow Peeps in photos. It's too early to break down a full-sized chocolate bunny.

What we need, foodies, is to lay into a different kind of Easter candy -- something familiar enough to keep us perched in comfort, but different enough to crack a few boring habits. For some reason I'm inclined to stay within the comfortable shell of candy eggs, so I've hatched a quick review of the Snickers Egg. It should go over easy, right?

Those of you unfamiliar with the Snickers Egg should be able to picture one without much trouble. Take a Snickers Bar and shrink it a little. Mold it into a decorative egg shape. Send it to roost in stores in the spring. Voila.

Although the flavors of a standard Snickers are all present, you'd be a yolkel to think eating the egg is just like eating a Snickers bar. For starters, the egg is lighter on peanuts than its fraternal brethren. Caramel is also less prevalent.

As a result, each bite of the Snickers egg is filled with plenty of nougat. When you think about a regular Snickers, you might not find yourself wanting for more nougat. You will after eating the egg which impresses with a chocolaty yet creamy flavor. The eating experience is aided by the peanuts which assume a supporting role instead of taking center stage. They're very comfortable in that spot, almost as if they were born -- nay, hatched -- for it.

Far from large, the egg will still leave you satisfied. Ambitious eaters will be able to finish it in three or four bites, which is just about right for a novelty candy like this. You don't want your Easter egg scrambling your stomach on Sunday morning.

The egg's exterior is a nice blend of Easterly lines and dots that puts other springtime candy like the Reese's Egg and Cadbury Egg to shame. The wrapper, however, doesn't keep up with some of its nest mates on the candy shelf. It makes an attempt at bright vernal imagery but seems middling and messy at best.

The Snickers Egg is a hard-boiled competitor in the world of Easter candy. It's not the most imaginative remix of Snickers and Easter you could come up with, but it's a nice omelet of chocolate, peanuts, caramel and nougat. A very fluffy three sporks out of five.

Good luck holding on to your Shamrock Shake

2011-03-10T23:01:00.000-05:00

With St. Patrick's Day right around the corner, I was eager to down a bright green Shamrock Shake from McDonald's. Nothing says March 17 in America like the amalgamation of milkshake, mint, emerald food dye, shameless capitalism and fast food, after all.

Imagine my shock when my shake arrived not nestled in the comfort of its familiar paper cup of yesteryear, but held rigidly in a clear plastic McCafe container. Apparently you can now order this St. Patty's Day classic topped with whipped cream and a cherry -- a puzzling option available across the Mickey D's shake lineup.

My distrust for the McCafe series is well-documented on this blog. The idea just doesn't seem to fit the M.O. of the house that Ronald built: Classing up McDonald's with fancy-looking cups and special cafe areas seems as off-balance as the hot chocolate they hawk. I go to McDonald's for my $1 burgers, not for my taste of West-coast coffee shop.

If juxtaposing a cafe into McDonald's introduces discord into the restaurant world, McCafe milkshakes are downright oxymoronic. These shakes aren't made with coffee and they have as much in common with a cafe as your local Baskin Robbins. McIceCreamShoppe would have been better branding.

All that notwithstanding, the new cup has some serious functional drawbacks, namely its plastic construction. When the old paper cups got cold, they maintained a homey comfort. They were an organic product, and the gentle bend of their soggy paper felt good in your hand. These new plastic mugs, by contrast, become clammy and slippery after a few minutes of holding the shake. Grasping them isn't easy, and it certainly isn't comfortable. They're synthetic -- manufactured -- like the whole McCafe experience.

Fortunately the good stuff inside the cup is unchanged. Provided, that is, you use proper judgment and forgo the whipped topping and cherry. I, for one, kept the jade purity of my shake intact by refusing the crimson imperialism of the fruit.

My advice is to ignore the newfangled packaging around your Shamrock Shake this St. Patrick's Day and enjoy the minty goodness inside. The packaging change nets a mortifying zero sporks out of five. And if the Irish have any luck, this plastic cup won't be coming back next year.

vitaminwater stur-D

2011-03-08T22:06:00.000-05:00

I was planning on writing about the act of freezing yogurt to create a sweet treat for tonight's food review, but it didn't seem fair here on the eve of Lent. Those of you who will be fasting tomorrow or using Ash Wednesday to start a new pie-in-the-sky diet -- does anyone actually manage to give up sweets for the full 40 days? -- would hardly appreciate that, however.

Ever mindful of my loyal foodie followers, I've switched gears with a review of one of the latest vitaminwater flavors: stur-D. I hope you all appreciate that this is a bit of a pre-Lenten sacrifice for me. Glaceau, maker of vitaminwater, sees fit to run roughshod over standard rules of capitalization when naming products, making reviews of vitaminwater a painful experience for those of us who like pressing the shift key.

Drinking stur-D is somewhat less of a painful experience, fortunately. The beverage combines blue agave, passion fruit and citrus flavors in a bright blue liquid that's stranger to look at than it is to drink. If you can get past the fact that it looks like you're about to guzzle a liquefied Smurf, stur-D makes a tasty beverage.

Let me get the prerequisite disclaimer out of the way: vitaminwater is not packed with flavor. Do not confuse it with soda, fruit juice or flavored Seltzer Water and do not expect it to have the same strong taste as these aforementioned liquids. Evaluate it for what it is -- a washed-out tasting drink -- and you can enjoy it.

Having said that, I can tell you stur-D is one of the more flavorful iterations of vitaminwater. It's about as close to full-fledged fruit-juice flavor as the brand gets, and it fills that role without any major flavor imbalances. I find it to start a little on the sweet side, but some subtle citrus notes flare up at the end of each swallow to mute the sugary tones and leave a somewhat-crisp finish. It's a much more successful use of citrus than vitaminwater energy, which amps up the sour to near-grapefruit levels.

So how does this hypnotically colored drink fare in the realm of sporks? Pretty well, it turns out. Four sporks out of five. Dial down the sweetness, bump up the citrus a tad and ratchet back the color tone so that it doesn't remind me of "Breakfast at Tiffany's," and we could have a perfect beverage on our hands.

Taco Bell Beefy Crunch Burrito

2011-03-01T21:08:00.000-05:00

Taco Bell may have created the eighth wonder of the processed food world when it placed the Beefy Crunch Burrito on its menu. A tortilla joins ground beef, rice, nacho cheese, sour cream and Flamin' Hot Fritos to create one of the biggest "Are you serious?" food's I've seen behind the fast-food counter.

That's right, foodies. Taco Bell's ground beef, the composition of which has been questioned recently by a lawsuit -- the suit says the meat is composed of only 35% beef, while The Bell's CEO claims that number is 88% -- wasn't enough processed fodder for this bad-boy burrito. Fritos corn chips, which have a label reading like the glossary of a collegiate chemistry textbook, had to be thrown on top.

To be fair, Fritos do contain corn, according to the label. But anyone who's tasted them knows they aren't exactly fresh off the cob. This combination sounds like it could be something straight out of a science fiction novel: more plastic than organic. So how did this conglomeration of prepackaged, processed gobbledygook taste to the mouth?

Pretty darn good, actually. While I can't vouch for whether it pickled my intestines, it tickled my taste buds in pleasing ways.

The rice, sour cream, beef and cheese all mesh in a tried-and-true combination of salty flavor that runs through much of Taco Bell's food. And the Fritos add just about the perfect amount of texture.

Don't get me wrong -- they aren't crunchy. All that gooey cheese and soft sour cream quickly saturates the Fritos, neutralizing their natural (?) crunch. Even so, they retain a hint of crispness that's satisfying enough to bite into but not hard enough to pierce your gums. That's a major plus. There's nothing worse than a stray shard of tortilla or taco shell digging itself haphazardly between your teeth as you chomp on your Taco Bell.

The Fritos come up a little shorter in the spicy department. Flamin' Hot may be their prefix, but fiery spice ain't the name of their game. I've tasted hotter oyster crackers. Even so, they added a hint of flavor to the meal.

Once all the pros and cons are processed, the Taco Bell Beefy Crunch Burrito wraps up a very solid three-and-a-half sporks out of five. I could have used a little more spice to live up to the name, and this concoction is screaming for a stray chunk of lettuce or two to add an organic touch. In the end, though, who cares if it's grown in the ground or molded in a factory? Does it matter whether the beef is actually made of cows? This tastes like a winner.

Frosted Mini Wheats Touch of Fruit in the Middle

2011-02-15T21:44:00.000-05:00

I have a personal adage that eating Frosted Mini Wheats directly from the box will leave you high and dry. The cereal is absolutely delicious, but it sucks up moisture to the point that you can't eat more than a few cubes unless you reconstitute them in a bowl of milk.

That's a big downfall, as many of the best cereals are at least as good when dry than when drenched in dairy. Reese's Puffs, Lucky Charms, Frosted Flakes -- I'd just as soon eat all of them straight from the box as in a bowl.

This shortcoming always left Mini Wheats playing from behind in competitions for best cereal. Today that's changed, though. Frosted Mini Wheats Touch of Fruit in the Middle, a new variation on the tried-and-true shredded wheat, make for great snacking from the hand.

Aside from the ungainly name, Frosted Mini Wheats Fruit in the Middle are an attractive package. Take your standard rectangular prism of shredded wheat, top it with the familiar snowy-roof header of frosting, then stuff it with purple berry flavoring.

The result is a little less berry than I'd like -- it's more grape jelly than the blackberry patch -- but is still very appealing. Each bite-sized Mini Wheat imparts plenty of sweetness and a nice touch of fruit. Even better, the normal dryness of shredded wheat is staved off by the new filling.

Drowning the Mini Wheats in milk doesn't ruin the flavor, either. Where before the frosting and sweetness washed off Mini Wheats when they swam in the drink too long, now the sugar in the center sticks around. It also refrains from turning the milk purple, an added bonus for those of us who like our milk as pristine as possible.

For all their strengths, Frosted Mini Wheats Fruit in the Middle are unlikely to sway the anti-shredded-wheat caucus. Despite all the dressings, they're still shredded wheat, which can be too dry for some. The fruit filling has its own weakness as well, in that it comes up a little lame on the berry flavoring scale. I've been enjoying several other cereals packed with dried fruit lately, such as Kashi's Go Lean Crisp! Toasted Berry Crumble, and these Mini Wheats shrivel like a raisin in the sun in comparison to those fruit flavors.

Those criticisms amount to nothing more than pits in cherries, though -- you just have to eat around them. All nits aside, these Mini Wheats score an impressive four sporks out of five. And for the first time a Mini Wheat in the hand is worth two in some milk.

Stuffing in the flavor with the BK Steakhouse

2011-02-07T21:40:00.000-05:00

Still stuffed from the Super Bowl? Or is food starting to sound appetizing again after your big-game binge of chips, dip, brats, chili, wings, pizza and everything else you found at the gridiron gorging party?

I'm betting on hunger starting to take the place of NFL-led indigestion in your belly. But last night's heavy food probably left you feeling sloth-like, so you'll probably want to head out for some fast food. Lucky you. Burger King is pushing a mouth-catching burger.

I speak of the Jalapeno and Cheddar Stuffed Steakhouse Burger, a meal with a name that needs little explanation. You could argue that the burger isn't stuffed insomuch as it is mixed -- little bits of pepper and cheese are sprinkled throughout a ground-beef patty rather than inhabiting a pocket at the center -- but we won't go large with this complaint.

Lettuce and tomato top the burger, as does something Burger King calls "spicy poblano sauce." Poblanos are typically a fairly mild pepper, so the adjective was necessary to tip us off to the fact that the sauce has a little bit of heat.

The whole burger is best described as having a little bit of heat, actually. The spice of the jalapenos is largely swallowed up by the mishmash of cooling cheddar and greasy red meat, leaving the poblano sauce to deliver most of the zing. The sauce does admirably, imparting a taste that is both zesty and smooth. So smooth, in fact, that it's almost cheesy.

Don't make the mistake of thinking the jalapenos are worthless, however. They add a nice texture to the burger. I'd be lying if I said they were crunchy -- and you wouldn't believe me -- but they definitely add some interest to the normally mundane world of overly processed fast-food burgerdom.

Those stuffed chunks of cheese pop up from time to time as well, although I found them less satisfying than the pepper pieces. You can go several bites without getting a lump of cheddar big enough to add any flavor, then you're overwhelmed when you bite into a behemoth. I'd prefer to see a slice of cheddar laid over the burger for better balance.

This burger isn't about balance, for better or worse. It's bold, beefy, and stuffed with entertaining flavors. While those flavors don't always work in perfect harmony, the eating experience is interesting enough to net four sporks out of five.

I would, however, recommend a roll of Tums. While the Steakhouse isn't spicy enough to merit heartburn, you can never coddle your tummy too much in the days after the Super Bowl.

Snickers Peanut Butter Squared

2011-01-12T22:03:00.001-05:00

When is a square not a square? Why, when it's a Snickers, of course.

I speak of Snickers Peanut Butter Squared, one of the most aggravating candies I've ever torn into. It packs some decent packaging -- the wrapper helpfully suggests twisting it closed to preserve half of the candy, and said wrapper actually stays shut after twistage. But this innocuous-looking Snickers also reflects a dangerous move in the world of candy.

Snickers Peanut Butter Squared takes a nefarious trend in sweets and wraps it in a cute name. Several candy bars rolled out recently have not come packaged as traditional single bars, but as two small bars in one wrapper. It sounds useful enough -- the two bars give you the option of saving one for later.

Sadly, the only people going to re-wrap a bar for later are those who've recently had bariatric surgery or who are misguidedly trying to tackle a New Year's resolution to lose weight ... but still eating Snickers. Look at it from the candy company's perspective, and you'll see that Snickers saves a great deal of candy with the two-bar format. Each Snickers Squared weighs 1.78 oz. Each standard Snickers bar weighs 2.07 oz.

That's a difference of 0.29 oz. per bar, which sounds minimal until you consider the thousands upon thousands of Snickers sold each year. It adds up to the eater being gypped out of a considerable amount of chocolate while the candy company pockets a pretty penny. Snickers Squared isn't the only example of this dastardly plan, as 3 Musketeers Mint bars have been doing it for quite some time. Snickers is, however, the latest attempt wrapped in a cute name.

Speaking of the name, it's another black mark on the bar. The marketers at Snickers apparently failed geometry, because Snickers Squared bars aren't squares. Squares are flat, while Snickers Squared bars are three-dimensional cubes. Come on Snickers! At least educate eaters while you withhold candy from them!

You won't learn much about the taste of peanut butter with these bars, either. The title ingredient is buried in there somewhere, but it's largely overshadowed by the real peanuts and caramel. These things should be slathered in peanut butter rather than running from the taste like Captain Hook fleeing the ticking crocodile.

It's too bad, because once you get past the blemishes, the bars aren't an unpleasant eating experience. The flavors are fairly well balanced, and I'd probably rate this as a good snack -- three sporks out of five -- if not for the fact that it comes in the Scrooge-like double bar format and fails in every way at living up to the "Peanut Butter Squared" emblazoned on the wrapper.

I'm most interested in penalizing that miserable double-bar design, and Snickers Peanut Butter Squared pays the price with a shameful one spork out of five rating. I will continue to heavily penalize candy bars utilizing the weight-saving two-bar format. It isn't thinking outside the box. It's looking eaters square in the eye and insulting us.

Third Annual Golden Spork Awards: The best foods of 2010

2010-12-31T12:39:00.001-05:00

Button up your tux or zip up the back of your fanciest gown! It's time to hand out some of the most highly sought-after awards in affordable food: the 2010 Golden Spork Awards.

All you historians out there have no doubt noticed that this year's ceremonies have been moved back to their original date of New Year's Eve after 2009's festivities were experimentally held in early March 2010 to piggyback off the popularity of the Oscars. That scheduling, really just a shameless attempt to gain some cheap traction on search engines, never really panned out. Apparently readers searching the web for movie awards don't eat.

The jostling schedule for the Golden Sporks leaves list fans in luck. You get two food critique awards in the same calendar year! Mazel tov!

In a desperate attempt to keep some continuity, the awards handed out this year will feature the same categories as in 2009. To be eligible, a food had to be reviewed during the 2010 calendar year. Anyone who wishes to look through the candidates can do so by following this link. Those of you looking for previous Golden Spork Awards can find them here.

A quick rundown of the awards: We start with the worst of 2010, the "Put a Spork in Them" list, before moving on to the Best Free Food, Best Sub-$1 Food and Best Seasonal Food. Things start to heat up with the prestigious Best Snack/Candy award and Best Supporting Beverage honors, then turn into an all-out food fight as contenders duke it out for Best Dessert in a Leading Role. Finally, we wrap it up with the honor of all honors, the top food of 2010, the Best Picnic trophy. To contend for Best Picnic, a food had to have received five sporks out of five in its initial review.

In an effort to cover as much ground as possible, foods aren't eligible for more than one award. So if a 99-cent burrito wins Best Picnic, it cannot win Best Sub-$1 food.

2010 was a year dominated by high-profile food news: The KFC Double Down grabbed headlines while Mountain Dew and Vitamin Water waged crowd-sourced competitions for new flavors. But the low profile flavors were just as noteworthy, as Chocolate Pop Rocks and new Taco Bell sauces, Verde and Fire Roasted Border Salsa, deserve their fare share of attention.

Which foods take the cake as the best of 2010? Without further ado, let's find out!

Put a Spork in Them: 2010's foods to forget

Cinnabon Cereal More sugar than a grocery store's baking aisle and a flavor that could have been taken straight from Post Waffle Crisp made this cereal a blemish on breakfast. Parents, don't let your children try this Molotov cocktail in a breakfast bowl, lest they become sugar junkies like the title character in Calvin and Hobbes.

Vitamin Water Connect Facebook may have inspired a successful movie this year with "The Social Network," but the site's Vitamin Water stepchild fell far short of expectations. Touted as a combination of black cherry and lime, this drink was the pits with an overpowering citrus flavor. If ever there was a reason to call for a "Dislike" button, this is it.

Golden Spork Awards: The top foods reviewed in 2009

Free Food: Burger King Seattle's Best Coffee The King rolled out a partnership with Seattle's Best Coffee this year and celebrated by handing out free coffee every Friday in November. While Seattle's best isn't the most bewitching brew, no other handout came close to matching four straight weeks of something-for-nothing bliss.

Short Payment (Best Sub-$1 Food): Taco Bell's $5 Box Sure to be a controversial pick, the $5 Box managed to win a category for which it didn't even appear to be eligible. Worse, it received a paltry two spork rating on initial review! That low rating stemmed largely from the fact that the $5 Box was handed to me in a bag, but it didn't reflect the value of the meal, which packed a Cheesy Gordita Crunch (to munch), a Burrito Supreme, a Crunchy Taco, Cinnamon Twists and a drink. That's a ton of food for $5, and it was enough to propel the $5 Box to an oxymoronic victory in a category for foods priced less than $1.

Seasonal Food: Starbuck's Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha The next best thing to dipping a white-chocolate-coated candy cane in espresso, this rich drink packed enough Christmas flavor to have even the biggest Scrooge singing "Jingle Bells."

Snack/Candy: Pretzel M&M's A near-perfect take on the classic combination of chocolate and pretzels. You'll be tongue twisted as you try to come up with adjectives to describe these delectable nuggets.

Best Supporting Beverage: Mountain Dew White Out A tasty citrus soda should always find room on the shelf, and an online vote affirmed the supremacy of this flavor. While the opinion of the interweb masses was way off when it came to Vitamin Water Connect, Mountain Dew White Out is evidence that democracy really can work.

Best Dessert in a Leading Role: KFC Double Down The Double Down defies convention, and we're defying convention today by awarding it the title of best dessert of 2010. While it's served as a main course and has none of the traditional sweetness of dessert, the Double Down qualifies for this category because it truly is the icing on the cake of a memorable year in food -- not to mention the fact that it didn't fit any other category but definitely deserved some sort of award. As excessive as some of the most over-the-top desserts, this chicken concoction will live forever in our memories as one of the most brazen dishes to ever hit a fast food menu.

Best Picnic: Milky Way Midnight Only two foods pulled down the five-spork rating necessary to qualify for this year's Best Picnic Award: Wheaties Fuel and Milky Way Midnight. While both stars of this year waged war as worthy contenders, the Milky Way just edges out Wheaties Fuel with a stellar combination of dark chocolate, vanilla nougat and caramel working together with enough force to topple empires. This is what candy bars were meant to be, and eating one will pull anyone over to the dark side.

Congratulations to all of this year's award recipients. The real winners, of course, were those of us eating these delicious foods. We'll see you in 2011!

Wendy's Natural-Cut Fries with Sea Salt

2010-12-24T00:42:00.000-05:00

Ah, Christmastime. The season of eggnog, cinnamon peppermint bark and ... French fries?

Well, it might not be the most timely of reviews, but I recently tried out Wendy's revamped fries. You may have seen the commercials. "At Wendy's, we start with a whole russet potato. Naturally, we slice it. Then sprinkle it with sea salt and serve it hot and crispy."

I'm not quite sure how you slice a potato naturally -- they don't cleave themselves in the wild, after all -- but the real change here is the fact that the new fries still have their skin. This is a great sign, as it brings them closer to my all-time favorite skin-on fare fries.

Unfortunately, the skin isn't the feature that pops out when you bite into one of the new fries. Instead, the sea salt comes out in full force. It's definitely different from the salt on Wendy's old fries, and adds a distinctive oceanic flavor.

Nearly lost in the sea of salt is the aforementioned skin, which adds little of the distinctive texture you'd expect. A little extra chewiness lurks on the peripheral pieces that have skin running the whole way down the edge, but most slices have the composition of your standard fast-food fry. Bummer.

Before I reach a final conclusion on the new Wendy's fries, I'll compare them to the version they replace. Those now-defunct fries were my favorite in the world of fast food, so the evolved spuds face a stiff test.

The sea salt is a definite upgrade. Sodium was the previous iteration's weakest point, as it tasted harsh and bordered on overpowering. I still find the sea salt a little strong, but it blends much better with the flavors of the potato.

Moving on to texture, though, these fries fall surprisingly short. Wendy's old fries were melt-in-your mouth delicious but still maintained a satisfying crunch upon the initial bite. Rather than improve on this crunch-and-melt combination, the skin-on fries tended toward chewy. It's by no means unappetizing, mind you. It's just not as good as version 1.0.

Overall, I'd say Wendy's regressed slightly with these fries. I'm hoping I received a bum batch, that maybe my next order will be much better. And maybe that hope will keep me from sounding like too much of a scrooge when I announce my rating: three and a half sporks out of five.

Chocolate Pop Rocks

2010-12-19T19:29:00.000-05:00

Greetings, foodies! I'm making a triumphant return to the interwebs with the review of Chocolate Pop Rocks I promised so many weeks ago. You'll have to overlook my absence -- an unfortunate run-in with a hot bowl of lentil soup rendered my taste buds out of action for a short time.

