Rice Krispies Treats CRUNCH MIX

The fun part of being a part of a blog like this is that when you go somewhere and see something new and they have more than one flavor, you don't have to just choose one. When we spotted these new Rice Krispies Treats Crunch Mixes, I asked my fellow FATGUYFOODBLOGGERS, "Man...which one should I get?"
Mike's response: "A true blogger would get both so he can compare."
That's sound logic. So that's that I did. It's a good thing, too, because if I hadn't I'm pretty sure I would have eaten the entire bag before I had a chance to take pictures. It was a snacking emergency.

So Rice Krispies threw together a trail mix type snack that comes in two flavors. CLASSIC & CHOCOLATE. Let's begin with the obvious...

CLASSIC

Whats in it?

First we have Rice Krispies Treats clusters. They are little, and brittle and don't have much taste.
Then there are the Vanilla mini cookies: Pretty much how it sounds. Just a little fragment of cookie.
Caramel Coated Pretzel sticks: It's just a pretzel stick with some sweetness to it. Not bad.
Mini Pretzel Twists: Nothing out of the ordinary here...
Yogurty Covered Pretzel Twists: Same pretzel, just covered in what appears to be a sweet coating of wax.
And finally, Cocoa Buttons: Yep. Don't call it an M&M. That's a Cocoa Button!
   All in all nothing spectacular. It's okay. You pop a handful in your mouth and none of it really works together. It's just a medley of snack items thrown into the same bag. I think the Yogurty Pretzels take it over. They have the aftertaste of marshmallow....KINDA. Maybe like if someone made Marshmallow flavored plastic.
But it's not terrible. I was well on my way to eating the whole bag.

Then there's the second flavor: CHOCOLATE

Chocolate

How does this one differ from Classic?

Basically it has Fudge Covered pretzels and "cocoa balls", which are for all intents and purposes Cocoa Puffs. All that and the little cookie pieces have a few discolorations on them that are supposed to be chocolate chips. Instead of a fake marshmallow flavor, this mix is heavy with a strange fake chocolate flavor. It's not terrible but it's not wonderful either. Again...just okay.

The Bottom line with these is that...they are just okay. If you grab a bag for a snack you aren't going to hate them. But you also probably won't go running out to get another bag anytime soon. They aren't anything special at all. Probably any flavor Chex mix are better than these. But if you are intrigued and want to give them a whirl, you probably won't be mad about spending the money. They aren't THAT bad. Just boring.
I give these a C. For Could have been a lot better.
Review by Rich.

They're In: Beer Battered Onion Rings Ruffles!!

Rich and I went to the fair tonight. Fat guys don't go to fairs for rides or to look at animals- no, we go for food. Fat, delicious, overpriced fair food. And we ate lots of it. On our way out, Rich got a sausage with onions, and I strongly considered getting an order of pretty delicious looking onion rings. But then I thought- no, dummy. Why spend 6 bucks on onion rings when I have these at home?

BOOM.

Ruffles ran quite the enormous ad campaign for the last 5 months or so to pick a new flavor. Facebook followers voted in different rounds to narrow it down from 16 possible flavors to 1. These were the winner, beating out baby back ribs in the final round. I certainly would have liked to try some of the other ones, even though I never was fully clear on what was going head to head with what- my comments and votes usually went something like "bring back The Works (one of the greatest flavors of chips ever)" or "make BBQ available across all of the US, then worry about new flavors." No, I'm not bitter at all. 

I never really understood what was going on, since while Ruffles was doing this promotion, they also introduced 3 other flavors, only one of which were actually good in our opinion. Hopefully this means they will be as adventurous in the future and bless us with some other weird flavors. But, for the time being, these are the new hotness. And after months of curiosity, I was luckily still following Ruffles on facebook and happened to see that they had landed in super walmarts. Off I went. 

Could Ruffles turn this

into this

successfully??

The answer is yes. Hell yes. 

Upon opening the bag, I noticed a bad smell- an odd mixture of beer and that odd au jus meaty scent that was so prevalent in the Cheesesteak Ruffles. They're ugly too- they're brown and have tiny specks of brown seasoning on them. But they are good, and that's all that matters. They 100% taste like onion rings, and have something else going for them too- if I started chewing these and then got smashed in the head and lost all my memory, I would absolutely, without a doubt, believe I had just bit into some onion rings. The potato seems to dissolve and get chewy much faster than previous Ruffles- they actually feel like you're chewing on fried batter. I don't know if that's just a trick of my chip-crazed brain or if Ruffles scientists had some magical breakthrough, but it's cool. 

They don't have the best aftertaste (that beery, au jus flavor a little bit), but Ruffles did a fantastic job capturing the flavor of onion rings. I wonder if these will have any lasting value- only time will tell. But for a unique flavored chip from one of the biggest potato chip brands in existence, these are absolutely worth trying. If you like onion rings, go get a bag- you will be impressed. 

I give these a solid B. They lose points because I feel like they won't have the best lasting value, and I had no trouble stopping my eating of them. 

-Mike

Chips Ahoy Chewy Gooey MEGAFUDGE!

Eons ago, a FATGUYFOODBLOG fan e-mailed us and asked us to review the Heath Bar Chips Ahoy cookies that had apparently come out awhile ago. As I feel Chips Ahoy generally makes pretty unexciting cookies, I don't pay much attention to when they come out with new stuff. But once I saw that they had also made Reese's Pieces, I was sold. I was excited to see what Chips Ahoy could do with these delicious candy flavors. Turns out? Not so much.

