Staying spooky with the Halloween Whopper

The Halloween Whopper was clowning around.

It's Halloween week, so I have some of the scarier ideas to hit the food world on tap over the next few days. Today I'm going to break down Burger King's Halloween Whopper, and then later I'll take on Hershey's Candy Corn bar.

Before we even get into the Halloween Whopper's recipe, let's address the gastrointestinal issue Loomising over everything. Yes, it made news for turning some things an unholy shade of green. No, we're not going to consider that here. This is a forum about eating, so take your freaky restroom observations to other dark corners of the Internet — like USA Today.

With that out of the way, let's talk burgers. The first thing you notice about the Halloween Whopper is its black bun. Burger King claims the thing has A.1. flavor baked in, although there's pretty clearly some food coloring involved, too. Other than that, the Halloween Whopper is standard Burger King flagship fare, save some A.1. Thick and Hearty sauce slashed on top.

In all honesty, it's hard to look down at the Halloween Whopper and bite into it. Something about the color says "mold" more than "spooky fun." It's dark in a shade that's somehow completely dissimilar to anything you'd eat, even something dark like pumpernickel.

Get past the color, and you get a bun that's slightly more peppery than normal. And you get a burger that's slightly more zesty than normal. These aren't bad things — the Whopper isn't high-quality "fast casual" territory, but it's always been a solid burger that's a nose above other fast food beef. 

Still, I think we need a little more flavor difference from a bun that looks so starkly different. This thing Haddonfield to have enough flavor to be scary in order to be called a success. Otherwise the Halloween Whopper name is nothing but an empty mask.

I checked out Burger King's Halloween Whopper announcement and was disappointed to find they didn't play up the fear potential a black bun and big flavors could bring. But they did say that the Halloween Whopper was a follow-up to flavored buns first unveiled in Japan. Some very quick research shows Japan got its own black-bunned burgers in the past as well as something called an Angry Red Samurai Burger with a red bun.

Which begs the question: What other colorful buns —and bun flavors — could Burger King bring us stateside? Personally, I'd like to see a Christmas Burger with a Red bun top and green bun bottom flavored like cranberry and fig leaves, respectively. Or a blue-bunned Summer Shore burger bearing the taste of sea salt. We can make hay here!

By the way, you'll need to make hay for your Halloween Whopper. Burger King cited a price of $4.99 in its announcement, but I paid $5.99 on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Either price is honestly too much green. This is a four-dollar burger by Myers reckoning, unless they can get more flavor in it.

Not to be Curtis here, but two sporks out of five. The Halloween Whopper is edible but still belongs on the blacklist. The King could have Strode for so much more.

Lunch-sized picklePak

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.

In case you needed a food fix ...

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.

Green tea frozen yogurt? Yogen Früz says yes!

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.

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

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.

A burger with all the dressings

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!"

Never go to bed hungry

Normally I don't like to start out a post telling you to go somewhere else. But quickly check the pictures on this site: http://www.hamburgerbed.com/

Now look at the photos on this one: http://www.random-good-stuff.com/2009/01/29/hamburger-bed/

Having not slept on a hamburger bed, I can't review this thing. I will even forgo trying to describe it, assuming that the pictures of it are worth a thousand words.

Instead I would like to have a brief discussion of a hamburger bed's pros and cons. It is a fascinating piece of gastric-related obscurity, and this blog is all about obscure details about food.

Few things can beat a hamburger bed for novelty. The red plastic race car bed from the early '90's has become cliche, and the frivolous assortment of hammocks, cots and bunk beds out there fails to top the ability to slip into a faux sesame seed bun at night. Plus, it invites eating in bed. Anyone hung up on getting crumbs in between the sheets will have to let that obsession slip away after spending a night in this bed.

And look at that guy cuddled in the bed in the second link. He looks like he's in heaven. Reports indicate that the bed is actually as comfy as it looks. It's even one of the few things that has made me so excited that I want to go to sleep.

Still, I'm not sure I would want to make a food bed my full-time sleeping sanctuary. What if you get the stomach flu? The possibility of staying in bed all day would certainly be curtailed, because looking at the bed would probably bring on a round of dry heaves.

Plus I have a sneaking suspicion that the King from Burger King commercials tours the country looking for burger beds when he's not filming. As much as I love those ads, especially the "wake up with the King" one, I don't want to open my eyes one morning to find his smiling face leering at me. Having to sleep on the couch when I have the flu is one thing, risking waking up next to the King is another.

Therefore, I'll be seeking out a middle ground between having a food bed and warding off unwanted visits from mascots. Starting today I'll be figuring out the best way to construct an Oreo cookie bed. I have no doubt it will be sweet.