No doubt your anticipation has been building, and you wondered why the review was so long coming. I could practically hear the questions resonating through the foodosphere as they burst into your heads: Were the Pop Rocks so bad they drove our intrepid reviewer out of the business forever? Did they make his head explode? Why haven't I heard about Chocolate Pop Rocks making anyone's head explode on the news?

Rest assured, the Chocolate Pop Rocks did not make my head explode. In fact I've never heard of any version of the candy having that unfortunate side effect. Wondering about bursting craniums is an integral part of eating Pop Rocks, though, so it's where I'll start my review today.

You've no doubt eaten Pop Rocks and are aware of the way they fizz and bubble in your mouth. Part of the fun of the rocks is wondering how much of a pop they're going to deliver on your palate -- "Will it be enough to make my head explode?" You know it isn't, but you can't keep the thought from crossing your mind the moment the rocks tickle your tongue.

I doubted how much pop the Chocolate Pop Rocks would actually deliver. In fact, I was sure it wouldn't be enough to stoke questions of exploding heads. See, the rocks are familiar sugar Pop Rocks coated in chocolate, which seems like a recipe for dousing their bubbly nature.

And when you first put them in your mouth, they don't pop. They don't do anything but sit there and taste creamy while the chocolate slowly melts. Then, just when you've been lulled to sleep, POP, there they go! It turns out guessing when the rocks will start crackling is a ton of fun.

It's no way to eat the whole bag, however, and I found myself biting into the Chocolate Pop Rocks with surprising regularity. That's something I never do with normal Pop Rocks, and it was quite the experience. They provided an extremely satisfying burst with each fall of my molars, and continued to sizzle on my tongue afterwards.

In fact, they kept popping long after I expected to hear from them. Chewing on the rocks must have led to some of them wedging between my teeth, because I was surprised by bonus pops when I took a drink about ten minutes after finishing the pack. My immediate thought was -- you guessed it -- "Will my head explode?"

I found Chocolate Pop Rocks to be a great way to spend Sunday afternoon. They're tasty entertainment, and they even have more substance than your run-of-the-mill rocks. However, I wouldn't call them hearty, and you can't count on them for any nourishment. They remain a novelty whose sole purpose is to disappear in your mouth.

That means a rating of four sporks out of five. Hopefully it won't make your head explode.

Starbucks Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha

2010-11-28T21:36:00.000-05:00

I know I said in my last post that I'd be back soon with a non-coffee review, but the Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha at Starbucks is too interesting to ignore. My first experience with this fusion of white chocolate, coffee and espresso came last weekend during the two-for-one holiday beverage deal at Starbucks. I held off on a full review until we made it past Turkey Day, but I feel comfortable taking on this Santa-riffic drink now that Black Friday has come and gone.

Those of you groaning at the thought of another coffee-based post need not worry, though. This drink may contain espresso, but its presence is hardly detectable. The flavor is more milk based than anything.

Milk based and delicious, that is. While I'm not the biggest fan of calorie-laden steamed milk concoctions, the Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha is a real treat.

Here's the recipe: Espresso, steamed milk and white chocolate are mixed with peppermint and some flavor syrups. Your local barista tops it off with whipped cream and some dark chocolate curls. If you think it sounds rich and sugary, you're right.

Fortunately, the sweetness doesn't overpower the peppermint flavor, which is present from first sip to last. It's astounding how seamlessly it all blends. White chocolate is the first taste on the tongue, followed by a milky, creamy middle and a peppermint finish. You won't mistake it for sucking on a candy cane -- the flavor is much more balanced.

My only complaint is the bottom of the cup. Flavored syrups tend to sink to the bottom, and the Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha follows this rule. As a result, the bottom of the cup tasted distinctly of salt. This is a little surprising -- I expected mint at the dregs , not sodium.

If you're a gung-ho fan of the sweet and salty flavor combination, you might find the bottom enjoyable. It was a little overpower for my taste, however. I'd recommend sticking to the top 3/4 of the cup.

Most of this drink was delicious, so it's certainly worthy of a high rating. Unfortunately I'm going to have to dock a point for the sub-par finish. Four sporks out of five.

And anti-coffee folks, I promise the next review will be in a different field. I'll even give you a hint of what we're tackling next: It starts with "chocolate" and ends with "pop rocks." If that doesn't have you coming back for a refill, I don't know what will.

2-for-1 Starbucks this weekend

2010-11-20T09:58:00.000-05:00

Foodies, it's time for another friendly neighborhood free-food-and-drink service announcement. Today and tomorrow you can stop by Starbucks between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.and pick up two holiday-themed drinks for the price of one.

The deal is only advertised for the fancy mixed drinks -- sorry straight coffee lovers, you'll have to pay full price for your cup of delicious Christmas blend. Even so, it's probably worth taking a friend and cashing in on the beverage opportunity.

Those of you visiting the above link will no doubt note that this promotion has been going on since Nov. 18. My apologies for bringing it to you late. I can only share what I know, and I only knew about this yesterday. Better late than never.

I'm also sorry to those of you who don't like coffee. The blog's been on a real java kick lately, although I assure you it's pure coincidence and not part of a larger scheme to drive you off. For whatever reason, it seems like these free deals are always about coffee. So drink this bitter swill and rest assured that I'll be back soon with a fresh review in a different culinary pasture.

Two javas for me, none for you

2010-11-14T13:24:00.000-05:00

Chocolate and coffee: a match made in heaven. Coffee-flavored ice cream, chocolate-covered coffee beans and the ever-popular mocha are evidence of that. But how does the combination work when the food in question is not quite so ... upscale?

Thanks to the folks at Twix, we have a chance -- well, two chances -- to find out. Twix Java bars follow the tried-and-true formula of two cookie, caramel and chocolate bars per pack. In this incarnation the cookie is chocolate, the caramel is infused with java flavor and standard milk chocolate coats it all.

My hope for Twix Java was that the bars would be perfect for those days when you need a Twix that doesn't pack the super-sweet punch of the standard bars. A little bitter coffee flavor would go a long way toward creating the ultimate afternoon snack for disillusioned sweet tooths.

Had this hope been fulfilled, Twix would have been catapulted beyond its current title of best workplace candy bar into the discussion for greatest candy bar on the market. As I've said before, the pairing of two bars per pack gives Twix an edge over any other candy at the office. It means your snack lasts longer and is twice as effective at distracting you from an angry boss or a pile of paperwork. What Twix usually lacks, however, is a depth of flavor. Standard Twix bars are satisfyingly sweet and crunchy but don't draw quite enough oral interest to land in the elite tier of candy.

Sadly, we'll have to wait another day for Twix to take the next step in candy bar evolution. Twix Java provides the same sugar rush as before without much discernible coffee flavor.

Some Java tones do linger after you've chewed and swallowed, but they don't land on your tongue. Instead they lurk at the edge of your perception, hovering at the back of your throat like the ghost of Starbucks past. It's as if you drank a cup of coffee an hour ago and recently ate a candy bar. Everything in your mouth still tastes like chocolate and caramel..

The closest food to which I can compare Twix Java is McDonald's Mocha. You may recall that I spent most of my time complaining that Micky D's went too heavy on the chocolate and ludicrously light on the coffee. Those same problems exist in our candy subject of today.

Those problems aren't a recipe for legendary status, or even four sporks. Unfulfilled dreams weigh heavily on Twix Java, and the bars come up short: three sporks out of five.Rather than making a name for itself, Twix Java is just an ordinary Joe.

Free Coffee, the Burger King version

2010-11-06T09:35:00.001-04:00

Burger King and Seattle's Best Coffee sure seem like strange bedfellows.

A coffee I associate most with the cafes in Borders just doesn't seem to fit behind the counter of a fast food restaurant. The two brands mesh even less when you consider the fact that Seattle's Best is also served at Subway, a chain whose healthy food marketing doesn't exactly correspond with Burger King's ... heavy fare.

Regardless of whether it's a match made in heaven or an odd coupling, the King is trumpeting the partnership this month with free coffee Fridays. Never one to turn down a drink on the house, I picked up my 12 oz. cup on the way to work yesterday.

Calm down, lawyers. I moved the coffee from my dashboard to my cup holder before driving away.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that I was a big fan of Burger King's old Cup of Joe. I wouldn't describe myself as miffed that it's gone, but I will miss it.

I should also tell you that Seattle's Best doesn't brew my favorite cup of coffee. The company was acquired by Starbucks a few years back, and its coffee has always struck me as Starbucks' lower-quality entry-level offering. It's not bad, it's just not great.

With that out of the way, I can say that my free coffee upped my opinion of Seattle's Best. The coffee starts out way too strong -- the first sip is a blast of bitterness and overpowering richness. It gets better as the coffee cools, which mutes the flavors a bit. Roughly 10 minutes after serving time, everything settles into a pleasant balance of tastes.

Another thing that grew on me as I sipped was Burger King's coffee cup. When I was first served, the graphics simply did not work for me. The crisp lines of the Seattle's Best shield looked like they were about to be buried by a mudslide of flowing coffee and coffee beans. It appeared to be a very unhappy marriage.

The cup sat on my desk at work all day, and by the time I threw it out and headed home, it had grown on me. The tidal wave of coffee and that Seattle's Best logo must have gone to counseling at some point in the day, because I saw plenty of fun in their relationship. Time appears to be the salve that heals all graphical wounds.

At the end of the day, this wasn't my favorite coffee. In fact, I probably wouldn't pick it over Burger King's extinct Cup of Joe. Yet it was enjoyable, and the price was right. Three sporks out of five. I hope you pick up your own cup next Friday.

Free Coffee from the King

2010-11-04T22:23:00.000-04:00

Foodies, Friday morning is just around the corner, and that means many of you will need a little pick-me-up to help start the final day of the work week. Fortunately there's a king of a giveaway going on every Friday in November.

Burger King is giving away free cups of Seattle's Best coffee. That's one of the best reasons I've heard for getting out of bed in the morning.

I'll be back soon with a review to get to the bottom of this giveaway. In the mean time, I thought you'd like a heads-up so you can partake in the deal.

Cinnabon Cereal sugar high

2010-10-23T11:49:00.008-04:00

Forgive me if I jump around in today's review, foodies. I just downed a bowl of Kellogg's Cinnabon Cereal, and the sugar content is making me jumpy.

Speaking of which, today's review is actually looking at Kellogg's Cinnabon Cereal. I picked up a box on sale for $2 Sunday, and it's been more or less fueling my workweek -- although I had to pair it with yogurt and a sliced banana every morning to prevent hunger from paralyzing me before lunch.

As you can tell -- and would have guessed without my breakfast menu -- Cinnabon Cereal is less than substantial. Though the box says multi-grain, each piece melts in your mouth without much help from your molars. They aren't newspaper-in-a-puddle limpid, and they keep their crunch in a bowl of milk, but you won't confuse them with a filling cereal like Wheaties Fuel.

Within a few minutes of eating you'll also be noticing a massive sugar rush. Cinnabon Cereal packs a walloping 12 grams of sugar into a 1-cup serving. That's roughly on par with Lucky Charms, which have 11 grams of sugar in a 1-cup serving.

Those of you who don't like numbers: skip the following paragraph. I'm going to do some quick arithmetic to properly compare Cinnabon Cereal and Lucky Charms, and I'd hate to bore you with the details that my math-teacher paternal heritage forces me to find ever-so-interesting.

We'll use Cinnabon Cereal's 12 grams of sugar per 30 gram (1 cup) serving size as the beginning ratio -- a sugar to weight ratio of 12/30. Lucky Charms have 11 grams of sugar for every 27 grams of weight -- a ratio of 11/27. We need a common denominator, which is most easily found by multiplying the serving sizes by one another -- giving us 810 (30 x 27). We also need to multiply the numerator of each fraction by the same number that we used on their respective denominators (11 x 30 and 12 x 27). In the end we find that Cinnabon Cereal has a sugar-to-weight ratio of 324/810 (we can write it as 324:810 for those of you who like your ratios with colons) and Lucky Charms have a sugar-to-weight ratio of 330/810 (or 330:810).

In other words, the cereals' sugar contents remain virtually identical when you run the math to compare the same portion size. But Cinnabon Cereal doesn't have pure-sugar marshmallows upping it's sugar factor -- every miniature Cinnabon is just loaded with the sweet stuff.

The cereal carries a few vitamins, so I guess technically it can be part of a healthy breakfast. If you balance it out with six bowls of oatmeal, 12 grapefruits, a half-gallon of skim milk and a fiber supplement, that is.

Let me add a quick disclaimer before we move on: Middle schoolers with upcoming fraction tests in math class cannot use this review's "math paragraph" as a means to cheat. Don't leave a printout of this blog on your desk when you take your quiz in an attempt to fool your teacher into thinking it's harmless after-I-finish reading material in an unrelated subject. Your teacher will catch you, then we'll both be in trouble.

Back to Cinnabon Cereal: Now that we have the nutritional info out of the way, let's talk about taste. The minute I spooned some of these mini-Cinnabons into my mouth, I had the feeling I'd eaten them before. They taste almost identical to Post Waffle Crisp. The consistency is the same, and the flavor is similar, only with more cinnamon. It's kind of like Waffle Crisp and Cinnamon Toast Crunch had a child.

The resulting offspring is a reasonable approximation of the flavor of a Cinnabon, although you're not going to confuse it for the real thing. Personally, I'd like to see some kind of frosting on the top, which would add an air of authenticity to the cereal. That would probably break the sugar bank and send breakfasters into diabetic shock, though.

Let's sum it all up. Cinnabon Cereal tastes similar to a Cinnabon, packs enough sugar to send a sweet tooth to the dentist and will leave you hungry a few hours after breakfast. But it does stay crunchy in milk.

Once you add the pros and cons, I'd say that works out to 2 sporks out of five. If I were you, I'd run from those numbers.

Two new sauces at Taco Bell

2010-10-19T21:24:00.000-04:00

My most recent trip to Taco Bell was packed with more surprises than a Cracker Jack box. You've all no doubt read Sunday's review of the XXL Chalupa, which shocked with its scale-tipping mass and misplaced low-fat sour cream.

What I didn't include in that post was a noteworthy piece of condiment news creeping onto a Taco Bell counter near you. The Bell recently rolled out two new "Border Salsa" sauces: Fire Roasted and Verde.

The new ketchup-packeted sauces join the faithful standbys of Mild, Hot and Fire to bump Taco Bell's salsa selection to five. And they stand out from their more seasoned brethren in that they're not merely different levels of hot sauce.

No, Verde and Fire Roasted Border Salsas squirt out their own unique flavors. Here's a rundown:

Fire Roasted largely lives up to its name, although I'd have named it "Campfire" or something to tip foodies off to the fact that it tastes more like smoke and less like sun-dried tomato. The sauce adds a surprisingly rich tone to Taco Bell fare and lingers on the tongue long after a bite. You're not going to confuse Fire Roasted sauce with the taste of painstakingly smoked salmon fresh off wood chips -- but you shouldn't expect that from Taco Bell anyway.

My biggest problem with the Fire Roasted sauce is that a little bit goes a long way. It has the same injected-with-smoke-flavor quality as certain brands of beef jerky, and that can be overpowering in anything but single-pack quantities.

Verde, on the other hand, is not aptly named. It hardly resembles its green chili sauce namesake and reminded me of a watery sweet and sour sauce.

That's not an entirely bad thing, mind you. While sweet and sour sauce and Taco Bell might not be the most obvious pairing, they marry fairly well in an odd-couple sort of way. Sweet and sour affectionados won't be casting aside chicken nuggets any time soon, but it's an interesting change-up that's odd enough to work. I'd say the Verde sauce is so wide left of the mark that it successfully hits an entirely different target.

The real question today is whether you're going to stuff your to-go bag with either of these two new sauces in lieu of the classic Mild, Hot and Fire packets. And the answer is: probably not.

Instead the sauces should be used to play off the pedestrian hot-sauce world of Taco Bell salsa. Fire Roasted screams for limited-application use to add richness to food. Verde is the obvious choice when you're feeling a little wacky.

In other words, the new sauces offer variety -- the spice of life.

Living large with Taco Bell's XXL Chalupa

2010-10-17T16:15:00.001-04:00

It's been a while since the critique has sampled anything from Taco Bell -- a restaurant that is typically a mainstay of my culinary considerations. Other foods distracted with peppers, all-you-can-eat promotions and chocolaty coatings, leading this blog away from its most stalwart subject.

The return to The Bell had to be big. Extra big. Extra, extra big. You could say I wanted it to be XXL.

And wouldn't you know it? Taco Bell rolled out just the concoction to mark the occasion. They're calling it the XXL Chalupa. It's a jumbo shell nestling lettuce, salsa, cheeses and sour cream on top of your choice of meat.

When ordering I was pleasantly surprised to find I could choose between ground beef, chicken and steak. Taco Bell's promotional material has focused only on the ground beef option. Naturally I chose to go with chicken -- I recommend avoiding taco beef whenever possible. You never know exactly what's in there.

One other noteworthy ingredient in the XXL Chalupa is low-fat sour cream. I'll pause for a moment to let you absorb the fact that the restaurant is including low-fat sour cream on a dish whose calling card is over-the-top size. The chalupa is 650 calories, for Jillean Michaels' sake! Putting on low-fat sour cream is like skipping the 10-spoke alloy wheels on your $185,300 Mercedes SLS AMG because you don't want to spend the extra $2,400. When you're that far in the hole, why not finish digging the last couple of shovelfuls and complete the job?

Plus, I watched as the Taco Bell workers built my Chalupa behind the counter. The low-fat sour cream was shot out of a dispenser that looked like a jumbo caulk cannon. The dispenser was the size of a small boar, and probably contained enough fat to give Shiva Rea's entire yoga class a heart attack.

All that aside, I have to admit I'm impressed with the size of the XXL Chalupa. Taco Bell usually gives you pretty decent bang for your buck -- the $5 Box comes to mind -- but even so the XXL Chalupa is shockingly large. I needed both hands to hold it.

The high point of the dish is by far its shell, which is soft, moist and holds its shape so the Chalupa doesn't fall to pieces if you have to set it down. That's a good thing, because you'd practically have to be Mr. Universe to not get tired while holding this load of a meal.

The chicken is tasty, as are all the rest of the fixins', which are piled on so high that I wished I had an extra hinge on my jaw to take bites. I found it was helpful to eat from the top of the chalupa down, which minimized spilled lettuce and cheese.

I can tell you the chalupa weighed down my stomach with all that food. It also left my wallet a little lighter than I'd like. I paid more than $3 -- over a buck for every letter in the "XXL."

That price is really the only downside to the XXL Chalupa. And while I find it very hard to justify spending more than $2.00 on any one item from Taco Bell, this is the item to buy if you're going to do it. Therefore I can give the chalupa four sporks out of five.

Actually, you might want to think about bringing four sporks to eat it. The chalupa is that big. That extra, extra big.

Beating the heat with Subway's Turkey Jalapeño Fiery Footlong

2010-09-25T11:18:00.000-04:00

I don't know what the weather was like where you live yesterday, but I can tell you it was unseasonably warm here in Syracuse. On just the third day of fall, the temperature reached a new record of 90 degrees.

That's not appropriate for the start of a weekend in which the area hosts its Oktoberfest. I didn't go to the big festival last night, but it must have been sweltering in the biergarten.

The temperatures were much more fitting, however, for my own culinary exploits yesterday. I sampled Subway's Turkey Jalapeño Melt.

The melt is one of two "Fiery Footlongs" Subway is pushing right now. The other is a Buffalo Chicken sub, which I haven't chanced to try yet. The Turkey Jalapeño Melt has a simple blueprint: turkey, pickled jalapeños and cheese stuffed in the toaster oven. It's nothing you couldn't have ordered on your own in the past by picking and choosing a custom sub.

It is something you might not have thought to order, though. And while I can't say it has me burning my list of favorite foods, the melt is definitely worth a try.

The melt's calling card is the fact that the jalapeños are toasted along with the turkey and cheese -- Subways I've visited wait until post-toast to place vegetables on your sub. The result in this order of operations change is that much more flavor leaks from the pickled peppers. I was pleasantly surprised at the level of heat the sub delivered.

My Subway fallback meal is a Spicy Italian with jalapeños, and the heat doesn't approach the level delivered by the Turkey Jalapeno Melt. I chalk that up in large part to the fact that the melt's jalapeños were warm, which stirred up the flavors.

Those of you who are science-minded will want to note that the lower fat content of my turkey versus the Spicy Italian's Genoa salami and pepperoni probably played a part in the turkey melt's fierier nature. Capsaicin, the chemical that gives jalapeños their kick, is fat soluble. Therefore pairing the peppers with higher-fat foods like those in the Spicy Italian will wash away some of that delicious heat.

Unfortunately the Jalapeño Turkey Melt delivered no surprises other than the heightened jalapeño. A special spicy bread would have been nice, as would a unique hotter version of Subway's stalwart pepper jack cheese. Alas, t'was not to be. In the end I received a typical turkey sub that had been dressed up by a trip to the oven. You can put lipstick on a pig, and it's still a pig -- or you can put a heating element on turkey, and it's still turkey.

It's still pleasant turkey, that is. And it's a sub I award three sporks out of five. I won't hesitate to order it any time I want a spiced-up lunch for six bucks. It's just a little too pedestrian to receive any higher accolades.

The silver lining of the sub's plebeian nature is that you'll still be able to order it long after Subway's special-sub promotional machine has moved on to promote the next footlong. So when you find yourself strolling past a sub shop on some future 90-degree late-September day, you'll know what to order to match the unexpected heat.

Burger King Funnel Cake Sticks

2010-09-20T22:03:00.000-04:00

September is barely half over and already I miss summertime fair season. The cotton candy. The fried Oreos. The bloomin' onions. The funnel cake.
Well, Burger King has something to ease funnel fans' pain. I speak of funnel cake sticks, pencil-thin rods of fried dough paired with the convenience of the drive-through.

The sticks are accompanied by a tiny tub of icing -- a curious choice, considering the best funnel cakes are simply dusted with sugar. Sure, there are chocolate eclair funnel cakes and the like, but the goo in those applications does less to dress up the cake than it does to mask the flavor of the batter. Burger King's icing works the same way. Its sucrose sweetness covers up the taste of the dough.

Not that you'll be able to keep much icing on the sticks. It's runnier than the New York Marathon and trickles down off the rods in a virtual torrent of down-the-drain sweetness. The path from the icing tub to your mouth will be a treacherous one, and I recommend putting down a tarp before eating the sticks so you're floor isn't covered in dribbles.