As expected, the cookies looked nothing like the ballistic cookies in the picture. But that's expected. Were they good? Not really. Heath Bar is a very distinct flavor that works great with some things (like ice cream) and not so much with others- like sub-par, crunchy cookies. The problem with Chips Ahoy cookies is that they really are only good with milk to soften them up. And since their flavor isn't very strong, you end up losing any flavor of Heath bar in the utter blandness of the whole thing. Fan who wrote in: I would not bother with these. I really wanted to like these, but they just aren't very good. Go get a Heath Bar blizzard or a pint of the always fantastic Coffee Heath Bar Crunch Ben And Jerry's ice cream instead.

These get a D for don't bother.

The Reese's Pieces cookies were much better. Peanut butter is a flavor that definitely jumps out at you more, so these definitely tasted like sub par cookies with Reese's Pieces in them. But I'd still say it's best to just not bother with these. They're good for Chips Ahoy, and I'd give them a C+, but I think most fat guys would agree with me that softer, chewy cookies will always win out over these. 

And to segue perfectly to the heart and soul of this post, good lord has Chips Ahoy done something spectacular. Rich wrote a post back in June about regular chocolate chip "CHOCOFUDGE" cookies, but we all agreed that they weren't that exciting. These though- these are how Stella got her groove back. These are the excitement you've been looking for in your boring life. These are worth getting out of bed in the morning. These are what Chips Ahoy should abandon their entire line of cookies for. Time for a re-branding guys. You've struck gold. Stop bothering with anything else- this is now your focus. 

CHEWY GOOEY MEGAFUDGE?!? HOW COULD THEY BE BAD?

When I opened the bag, the cookies looked like they had been beat up- they were mis-figured, falling apart and covered in white chocolate chips and chunks of fudgy brownie goodness.

it's pointing at me

The problem with the Chocofudge cookies was that they were just OK cookies with not a lot of fudge inside. It felt like a fun gimmick cookie that missed its mark. The beauty of these is that if they didn't have fudge in them, they'd still be incredible. They are gooey like brownies, very strong in chocolate flavor, the white chocolate chips add a slightly different flavor and texture, and the parts where the chips got burned add a surprisingly fun crunch every now and then. And then, right at the peak of your cookie-mouth lovemaking, you'll hit the fudge. And you'll hear angels sing.

no photoshopping here, folks.

You'll "oh" face like no tomorrow and soon, much to the dismay of the roommates you told could eat some, the bag will be gone. I'm not promising gobs of fudge dripping out of every cookie (the picture above was just a REALLY good one), but the inclusion of fudge just makes these cookies go from fantastic to phantasmic orgasmic. These are honestly some of the best store-bought cookies I've ever eaten, and I will be buying another bag as soon as I can drag my megafudge-filled gut to the store. 

I rate these an O for OH face. 

-mike

Sweet & Salty Bugles : Caramel & Cheddar!

Sweet & Salty Bugles: Caramel & Cheddar.
At first glance when you see this package swinging on the rack next to the rest of the Bugles you might not realize what it is. We've all seen Caramel Bugles. They've been doing them for a few years now. They are great. Then there's the Chocolate Peanut Butter Bugles. Also great. Then there's the original flavor, Nacho Cheese, and there's some other wild ones you might have in your neck of the woods too, like Buffalo, and Zesty Ranch.
But then you realize, like I did, that this is two flavors in one bag, and there's no way you can walk away without trying them...

I'm not going to lie. I've been sitting on this review for a while. Not because I wasn't excited about these things, because believe me, I loved them. But it was because of the pictures. We randomly happened upon them when on a day trip and stopped for a snack. Instead of saving some to photograph when I got home, I took the pictures for the blog in the car, and then devoured the bag like a madman. The down side of this is that when I uploaded the pics from that day, they were horrible. The lighting was bad and every pic where my fingers were holding a Bugle, they looked like the fingers of a deformed monster. So I scrapped the review. But I kept my eyes open for these things at every store I went to and it took MONTHS but I finally found them again.
Which brings us here today.

When I told people about these I got a lot of mixed reactions. Most were bad. Like "Ew seriously? That sounds awful." WHAT?! No. It sounds fantastic. And it was! It's one bag, inside, it's caramel and cheddar Bugles mingling all together in each others flavors.

Few snacks live up to their name like these do. Sweet & Salty all the way. Despite being tossed into a bag together, each flavor of Bugle manages to hang onto it's own distinctive flavor and texture. The caramel Bugles and very sweet and almost encased in an armor of caramel. Like each Bugle is Tony Stark and an Iron Man of caramel activates and surrounds it. The Cheddar? Fully dusted with a classic cheese powder, like it was blessed by a cheese fairy who instead of pixie dust, waved her wand and sprinkled them all with Cheesy Dust.  This brings the salty part to this mix.

Caramel & Cheddar.

Eaten one by one, they are delicious, but together they are a flavor explosion. Put your fears to rest, America, these bad boys go great together. Instead of fearing them, pluck a bag down off the rack if you're lucky enough to actually see them in a store and try them out. They are rare. If you find them at a store, don't expect them to be there the next time you stop in. They are quite elusive so when you find them, BUY THEM.

I will give these a solid B. For BAM! These are delicious! I would have given them a higher rating, but there is one drawback I could find. Whenever you eat Bugles, at some point you put them on your fingers like claws. You pretend for a moment that they are a monsters talons and claw at the air before returning to snacking. You can still do this with the Cheddar Bugles but NOT the Caramel. The caramel covering on them is too thick and in some cases just fills the back hole to the point where you just can't do it. No caramel claws = no A rating on fatguyfoodblog.com!