The King should have left out the icing, because the sticks are already sprinkled in powdered sugar. It's more granular than the stuff you get at the fair but is actually pretty good. Sadly there was a severe dearth of powdered sugar on my sticks, and I was forced to supplement it with some stopgap icing.

You're probably wondering why I've yet to address the funnel cake sticks themselves. The reason is simple: they're nothing special. Burger King should have funneled some more flavor into them, because they're dry and bland. They lack the simmering melt-in-your-mouth goodness of real fair funnel cake.

Alas, you'll have to look elsewhere to satisfy your need for a taste of summer fairs. Burger King funnel cake sticks only receive two sporks out of five.

Maybe you can run around in circles in the parking lot to simulate the tea cups at your local fair. It would be a more realistic experience than the King's take on funnel cake.

Back in the saddle at CiCi's Pizza

2010-09-04T12:52:00.000-04:00

Welcome back, foodies! I'm delighted to report that after nearly two months of impromptu summer vacation, the food critique is back with new reviews. I spent time away from the blog to recharge my chewing muscles and empty my stomach, so I'm once again ready to shoulder the heavy burden of eating for your enlightenment.

My hollow stomach didn't last long -- the first of our new reviews focuses on CiCi's Pizza, an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord of pizza, pasta, soup and salad. I visited the restaurant for the first time last night, and as of this moment I still feel full.

You may have heard of CiCi's. The chain, which currently has branches in 35 states, frequented television airwaves for a while with advertisements claiming endless pizza, pasta, salad and dessert for "under five bucks."

Inflation seems to have reared its head since that ad barrage first reached the East Coast, because CiCi's now promotes itself as a buffet for "five bucks and change." I paid a still-bargain-priced $5.49 for the buffet at CiCi's Syracuse location, plus an additional $1.49 for a drink.

You can chip in a few extra cents for a jumbo-sized drink if you'd like, but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. The beverage fountain was self-serve, and no visible signs prohibited refills. Therefore, the only reason to buy the bigger cup is to avoid walking to refill your drink. And since you're probably getting up for return trips to the buffet, an aversion to walking at CiCi's is oxymoronic.

The buffet itself covers an impressive variety of pizza: Cheese, pepperoni, Alfredo, spinach Alfredo, sausage, pepperoni jalapeno, Mexican, Hawaiian, buffalo chicken, barbecue and veggie pizzas all made appearances during my time at the restaurant. There's also pasta in tomato sauce, soup, salad, bread sticks, dessert pizza and brownies.

All the variety aside, CiCi's is worth visiting for the bread sticks and brownies alone. The bread sticks, while not of gourmet quality, were wonderfully pliant and avoided the nefarious pitfall of gnaw-till-exhaustion chewiness. They were topped with a tasty Parmesan cheese and had a nice, moist consistency -- although I don't want to think about how much oil was doused on them.

Speaking of moist, the gooey brownies stole the show. This came as a bit of a surprise, considering I only bit into a brownie after several gut-busting trips to the buffet for main-course items. Even so my first bite of brownie made me want to hollow out some space in my leg for an extra round of dessert.

The center of the brownie was delightfully gooey and contained that sweet-but-not-too-rich chocolate flavor that best ends a good buffet dinner. Powdered sugar smothered the top, serving more to provide a textural balance to the moist innards than to add any actual flavor.

Oh yeah, there was pizza, too. As I mentioned, the range of pizzas is laudable. Unfortunately, CiCi's much-ballyhooed macaroni-and-cheese pizza didn't make an appearance on the buffet. Some patrons were special-ordering it by the slice, which is a nice option, but I'd like to have seen it under the heat lamps.

The buffet pizzas were of the 12-inch variety, which produced small slices perfect for sampling. CiCi's got it right. Buffet pizza shouldn't have giant, belly-filling slices, which make it too hard to jump between different varieties.

For the vegetable eaters out there, the salad bar was basic but workable. Iceberg lettuce, red onions, banana peppers, croutons, bacon bits, carrots and a standard array of dressings were all offered. It's really just a nice way to accompany your bread sticks, though.

The strength of the bread sticks and brownies help propel CiCi's to a rating of four sporks out of five. The restaurant's strengths are easy to spot: good variety, great dessert and spectacular pricing. You'd be hard-pressed to find a similar array of food for seven bucks.

Still, there's room for improvement. More accessible macaroni-and-cheese pizza and a pumped-up salad bar would be the icing on CiCi's cake -- or the powdered sugar on the brownies.

My candy bar could have survived the zombie apocalypse

2010-07-15T22:39:00.000-04:00

Post-apocalyptic zombie movies always seem to have survivors scrounging through dusty canned goods at deserted gas stations or desolate supermarkets. Usually it's a good excuse for directors to give the audience a run-in with a bloodthirsty member of the undead. Yet I'm not thinking about brains for lunch when I watch these films. My mind wanders to the prepacked food on the shelves.

What kind of variety can you get after the end of the world as we know it? Have picky survivors taken all the good items, leaving the slower, less-fortunate souls with the canned salmon and Cup Noodles? Are those Cup Noodles even edible without a prolonged stint in the microwave to bombard them into submission?

When you think about it, having to eat Cup Noodles in a world without hot water is enough to make you sympathize with the zombies. It makes fresh brains sound positively appetizing.

Anyway, I had my own run-in tonight with long-in-the-tooth prepacked food. I picked up a tasty looking Nestle Crunch Crisp bar at a drug store that shall remain unnamed and gobbled it down. Afterward I noticed some writing on the inside of the wrapper:

Sorry, this is not a winning game wrapper but you can to to Xbox.com/nestle for exclusive offers from Major League Baseball® 2K8, available now at retail for your Xbox 360®.

Not only is Major League Baseball 2K8 available now at retail, it's been available for over two years. I'd say that places the carbon date of the candy bar at about 2 years.

Now I'm not going to pretend this is the oldest candy bar I've ever eaten. I'm sure I've had my fare share of elderly snacks from vending machines at out-of-the-way rest stops and gas stations. I even make a point of hunting through the discount bin at truck stops in hope of finding chocolate bargains that have passed their expected shelf life.

What's so unique about this candy bar is that I didn't even notice it was old until looking at the inner foil after I finished eating. The critical among you are no doubt preparing to attack my fitness as a food critique, but I assure you the chocolate was moist and the wafers crispy

It wasn't at all like some of the geriatric Baby Ruth and Hershey Cookies 'n Cream bar's I've picked up in the past. You see, Baby Ruth chocolate tends to dry out as it ages, while the Cookies 'n Cream bars take on a denser, syrupy composition. The Crunch Crisp barely changed. In retrospect I'd say it was bit harder to bite into than its juvenile brethren, but that's about it.

In a few more hours we'll know for sure if this candy bar truly defied the clock. So far things look promising: I'm not dead yet.

And I received a small insight into meal time after the zombie apocalypse wipes out our food supply lines. I know I'll be placing the Nestle Crunch Crisp on top of my shopping list as I pick through long-abandoned convenience stores

The Ched 'R' Peppers SuperSonic Cheeseburger Combo: Sonic bounces back

2010-06-26T12:24:00.000-04:00

Foodies, you may recall my less-than-stellar feelings toward the fare at Sonic drive-ins.

A year ago I drove away from my first Sonic experience profoundly disappointed in the quality of the food. The drinks were delicious, but anything you had to chew wasn't worth writing home about. My tots were bland, my Texas toast wasn't toasted and my burger hardly dripped with flavor.

Today I'm happy to tell you that a recent trip to Sonic left me with a much more satisfied stomach. I ordered a limited-time-only Ched 'R' Peppers SuperSonic Cheeseburger Combo and was delighted with the results.

The Ched 'R' Peppers burger boasts a more harmonious flavor than its disjointed name implies. Sonic takes a cheeseburger, adds two deep-fried peppers and ties it together with some chipotle mayo. It's zesty rather than spicy, so those of you with an aversion to habanero-style heat need not shy away.

You should avoid the burger if you dislike cheese, because cheddar is everywhere. It blends with the mayo and can overpower other flavors on some bites, leaving the tongue tasting more salt than spice. Fortunately this is drive-in fare, so cheesiness is to be expected, rather than loathed.

The burger's beef was of so-so quality. Most of the flavor came from the fixings, and I can't say the meat ever came through with any strength. At least it wasn't dry, which can sink a burger faster than BP's stock price.

In summary we're looking at a very tasty burger with a few flaws -- four sporks out of five. And Sonic has redeemed itself.

DEWmocracy update: White Out won

2010-06-26T11:25:00.000-04:00

This morning I'm preparing to write a brand-new full-length review for all you foodies out there. First I wanted to post a follow-up snippet to my DEWmocracy post of a few weeks ago. I'll make it short and sweet: White Out won.

The Squirt-esque Dew took home the gold with 44% of the vote, edging out fruit-punch-flavored Typhoon, which netted 40%. If you need to know the numbers for third place, limey Distortion managed just 16% of votes.

You may recall I lavished my endorsement on White Out. I'm not saying turn elections, but it does sound a bit like the Colbert Bump, doesn't it? (If you don't know what the Colbert Bump is, you haven't been watching enough of the clever late-night show on Comedy Central. If you don't know what the Colbert Report is, you probably don't care about DEWmocracy anyway.)

M&M's meet pretzels

2010-06-16T22:22:00.000-04:00

Remember Crispy M&M's? They were a little larger than the traditional variety and each chocolate morsel was stuffed with a piece of puffed rice. Biting into them elicited a satisfying crunch and a decent flavor.

They were introduced in blue bags just before the turn of the millennium, when I was but a wee middleschooler with a juvenile-esque eye for junk food. And they quickly became one of my favorite vending machine buys.

Sadly, they are no more on American shores. I haven't seen Crispy M&M's in the United States for years, although I could have sworn I ran across a bag or two when I was in the United Kingdom in the fall of 2007.

Because of this departure from the New World, my fancy M&M cravings have had to be satisfied by the always-stalwart peanut variety and the delectable-but-rare peanut butter style. While those are good, they lack a certain crunch.

Today I'm ecstatic to report that M&M's brought the crunch back, albeit not with puffed rice. Instead new Pretzel M&M's have hit the shelves, and they pack some serious munching satisfaction.

Pretzel M&M's are jumbo-sized, hovering somewhere near the girth of the gargantuan Wild Cherry M&M's I reviewed a few years back. They have a generous portion of pretzel wrapped in a thin layer of chocolate and topped with the traditional mouth-melting candy coating. It's an oh-so-satisfying package with a hint of pretzel salt that works amazingly well.

I am, however, a bit surprised by the pretzel-to-chocolate ratio. This candy is more like M&M-coated pretzels than pretzel M&M's. I'll admit more chocolate would probably bury the pretzel's flavors and textures, but it's still surprising to bite into M&M's with so little cocoa. It's a good change, though -- one that makes an exciting experience out of bagged candy, which is too-often dull.

Pretzel M&M's have one major drawback: thirst. I'm not sure a bag of candy has ever left me in need of a tall glass of milk quite as much as these nuggets did.

Eating chocolate always leaves you a little thirsty, a function of all the sugar. And pretzels are notorious for sponging all the saliva from your jaws. Combine them with a hard candy shell that leaves a sweet "quench me" undertone on the palate, and you have the makings of a severe drink shortage.

It's enough to bump Pretzel M&M's down to four sporks out of five. If they were packaged with a carton of milk, they'd be the perfect product. As they stand now, they're a very good candy that middleschoolers and adults should be able to recall fondly in ten years.

DEWmocracy: My Mountain Dew endorsement

2010-06-10T22:29:00.000-04:00

You may have heard about Mountain Dew's "DEWmocracy" experiment where the brand introduced three experimental flavors. You can buy them at the store, try them, and log on to the DEWmocracy website to vote for your favorite. Supposedly the winner will be kept on as a regular Mountain Dew Flavor, ala Code Red.

Forget about the fact that this promotion is oddly timed to coincide with a midterm election, rather than the more popular presidential variety. We're down to just over four days left until voting ends, and it's time to endorse a flavor.

Here are the candidates:

Typhoon: Currently capturing 40% of the vote, Typhoon is described as "Dew with a punch of tropical flavor." In other words, its magenta-colored Mountain Dew Fruit Punch.
Distortion: Sitting in third place at 16%, Distortion is called "Dew with a blast of lime flavor." It's green and looks like regular Mountain Dew.
White Out: Self-described as "Dew with a smooth citrus flavor," White Out leads the polls at the moment with 44% of votes. Think Squirt or cloudy Sierra Mist, and you get the idea.

I'm throwing my weight solidly behind White Out. Simply put, it has the best balance of flavors. While it may be a knock-off of previously released sodas, it's crisp and refreshing. Plus it has the best label color scheme, and I'm always looking for visual variety as I walk down the beverage aisle.

Although it doesn't taste terrible, Typhoon is too sweet. In a competition of sugar-saturated Mountain Dew varieties, it manages to be the drink that goes just a little too far down the saccharine road. The fruit punch twist adds some nice flavor variety, but I wouldn't recommend drinking more than a shot of the stuff. Downing a 20 oz. bottle could result in diabetic shock, regardless of the state of your pancreas.

Distortion is in no shape to garner an endorsement. I can't say I've tasted it, but do we really need another green Mountain Dew?

So there you have it. Head over to the DEWmocracy website and send in your own vote, if you're so inclined. At very least I encourage you to check out the interactive map that gives you a county-by-county breakdown of voting. It might not seem as important as heading to the actual polls in November, but it's good practice.

Working with the Kit Kat Caramel

2010-06-06T19:42:00.000-04:00

Good evening, foodies. Tonight I'm here to help you in the critical Sunday evening hours when you plan out your food for the upcoming workweek. Let's skip the sandwich fodder and head straight to the good stuff known as dessert.

Lunchbox desserts have to be two things: portable and quick to eat. The portability is a no-brainer. You can't take a meringue pie because of all the jostling it will encounter on your way to the office -- or because of the jostling at the office, if you happen to have excessively nosy coworkers. The quick-to-eat factor is important because you need something that can be scarfed down if you dawdled too long during the main course, leaving you with only minutes to finish your meal before punching back on the clock.

So tonight we'll talk about candy bars, one of my favorite subjects. Frequent readers know I love to review candy. You'll also note that I have a soft spot for looking at new twists on classic chocolate concoctions. Hence tonight's review of the Kit Kat Caramel.

Let me tell you up front that you won't have to give anyone a break of your Kit Kat Caramel. I've always shied away from bringing Kit Kats to work because of the old TV commercials that showed construction workers sharing their candy. It might be selfish of me, but I don't want to give coworkers my dessert. It's nothing personal -- I'll gladly lend part of my sandwich if someone forgot his or her own. I just think a person should be able to enjoy the entirety of his or her dessert without someone singing an admittedly catchy jingle as a means of begging for sugar.

Those of you who think like me will be glad to find out that the Kit Kat Caramel is one not-easily-broken jumbo-sized Kit Kat piece much like the "Big Kat" bar that graces many gas stations. It's easy to unwrap and easy to eat, but it does lack some of the piece-by-piece interactiveness of the original.

The new bar is essentially a magnified Kit Kat with one caveat: A layer of caramel sits in a chocolate-walled chamber above the ever-present crispy wafer. Graphics on the bar's wrapper show this caramel to be present in epic quantities. In reality it's more like a novella.

That's no bad thing, though. The sweet caramel could easily overpower the classic wafer crunch and creamy chocolate of the Kit Kat if it were more prevalent. The current level of caramel is just about right, adding a refreshing new twist to an old favorite.

One thing that bears mentioning about the "Big Kat" size versus the traditional Kit Kat is that the large version seems to contain extra milk chocolate. It doesn't upset the all-important flavor scales, but it is noticeable. I rather like it, in fact.

In the end I'd say the Kit Kat Caramel is aptly named -- the "caramel" definitely takes a back seat to the "Kit Kat." It doesn't alchemize an entirely new candy, instead adding a new spin to an old favorite. Four out of five sporks. It works for me.

Hopefully it will work for you this week while you're at work.

Iced Dunkin' Dark: Where's the heat?

2010-05-22T10:28:00.001-04:00

Good morning foodies! I'm ready to start the weekend off right with a Van Winkle-waking review of Dunkin' Donuts Dark iced coffee. What say you?

If you're saying, "Pour me a nice hot cup," you're going to be disappointed. My bid to secure a steaming mug of dark java was flat-out denied by a local Dunkin' last week. They only had the dark roast on ice.

I appreciate iced coffee, and even prefer Dunkin's regular brew chilled to its less-than-ideal hot counterpart. But it's simply not acceptable to have a variety of iced coffee and not offer it hot. Don't you first brew hot coffee to make iced coffee? Would it be that hard to set half of the destined-for-ice pot on a heater and keep it warm?

So negative sporks for that development. I'll move on and review the iced dark coffee for what it was, rather than what it should have been. You know. Hot.

As a cool beverage the dark roast does pretty well. The flavor contains light bitter tones that are pleasant rather than off-putting, and the taste is fairly rich. We're talking Ken Jennings-rich, not Mikhail Prokhorov-rich, mind you. But plenty rich, nonethesame.

My advice is to forgo Dunkin's offer of sugar and cream and season the coffee yourself, if you must. While I prefer mine black, even those who like to load up on sweeteners can be blown away by the amount of C12H22O11 the stores will pack in a cup. It doesn't dissolve fully, leaving you crunching your drink rather than sipping it.

Of course, if you're looking for a wake-me-up the iced coffee is inferior to a hot brethren. There's nothing like a slightly scalded tongue and warm belly to snap you out of a morning funk. A cool mouth and throat certainly don't come close.

Overall, I would say Iced Dunkin' Dark is tasty but not outstanding -- three sporks out of five. I'd love to know what it's like hot, when flavors shine fully and aren't muted by the chill of ice. Shockingly, I wasn't afforded that chance.

Do Facebook friends connect to make good vitaminwater?

2010-05-18T22:10:00.001-04:00

I've spent my fair share of words on this blog criticizing food product planners. Time and time again I'm at a loss to understand what they were thinking when they picked misfit ingredients and settled for strange seasonings. I envision product planners as bald-headed men in starchy lab coats who work in secret food silos and return home each night so out of touch with the world that they have to ask their kids to explain this newfangled Hannah Montana.

Tonight we have the unique opportunity to pit the product planners against normal people. Well, that's provided you consider Facebook users normal people. I'm a little doubtful, what with the prevalence of FarmVille and its ilk, but we'll pretend it's normal to care whether your friends fertilized some random imaginary field or found a lonely cow wandering through cyberspace.

Getting back to the point, vitaminwater recently released some new flavors. One of them, dubbed "connect" in the industry-standard all-lowercase letters, features black-cherry lime flavors and packaging claiming it was made "by fans, for fans on Facebook." The other one, "spark," with grape-blueberry flavor, seems to have flowed out of your typical product pipeline. So which one is more successful?

The black cherry-lime combination trends heavily toward the lime end of the equation. It's not as puckerworthy as the citrus flavors of vitaminwater's "energy," but it's surprisingly sour. It also falls a little flat on my tongue and could very much use some more black cherry notes for richness.

Spark, on the other hand, has a pleasant but not-overpowering sweetness that successfully wraps beginning and end tones of grape juice around a sweet burst of blueberry in the middle. As a result it's tastefully sweet without slapping you with an immediate avalanche of sugar. It also doesn't leave you with that annoying just-drank-too-much-corn-syrup thirsty tongue.

Throw in the fact that connect contains caffeine, and the crowd-sourced beverage comes in a distant second. Its flavors are merely OK, and if I wanted caffeine I would have picked up some coffee. Sorry, Facebookers. Connect earns just two sporks out of five.

It just isn't as good as spark, to which I award four sporks. Those balding men must get it right once in a blue moon.

Of course, this experiment has a severe lack of double blinds, control groups and scientific methods. In other words, I'm not ready to anoint product planners a better alternative to crowd-sourcing.

After all, even a blind cow finds her way out of the digital forest every once in a while.

Lunch-sized picklePak

2010-05-15T19:52:00.000-04:00

Good evening, foodies.

Unfortunately I don't have a full review ready for you tonight -- I'm sorting through my thoughts on two new beverages: the new Dunkin' Donuts "Iced Dunkin' Dark Roast" iced coffee and the latest flavor from vitaminwater, a black cherry variety called Connect. Full posts on those will come later this week.

Tonight I'm writing to let you know that my girlfriend Deb is currently eating a lunch-sized picklePak filled with petite kosher dill pickles. Yes, you read that right. Picture the elementary-school-ubiquitous 7 oz. plastic cups of apple sauce, but filled with tiny pickles and brine. That sums up the picklePak, produced by Mt. Olive.

Deb won't let me take her picture eating the pickles, but I wanted to note the pack's existence somehow. Not being a pickle person myself, I don't feel able to review a picklePak objectively. For now I'll just tilt my head to the side and marvel at the fact that there are enough pickle lovers in the world to justify the existence of such a product.

Cow Tales still tell a good story

2010-05-13T20:59:00.001-04:00

Those of you who follow my Twitter account know that last week while meandering through a gas station I stumbled upon nostalgia in a long, thin wrapper: Cow Tales.

I don't know how long it had been since I ate one of the caramel tubes wrapped around a cream center, but my guess is it was when Taco Bell still advertised with a Chihuahua and KFC was still Kentucky Fried Chicken. Just seeing the box of cylindrical candy on the shelf brought me back at least ten years to a day when Hershey bars were still wrapped in real foil and Milky Ways weren't available in dark chocolate or all-caramel varieties. For a few moments the world of sweets became innocent, simple and unhindered by worries about cavities and calories.

And I'm barely an adult. I'm sure if I were out of my 20s the sight of a Cow Tale could bring back a bigger drawer full of repressed memories. Even so, I grabbed a taste of the classic candy while the moment was right.

I almost opted for the Strawberry Cow Tales that sat next to the traditional variety, but something stopped me. While I can't claim to know the history of the bovine derriere, I don't remember a strawberry version gracing the shelves of the candy barn while I was a kid. Maybe I'll review one of those in a few weeks, I thought. This was about a trip down memory lane.

As a brief aside, the intertubes tell me Cow Tales are actually available in a number of varieties including chocolate and caramel apple. The world, it seems, is always spinning, and companies are constantly looking for a way to milk a successful product for new triumphs. Hopefully I'll be able to track down some of these newfangled versions and tell you whether they're successful.

For now I can tell you the classic Cow Tale is still successful. Chewy caramel spoons with the sugary cream center for a treat that's equal parts sinful indulgence and necessary soul food. I felt years younger after my mouth listened to the tastes of the Cow Tale. For a few precious moments I was a bite-sized person experiencing the pure bliss of a sugary childhood snack.

Since it's such a classic, I feel no need to give this candy a traditional rating. Instead, let this post serve as a special tribute to a candy that has done so much to lift so many people's spirits. Cow Tales, Rick's Food Critique salutes you!

Wheaties Fuel: You bet I'll eat my Wheaties

2010-05-05T21:17:00.000-04:00

I'm not usually a big fan of foods that work harder to plug their celebrity endorsements than than they do to boast about their ingredients and flavor. It's usually a sign of blandness and lack of inspiration. So you can imagine I wasn't any too thrilled at the idea of Wheaties Fuel.

Being on the Wheaties box is one of the pinnacles of sports celebrityhood -- and a traditional way to endorse a bland, less-than-inspiring product. No offense to classic Wheaties, but they lack the zing I want in my breakfast bowl every morning.

Now Wheaties has a new product in an edgy carbon-colored box filled with the eerily disembodied faces of A-list of sports celebrities: Albert Pujols, Kevin Garnett, Peyton Manning, Bryan Clay and Hunter Kemper. The fresh box has a new set of insides, dubbed "Wheaties Fuel" and supposedly co-developed with the cover athletes and a nutrition expert. It sounds like an attempt to spruce up dull old Wheaties with a new skin-deep paint job, doesn't it?

Surprisingly, it's not.

Wheaties Fuel is a marvelous cereal, paralleled by few on the store shelves today. Fuel is comprised of puffed rice and dense Wheaties bunches, and manages to have a delicious flavor without being sugary. Even better, it is stout enough that you won't be left hungry an hour after downing a bowl. The Fuel website says that's because of a mix of complex carbohydrates and fiber -- and that would make sense, nutritionally. Think of it this way: Wheaties Fuel is flat-out more dense than other cereals.

For starters, Fuel feels heavier in your spoon and fills your stomach more completely. It also pours with an impact unlike your standard corn flakes. The way it hits the bowl is granola-like.

In case you don't believe me, lets look at the tale of the box. The fancy-duds Wheaties Fuel box is much smaller than most other cereal boxes, yet it packs a lot of weight. Compare it to a Chocolate Cheerios box, another smaller-than-average sized box that also happens to be on my breakfast shelf at the moment. The Chocolate Cheerios box, while diminutive, is still wider and thicker than the Wheaties fuel box. Even so, Fuel outweighs it 1 lb. 1.1 oz. to 11.25 oz.

I suppose the moral of the story is that good things come in small, dense packages. Wheaties Fuel starts the day with Five sporks out of five.

KFC Double Down: The verdict

2010-05-01T11:44:00.000-04:00

Foodies, I'm pleased to announce that after a week of deliberation I've reached a verdict on my brush with meaterdom, also known as the KFC Double Down.

Long story short, I got a kick out of eating the two pieces of fried chicken sandwiched around bacon, cheese and "Colonel's sauce." But I don't plan on eating another.

The Double Down is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of meal -- and I mean that in more than one way. First of all, a creation this bold seldom hits the glowing plastic menu boards at fast food counters. Second, I'm not sure how many times you can eat one without permanently impacting your health.

While the sandwich isn't as calorically catastrophic as you might guess, I didn't feel any too perky after eating mine. Once the initial adrenaline of eating my Double Down wore off I was sluggish and tired. I can only attribute those side effects to the Double Down.

It was similar to a sleepiness I felt after wolfing down Kentucky Grilled Chicken in November. The chicken sat in my stomach and dragged my energy levels down like an anchor. It was all I could do to post my initial reactions to the Double Down -- and we all know how excited I was to talk about this bold chicken sandwich.

The aftereffects are a shame because the Double Down tasted very good heading down my gullet. The massive amount of chicken approached overwhelming proportions and had me pecking around for bread, yet it was strangely pleasing all the same. Fried chicken is wholesome American goodness, and your mouth feels really good when you're in the middle of a double down.

Let me also give kudos to the "Colonel's sauce." It tasted like Thousand Island dressing and matched the sandwich perfectly.

In the interest of science I should attempt to eat another Double Down to see if the health effects are as disastrous as I fear. I am not ready for that day, though.

The need to wait before eating another Double Down is enough to keep the sandwich from receiving a perfect rating. I'm assigning it a rating of four sporks out of five, with the provisions that you eat just one and schedule a nap for the hours immediately following consumption.

Eat Double Downs regularly, and I fear your doctor will be clucking his tongue.

Initial impressions of the KFC Double Down

2010-04-24T15:29:00.003-04:00

I got my hands on KFC's new Double Down today, and although I need some more time to digest the most literal chicken sandwich out there before delivering a final verdict, I'm going to share my initial impressions. Consider this my version of a technoblog's first hands-on with the Apple iPad before they had time to mold their official opinion.

The Double Down is not as large as you may expect. It was closer to the size of my first than KFC's typical chihuahua-sized chunks of chicken.
Meat. Meat. Meat. You're probably not surprised to hear that replacing a sandwich's bread with two fried chicken breasts results in a ton of meat. But by the end of the meal I was begging for a biscuit.
Colonel's Sauce is tasty. Despite the ominous name and an uncanny similarity to Thousand Island dressing, the Colonel's sauce in the middle of all the chicken and bacon added a welcome zing to the Double Down.
AWOL bacon. Speaking of bacon, where was it? Every once in a long while some bacon texture would pop up in a bite, but it the thin slices of pork belly contributed almost no flavor in the face of the tsunami of chicken.
Cheap cheese. Not that this is necessarily a terrible thing, but I could have purchased better quality American cheese from the prepackaged food section at Wal-Mart.
Prepare to be judged. My girlfriend looked at me with a mixture of disgust and pity the entire time I ate. The Double Down is tougher to swallow in concept than in your mouth.
The Double Down is healthier than many fast foods. OK, OK, the term "healthier" should never, ever be applied to this sandwich. Still, the interwebs have pointed out that there are several salads that are worse than the Double Down, and that there are many similarly bad meals on the market. Plus, I can tell you that I feel much better a few hours after eating the Double Down than I did after eating KFC's grilled chicken.
Yum. There's no getting around the fact that the Double Down actually tasted pretty darned good, in a mortgaging-five-years-of-my-life kind of way.

So there's your first look. I'll spend the next couple of days evaluating the entirety of the Double Down and have a complete review up soon. Rest assured that you shouldn't be too chicken to try one in the mean time.

Preparing for the KFC Double Down with the Milky Way Dark

2010-04-21T21:07:00.001-04:00

Boy am I ever excited to try KFC's new Double Down. Two pieces of chicken sandwiching bacon, cheese and Colonel's sauce is every fast food critic's dream -- it's brash, captivating and eye-catching. But it's not quite time to review the Double Down yet.

Something as in-your-face as fried chicken book-ending sow belly deserves at least a week of mental preparation before evaluation. I need to steel myself for the abundance of deep frying and distance my thoughts from the interweb buzz storming about the Colonel's creation. To do otherwise would not be fair to one of the most audacious creations to grace the drive-thru since I anointed myself a food critic.

While I tap my inner chicken-Zen and perform taste-bud yoga, let's run through a mini-review. I think a candy bar should keep us tied over until Double Down Doomsday, don't you?

Fortunately I have just the candy bar in mind: the Milky Way Midnight. When writing last week's review of the Milky Way Simply Caramel I realized I never wrote about the dark side of the candy bar's family. That's a shame because the Midnight is no rotten pumpkin.

It swaps dark chocolate for the standard Milky Way's milk chocolate and implements a unique vanilla nougat in the center. And it keeps the standard helping of caramel inside for all you sweet tooths out there.

The result is a candy bar with more distinct flavors than the standard Milky Way. The dark chocolate gives it a hint of bitterness, the vanilla nougat lightens everything and the caramel sweeps your mouth along on an all-encompassing ride of sweetness.

All of the flavors stand out yet work in symphony with each other. If the regular Milky Way is three flavor instruments playing the same tune in harmony, the Milky Way Midnight is three instruments playing a medley that resonates on the tongue.

The bell tolls a friendly melody for the Milky Way Midnight -- five sporks out of five. The candy bar put me in a good frame of mind as I prepare for the Double Down. I'll run through some gastrointestinal calisthenics and have a review up for you next week.

Milky Way Simply Caramel: A black hole of sweetness

2010-04-13T21:29:00.000-04:00

How would you make a Milky Way bar better? The options aren't as plentiful as you might think.

One answer is to swap the milk chocolate coating for dark chocolate. The folks at Mars did that recently with the delicious Milky Way Midnight. Another train of thought says adding nuts would be helpful -- but that's called a Snicker's bar.

All nougat composition? 3 Musketeers has that ground covered. And changing to a peanut butter nougat starts to encroach on Reese's-dominated territory.

That leaves only one option as far as my candy-aisle telescope can see: all caramel.

Enter the Milky Way Simply Caramel Bar, which I recently found at the supermarket. It's shaped like a regular Milky Way bar on the outside but contains a whole different galaxy of ingredients and flavor on the inside. And by "different galaxy" I mean one giant gravity well of caramel. Bite into the bar and the chewy stuff spills forth like a gamma ray burst.

It's similar to a giant elongated Rolo with its ingredients all out of proportion. It even tastes a little out of proportion. Not bad, mind you, just unbalanced.

There's so much undiluted sweetness to contend with that eating an entire bar is borderline brutality. The first bite flows around your taste buds with a welcoming shock. Then the rest of the experience is like a black hole sucking all flavors but sugar from your pallet.

Honestly, it needs a peanut butter nougat, nuts or dark chocolate to dispel everything and give it a little "oomph." I was hungry 10 minutes after eating the bar, since all that sugar metabolizes quickly.

A gold star to Mars for trying to find a successful new variation of the Milky Way. Unfortunately this offering is worlds away from perfect. Two sporks out of five.

An alien idea: Planet Fitness Pizza Night

2010-04-06T20:30:00.000-04:00

If you live in a region with a Planet Fitness, you might be aware of a peculiar perk at the gym chain: Pizza night.

On the first Monday of every month the gym is filled with more than treadmills and weights. Slices of pizza are laid out so you can exercise your jaw muscles as well as your biceps.

The idea always seemed self defeating to me. Why sweat it out for hours on end only to undo your hard work with artery-clogging grease and cheese? But being a member of a different gym, I only gave it passing curiosity -- an cock of the head through the telescope, if you will.

Well, I've re-relocated from Central Pennsylvania to Central New York and joined up with a new gym -- Planet Fitness. Yesterday was my first visit to Pizza night, forcing me to confront the peculiarity head-on.

I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised.

It certainly wasn't my initial impression that won me over. I forgot all about pizza night until I arrived at the door at 6:30, ready to work out some built-up energy from a day spent sitting behind a desk at work. Instead of being greeted by the gym's familiar "come hyperventilate with me" scent of exercise and sweat I was bowled over by the heavy smell of pizza crust. It wasn't appetizing at the time.

The juxtaposition of Italian food and my workout also failed to sway my opinion. Nothing about seeing fellow gym-mates milling about the entrance chewing on cheesy dough made me want to squeeze out an extra set of triceps extensions or finish another mile on the exercise bike. Here too my nose took the lead in the dissatisfaction. Exercise plus pizza smells equals the urge to vomit, not the desire to stuff your face.

The pizza quality didn't do much for me either. It also wasn't hot. I suppose lukewarm slices are to be expected since they're available all evening.

My opinion of pizza night only changed after a decent stint on an exercise bike. It was about 7:30 p.m. and I'd yet to eat dinner. My blood sugar was plummeting, and I needed a jolt. Pizza was there to save me, offering an unmitigated dash of sustenance when my body and brain were feeling fuzzy.

Sure, it probably set my waistline back a few days. And I'm still not completely behind the Pizza night idea. Yet having tried it, I'm much more at peace with the concept than I was before.

The verdict is still out. For right now Pizza Night gets an undecided two-and-a-half sporks out of five.

Shrimp at Taco Bell?

2010-03-12T18:10:00.000-05:00

Never have I been so surprised at Taco Bell as the day I saw the words "Pacific Shrimp" on the menu.

Specifically, "Pacific Shrimp Taco." It's a soft tortilla bearing six shrimp, lettuce, salsa and the Bell's infamous "Avocado Ranch Sauce."

At first thought the shrimp taco seems downright dangerous. Eat a bottom-dwelling crustacean from a fast-food joint previously called out for its poor-quality beef? Sounds risky.

I can't evaluate any health concerns related to the marine decapods, but I can tell you the Pacific Shrimp Taco is more appetizing than expected. It's by no means the best bang for your buck on The Bell's menu, yet it could provide a fairly tasty change of pace for all you Lent-observing Friday Taco Bell frequenters.

The salsa, tortilla, lettuce and sauce are all pretty standard. Let's skip right to the shrimp, the heart of the meal. They're about as rubbery as you'd expect. Less so than chewing gum but more so than fresh crustaceans.

Our tiny aquatic meat is saved, fortunately, by a shockingly tasty flavor. Taco Bell says they're "marinated in a mix of spices," whatever that means. My translation is that the shrimp pack a low heat that builds steadily as you eat your taco.

They aren't overly fishy, either. Everyone's worst cheap-fish nightmare is that it will cause seafood-burps all day. I'm proud to report my afternoon was free of tuna-tasting belches.

The shrimp are a little pricey, however. I paid nearly $3 for my Pacific Shrimp Taco, a bit steep considering its five-bite size. Perhaps Taco Bell should consider a price-saving "Atlantic Shrimp Taco" for its East Coast patrons.

When it came time to sink or swim, the shrimp taco manages to stay afloat with three sporks out of five. Tenderize the shrimp a little and cut down on the amount folks have to shell out for one, and this shrimp/spice combination would be a winning cocktail.

Second Annual Golden Spork Awards: The best foods of 2009

2010-03-08T11:56:00.003-05:00

Hot on the heels of last night's Academy Awards, I'm proud to present the Second Annual Golden Spork Awards. This year's Golden Sporks will honor the foods Rick's Food Critique reviewed in 2009.

Close foodie followers will notice several tweaks to this year's awards. First, the timing. We've moved the presentation from last year's New Year's Eve slot to March in order to align with the Oscars. Hopefully this will sate any hunger for flavorful prizes that lurks in your belly after last night's fawning over tasteless films.

More importantly, the awards themselves have been modified. The first Golden Sporks were handed out to the four best foods reviewed in 2008, while the four worst foods were also cited. This year's awards will recognize the best foods in seven distinct categories, including "Best Supporting Beverage" and "Best Dessert in a Leading Role." We'll wrap up with the prestigious "Best Picnic," which is the best overall food reviewed in 2009.

The worst foods list is not completely gone, though. We'll start out with a brief "Put a spork in them" dishonorable mention roll call.

Put a spork in them: 2009's foods to forget

Burger King's Burger Shots Outgunned in every category, these should have been put out of their misery before ever reaching a menu.

Nabisco bags Someone at the snack giant seems to think people should use scissors or have a hard time getting to their crackers. The bags are impossible to open sans-tools without ripping and spilling food everywhere.

Golden Spork Awards: The top foods reviewed in 2009

Free Food: Mars Real Chocolate Relief Act In the depths of the economic recession the chocolate maker implemented a plan to send free candy coupons to anyone filling out an online form. People and M&M's everywhere smiled joyously.

Short Payment (Best sub-$1 food): Taco Bell Triple Layer Nachos They may have been a bit small and a tad soggy, but for 79 cents you didn't care.

Seasonal Food: Cadbury Creme Egg An old-time Easter favorite that always brings back memories of tummy aches and clucking bunnies.

Snack/Candy: Reese's Dark The dark side can be a wonderful thing. A rare knock-off that works better than the original.

Best Supporting Beverage: Pepsi Throwback/Mountain Dew Throwback While not the most balanced drinks, the sweet nod to real cane sugar in soda is too meaningful to ignore.

Best Dessert in a Leading Role: Yogen Früz Green Tea Frozen Yogurt
Not the gimmick it first appears to be, this luscious blend of flavors and textures surprised everyone to upset Wendy's Toffee Coffee Twisted Frosty.

Best Picnic: Five Guys By far the best overall eating experience of the year. Free peanuts, great fries, a slew of burger toppings and flavor that will knock you on your back. This is what eating a burger was meant to be.

Twix Triple Chocolate

2010-03-05T11:12:00.004-05:00

My most-loyal readers will no doubt remember the high esteem in which I hold Twix bars. I find them to be both the ultimate workplace candy and one of the top candies for any occasion.

Not only is the combination intrinsically appealing -- cookie topped with caramel and chocolate is virtually unbeatable -- you get twice the fun. The old "two for me none for you" ad campaign is too selfish for my tastes, but it gets the point across. Biting into that second Twix to quell the disappointment of finishing your first bar is absolute bliss.

So imagine my glee when I discovered Twix Triple Chocolate staring me in the face at a gas station. Twix injected with the morbid appeal of death-by-chocolate? I didn't think the combination could lose.

(That's in sharp contrast to my photography skills, which I knew would be soundly defeated in their attempt to bring you a glareless photo of the Twix Triple Chocolate wrapper.)

For the most part, I was right. Triple Chocolate Twix is much more successful than other variations of the candy, including the lackluster peanut butter version.

Here's the blueprint: Take a normal Twix bar and turn the cookie chocolate. Then remove its encased caramel and replace it with with a chocolate substitute. Cover it all in -- you guessed it -- chocolate.

The chocolate cookie is old news, being virtually lifted from the peanut butter variety of the bar. So is the chocolate coating. The real star of Triple Chocolate Twix is undoubtedly the chocolate caramel topping the cookie.

I expected it to be something like the fudge in the fine Snickers Fudge, which is to say solid and rich. Instead it was caramel-gooey and pleasantly sweet. I won't argue it isn't rich since it still tops off a massive helping of chocolate, yet it doesn't push the bar into bellyache-inducing territory.

My only complaint is that the three chocolates blend together somewhat, leaving your taste buds picking up a cocoa combination rather than three distinct flavors. I'd like to see the outer coating or the cookie changed to a dark chocolate, making this a Twix to truly remember.

Even so, we're talking about a four-out-of-five-spork bar here. Rest assured, they didn't fudge this one up.

NBA $5 Buck Box at Taco Bell

2010-02-22T13:29:00.006-05:00

If the title of this post didn't make you think of Charles Barkley it's time to visit American pop culture and watch the YouTube video below. Sir Charles' ode to Taco Bell's big box is the best commercial from this year's Super Bowl and possibly the best jingle of the last five years.

Actually you should watch the video even if "$5 Box" does make you think of Sir Charles rhyming away. The former NBA player reminds me of Sugar Bear from Golden Crisp -- you can't get enough.

Now that we're finished staring at embedded videos and lavishing praise on advertising honchos, we can move on to the review of Taco Bell's NBA $5 Buck Box. We'll start with the obvious: the name.

The words "Five-Buck Box" jump from Charles Barkley's mouth so easily they nearly make you forget the bizarrely lengthy and redundant "NBA $5 Buck Big Box" stamped on the side of each cardboard container. Nearly.

I know I've been heavy-handed on product names recently, so I'll make this short. The box should be called either an "NBA $5 Box" or an "NBA 5 Buck Box," not an "NBA $5 Buck Big Box." As it's currently written you would read the the name aloud as the "NBA Five-Dollar Buck Big Box." That sounds like you purchased a $5 mail-order deer hunting kit for basketball players.

For the rest of this post I'll refer to it as the "Five-Buck Box" because that's what Sir Charles calls it in the commercial. And I'm sure Sir Charles knows best.

Anyway, I was a little disappointed in my Five-Buck box. Not because of the food, which includes a Cheesy Gordita Crunch (to munch), a Burrito Supreme, a Crunchy Taco, Cinnamon Twists and a drink. Because of the cardboard. I didn't get any.

I ordered my Five-Buck Box to go, and Taco Bell decided to stuff my items in a bag without the advertised cardboard. The packaging was all wrong, even if the price was right.

It slightly flattened my Burrito Supreme and caused my Cinnamon Twists to spill. I even believe my lack of a box led me to have a definite inability blocking shots on guys with dreadlocks.

On another note, I was allowed to order either a Cheesy Gordita Crunch to munch or a Volcano Taco (to mock-o?). Options are always nice, but anyone who's read my reviews of the Cheesy Gordita Crunch and Volcano Taco knows there's no choice between the two. The Volcano Taco merely simmers while the Cheesy Gordita Crunch explodes in wondrous flavor.

None of the products in the Five-Buck Box are new, which is not necessarily a bad thing. The Crunchy Taco does its just-a-little-too-small thing, crunching away for a few bites. Cinnamon Twists, similar to pork rinds doused in sugar, are wonderfully guilt-inducingly tasty. And even when flattened the Burrito Supreme packs enough re-fried beans to be satisfying.

The products in the Five-Buck Box are lots and lots and make up a good deal. Be warned, though, it's a lot of Taco Bell.

Regulars at the chain know just one Burrito Supreme can lead to an afternoon nursing an uncomfortable tummy. The Five-Buck Box has potential to cause the mother of all Taco Bellyaches.

Since I received my Five-Buck Box in a bag I have no choice but to rate the experience at only two sporks. I had Charles Barkley's jingle in my head the entire time I ate, making matters worse. "The Five-Buck Bag, it rocks, it rocks" does not rhyme.

I tried to make up my own "Five-Buck Bag" version, but it just isn't the same:

The Five-Buck Bag, it lags, it lags
It lags for a meal since the plastic sags
It lags for a hag, it lags for a JAG
It lags tagging nags while I try not to gag

It would easily rock if it came in a box
But Taco Bell hoards cardboard like Fort Knox

The 5 Buck Bag, it lags, it lags
It sure does lag since it's in a bag

Bruegger's Maple & Sausage Breakfast Sandwich

2010-02-19T10:38:00.004-05:00

Who's up for a little Friday brunch?

If I'm right, some eggs, sausage and a bagel sound like the perfect way to tie you over for a few hours until the weekend starts. Fortunately your intrepid food critique recently stumbled upon a better way to eat them.

I speak of Bruegger's new Maple & Sausage Breakfast Sandwich. Curiously dubbed with an ampersand, this concoction is essentially a better take on McDonald's McGriddle. It has an egg patty, a sausage patty, a "French Toast Bagel," and "Vermont Maple Cream Cheese" -- deemed proper nouns by Bruegger's nose-in-the-air promotional materials.

Set aside the curious naming conventions for a moment -- we'll get back to them. Let's tear into the meat of this meal.

First, the negatives: The sandwich has a very utilitarian egg patty. While I can't say for sure, I suspect it was freeze dried or dehydrated before being reincarnated in Bruegger's "bakery." The same can be said of the sausage patty.

These aren't necessarily deal-breakers, though. Lower-crust egg and sausage patties have their own charm, like pulling on your favorite shirt purchased from the $1 sale rack at Old Navy. They get the job done, they're satisfying and they're comfortable.

They're also bookended by two fast food studs: the "French Toast Bagel" and "Vermont Maple Cream Cheese." French toast bagels are proof that duality can be successful in foods. Bagels that taste like French toast are simply delicious. Throw in the maple cream cheese and its syrupy flavor, and you're wrapping your sandwich with a plate straight from your grandma's kitchen.

Let's be clear that the cream cheese is "syrupy" in flavor only. It's not gooey or disgusting. In fact it's creamily delicious, improving on the consistency of maple syrup by, well, replacing it with the consistency of cream cheese.

The flavors all work together in a harmonious breakfast sandwich far outshining McDonald's similar offering. Where McGriddles are a rush of supersweetstaggeringlysalty, Bruegger's offering is a more subtle blending of flavors producing a rich eating experience. Bruegger's is even thoughtful enough to slice the sandwich in half, a nod to the difficulty of eating bagel sandwiches.

The only place Bruegger's seems to have overthought the sandwich is in naming and advertising. Ampersands abound, from the name of "Maple & Sausage Breakfast Sandwich" to the product description posted in stores' windows, which say the meal is comprised of "Vermont Maple Cream Cheese, Egg & Sausage on a French Toast Bagel."

Ampersands aren't confined to this meal, they're everywhere in Bruegger's stores. Would it kill the place to spell out a-n-d? The symbols only serve to make things confusing.

& what's with the decision to make everything related to the ampersandwich a proper noun? My guess is the ampersands are used in order to try to dress up Bruegger's, making it look classy. The place should let its food speak for itself.

The Maple & Sausage Breakfast Sandwich speaks pretty well, bringing home four sporks out of five. Add a higher quality egg & Sausage & we'd be looking at a mouthful of perfect.

Wendy's Spicy Chicken Nuggets

2010-02-10T14:02:00.003-05:00

I recently reached out for Wendy's Spicy Chicken Nuggets. Why in the name of fiery fowl didn't someone come up with this idea before?

The equation is so simple it sounds cliche: Take two fast-food favorites and combine them. Scrumptious spicy chicken sandwich plus always-desirable chicken nuggets equals delicious spicy chicken nuggets.

For those of you who prefer mathematical notations, I'd imagine the equation would look something like this:

SCS+CN=SCN

I know that doesn't follow classic algebraic rules, but cooking is an inexact science. All you need to know is the simplified equation, which looks a little something like this.

SCN=GOOD.

Spicy chicken nuggets equal better-than-regular nuggets, actually. They're wrapped in basically the same breading and seasoning as Wendy's Spicy Chicken Sandwich, although they don't have as high a quality meat as their bun-wrapped big brother. If the spicy chicken sandwich is a chicken breast rushed straight from the chopping block, the nuggets are meat slowly trucked in from the food processing factory.

That doesn't much matter because nuggets aren't about the quality of their meat. They're about greasy flavor and heavy breading, both of which these little nibbles pack. The spicy chicken nuggets have an ideally high breading-to-meat ratio and boast a decent heat. On a spiciness scale of one to 10 I'd give them somewhere between a five and a six -- pretty good for the fast food world.

On the price scale they slot in at a 99. As in 99 cents for five nuggets, or great on the bang-for-your-buck meter. They make a great cheap snack to spice up chilly February days.

All in all, Wendy's new spicy nuggets won't disappoint in their current form. Higher quality meat would push them into legendary territory, but they're plenty desirable in their current form. The final equation simplifies to this.

SCN=(4)SPORKS

Returning with Denny's free Grand Slam breakfast

2010-02-09T13:22:00.003-05:00

Food fans, it's once again time for me to offer my apologies for leaving you dining alone for an extended time. I last served you a new post 66 days ago, leaving you to face a devilish stretch of winter with no intellectual nourishment. I am sorry.

I could offer you a large menu of excuses: Winter blahs, a job hunt siphoning my time or just general holiday business. But excuses are like The Who singing at halftime of the Superbowl -- no one wants to hear them, and they get old rapidly.

While you are, no doubt, a polite reading public willing to grant me some weeks for R&R, you needed some food critique to guide you through the long holiday months. At very least you deserved a repost of last year's Super Bowl special and the Bacon Explosion before this year's big game. And I'm sure everyone could have stood to reread my pontifications on ham while planning this year's Christmas dinner.

I promise to make it up to you. Today I'll start with a review of Denny's free Grand Slam breakfast. After you've had time to digest that we'll move on to a review of Wendy's Spicy Chicken Nuggets. And I'm in the process of preparing the annual Spork Awards for 2009 -- better late than never, I always say. The way back into your hearts is through your stomachs, and I'm ready to start making up.

Denny's Free Grand Slam

I wasn't alone in following up on Sunday's Super Bowl ads and ordering my free breakfast at Denny's. The restaurant Tuesday was full of folks ordering the free Grand Slam breakfasts, which consist of two eggs, two sausage links, two bacon strips and two flapjacks.

Seeing identical breakfast foods on every table in the restaurant was downright creepy, similar to seeing 40 men in matching suits walking toward you. It makes you think you're headed for the funny farm.

If it was the funny farm, it wasn't the freshest farm. My sausage links and eggs had an extra-processed quality to them that screamed "impending heart attack." That's not a bad thing from a taste standpoint, but I was worried I was dumping enough extra preservatives into my digestive tract to keep my stomach around for the benefit of future generations.

The same can be said for the bacon, but I refuse to criticize bacon for having preservatives. It is, after all, bacon. What I will criticize my bacon for is its limpness. Surely Denny's could have crisped it up a bit.

By contrast my pancakes were beyond reproach, packing a good balance of fluffiness and butteriness. My only complaint is that I was given a dinky container of syrup. A few ounces was not enough to cover the broad stretch of flapjack on my plate.

I must pick one final nit. My food was served merely warm. On a related note, my service was fairly slow. It's a small complaint considering the restaurant was busy and giving me free food, but worth noting nonetheless.

So it's time to rank the free breakfast. The price was right. The food was decent. Sounds like five sporks to me.

The rating would, of course, be a little different if I had to pay for the meal. I'll try to do that at some point for the sake of future generations.

Five Guys, five sporks

2009-12-04T21:13:00.006-05:00

This may be the only time you ever see me tell you to pay ten bucks for a burger and fries.

Until the far away day when the rising tide of inflation picks up candy bar prices to $5, you won't see me endorse many meals this pricey. I could be rich enough to eat a surf and turf of manatee and polar bear every night, but I would still shudder at the thought of handing over ten Washingtons for the traditionally inexpensive American meal.

But oh what a burger and fries Five Guys cooks.

The Virginia-based chain makes a big deal about the fact that it offers no frozen ingredients and uses only peanut oil on its fries. Normally I'd ignore all that woofing, but something makes a difference at Five Guys. And it may well be the no-frozen all-peanut formula.

Five Guys' burgers are truly hot off the grill. They drip taste (grease) and have ground beef that tastes closer to "off the farm" than "out of the food processor." Five Guys fries are the closest thing to fresh cut potatoes that I've seen outside of sliced-in-front-of-you fair fries. They aren't too salty and have an actual potato flavor -- a rarity in fast food fries.

A real selling point on the burgers is their customizability. Toppings are free -- provided you're willing to pay the already premium price of a burger -- and give you plenty of chances to mix and match. I counted sixteen different toppings, including green peppers, hot sauce and grilled onions.

... And then there's my favorite topping, jalapeno peppers. Five Guys has taken the high road and offers actual fresh jalapenos. As in not the pickled peppers you see at so many other fast food restaurants. While I love pickled jalapenos, the fresh ones provide a much longer-lasting heat that builds upon itself, simultaneously building deliciousness.

But enough about the peppers. You're probably wondering how it all adds up to a $10 meal. And in truth you could order a burger and fries for less than that. But you'd have to order a single burger, which Five Guys mockingly calls a "Little Burger." I say don't go little, stay beefy!

Or you could leave out the drink. My bacon cheeseburger cost $5.49, my fries cost $2.39 and my drink cost $1.79. Toss in some tax, and you have a $10.26 meal -- that was worth it.

Five Guys is getting the same number of sporks as it has guys. Five. Each full dollar I paid for my burger was worth a spork.

Plus I'm ready to go back to spend another ten bucks. I have an awfully inflated opinion of this place.

Wendy's Applewood smoked bacon

2009-11-29T19:20:00.003-05:00

Wendy's sure has been making a big deal out of its Applewood smoked bacon lately.

Commercials have been telling us it's way better than fast food. They've shown cubicle wars over the hog slices, complete with dramatic shots of leaping old women.

My suggestion, though, is that you look before bringing home the bacon.

It's not that you won't have a tasty meal. Wendy's burgers are good on their own and bacon generally adds some scrumptiousness. So tossing bacon onto an Wendy's burger is a recipe for something yummy.

Unfortunately it isn't a recipe that lives up to all the hype.

I ordered a "Deluxe Double" with smoked Applewood strips and was surprised by how average the bacon tasted. The overwhelming flavor of the burger is ... burger. No bacon flavor jumped out and grabbed my by the throat.

After all the talk, I halfway expected a pig to climb out of the burger, wring my neck and scream "Eat more bacon!" I at least expected smokey bacon flavor to tempt me to order another burger.

Instead I picked up a complimentary bacon flavor -- that was pleasantly smokey -- and a slightly rubbery texture. It may have simply been the Wendy's franchise I ordered from, but my bacon was dry and a bit overdone.

It should have been way better than three sporks out of five. Yet that's the rating it earned.

KFC Grilled Chicken

2009-11-21T13:32:00.005-05:00

Oh my loyal foodie followers, how I've neglected you these past few weeks! Just as the winter months set in, limiting your time outside and giving you more time to eat, I've been head-spinningly busy and unable to give you the palatory guidance you so deserve!

Let me apologize. Let me also make it up to you with what today's review. I promise it's juicy.

It's juicy because it's reviewing a juicy food. KFC's Grilled Chicken.

Actually, "juicy" doesn't do justice to KFC's latest attempt at non-fried yet appetizing bird chunks. "Saturated" is more like it. My memories of the chicken will forever drip with the moisture that was soaked into the bird.

See, one of the problems with grilled chicken is that it's not as juicy as fried chicken. The grill can extract moisture from the meat where deep frying adds oil to it. KFC, deriving its namesake from Kentucky (deep)Fried Chicken, couldn't put out a dry offering and expect anyone to eat it.

And Kentucky Grilled Chicken, henceforth referred to as KGC, certainly isn't dry. And if you could ever get around to focusing on the chicken's flavor, you'd find it's actually pretty good.

The problem is that you never can focus on the flavor for more than three seconds because biting into KGC is like gnawing on a sponge. Juiciness floods your mouth. It drips down your hands and forms a small puddle at your feet.

Picture the puddle of drool at Odie's feet in "Garfield" comics. That's what you look like after eating KGC.

Worse, that puddle is in large part grease. And a portion of it made it into your mouth and sits in your tummy like a lead weight pulling you desperately into bed to sleep off the calorie-hangover. But when you get to bed it keeps you awake with cramps.

It is cheap at the register, though. I got two pieces of the grilled chicken, (I chose a breast and a drumstick), mac and cheese, a biscuit and a drink for $5 ... plus the future cost of the balloon angioplasty I'll no doubt need after ingesting all that grease -- 110 milligrams of cholesterol in the breast!

KGC could be worse. It could be dry and a hazard to your health. But if you're going to eat badly, you might as well enjoy something that's deep fried.

Two sporks out of five. They should serve this with a shop towel and that a packet of auto mechanic soap that's specially formulated to cut through motor oil.

Taco Bell Black Jack Taco

2009-11-02T20:48:00.003-05:00

Taco Bell's Black Jack Taco isn't much of a gamble. Sure its black shell gives it spades full of style, but the Bell hasn't exactly thrown a new set of cards into the deck with this one.

See, it tastes a lot like a regular Taco Bell Taco. Because it largely is a regular Taco Bell Taco. A taco shell, seasoned beef, lettuce and shredded cheese all play out the way you expect. Even the black shell is nothing but a bluff. It tastes just like a regular taco shell.

Taco Bell does have an ace in the hole, however -- pepper jack sauce, which gives it a little smack and tells your taste buds this is not a regular taco. The pepper jack sauce is fit for a king.

Unfortunately the Bell fails to slather enough on there. Some more sauce would have left this a delicacy flush with flavor. As it stands the Black Jack Taco is a trap hand that looks pretty then fails to deliver anything special.

Which is really the problem in an otherwise solid meal. The taco costs 89 cents, so you aren't pushing your wallet all in to buy one. And anyone who likes regular Taco Bell Tacos will find this a pleasant take on a long-successful formula.

It's just a shame the Bell couldn't have bet a little more here. Make this a truly black meal by adding black beans and black rice and pour on more sauce, and I'd be spilling some ink in favor of this thing. Even if the flavor turned out to be a little too much it would be better to go bust than play too close to the vest.

As it is the Bell folds in a mediocre three sporks out of five.

Cheesy Bacon BK WRAPPER at Burger King

2009-10-29T20:54:00.005-04:00

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, they say.

If that's true, I've largely been ignoring that most important meal. Before today I've only written about breakfast in this critique three other times -- not nearly enough for you bacon-and-egg-craving goblins who like to rise early.

So never mind that I'm posting this past 9 p.m. Breakfast writing makes good food for the eyes whether it's dark because it's early or dark because it's late. Plus, eggs always make a good midnight snack.

Eggs also make a good wrap. Burger King stuffed some eggs, hash brown nuggets, bacon and "smoky cheese sauce" into a tortilla to make a concoction it calls the "Cheesy Bacon BK WRAPPER."

Note the all-caps on "WRAPPER." They're a bit misplaced.

You see, the eggs and hash browns carry the flavor more than the tortilla. (And more than the bacon, for that matter.) Calling this the "EGG and HASH BROWN BK Wrapper" would be more accurate.

That's not to say it isn't tasty. Fried potatoes and eggs make a wonderful marriage in most applications, and this one is no different. The taters give just enough break in texture to keep the egg from being tedious.

The single strip of bacon in the middle of the wrap isn't lost, either. Far from overpowering, it still adds some much-needed meat.

Unfortunately I don't know where the "cheese" in the name comes from. BK's description of "smoky" is a little more accurate, but that's not a powerful flavor either. Two strikes on the cheese sauce.

It's a shame this wrap is labeled with such misnomers because they cost it a spork or two in the ratings. Sometimes you just can't get past a name, though.

You see, a name is the first thing you know about a fast food. You use it to pick your meal from the big board. You speak it when you order. Saying those words prime your mouth for certain flavors. It's kind of like it's the most important part of fast food.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day ... the name is the most important part of a food. At least in this case.

Three sporks out of five. Misled taste buds are not the best way to start the day.

Arby's Roast Beef Patty Melt for $5.01 ... kind of

2009-10-22T20:54:00.004-04:00

I picked up a $5.01 Arby's Roast Beef Patty Melt meal Tuesday, and while the sandwich is tasty, I have to say the pricing isn't worth a red cent.

Hopefully you've seen Arby's "Worth Every Penny" marketing blitz, or that statement didn't make much sense to you. Basically the hot lunchmeat chain rolled out combos with five different sandwiches and decided to charge $5.01 for each one.

You can get a "Regular Roast Beef" sandwich, a Roast Beef Gyro, a Roast Beef Patty Melt, French Dip & Swiss or a Roast Chicken Ranch. Each comes with your standard drink and curly fries accompaniments. Each is curiously priced a penny over $5.01.

Except if you live in a state that charges tax on restaurants, it's going to cost more. In Pennsylvania it costs 30 cents more, which was a huge disappointment to me as I approached the counter with $5.01 in hand. My five dollar bill and shiny copper coin left me 30 Abe Lincolns short! Fortunately the cashier was patient enough to wait for me to sheepishly dig out my wallet and yank out a $10 bill.

Yes, it was foolish of me to not read the fine print in the advertisements about tax or remember that my $5 Subway Footlong actually costs $5.30. But wouldn't it be nice if the franchises worked out a pricing system that would make the meal cost $5.01 after tax? I'm no math whiz, but I think such pricing would be possible a day locked in the manager's office with a slide rule and the help of a few employees counting on their fingers and toes.

Fortunately eating the sandwich wasn't as upsetting as paying for it.

Even saddled with post-$10-bill coin-filled pockets and the blues of my checkout embarrassment, I enjoyed my meal. Roast beef, toasted sourdough bread, red onions, Thousand Island Dressing -- what's not to like? It is a good thing Arby's doesn't advertise "crispy toasted sourdough bread," though, because it was more on the chewy side. Still, chewiness is not a bad thing when it comes to sourdough, as long as your not expecting to hear a crunch when you bite in.

And those red onions complimented the meal. I've droned on before about how they put that extra "oomph" into fast food flavors, so I won't bore you now. Just know the onions do it again.

The Thousand Island Dressing was a nice touch, too. It wasn't overpowering yet offered the perfect compliment of creaminess and just a hint of spice -- the flavor glue keeping the tastes of the sandwich together. Unfortunately it wasn't a physical glue, and served lubricated surfaces where roast beef met sourdough. You need big hands to keep this sandwich together.

The sandwich is worth trying, even if it does require a little more chump change than expected. Pricing issues and a slight lack of originality keep it from pulling down a perfect score, but it nets a very good four sporks out of five.

It seems coincidence has left me reviewing a lot of foods that deserve four spork ratings lately. Penny for your thoughts on that.

Snickers Fudge

2009-10-13T22:07:00.004-04:00

All you foodie followers must be hungry for a new critique.

It's been more than a month since the global financial crisis combined with a lack of new fast-food products to force your intrepid reviewer into a De facto vacation that left you cutting back on your favorite blog cold turkey. But fear, not, for your eyes no longer have to diet! All the days off left me recharged and ready to cook up some food critiquing goodness.

Let's start by satisfying the hunger with some Snickers. But not just any old Snickers -- Snickers Fudge.

This is the kind of thing that makes you stop and stare in the checkout line at the grocery store. You're waiting for the person in front of you to finish up at the self-scanner while you tap your foot with that half-sleepy half-annoyed feeling that only comes from watching someone try to feed a $10 bill in the credit card swiper. You're looking around at candy bar displays you've seen dozens of times.

Then you do a double take. The wrapper looks like a common Snickers Almond, but the words don't match. Did that just say Snickers Fudge?

By the time you confirm that it did indeed say Snickers Fudge the person in front of you has finished fighting with the self-checker and headed out, leaving the crazed mom behind you sighing in exasperation and running over the back of your feet with a cart instead of saying, "The machine is open, sir." So you have to grab a bar quickly and get out of the store with your prize.

... At least that's how I found out about Snickers Fudge earlier today.

Regardless, it's a tasty little treat. Just don't expect it to scream "Snickers" at you.

See, normal Snickers have peanuts wrapped in a familiar comfort blanket of caramel. This Snickers has no caramel. Instead it has a peanut butter nougat topped in peanuts that are doused in chocolate. The chocolate is similar to chocolate in truffles, only much lower in quality.

It's a very good taste -- think a Hershey chocolate bar surgically implanted with peanuts and then bred with a Reese's Fast Break, only siphon off a good bit of the peanut butter flavor. A complex flavor tree, yes, but one that's pleasing.

Pleasing enough, in fact, that I'm willing to give it a pass on the fact that its taste is more of a cheap chocolate thrill than an expensive fudge splurge. And on the fact that it is missing the signature Snickers flavor.

So we'll just fudge the score a little to come up with a score of four sporks out of five. And welcome back, everyone!

In case you needed a food fix ...

2009-09-01T21:23:00.002-04:00

I have a quick link for you to check out.

This week my wallet is trying to recover from a slew of unhealthy foods eaten on vacation, so I'm taking a few days off from new critiques, too. But in the event you were counting on me for something that's interesting to both the mind and the taste buds, I'd like to direct you to a recent post on the mental_floss Blog, "The Quick 10: 10 Secret Menu Items."

It's 10 bullets of little-known menu items at fast food restaurants. If that doesn't tie you over until the critique's vacation is over, nothing will.

McDonald's Angus Third Pounders

2009-08-26T21:48:00.004-04:00

For years I've needed a burger slotting between McDonald's Quarter Pounder with Cheese and Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese. All those times when I'm too hungry for the single and not hungry enough for the double have left me calling for something else ... something like a "Third Pounder with Cheese."

OK, not really.

In fact the first time I saw an ad for a Angus Third Pounder I thought it was the answer to a question no eater asked. Between the Big Mac, Big N' Tasty, Quarter Pounder variants, McDouble and original cheeseburger offerings, I thought the golden arches had stretched all-beef patties to their sesame seed bunned limits.

The house that Ronald built disagrees, it seems. And so we have the Angus Third Pounders, with seem to target a higher class of burger eaters who prefer mushrooms, crisp onions or high quality buns. While I don't like mushrooms, I do like a bolstered bun, so I reached out for the Bacon and Cheese Angus Third Pounder.

Actually, in the interest of "thirds" I reached out for it three times at three different franchises, giving us a little more in-depth look at the item.

My first impression was that the burger is very good but the bun is lacking. All those promotional materials had me ready for a chewy bun that would soak up all the burger grease and still leave me gnawing after each bite. Instead I got a slightly higher class bun that's still overall low in quality.

The meat might be of a slightly higher grade than regular Micky D's, although I have no doubt it isn't actually certified Angus quality. And the bacon is a step up from what I usually expect at the arches.

The red onion garnishing it all is where this burger earns its keep, however. The rings are crispy and full of flavor that will leave you burping for hours after eating -- just what you want out of an onion!

My second Bacon and Cheese Third Pounder was essentially the same, but with a brutally disappointing onion. I don't know if the second McDonald's ran out of onions or if they mistakenly cooked the red onion, but it was neither crisp nor flavorful. Nor was it good, for that matter. A few limp pink strands sat on top of the burger. They might as well have not been there.

Even so, the rest of the burger was still decent, if a little expensive.

My third third pounder was back to the level of the first one, giving me the belief that the poor onion showing was an aberration. I ate just before noon and burped onion until about 7 p.m. Perfect.

If not for price, these would be a quintessential McDonald's food. Unfortunately, though, $3.99 is just a tad too high for an imitation high-class burger that's completely greasy and has a bun that's better to look at than it is to eat. I might accept $3.49 in a pinch if the onion continues to be high class, but for $3.99 I at least want lettuce on my bacon cheeseburger. So it will have to settle for four sporks out of five.

Which is still a pretty good showing considering I wasn't convinced the burger had cause to exist until I'd eaten it. Maybe McDonald's will start rolling out all sorts of fractional burgers to capture market niches I didn't know exist. If that's the case, next year at this time I'll probably be trumpeting the virtues of the "Eight Twenty Sevenths with Cheese."

Furlough Friday: Nothing

2009-08-21T10:05:00.003-04:00

Welcome young and old the the final of our 10-part bi-weekly money-saving series, Furlough Friday. Hopefully you've learned a little about eating out on a budget this summer. Hopefully you've also learned to laugh a little, even if times are tough. Now, live from Pennsylvania ... it's Furlough Friday!

Today is the final installment of Furlough Friday, and I'm going to change things up a bit. There will be no potshots at the financial industry. No self-depreciating humor. No food, actually.

That's right, nothing is the featured meal of the final Furlough Friday. Because if times are really tough for you, you might be eating nothing.

Maybe it's a few days without food because you're laid off and trying to save enough to make a house payment. Maybe it's a suddenly closed soup kitchen for someone who has no home left. Either way, life is horrible when you have nothing at all to eat.

Have you ever gone a day without eating anything? A few years ago I did to see what it's like. The hunger doesn't stay in your stomach. Every limb on your body has this throbbing yearning for food by the end of the day, weakening you.

Imagine feeling like that day after day.

Far too many people in the world have too little to eat. Keep that in mind if you have a job, or have been laid off and get one. A donation to the local food bank, even if it's just a few cans of Spam, is one of the most simply altruistic things you can do.

It doesn't devolve into the politics of "where's my money going." If you give someone food, they have it to eat. Organizations aren't out there spending food on lobbying or salaries.

Whether or not you've had a bad hunger in your belly because of job troubles, remember that everyone should have something to eat, and try to help people who are down on their luck with a meal.

Chipotle!

2009-08-15T12:46:00.004-04:00

Recently I headed to Chipotle Mexican Grill, which recently made its way into the Harrisburg area with a new restaurant. A few friends talked it up to me and I was psyched to try it.

My love for Mexican food is well-chronicled, as is my appreciation for order-your-own-burritos-in-a-cafeteria-style-line Mexican restaurants. (Moe's anyone?) So going to Chipotle, a Mexican restaurant of the aforementioned style that emphasizes natural, organic ingredients, was a no-brainier.

Ordering didn't take much of a brain, either. I wanted a burrito, the signature dish of the customizable Mexican food genre. It got a little more complicated when I had to choose between chicken, beef, pork or vegetarian and decide between black and pinto beans, but it's nothing I haven't done at other restaurants -- chicken and pinto beans for me.

To say Chipotle stuffed my burrito is a massive understatement. It was about to burst, there was such a slew of rice, beans and meat packed in there. And it was all delicious.

The white rice was great, the chicken had a nice juicy flavor and a spoonful of sour cream topped things off. Defining the whole burrito experience was the salsa, though.

I chose Chipotle's hottest salsa in my burrito, and it had a good bit of kick to it. Saying it was very hot would be a stretch, but it rose above the heat in most restaurant burritos I've had.

That hot salsa also worked out well on my side of tortilla chips. Working out less well was the fact that chips weren't included in my meal. They were extra. By the time all was said and done, I paid a little over $10 for a drink, massive burrito, chips and salsa.

In reality that isn't too terrible of a price, considering the overwhelming amount of food it bought. I could have easily done without the chips and still walked away full. But who wants to eat just a burrito? No, you have to have chips to go along with your main course.

Price was the main drawback to my Chipotle experience. That and the bursting feeling in my overloaded stomach as I walked away. They combine to pull down what would be an overloaded five spork score.

Instead I talked myself down and Chipotle will have to settle for a less-than massive four sporks out of five.

Taco Bell's Volcano Nachos

2009-08-11T19:42:00.000-04:00

Taco Bell should pepper all of its meals with jalapenos.

As a general rule, the zesty peppers make everything better. I've been privately extolling their value on subs for a while now (They're particularly good on Subway's Spicy Italian) but have never witnessed them on a Taco Bell creation.

That changed with the Volcano Nachos. They have a bunch of jalapenos, and it's to their benefit.

Loyal readers will remember the lukewarm reception I gave the disappointingly bland Volcano Taco last year. You'll also remember the thrust of my Furlough Friday feature highlighting Triple Layer Nachos -- good, but not overwhelmingly filling or shockingly tasty. Nothing in my experiences with those dishes led me to believe that combining them would result in anything more than continued mediocrity.

That's because they didn't have jalapenos. The Volcano Nachos, which Taco Bell claims have some sort of "lava sauce" on them, wouldn't be spicy without the peppers. Yet because of the peppers, they pack a decent amount of zing. Not enough to force you to take a drink, but enough to make you do a double take and check to make sure you really are eating Taco Bell.

Aside from the peppers, the nachos are also very filling. They have a bit of seasoned beef, some nacho cheese, tortilla strips, a dollop of sour cream and a liberal amount of refried beans. Plus there are plenty of them in Taco Bell's little plastic tray.

My only real criticism of them is that they don't possess the constitution to be buried under so many layers of saturating food. By the time I'd reached the bottom layers of my nachos they were flat out soggy. Let me tell you, it's impossible to dip up any refried beans with a limp nacho chip.

So grab a fork and enjoy all the soggy heat Volcano Nachos have to offer. Four sporks out of five and chalk the good rating up to the peppers.

Furlough Friday: Recycling Taco Bell's Grilled Chicken Burrito

2009-08-07T14:50:00.002-04:00

Welcome all to Furlough Friday, the biweekly money saving sensation. Today's edition is the second to last in the summer series, so enjoy! Live from Pennsylvania ... it's Furlough Friday!

Here at Furlough Friday we're all about stretching your money as far as it can go. We're also about stretching every other resource as far as it can go. In light of that, it's time for a re-review of Taco Bell's Grilled Chicken Burrito.

You may recall June's review of the burrito and its avocado ranch sauce. The burrito I ate, which was made with plain white rice, snatched four sporks out of five. With some research I've learned Grilled Chicken Burritos typically have Taco Bell's tried-and-true seasoned rice, so it seems I rated a one-off.

On my return visit I was served a normal Grilled Chicken Burrito complete with avocado ranch sauce, some chicken strips and the seasoned rice. And it costs just 89 cents, making it perfect for Furlough Friday and saving me the extra dollar I would have had to spend reviewing another item for this feature. (Whew!)

Sadly, the burrito is just not as good with seasoned rice. The extra flavoring covers up the avocado ranch sauce, which only adds a trace of zest in this iteration. It also makes the burrito less unique among Taco Bell's lineup -- it starts to blend in to the tune of three sporks out of five.

It blends in because The Bell recombines a bunch of its ingredients to form seemingly new products. You get the same rice in all burritos, and the beans in some burritos are the same as the ones on your nachos.

And so the re-usal goes on and on, which brings us back to the point of this Furlough Friday: recycling. Because when you're out of work, you have to use everything you can as many ways as you can.

Green tea frozen yogurt? Yogen Früz says yes!

2009-07-27T22:00:00.004-04:00

Let me admit I had a hard time with this review. Self-proclaimed food critics are rarely at a loss for words, but I had a rough time coming up with a description for Yogen Früz's matcha green tea frozen yogurt.

A definition of Yogen Früz isn't quite as hard. It is a frozen yogurt chain originating in Toronto that fancies itself a "health experience." You can choose from all sorts of tasty-looking fruits to blend into a creamy mix with frozen yogurt for a supposedly healthy eating experience.

Think the frozen treat fresh fruit version of Vitamin Water -- Steve Nash isn't there to stuff a second banana into every cup, but it's the next closest thing.

The fruit, which sits diced in little bins at the Yogen Früz counter, looks almost too good to be real. It has a shiny juicy-looking sheen to it that makes you want nothing more than to munch on a little cube of pineapple or mango or kiwi. Each order is blended in front of your eyes with your choice of fruit.

All that fruit wasn't what I went for, though. No, I was hooked by the green tea blended yogurt. I've seen mint flavored ice cream and neon green flavored sherbet, but this is the first time I've ever seen a frozen treat that tastes like green tea. As a big green tea fan, I couldn't resist that.

I probably won't be resisting it much when I see it in the future, either. The two flavors of frozen yogurt and green tea are such a bizarre amalgamation that they actually work.

The taste skews a little closer to vanilla frozen yogurt than matcha, although the green tea tones are definitely there. No one who drinks green tea and knows its hallmark light flavor will be surprised by that, though.

What's astonishing is the texture. It's also where this frozen blend really shines. I don't know if ground up tea leaves or something else causes it, but every spoonful manages to maintain creamy frozen yogertuness while also being rough.

Rough isn't quite the right word -- it's more like grainy. Not rabbit ears ma-I-can't-see-my-Saturday-morning-cartoons bad grainy. A good kind of grainy.

I know it's not the easiest description to wrap your tongue around. Yet grainy is the closest word my stretched mind can find.

So Yogen Früz matcha green tea frozen yogurt is deliciously grainy. Eating it is a totally unique sensory experience. Try it if you see it.

Now that we've run ragged over connotations in the English language, there's only one thing left to do -- rate this frozen yogurt at five sporks out of five.

Furlough Friday: McDonald's Dollar Drinks

2009-07-24T09:35:00.001-04:00

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, eaters and unemployed: It's time for Furlough Friday, the biweekly feature that keeps you at the restaurant, ballin' for a buck or less. Live from Pennsylvania, it's Furlough Friday!

Tap water sure can get boring.

When you're trying to save money drinking good old city water is a sure way to keep your wallet padded. But all that H2O can leave your tongue screaming for a little more liquid flavor every once in awhile.

Enter a McDonald's promotion you may have heard about: The dollar drinks. This summer the golden arches is letting you pick up a drink of any size for just $1. (I've heard reports this deal varies from restaurant to restaurant and sometimes limits you to iced tea or imposes other such sanctions, but I've yet to find a franchise that actually restricts it.)

It's a deal that's good enough to force me to string posts on McDonald's back-to-back. Actually, it's going a step further and making me post consecutively on McDonald's drinks. For a food critic who prides himself on sampling a wide variety of the vast fast food world, this is a big deal.

It would be a bigger deal if McDonald's had a more interesting drink selection. They have your typical Coca-Cola sodas along with some Powerade and the bane of my existence, Light Lemonade. But I can't complain too much when I'm getting to fill a cup the size of my head with something other than water for $1.

And best of all, this promotion isn't limited to Mondays. So you can bookend your week with McDonald's deals. Free mocha on Monday, dollar drinks on Friday.

Mondays and Fridays that mean something -- it's enough to make you think you're working!

Mondays mean more McDonald's free mocha

2009-07-21T22:29:00.008-04:00

Ronald McDonald was apparently not content with his first round of free mocha giveaways on Mondays this spring. He's brought back the promotion through August 3.

Always wanting to give free stuff a second chance, I decided to revisit the McCafe creation to see if my previous scathingly sugary review was off base. Only this time I decided to size up the more seasonally appropriate iced mocha.

Only it was more like sizing the down the iced mocha. My immediate impression had nothing to do with its taste. The free iced mochas are 7 oz. cups, a full ounce less than the free hot mochas. Since they lose girth because they're plastic instead of foam, they look downright microscopic.

I wish my camera could have captured the size of the cup in reference to something, because it was barely big enough to pick up without tweezers. I felt like a the Incredible Hulk walking his toy poodle as I carried the dinky drink out of the golden arches.

Size wouldn't normally be a valid complaint since we're talking about something that's free. But McDonald's would be wise to increase the size of its free iced mocha to give potential customers an actual taste of the drink. With the ice in there you barely get four sips of coffee.

Plus, I don't quite understand the rationale for iced coffee that's smaller than its warm counterpart. Are refrigeration expenses that much higher than heating costs? Is the price of ice, which fills a substantial portion of the cold mocha, that much steeper than that of coffee, which fills a substantial portion of the hot one?

Portions aside, McDonald's iced mocha is far superior to its warm brother. Cold typically mutes flavors, a blessing in McCafe's overly sweet and sometimes poorly mixed lineup. None of the sips come off sickeningly sweet or breathtakingly bitter like they do in the hot mocha.

In fact, the flavors were blended much better than in the hot drink, making the iced mocha the clear winner of the family. Some of the feedback I've received has indicated the quality of McDonald's mocha blending is largely dependent on branch location, who makes the drink, the time of day and the spot in the lunar cycle, so this is by no means a comprehensive observation. Still, it's worth noting that my iced mocha was far more uniform than my hot one.

So McDonald's iced mocha earns three and a half sporks out of five. How about that -- the smaller drink snatched a bigger score.

Wendy's Sweet and Spicy Asian Boneless Wings

2009-07-18T12:43:00.006-04:00

My apologies for the long period between reviews. The doldrums of July have seized even your intrepid food critic, who is having a hard time believing it's already been more than a week since Furlough Friday. As lazy summer drifts along it's easy to let your duties slip.

What I needed was something to zap me back into action. Something with a little zest that would wake me up. Some spice to match the heat of the weather. Of course I looked to Wendy's.

Not only does Wendy's have the hot lil' Spicy Chicken Sandwich, the chain is parading its Sweet and Spicy Asian Boneless Wings throughout the telosphere. Perfect.

At least perfect in concept. In execution the wings fall a little short of five-spork territory.

Actually, execution was a big part of my qualms with the chicken. It tasted good, with a surprisingly balanced blend of the advertised sweet and spiciness, although it was a little heavy on salt. The wings aren't going to set your tongue on fire, but it's a decent amount of heat for a mainstream fast food joint.

The problem is that I could watch the worker fill my order. And the preparation wasn't too fancy. Basically she took some fried tenders, put them in a container, poured some sweet and spicy sauce on them, plopped a lid on the container and shook.

No long-term marinating. No tender brushing on of the sauce. Just a deep "fry 'n shake" preparation, which doesn't even have the catchiness of "Shake 'n Bake." If I had ordered the buffalo or honey barbecue wings they would have just swapped in another sauce.

Even so the flavor did penetrate surprisingly deep into the chicken. That probably had something to do with the fact that I ordered to go and drove about 10 minutes home before digging in. My guess is that was important steeping time, and I'd recommend you do the same.

These wings aren't going to set the world on fire (or even your tongue), especially if you watch the preparation. But they were enough to kick me out of the summer blahs of ice cream bars and grilled hot dogs. Four sporks out of five.

Furlough Friday: Dig your way out with plastic

2009-07-10T13:10:00.003-04:00

Fear not, all ye without optimal work situations. Furlough Friday returns with money saving tips for the most depraved of the jobless. Life from Pennsylvania ... it's Furlough Friday!

As worklessness drags on and bills pile up, trips to the pawn shop and scrapyard can take a bite out of the best-stocked home. Goodbye fine china, so long artwork and farewell, silverware.

The only problem is that eating a steaming bowl of furlough-fine 50-cent macaroni and cheese with your hands is a painful, sloppy proposition. Even if you were forced to sell every last salad fork, you need some sort of utensil for eating. And if you're chronically unable to use chopsticks like me, whittling down some twigs from the front yard isn't going to help much.

Fortunately fast food restaurants stock plastic silverware. When you get a Toffee Coffee Twisted Frosty on your furlough day, make sure to keep the frosty spoon. Slipping an extra plastic fork from the tray whenever possible isn't a bad idea either. Pretty soon you can build up an impressive stock of plastic silverware for home use, wash, and reuse.

Try not to think about the strange chemicals from the plastic seeping out after a few washes. The way things are going, we might not have enough cash to feed ourselves, so we won't be living long enough to worry about poking our livers over the edge with little synthetic fork prongs.

There are also nice packages of plastic silverware that claim to be "dishwasher safe." I bought one the other day while in a pinch for utensils. Dishwasher capability wasn't actually one of my prerequisites when buying the pack, but I take every bonus I can find right now.

Those of you who are too honest to pocket an extra spork from Taco Bell might want to take the store-bough plastic silverware route. A box of 24 spoons cost 69 cents and could last me years. Sure, they sometimes break when digging in the bottom of a big peanut butter jar, but nothing's perfect. They're a lot more useful than the plastic in my wallet right now.

Plastic silverware is the only way to eat while laid off. It's cheap, reusable, and has that barely-made-my-mortgage feel that's so chic these days.

Plus, it serves as a visual reminder that you weren't born with a silver spoon in your mouth.

How do you eat your chocolate coated ice cream bars?

2009-07-01T21:54:00.007-04:00

As far as I know there are two basic ways to eat a chocolate coated ice cream bar. You can just bite it, taking pieces of chocolate and chunks of ice cream in one motion of your jaw. Or you can painstakingly pick the slim chocolate outside off and then eat the ice cream.

I suppose you could also lick the chocolate outside, but that would probably take too long. By the time you got through the chocolate, all the ice cream would have already melted and run down the stick onto your hand where it would be sticky and leave you unhappy.

So that leaves the two main ways to eat these bars of goodness on a stick. But before I break down each one, I'd like to indulge in a brief aside about the name of ice cream bars.

They should be called popsicles.

You see, they're on a stick. Anything you eat off a wooden stick should be a popsicle. But it seems the boxes of ice cream coated in a hard chocolate shell on a stick label them as ice cream bars. (Erroneously in my opinion.)

Trademark law might have something to do with that. But in my world ice cream bars should be things you pick up to eat with your hands, like Klondike Bars and ice cream sandwiches. For the purpose of clarity in this piece, I've compromised and decided to call them ice cream bars, though.

Now, without further ado, let's break down the two methods of eating a so-called ice cream bar.

Chomp them: You get the perfect mix of chocolate and vanilla ice cream. The textures of the fluffy ice cream and thick chocolate meld perfectly. You don't get too much chocolate conforming to your teeth because the ice cream is there to wash it away. Plus, if you have sensitive teeth, that chocolate coating shields them from the cold as you bite in.

Strip them: This is the option for people who only eat one thing off their dinner plate at a time. If you can't eat your steak until you finish the potatoes, this is your route. The problem is that it's not easy to get the coating off -- by the time you do half the ice cream is gone along with it. Plus, the ice cream that's on the bar isn't the highest quality to begin with. That's why it's buried underneath chocolate on an ice cream bar instead of in some vat at Cold Stone.

I bet you can tell which technique I prefer -- chomping. So how do you eat your chocolate covered ice cream bar? If you have your own unique style, feel free to share.

Furlough Friday: Free chocolate

2009-06-26T11:04:00.006-04:00

It's time again for the jobless sensation that's sweeping the nation, offering money-saving tips for the out of work and low on luck. Live from Pennsylvania, it's Furlough Friday!

Chocolate can pick you up.

No matter whether you have a broken leg, totaled car or jobless day ahead of you, sweet cocoa butter will make it all feel better for a few minutes. The age-old remedy applied by grandmothers everywhere is truly useful if you're sitting at home, wishing you had some money to buy paint so you can watch it dry, and waiting for work.

The problem is that if you don't have money for paint, you might not have money for chocolate, either. Fear not, my cash-strapped foodies! Mars has you covered.

They have this little marketing campaign going on called The Real Chocolate Relief Act. It's a fun play off the bazillion-dollar American Recovery and Reinvestment Act the U.S. government passed earlier this year that gives you a free chocolate bar. (Don't panic, fiscal conservatives. I don't think this is funded by the stimulus, just inspired by it.)

Milky Way, Twix, M&M's -- they're all at your fingertips once you go to RealChocolate.com fill out a mailing address and wait a week or two for a coupon to arrive in the mail. You can do this every Friday through September, as long as you're one of the first 250,000 people to get there. I got a coupon, and I can tell you that free chocolate just tastes sweeter.

You do have to wait a little while to get your coupons, so this isn't a remedy for immediate food requirements. It would be prudent to plan in advance for chocolate-needing funks and pre-order a coupon, though. I also recommend ordering if you think your job is on thin ice. You'll need the free food as a pick-me-up.

Lest I sound like an advertisement for M&M's, let me recommend scouring life for giveaways, freebies and discounts during your forced time off from work. Two days ago I managed to get up to $14 off of two tickets to see the new "Transformers" movie from Kmart. There must be other deals like that out there!

If you don't have Internet access, this will be a harder task. But if you don't have Internet access you probably aren't reading this, either. (Shame on you!) So head down to the library and look for some deals!

Maybe you'll even find a deal for free paint so you can slap it on the wall and stare at it as it dries while you eat your free 3 Musketeers. Now that's Furlough Friday excitement!

Sonic top confusion

2009-06-20T13:14:00.003-04:00

A week after my first visit to Sonic, I'm still puzzled by all the little bubble buttons the lids of their drinks.

Most restaurants have three or four -- little convex bulges stenciled with words like "cola," "diet" and "tea" to help servers tell similarly colored drinks apart so patrons don't end up snorting root beer foam out their noses when they expected to be sipping on a soothing iced tea. Sonic has a few extra ones on their drink lids.

Eight extras to be exact: rb, cr, a, pa, c, dr, diet, and mther. A few of them are easy to figure out. Root beer is rb. Cola is c. Dr. Pepper is dr and, well, diet is diet.

That still leaves cr, a, pa and most confusingly mther. I have no idea what any of those are. They could be Sonic-specific drinks, in which case my confusion stems from an admittedly low institutional knowledge of the drive-in. Or they could be something else, something guess-able.

For a week I've pondered these strange markings to no avail. Yet I don't want to find the answer by scouring the Internet or doing other research, as that would feel like cheating at this point. This is a brain teaser to me, and if I solve it at all I'll solve it with my brain.

Maybe Sonic just added a few extra buttons so patrons could have the fun of pressing them. Who could blame them for that commendable action?

But if that's the case, Sonic labeled the extra buttons with confusing jumbles of letters solely so I would go around in circles guessing what they mean. Who could forgive them for such sadism?

Here's another brain teaser for you. Why do fast food joints still put those little bubble buttons on drink lids? I don't remember the last time a server actually pressed one down for me. Usually I end up having to guess which is cola and which is diet when I'm eating with a friend. The buttons sit there, unpressed, taunting me as I make a desperate guess to hopefully avoid sipping that abominable diet aftertaste.

My conclusion is that there would be an enormous outpouring of outrage if the buttons were eliminated. People would have no interactive interface with their drinks without the bubbles.

Having an answer for that riddle doesn't make me feel any better about being unable to discern the meaning of "mther" though.

So I found a Sonic

2009-06-16T20:49:00.003-04:00

A trip to Wilkes-Barre this weekend netted more excitement than I expected when I discovered a Sonic Drive-In.

I'll admit this wouldn't have been as exciting were it not for the absolute blitz of advertising I've been subjected to while watching sports over the past few years. As much as I hate to admit it, these snarky fun ads always made me want to eat at Sonic. The only problem was that I didn't know of any around me -- I've lived in Syracuse and Albany New York as well as Carlisle Pennsylvania while Sonic revved its advertising engine, and there are no Sonics in those places.

Judging from the line of cars in Wilkes-Barre, Sonic's ads managed to drive people to attend its newest location. Yes, I said line of cars. People were sitting in their vehicles, idling the engines while waiting for a slot in the drive-in to open up. The Sonic even deployed folks in reflective vests to direct traffic.

I just walked up to the picnic tables, but if I had to wait in line for a spot, I would have promptly headed down the road to grab food somewhere else. The food critique spins its wheels for no man or restaurant, after all.

Honestly, it wasn't even as if the food was that great. I had a Bacon Cheeseburger Toaster meal and later came back for an Orange Creamslush.

The toaster was okay -- it was a burger with some barbecue sauce stuck between two slices of buttered Texas toast bread slices. Ironically the bread wasn't toasted -- a touch that would have helped the meal live up to its name and bumped it up a spork. As it was I'd give it three and a half sporks out of five.

The drink was a big bonus. You can add all sorts of flavors to your soda. I chose to fill'er up with some cranberry in a Sprite, and it was delicious. Four sporks.

But those tots ... To paraphrase one of those aforementioned Sonic commercials, they should not have brought that weak tot action! No texture, little flavor ... a very disappointing one and a half sporks out of five. That's a huge letdown for an item I was eagerly anticipating.

When I returned for my Orange Creamslush I was more satisfied. It tasted like a mushed-up orangecicle, which is to say absolutely perfect. My only complaint about it was that it was gone too quickly. That's five spork material, folks.

In the end, I can't say I would have wasted gas waiting in line for the Sonic. That leaves me to ponder why everyone was running their engines to wait in line. Are people so lazy that they'll wait forever just to avoid having to get out of their cars to eat? Was it the novelty factor of a new eatery? Successful advertising?

Whatever the case, it would have been a long time to sit in a voluntary traffic jam to eat in a place that only pulled an average of 3.75 sporks in my tests. People would be more satisfied if they were waiting for drinks than if they were waiting for food, but who wants to sit in the car for 10 minutes so they can sit in the car for five more minutes and slurp a drink?

Here's my advice: Folks, wait until the crowds shift into a lower gear and you can drive right up. Sonic, don't you dare bring that weak food action again. It's time to kick off a drive to make your food better, or else you'll be running on empty.

Furlough Friday: Wendy's Toffee Coffee Twisted Frosty

2009-06-12T11:47:00.004-04:00

Once again it's time for the biweekly feature designed especially for all of you who've been unceremoniously dumped from the working world. Live from Pennsylvania ... it's Furlough Friday!

As the sweltering summer months roll in and your unemployment makes air conditioning too expensive to fund, ice cream breaks can be all that separate a spirited but hopeless job hunt coordinated from your parent's sweltering second floor from going completely insane.

This biweek I recommend trying Wendy's Coffee Toffee Twisted Frosty. That is, if you can muster up the courage to try to spit out this tongue twister to the person behind the counter. Don't bother with the drive-through -- the poor audio quality means drive-through folks can't get "cheeseburger with no pickles" right, so Coffee Toffee Twisted Frosty will no doubt turn into some sort of salad by the time you cruise around to the next window.

Coffee Toffee Twisted Frostys are pretty robust. Toffee. Is. Everywhere. And not in small chiclets. We're talking enormous chunks of flavor.

Plus the soquid (remember those commercials?) doesn't skimp on the coffee flavor. It's not packed into every bite, as it seems Wendy's uses the base chocolate Frosty and squirts coffee in before a halfhearted attempt at blending. But coffee comes out in well over half the bites, and it builds into a strong taste by the end of the Frosty.

All the flavors combine into a symphony of rich coffee, sweet toffee and milky chocolaty Frosty. It sounds like it should be too much, yet somehow the wacky combination works.

It works for a price, though. The smallest one costs $2.49.

Hold your outrage. I can hear your angry questions now.

"How can he review something over 99 cents on Furlough Friday?"

"Couldn't he find anything to fit Furlough Friday's 99 cent criteria?"

"Is he such a dunderhead that he forgot his own rules for Furlough Friday? Everything is supposed to cost 99 cents or less!"

The Toffee Coffee Twisted Frosty is such a perfect furlough food that I worked out a way to get one for 99 cents. You just have to bring two friends and split a small. Then the three of you will only pay 87 cents each for a third of the cup.

It's perfect for Furlough Friday because you get to spend hours practicing the name before ordering one. That will fill up those long hours not holding your breath for those elusive phone calls to set up job interviews.

And when you bring friends, you can sit around and discuss the name while you eat it. As you get tongue tied, you'll no doubt forget about the fact that you don't have jobs because the fools running Wall Street and overseeing the United States' financial policy forgot to bring along a tenth grade understanding of economics.

SoBe Lifewater

2009-06-10T20:37:00.002-04:00

For the record, I considered writing this review with all lowercase letters in honor of the packaging on the holistic water genre, but decided it was too difficult to read. Ironically, unlike product designers I'm concerned about function over form.

Vitamin Water elicits a pretty wide range of reactions from people. Some really like it, others dislike it. But what's interesting about Vitamin Water is that there is a whole group of people whose opinion of the stuff is best summed up with a shrug.

"Eh. It's kind of bland."

Well, that's probably where the "water" part comes from. See, if it was all fruit flavor, Vitamin Water would be just Vitamins and fruit juice -- and there are other products out there that have been delivering that combination a lot longer than Vitamin Water.

Today we're not here to spend an entire review talking about Vitamin Water and its ability to elicit underwhelmed feelings, though. We're here to review Vitamin Water's less popular brother from another corporate mother, SoBe Lifewater.

Lifewater is the same basic premise as Vitamin Water -- watered-down-fruit-juice-tasting water loaded with healthy stuff. Vitamin D, herbal extracts, whatever. They all have something dissolved in them that supposedly helps your body function.

For the most part the taste is the same, too. I find Lifewater to be a little sweeter than Vitamin Water. Most recently I drank the blackberry grape variety, dubbed "enlighten" (that's right, no capitals on the bottle here!) and found it to be surprisingly sweet.

The bottle is a different story. Lifewater's bottle has a fascinating shape to it, full of curves and creases. If a sculptor designed one mass-produced beverage bottle, this is it. Unfortunately that sculptor wasn't matched with a very good cover artist, because the label is a little busy.

You're asking whether I really just included the label as a criteria in my food review. My answer is yes. Once you get past the fact that Lifewater is a little sweeter than Vitamin Water, there isn't a whole lot to talk about.

If you like the holistic water genre, you'll probably like it, unless you're averse to sugar. If you don't you won't. Other than that, there really isn't a lot to talk about here ... it makes me want to shrug.

Apathy seems to be the trademark of these drinks. Three sporks out of five.

Taco Bell's Chicken burrito with avocado ranch sauce

2009-06-06T12:54:00.004-04:00

Avocado ranch sauce.

What could be more representative of Taco Bell? The Americanized-Mexican food is perfectly reflected in a sauce that blends the main ingredient in guacamole with good ‘ol ranch dressing.

So in concept the Bell’s new chicken burrito, which features this avocado ranch sauce, should be a microcosm of the restaurant. You’d expect it to be cheap, filling, relatively low-quality and largely satisfying.

You’d be right in all of those respects. And yet I can guarantee this burrito isn’t anything like you expected.

No, it’s not because of the avocado ranch sauce. We’ll come to that later, but it’s not really surprising in flavor or quantity.

No, it’s not the chicken. It’s low on cluckin’ flavor but soars above imitation-chicken-tofu texture – letting it be rewarding.

And no, it’s not the burrito. The grilled chicken burrito is wrapped in the same thing as every other burrito on the menu.

The difference is the rice.

Think of Taco Bell rice. It’s that reddish/brownish seasoned stuff that tastes pretty good going down but still leaves you with a stomach cramp an hour later. You won’t get any of that here.

Instead the Bell served me a heap of white rice. Read that again: Taco Bell has placed plain white rice in a burrito. And it’s great.

Well, the quality of the rice isn’t great. But there’s nothing quite like white rice to mix well with other flavors. It provides an important backdrop and unique texture that just seems to play well off of meats and sauces. This chicken is no exception.

Neither is the avocado ranch sauce. It leans more toward the ranch side of things (sorry guacamole lovers, but you should have known better and just shelled out for Moe’s) which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. At very least it keeps the grilled chicken burrito a uniform pallid color.

And for 89 cents, you can’t beg too much from your sauces. Especially when the rice doesn’t look like it came out of a can.

The slightly misleading nature of the sauce does keep us from approaching five spork territory. But the grilled chicken burrito with avocado ranch sauce does net four sporks out of five – and that’s pretty rice territory, if you ask me.

Note: After eating the burrito and taking detailed notes on it, I noticed the chicken burritos pictured on Tacobell.com clearly contain seasoned rice. I've continued with the review of the meal as I ate it, but will make a follow-up visit in the near future to determine whether my sample was a freak of Taco Bell nature or the norm.

Furlough Friday: Fire up the grill!

2009-05-29T10:19:00.004-04:00

After a hiccup in its biweekly schedule, Furlough Friday is back! So come ye unemployed and laid off, come job seekers and unwilling early retirees. We have the tips you need to bite down on a budget. Live from Pennsylvania … it’s Furlough Friday!

Wireless Internet works in mysterious ways. Mine, for instance, decided to prevent me from accessing all Google services. Anything Google owns – Gmail, YouTube, Blogger – I get an error message when trying to access it. Other Web sites are fine. It’s just Google.

You can no doubt see how being unable to access Blogger can put a hiccup in blogging. You can also no doubt see how hard it could be to fix a problem with Google while being unable to access Google. Fortunately I've managed to determine it’s a problem with the D-Link router that threads the Web through the air in my home, and learned to circumvent the problem with good old-fashioned CAT-5 until a more permanent fix can be discovered.

But enough excuses. You came for Furlough Friday, and Furlough Friday you shall have!

With summer arriving in full force, the gray days of winter are gone. But the hopelessness you used to blame on those overcast days are still around, even when the sun shines. So it goes when you have job problems.

There’s nothing better to cheer you up in the summer than a cookout, though. A little meat you salvaged from the “Must Sell By Today!” section of the grocery store, some veggies you borrowed from your neighbor’s garden, and you’re in business. Throw in some lemonade you snatched from the little girls’ stand down the street when they weren’t looking, and you’re in business! (Figuratively, not literally. I wouldn't call this a job.)

Still, all of that is worthless if you spend lots of money fueling the fire. Don’t let your dwindling reserve of dollar bills go up in smoke by spending a bundle on store-bought charcoal.

No, scout local streams for driftwood. Check for late spring clean-up days, which will let you salvage unwanted wood furniture.

Kindling to start your fire should be no problem. That notice of termination from your boss should be a good start, as should the stubs from your unemployment checks. And if you’re a recent college graduate, the program from your commencement ceremony is worth a lot more going up in smoke than it is in some scrapbook

And judging from the job market for a bunch of recent college grads, (Did you really spend four years in school to get an unpaid internship? That's exploitation.) your diploma might be worth more in the middle of a barbecue pit than on your resume.

Yes, yes I did get a 'Star Trek' glass at Burger King

2009-05-17T15:10:00.003-04:00

So I bought into a shameless and stupid promotion yesterday. I purchased a value meal at Burger King (The Angry Whopper, which upheld my three sporks out of five review) and then threw down an extra two bucks to buy a "Star Trek" drinking glass tied in to the new movie.

Now, I've never been shy about being a "Star Trek" fan. I can quote many of the movies and TV shows at will and have no problem assembling a general timeline that places the events of movies and shows in proper order. And yes, if pressed I can probably name all the crew members from each series along with most of the actors who played them.

But I've never been the biggest geek about it, either. When I was a kid I had some "Star Trek" action figures, but that was about as far as my merchandising buy-in went. I didn't attend that crazy auction at Christie's and I've never been much for any of the seemingly-endless number of "Star Trek" paperbacks out there. Heck, I don't even own a season from any off the series on DVD.

Yet I did ask for a "Star Trek" glass at Burger King. And I might even go back to get one or two (or three, which would complete my set) more.

Why? It's not like $2 on top of a value meal is a great deal for a glass, and it's not that I even eat at BK a lot.

Have I entered a new phase in life where collecting becomes fun? Will I start snatching up action figures that will in turn gather dust on my mantel as I wait for the day when they're worth money? I am living at my parents house for awhile after college graduation ... Maybe I should just drag all my stuff to the basement now and get it over with.

... Or maybe I just wasn't blown away by any of the other fast food options I had yesterday. Maybe I made an impulse buy to go get the glass and will consider getting one or two more in the back of my head over the next few weeks.

Either way, I can tell you it's a pretty neat glass. Captain Nero's spaceship looks great on it. No shame in taking part in a shameless promotion, I suppose.

Mountain Dew Throwback

2009-05-13T21:12:00.004-04:00

Sometimes anticipation is all the fun.

I really wanted to like Mountain Dew Throwback. Pepsi Throwback was very good, and the idea of replacing highly refined high-fructose corn syrup with less highly refined cane sugar is extremely appealing.

Unfortunately the fact is Mountain Dew Throwback just isn't as good as it's cola brother. Where Pepsi benefits from a more complex and richer flavor, Mountain Dew just tastes cloudy. The additional aftertaste is less like appealing end notes and more like, well, an aftertaste.

The overall drinking experience is also just not as crisp as Mountain Dew. In fact, it tastes less carbonated. While that's usually a good thing, limpid Mountain Dew just isn't as appealing as flat Pepsi. Which is unfortunate because I didn't note any such carbonation difference between Pepsi and Pepsi Throwback.

Mountain Dew Throwback isn't bad. It just isn't that great. The idea of trying it was a lot more exciting than actually taking a sip. A mediocre three out of five stars.

Furlough Friday: Reese's Dark

2009-05-08T10:47:00.000-04:00

Since forced days off can make long weekends that are perfect for traveling, Furlough Friday is taking to the road this week. A trip to Syracuse resulted in a quick perusal of the candy aisle in a gas station and a startling revelation. So without further ado, live from New York, it's Furlough Friday!

Nothing is darker than a day spent unemployed. When you're unsuccessfully looking for work the sun seems to shine a little less and the clouds seem to swoop in faster. Crows take on a deeper shade of black and always seem to perch nearby.

Comfort food is pretty important during those desperate hours. Unhealthy eating makes frustrations disappear for a moment -- only a moment since they end up bloating your body, thereby contributing to frustrations. But I'm not here to tell you how to break out of a slump. I'm here to tell you how to dull the pain of tough times.

You need dark comfort food to match dark times. Chocolate with a sense of the gallows. M&M's won't do with their cheerful colors. Neither will Pop Rocks with their bubbly personality.

Reese's seems to know this. They offer their classic peanut butter cup in a dark variety.

It's the same Reese's peanut butter wrapped in the same chocolate shape. The only difference is the kind of chocolate. Gone is that chipper, sweet milk chocolate, replaced by the bitter undertones of dark chocolate.

You'll get that burst of comfort from the flavor, too. Dark chocolate works even better than milk chocolate in peanut butter cups. The flavor is more complex and holds the tongue's interest far longer.

If you can spend a longer time on each peanut butter cup, maybe you won't have to eat as many, which will lead to less weight gain and ... oh, who am I kidding? While the price varies, you should be able to find packs of these things for around 80 cents.

Reese's Dark won't mean anyone eats any less. It just means we can enjoy deeper flavors while we stuff our face and stare all day at the crows perched outside the window.

Pepsi Throwback

2009-05-05T22:13:00.004-04:00

Everyone's heard "Spoonful of Sugar" from "Mary Poppins." If you haven't I suggest confronting your parents and demanding to know what they did with your childhood. Then go to Netflix and order the DVD so you'll have some semblance of common experience to share with the world.

Fortunately you don't need to do those things to understand Pepsi throwback. Having seen Mary Poppins will likely aid your comprehension of the drink, but it isn't a prerequisite.

The reason "Spoonful of Sugar" is so important to Pepsi Throwback is it likely encouraged you to ask your mother for a spoonful of sugar at some point. You were probably sick and had to take some nasty cough syrup or evil pink liquid penicillin and asked for a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. Your mother, exasperated at your incessant whining and out of ways to coerce you to take the medicine, likely complied and handed you a spoon heaped with white granulated sugar.

Remember what it tasted like? Cross that with a Pepsi and you have Pepsi Throwback.

That should come as no surprise. After all, Pepsi replaced the high-fructose corn syrup it typically uses to sweeten the drink with natural sugar.

It's still definitely Pepsi. It's just Pepsi with an aftertaste similar to the one you got after swallowing your spoonful of sugar. Which is to say it's Pepsi with an aftertaste that's much better than a diet aftertaste. (Only without the lower calorie count.)

I even think it adds an interesting depth to Pepsi's sweetness. By the end of a 20 oz. bottle it's a little too rich, but I would prefer a glass of Pepsi Throwback to a glass of regular Pepsi.

Not everyone shares that view -- I've heard quite a bit of grumbling about the altered taste. Still, I think it's supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and am giving it four sporks out of five.

Check back soon for a review of Mountain Dew Throwback. The Dew's clearer flavor might be altered to a greater extent by the natural sugar. We'll see.

Swine Flu!

2009-05-02T20:12:00.002-04:00

This could save you some cash, so I thought about saving it for Furlough Friday. But if the hubbub over swine flu blows over this week, I don't want you to miss out.

Swine flu's been all the rage in the media this week. Good luck turning on a television or radio or logging on to the Internet and not hearing something about it. Maybe you're scared, maybe you're laughing it off -- time will tell which is the wiser course of action. But whether you think it's been exaggerated or expect a pandemic to sweep the globe, I have a recommendation for you.

Watch the price of pork.

Never the most expensive meat, this fuss will probably send its stock into the basement. Who wants to buy pig when swine flu is being hyped as a potential end of days?

You should. Pork should always be prepared with proper hygiene and cooked thoroughly, so you shouldn't have to worry about catching anything from eating it. And I bet you'll get a great deal at the supermarket.

The other white meat could turn into the right meat for your wallet this week.

Hot Buffalo Wing pretzel pieces get better billing

2009-04-28T22:28:00.006-04:00

A quick trip to the second floor vending machine row (I typically stick to the single machine on the third floor since I work there) yielded some exciting results today: Hot Buffalo Wing Pieces by Snyder's of Hanover.

You've likely seen some sort of pretzel pieces by Snyder's -- in my experience their honey mustard flavored pieces are the most abundant on store shelves. This was the first time I'd seen Buffalo Wing pieces, though, and they were wholly satisfying. They would have been better served replacing some of their saltiness with extra spice and I detected no hint of "wing" flavor. Still, you can't expect a pretzels to replicate a plate of wings from your favorite restaurant, so they merit four sporks out of five.

More importantly, the vending machine that served them to me deserves its own five spork rating for the way it handles money. You see, I ventured down to the second floor because my old faithful third floor machine only accepts dollar bills and my wallet was entirely filled with fivers. The second floor machines will happily eat $1, $5, $10 or $20 bills.

That's a nice bonus in itself, but the real kudos come for the way it dispenses change. It spits out golden dollars.

Yep, those wonderful dollar coins. The ones I used to make special trips to the stamp machines in Post Offices just to get some until the Postal Service started pulling those machines from its floors.

Dollar coins are great. You don't have to crack your wallet to get to them and they don't get all balled up when they're free in your pocket. Imagine not having to flatten out a bill to get something out of a vending machine! Plus, the United States Mint is releasing presidential dollar coins similar to the state quarters -- in 2009 you can collect William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James K. Polk and Zachary Taylor.

That spices up spending money. I know I'm going to enjoy spending my dollar coins on Buffalo wing pretzel pieces.

Furlough Friday: Triple Layer Nachos

2009-04-24T14:16:00.003-04:00

Welcome back to the biweekly feature for those of you seeking to hand out resumes but not cash! Live from Pennsylvania, it's Furlough Friday!

Seventy-nine cents. That's smaller than pocket change. It's under-one-cushion-of-the-couch change. It's one cupholder-in-the-car-as-I-approach-the-toll-booth change.

I can't even buy a Twix at work without adding six pennies to 79 cents. (On Furlough Friday I can't buy a Twix at work at all, actually. Or anything at work, for that matter.) In spite of all that, Taco Bell is offering a generous portion of nachos for your three quarters and four pennies.

By "generous" I mean generous considering the price. The CD-sized heap of nachos won't last you through the first five minutes of, say, the baseball game you smuggled them into with a fake pregnant belly, but they will take the edge off your hunger.

And when you're furloughed or unemployed or seeking full-time employment instead of your current part-time work, taking the edge off your hunger is all you really hope for. Hunger never really goes away, even when you just ate a carton of ice cream while staring hopelessly at "General Hospital" in the middle of the afternoon, does it?

So take your stack of nachos that Taco Bell layered with refried beans, cheese and hot sauce and appreciate this novel fact: Hot sauce has apparently become a nacho layer in our stumbling employment market. Meaning you can treat it as a side dish.

In other words 79 cent Triple Layer Nachos legitimize a dinner consisting of lettuce and hot sauce. Perfect for Furlough Friday or staying out of a Hooverville.

Hunger Torpedoed

2009-04-23T19:12:00.004-04:00

Stuck at work one evening after a long day that had already exhausted my lunch, I needed a cheap way to satiate my stomach. I also needed to circumvent my sensitive wallet, which only had $6 inside its folds.

Those criteria left me with a few options nearby: My usual standby -- Taco Bell -- an old favorite -- McDonald's McChicken -- or something new. Something that lay submerged beneath the surface of affordable food. Something that was ready to explode onto my food critique.

I speak of Quiznos' Toasty Torpedo, a narrow footlong "subette." It slots in at $4, so it wasn't going to sink my bank account. Additionally, it's slightly more than a foot long, so I anticipated it resulting in my hunger quotient taking a steep dive.

For the most part, I was right. The Toasty Torpedo is pretty filling, and it's a wholly satisfying package. The bread was just wide enough that it was easy to take a full bite off the end without having to nibble on alternating corners, which allowed me to eat the bread evenly. Some of us like to do that, after all.

The torpedo dropped its payload right on my hunger, too. It didn't leave me feeling like I'd overeaten, but I wasn't craving more after finishing it, either. While I could have had four McChickens for the same price, that would have left me feeling greasy and flabby, something Quizno's did not do with its higher-quality ingredients.

And yet I didn't crack a smile after I put my torpedo away. Something was missing. Something, I believe, that was related more to the type of Torpedo I ordered than any design flaw.

Surprisingly, it wasn't a lack of meat. My Toasty Torpedo was a little light on turkey, but I can handle a slightly unbalanced meat/bread ratio for four bucks.

It wasn't even the odd wrapping, which had the Quizno's worker roll the sub in paper and then slip it into a baguette bag that was obviously designed to leave several inches of the sub exposed so that I could eat it. Question: If I'm supposed to eat the sub from the paper bag, why wrap it in paper? Am I supposed to eat the paper too?

No, the problem with my Toasty Torpedo was that it was a Pesto Turkey Torpedo. It may sound like a terrific combination, but the pesto was completely off-base. Cheese and basil flavors were largely absent, replaced by an overpowering saltiness that dominated even the mozzarella slices on the Torpedo.

The flaw wasn't big enough to send the Tasty Torpedo to Davy Jones' Locker. But it did hold the subette to a mediocre 3 out of four sporks. Quizno's needs to scope out some better pesto.

Loveable lemonade

2009-04-18T21:58:00.003-04:00

You may remember my aside about proper lemonade during my review of Arby's Roastburger. I ended up giving Arby's props for offering something other than soda and diet lemonade.

That something was unfortunately not tasty lemonade, though. It was a SoBe beverage. And as delicious as it was, it left part of me still searching for decent lemonade at a fat food restaurant.

Today I'm proud to announce my search is over.

Chik-Fil-A, which I've already treated to a deservedly glowing review, has tubs of supposedly fresh-brewed lemonade sitting behind the counter. And it's good.

You can actually get regular lemonade, which is a step up from certain chains that despicably only offer diet (coughWendy'scough). So it's free of that sickeningly sweet artificial twang.

Still, it's got it's own tang. Like any good lemonade, there's a decent amount of sourness that hits the tongue and balances out its loads of sugar. The flavor's actually approach complex -- which is unheard of in fast food beverages.

So Chick-Fil-A has another notch in its belt. Not only does it have delicious chicken sandwiches and waffle fries that are to die for (especially if loaded with delicious mayonnaise), it has a great drink to go along with it.

Worth remembering, if you ask me.

Furlough Friday: Cadbury Creme Egg

2009-04-10T08:00:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the first Furlough Friday! As a service to all of you who may be seeking employment and as a nod to my colleagues (and to myself) who are struggling through coerced unpaid days off the job, I'm introducing Furlough Fridays as a way to check out the cheapest food you can find. You won't find anything over a dollar featured here on Furlough Friday. So ... Live from Pennsylvania, it's Furlough Friday!

With Easter just two days away, those of us reclined on the couch watching Billy Mays sell Mighty Putty from under a thin layer of Cheeto dust should be abandoning the typical non-working man diet of boxed macaroni and cheese and Jell-O for something a little more seasonable. That will be easier after the holiday when all the Easter candy is on sale.

Waiting for Monday doesn't do our spirits much good right now, though, so our choices are limited if we want to keep to a budget of a buck. There's the Reese's Peanut Butter Egg,. but that's too close to a peanut butter cup to truly embody a holiday spirit. There are marshmallow Peeps, but some of us are a bit sick of them after staging a massive Peep photo shoot and subsequently eating the participants.

So how about the famous Cadbury Creme Egg? You can typically pick one up for about 80 cents, and it's packed with milk chocolate shell goodness and creamy yolk-colored filling. The egg shrunk a couple of tenths of a gram from past years, yet its still an Easter bargain. The bigger ones were a recipe for a stomach ache anyway.

Why not use the Cadbury Creme Egg as a replacement for that retirement nest egg you aren't accumulating because you're spending the day unemployed? A batch of Cadbury Eggs, as cheap as they are, are probably worth more than your stock portfolio at this point anyway. Plus, even if they do cause a little indigestion, it will pale in comparison to how sick you feel as you take the penalty and withdraw funds early from your 401(k).

Forget investment bankers! Trust the Cadbury Bunny.

Easter Candy Showdown: Peeps vs. Bunnies

2009-04-07T21:28:00.013-04:00

Welcome to a showdown of miniature proportions, where fluffy sugar-coated marshmallows face off for the Peeps Lightweight Title! With Easter fast approaching, its time to look at the two major contenders for the ultimate marshmallow candy in this year's Easter Candy Showdown.

Those two contenders are the classic "Peeps" marshmallow chicks and the newer-age "Peeps" marshmallow bunnies. I'll be scoring them on a host of categories, from taste to bang for your buck. But rather than simply have them face off in the ring of my opinion, they'll be taking each other on with tiny lightsaber toothpicks! Thanks to these wonderful illustrations, you'll know which animal caricature has the last peep in this match.

Color While you can have both bunnies and chicks in any unnatural hue your tinted tongue desires, Peeps are most common in yellow. That's closer to the tint of a real-life chick, and it's more flattering on them. Chicks win!

Flavor Each color tastes slightly different thanks to the natural variation in food coloring flavor. Chicks and bunnies can be had in any bizarre hue, so that zesty orange can be had on any animal. Draw.

Texture Chicks have a slightly low surface-to-mallow ratio, leaving them with a little too much white fluff and much too little sugar granule coating. Bunnies have that ratio down much better, distancing them from simply being a multi-season marshmallow. Plus, there's nothing as satisfying as biting the ears off a candy bunny during the Easter season. Bunnies win!

Bang for your buck A pack of chicks is stuffed with five peeps and brags a 1 1/2 oz. net weight. A pack of bunnies carries four rabbits and only 1 1/8 ounces. Since the packs typically cost the same, under $1, it's pretty simple. Chicks win!

Cuteness I've always thought chicks look a bit odd, like they just got smacked in the back of the head and their eyes are still rolling around. Bunnies, on the other hand, are just plain adorable. Bunnies win!

Exclusivity It's a little harder to find bunnies -- normally a bad thing in the candy world. But surplus peeps become leftovers that linger on shelves for weeks, growing stale and hard and making you wish you'd never bought them. Bunnies win!

Originality We all know bunnies are just an attempt to spin off the Peeps brand. And while they're better than the Halloween or Christmas impostor Peeps, they still don't hold up to the original in the category. Chicks win!

And we're tied after seven rounds at a score of 3-3 with one draw! That means we go down to the tiebreaker, intangibles:

Intangibles Which would you rather have in your Easter basket, a chocolate bunny surrounded by little marshmallow bunnies or the variety of a chocolate bunny and some chicks? Unfortunately for bunnies, marshmallow chicks are just a more traditional pillar of Easter candy. Bunnies are crowded out by their chocolate brethren. Chicks win!

Congratulations to Chicks, the winner of the 2009 Easter Candy Showdown!

Sheetz of Friday afternoon fun

2009-04-03T13:40:00.003-04:00

Some exciting news here at Rick's Food Critique: Next week I'll be launching a brand-new bi-weekly feature packed with the cheapest foods you can find. You may ask how that's different from my normal blogs, and the answer is simple. Normally I try to take price into account and stick to a relatively low budget. The new Friday feature will solely feature foods under $1.

Now that the promotional paragraph is out of the way, let's move on to today's topic: Sheetz. If you haven't spent time in a handful of states around Pennsylvania you might not have heard of the gas station with a special-order fast food restaurant in the back, and that's a shame. I've always enjoyed Sheetz, although I hadn't visited it recently. It's time to check up on the place.

A few years ago when I frequented Sheetz, the food was cheap and plentiful. Some of it, like the macaroni and cheese, was closer to plastic than food, yet it was still somehow satisfying. And more often than not the touchscreen menus offered generous quantities of decent quality food.

I'd heard a rumor the food has been going downhill lately, though. So I stopped by and ordered a Mad-To-Order pretzel melt, an old favorite. Four years ago my turkey pretzel melt would have come with any sauces I wanted upon piles and piles of hot sliced lunch meat.

The more things change, it seems, the less the stay the same. To say my pretzel melt had less meat than it would have four years ago is an understatement. The sauces (barbecue, honey mustard, ranch) were still available, but they all seemed like watered-down imitations of their former selves.

Maybe the recession took its toll and forced Sheetz to cut the quality of their food. Maybe my unscientific one food at one location sample of their menu isn't properly representative of the food quality as a whole. But this was the same location I previously frequented, and something was askew.

It's still a decently priced option, but my pretzel melt cost nearly five bucks. This drops Sheetz as a whole from a four spork joint to a three spork or even two and a half spork eatery.

Unfortunately, checking up on Sheetz turned out to be checking it down.

Ripping into baggies

2009-03-30T21:36:00.002-04:00

Nabisco:

We need to talk. For some reason you've been putting progressively lower-quality bags in your boxes of crackers. Teddy Grahams, Nilla Wafers and Ritz Bits Sandwiches all refuse to be opened for at least five minutes before finally giving way with a giant tear down the side. Especially those Ritz Bits Sandwiches.

I know times are tough, but this has been going on for several years. First you couldn't breach the bag inside a box of Ritz Bits Cheese Sandwiches without splitting it down the side. That was circa 2006, when the economy was still strong.

Plus you still have a few brands that know how to bag'em. Triscuit bags still generally open properly, for instance. True, they don't pop apart with ease, but the top of the bag does part at the seams, allowing for optimal rolling up and the preservation of fresh crackers.

Don't tell me to get a pair of scissors, either. Unless we're dealing with expensive technological items that pose a serious risk of being removed from their plastic and smuggled out of the store to be sold on the black market, packaging should be removable without tools -- and even in the acceptable cases, that impenetrable packaging is as annoying as trying to balance an egg on its head during the solstice. The ability to use tools may be what separate us from monkeys, but the ability to design usable baggies is what separates product engineers from Neanderthals.

If this is a problem caused by different bag vendors for different products and various manufacturing facilities, it's time to take a fresh look at your supply chain. Do you buy resealable sandwich bags that can't open without tearing for your own home? Then why should anyone buy a box with a bag of crackers that do the same thing?

You shouldn't have to worry about finding those ten stray Chocolaty Chip Teddy Grahams that slipped out of the slit in the bag and bloated to unrecognizable balls because they soaked up all the moisture in the air. You won't hear me say this much, but don't worry about the food -- it's fine. Worry about the packaging.

Sincerely,

Rick

The Roastburger

2009-03-28T14:15:00.004-04:00

Today I stopped by Arby's to try out their Bacon & Bleu "Roastburger." It's good, by the way. Tasty roast beef melded well with the usually handicapping soft bacon to make a four out of five spork main course. It's one of the few fast food meals that's actually worth more than five bucks.

My meal, which included curly fries and a drink, cost $5.93, keeping with my impression that Arby's is a little pricey. Still, it was worth the cost.

But there are two more important things I noticed while at the giant red hat.

The first is their drink selection. Every fast food chain has a bunch of soda, but soda isn't my scene. Its carbonation leaves me burping for the rest of the afternoon at inopportune times and it also makes my teeth feel positively grimy. Unfortunately most chains only offer non-soda drinkers the choice between iced tea or sugar-free lemonade.

That's a ridiculous choice. The tea is fine, but only offering sugar-free lemonade is uncalled for. Wendy's is the big offender here. They always offer sugar free but no regular lemonade, as if the only people who could possibly not want soda are watching their waistlines. Note to beverage engineers at fast food joints: Some of us choose lemonade because it's better than soda, not because we're on a diet. Relegating the non-soda society to the terrible aftertaste of artificial sweeteners is unnecessary, insulting and inexcusable.

The only lemonade at Arby's drink fountain was sugar free, so they deserve a little wrath on this front too. But they offered me a choice outside the terrible nuclear option of blue PowerAid you sometimes find at McDonald's -- SoBe Energy.

Now, the Energy flavor is by far not my favorite variation of SoBe. It's a little citrusy for my palette. But compared to my typical fast food soda fountain options, it was a Godsend. If I handed out Golden Straw Awards for best drink innovation, Arby's would be a good candidate for this drink.

The second great thing to come out of my visit to Arby's was their Spicy Three Pepper Sauce. I can't say how long they've had it -- I must admit to not frequenting the big red hat over the last three or four years -- but it's a great addition to the already wonderful option of Horsey Sauce.

Spicy Three Pepper Sauce isn't exactly scorching. Think Taco Bell Fire Sauce Hot -- enough to give good flavor but not nearly enough to call in the fire hose. It also has a nice buried sweetness to it that's surprisingly complex for a fast food condiment.

A better drink selection and great sauce-age can really put you over the top as a fast food joint. They make it okay that Arby's is a bit expensive. The devil is in the details. So is the dollar.

Catching readers with a Bit-O-Honey

2009-03-22T21:16:00.003-04:00

Foodies, let me apologize. I've been remiss in my reviewing duties for far too long, leaving you without even a whiff of a new blog post. You have reason to be angry with me.

Hoping to catch those of you who are flying away, I'm back with a review of a classic candy -- Bit-O-Honey. Whoever last refilled the vending machine at work replaced Twix, the ultimate workplace candy, with Bit-O-Honey. To expedite the Twix reclaiming its rightful slot I shelled out a steep 90 cents for the replacement candy bar.

I must admit that I couldn't remember much about Bit-O-Honey, although preliminary reaction from those in the cubicles around me was not inspiring. One of my coworkers sneered at the idea of Bit-O-Honey, informing me that he "Used to get angry when I got those trick-or-treating."

Once I opened the wrapper, memories of Bit-O-Honey came buzzing back into my head. It was that bronze chewy candy with an inner wrapping of wax paper that never came the entire way off without ripping. As a kid, I never appreciated it much, instead chewing through the hard, tasteless stuff as fast as I could in order to move on to a Milky Way.

Bit-O-Honey still has that wax paper, which they still haven't figured out how to make it unwrap without ripping. Somehow I enjoyed it, though. It's a bit like Now and Later -- hard and bland at first, chewy and flavorful after a few minutes gnawing on a hunk.

In fact, Bit-O-Honey can get downright rich for a concoction made composed of refined sugar. There really is just a bit of honey flavor -- the overall eating experience reminds me of the creaminess of butterscotch, but without the super sweet punch in the face.

That's not to say Bit-O-Honey doesn't get sweet. The taste builds, leaving you wanting more in the beginning, wanting less at the end of the bar, and perfectly happy about halfway through it. By the end of the bar I was ready for a nice hunk of bread to soak up that sugar.

Still, I wouldn't get angry if I got these while trick-or-treating. Bit-O-Honey can't replace Twix, but it's worth a try if your sweet tooth is begging for some attention. Three out of five sporks.

A quick word bite

2009-03-07T14:05:00.003-05:00

I've seen a few blogs do these tasty world clouds from Wordle. Here's one for the critique's 2009 posts. Burgers, anyone?

Shamrock Shakes are back!

2009-03-04T21:14:00.002-05:00

There once was a critic who'd break
If he didn't have a Shamrock Shake
To McDonald's he went
His money he spent
And his delight was surely not fake

Okay, so my limerick skills need polishing. I challenge you to do better -- who knew there are syllable requirements to go with the AABBA rhyming scheme?

The point is the delicious, green, slightly minty Shamrock Shakes are back for another St. Patrick's day season! Actually, they've been at some McDonald's for weeks, but as the big day approaches they should definitely have arrived at a golden arches near you.

The Shamrock Shake is a perennial favorite here at Rick's Food Critique -- it joins green tea on the shortlist of green drinks with good karma. The one I had was rich and delicious, with just the right base of mint flavor. My recommendation: Try one sooner rather than later.

A burger with all the dressings

2009-03-02T23:09:00.002-05:00

This hamburger dress popped up on the Internet a couple weeks ago, and I've been meaning to post it as a follow-up to the burger bed.

It doesn't look nearly as comfortable as the aforementioned bed, which is the food dreams are made of. Still, the dress is the perfect thing for a visit to Red Robin! All you ladies who own the burger bed are sure to meet the man of your dreams if you wear this thing in public.

Just expect old women everywhere to cluck their tongues at you when you wear it. "The way these girls dress these days! It's like they want men to look at them like pieces of meat!"

Burger Shots in the dark

2009-02-28T13:13:00.002-05:00

Burger shots should be the perfect car food. Six little single-hand-sized burgers -- just the thing for quick eating during a bumpy automobile ride that often leaves you bracing yourself with one hand while trying to eat with another.

Too bad Burger King doesn't make the effort to cut the Burger Shots individually.

That's right, I opened the burger shots box in a dark car, expecting to find six individual tasty morsels, only to discover a sheet of uncut bread with six bun-shaped mounds. The sheet didn't even have individual hamburger patties. It was divided into three strips of beef, each of which sat between two of the bun bumps.

So the burger shots had to be pulled apart before they were eaten -- the advertisements should read "some disassembly required." Normally I don't mind working for my food, but there's no reason you should have to go through all this trouble for fast food with the word "shots" in the title -- implying quick and easy eating.

Burger Shots have other problems. The beef was dry and unappetizing. The bun to meat ratio was skewed too far toward the bun. A piece of lettuce would have been nice. They all pale in comparison to the fundamental flaw, though.

"Shot" implies fast and easy. Burger shots were neither. One out of four sporks, and let's move on. I've spent too much time with them already.

Fauschnaut Day Snapshot

2009-02-24T22:54:00.002-05:00

In case any of you were wondering what a genuine fauschnaut looks like, I snapped a quick pick of one with the CritiqueCam. Let me apologize up front for my thumb in the shot. I was just too excited to eat the tasty treat to take the time to put it down for the picture.

Fat Tuesday/Fauschnaut Day

2009-02-23T18:14:00.002-05:00

Apparently, not everybody knows what Fauschnaut Day is.

In parts of the United States, it seems to be Mardi Gras' forgotten stepsister. It is Fat Tuesday's long-lost pseudonym. A treasure buried in the closing wrinkles of time and geography.

Fortunately Fauschnaut Day is not completely forgotten, and it has enthusiasts like me to promote it. If you grew up in Pennsylvania Dutch country or have German ancestry, chances are you know about Fauschnaut Day and should join in disseminating the fact of its existence tomorrow.

In layman's terms, it's a time to eat donuts.

Not donuts as we know them today, of course. A real fauschnaut has no hole in the middle and is made of potato dough. Typically it's sprinkled with sugar, too. They're rich, tasty and soak up all the saliva in your moth. Eat one with a glass of milk and you won't want to eat any fat for 40 days. (Which is close to the idea behind Fauschnaut Day -- it falls on the Tuesday before the beginning of the Christian season of Lent every year.)

After a glass of milk and a few minutes you'll be begging for another, though. The cycle will likely continue until the end of the day, when you'll feel bloated and worthless. But you'll have eaten a bunch of tasty treats guilt-free.

If you're isolated in some culture-barren locale that hasn't heard of this wonderful tradition, I'll give you a waiver allowing for the substitution of donuts instead of fauschnauts, as long as you make a sincere attempt to locate the real things. Join the holiday in spirit, if not in proper practice.

The important thing is that you try to practice Fauschnaut Day, even if you don't follow the religious tradition from which it grew. After all, it's practically a sin to disregard the opportunity to eat unhealthy pastries without shame.

By the skin of your potatoes

2009-02-22T11:29:00.002-05:00

This afternoon I'm planning to watch some college basketball -- the best sport in America, in my opinion. That brings up another opportunity to talk about snack food and sporting events.

Let's get the required mention of the Bacon Explosion out of the way. Good. Now we can move on to potato skins, which is what I'd really like to discuss.

Yet bacon is inevitably the heart and soul of this discussion. It is the make-or-break ingredient in potato skins. If there's too much bacon, it overpowers the cheese. Too little, and the skins lack adequate texture.

Canadian bacon is a real no-no for potato skins. It's rare to see the ham-by-another-name in them, but you can find it.

Don't find it. There's a reason it's rare.

Large chunks of bacon don't cut it, either. I've had potato skins with one piece of bacon running the length of the tater -- not ideal. Any time you try to take a bite of part of the potato, you end up pulling the entire slice of bacon out. And then you have to try to tear it out fast, like a magician whipping the tablecloth from a set table, in order to leave the cheese in place. Otherwise you're left with a naked spud husk, which isn't nearly as appealing as a dressed one.

The moral of the story is to use tiny pieces of bacon or bacon bits. They spread the flavor and add some texture, but don't have the downside of large pieces. So go enjoy some sports'n taters!

As a side note, there are reports that Shamrock Shakes are surfacing at McDonald's. I'll run an ode to the St. Patrick's Day salute closer to March 17, but wanted to make sure you knew it was time to head over to the golden arches for some green deliciousness.

Post Valentine's Day thoughts

2009-02-16T20:21:00.002-05:00

Sorry to all you gentlemen out there.

Sorry I wasn't there with a pre-Valentine's Day extravaganza to guide you through the confusing world of Conversation Hearts, lollipops and chocolate. Sorry I wasn't there to offer you some advice on what to get your special someone when you were in your moment of dire need -- Friday night at 7 p.m.

There are two possible explanations I can offer. The first goes something like this: I didn't post a Valentine's Day blog entry so you would realize how important my blog is to your having a successful holiday. Better for me to enforce a dismal, misguided Valentine's Day on you than give you the chance to skip out on this critique and spend the next fifty years of your life kicking yourself because you blew St. Patrick's Day.

The second explanation is that I was in the same boat you were and didn't have time to post a blog for last-minute Valentine's Day success. I was running around like a two-year-old's nose, trying to sort through flowers and find the perfect gift.

You are, no doubt, wondering which of these explanations is true. Unfortunately I can't tell you, If it's the first, you, my readers will be insulted that I doubted your loyalty. But my girlfriend reads this blog (or so she tells me) so I can't admit to the second, either.

Therefore I'll try to make amends and sweep this whole debacle under the rug by throwing a kitchen sink full of excuses at you and offering quick advice to remember for next year's Valentine's Day. I was fighting with spotty Internet. My dog was sick. Aliens abducted me.

And even though I promise I won't hang you out to dry again next year, remember this piece of advice: Buy chocolate. The biggest heart box you can find.

The oddity of the Orange Julius

2009-02-08T20:07:00.002-05:00

Orange Julius stands seem like the Tupperware carts. There's one in almost every mall, but you never seem to know anyone who frequents them.

Which isn't to say they never have any customers -- in fact there is often a line. It's just made up of people you don't know. They must be the same people who shop at Wal-Mart after midnight but never show their faces anywhere else in society.

Maybe they know something. I headed up to Orange Julius and tried the place's namesake beverage to find out.

Let's start by saying it isn't a bad drink. Tasting something like a cross between orange juice, a slushy and a vanilla ice cream cone, Orange Julii don't have any unpleasant flavors. Unfortunately, those pleasant flavors all taste a little watered down.

In contrast the texture is nearly perfect. On the "slushie-to-milkshake-meter" of frozen drinks Orange Julii are pretty close to the middle -- maybe leaning slightly to the milkshake side. They are smooth and frothy without being thick like a milkshake, and they also have none of the large ice particles native to the classic ICEE.

It's just too bad Orange Julii don't have a stronger orange juice flavor. Admittedly, my taste buds could still be coming down from the cheap-taste high that is McDonald's mocha. I may also enjoy the drink a lot more in the heat of July as opposed to the dead cold of winter. But I was looking for a little more bite to satisfy my thirst.

Good texture with "blah" taste balances out to about three sporks out of five. Maybe it's a sign I should reschedule that 1 a.m. trip to Wal-Mart, too.