BK California Whopper GUAC AHOY!

I'm waiting for a Burger King Gold Card to come in the mail. I envision it as a gold plated unlimited meal pass to ensure that us here at the Fat Guy Food Blog continue to review their products as much as we do. I did say "let's give the King a break for a few" but being a guacamole freak, I had to cut the wheel of my 1991 oldsmobile cutlas ciera right over the median and into the drivethru lane as soon as I laid eyes upon the shining green advertisement.

Over the past few years Burger King has taken the reigns of the fast food world and made it fun again. Instead of hating yourself and ordering a cheeseburger and fries with shame and indignity, BK makes me excited to dive into the playground of flavors, offering new items faster than I go up pant sizes. NOW. LET US BEGIN!


The California Whopper is basically the burger that I make when I grill at home, with an extra pound of lettuce, featuring BK's traditionally paper thin burger pattie, and slightly soggy fake bacon. Other than that, I say we have burger gold here.

The Mighty Heft of the BK Whopper dwarves other FF burgers

Generous portions of Guac MAKE this burger, delivering a cool flavor and no spice

This is just a Whopper with Cheese, Bacon and Guacamole and tastes as such

A Whopper's flavor is undeniable, and this in addition to the bacon, cheese, and guacamole make a winning distinct flavor combination, each separate but working well together.

  Now, if only California REALLY thought this up, they wouldn't be as bankrupt as they are. This is the burger equivalent to the Alaskan pipeline, each Californian citizen would have receive a yearly stipend of $6,000 and enough medicinal marijuana to keep it's thriving hobo population pacified and not working.

the guacamole alone is excellent, tasting much better than i thought a BK gimmick condiment would taste. It rivals Chipotle brand guacamole.

I'd say this is probably one of the fresher tasting/feeling burgers on the menu. As a guy who normally chooses a chicken sandwich over the mound of flame broiled grease, I'll be choosing the Cali Whopper until the King sees fit to take it away from my greedy lil' chicklet lined mouth.

RATING: B
-josh

La Festa Brick & Brew Garlic Knot Pizza

It's not often here on FGFB we review a local joint, but once you've read on and seen what glories could await you, you'll see why this just had to happen. Get ready for a magical ride of flavor. And if you're wearing sweatpants or mesh shorts, be careful, this post is the food equivalent to every AVN winner showing up to your home drenched in oil and ready to bone!

May I present, the greatest pizza known to the gods, La Festa's Half BBQ Half White Buffalo Garlic Knot Pizza.

 

They say it's 14" but it looks more like 20"

Now what you're asking yourself is "josh, why is this a split pizza? why not (insert asinine flavor and reasoning here)?". And my answer is this: Take two of the best kinds of pizza on the planet, and merge them into one ultra pizza, a flavor combo which both burns and sweetly satisfies. Don't get me wrong, these flavors alone could stand the test of time and rival any pizza your puny brain could try to bring against it, but these two together play off of each other like two buxom young teens in a pillow fight.

THE STATS:
           -Braided garlic bread crust
           -BBQ side is chicken, onions, crispy bacon, and sweet bbq sauce that obliterates any of the tomato sauce thats underneath the thick mozzarella.
           -WHITE BUFFALO says the hell with tomato sauce, adds chicken, onions, circles of buffalo and blue cheese sauces swirling in an intricate dance of flavors upon a bed of cheese.
            -top the combination off with parmesan cheese and a garlic butter sauce, lightly brushed about the rim of the pizza

The BBQ side offers the sweet savory candy sauce your body craves

While the Buffalo side stings the tongue and delivers a stern, not overwhelming, amount of heat

This pizza is like a giant FU to all other pizzas. The crust is thick, its flavors numerous, its breadth, wide. If you are in the New England area, I highly suggest you call them up this moment, order one of these, ace bandage up those cankles, limp to your car, and pick this summmbitch up. A word of warning though, if you drive past my home, I'll run out in my underwear with a shotgun, blow out your tires and then blow you away for just a slice of this magnificent beast. This reeks of so much garlic a hound dog could track you in an icelandic ash cloud during a blizzard.

This clocks in at about $22 and is absolutely worth 5 times that.
 Google Directions from Boston, MA

La Festa Brick & Brew

300 Central Avenue
Dover, New Hampshire 03820-4133
(603) 743-4100 

 

death row prison pizza

 

I can't rate this high enough.

RATED: Ω

-josh

The return of STADIUM NACHO DORITOS!

It's mid August. The weather is cooling down. A few trees have already started changing. And the infighting between players and owners has ended, meaning not only will we soon be blessed with another fantastic fall, but it will be a fantastic fall full of football. And this means, much to my surprise, that Stadium Nacho Doritos have returned!

These chips were around last year, and I LOVED them. They quickly earned the distinction of being the hardest chips to stop eating. I could fly through a bag in no time. I would go on rants, screaming about how crazy Doritos were to create such an awesome flavor and tell us before we even ate them that they'd only be around for a limited time. I said, "if they're supposed to be based around football, why don't they just have them come out every year around football season, so we have something to look forward to?!" Well, apparently someone at Doritos was listening to me, and thank you, random person. I appreciate you. Here- enjoy some pictures of what fat guys do when they are excited about chips and have free time at the house of someone who wears a size small jersey:

A fat, bearded Wes Welker plays the part of quarterback!

And throws to... himself!

Wes breaks 1 tackle!

And another!!

TOUCHDOWN!!

A quick champion mean-mug for the camera...

and a celebration! (surely to be fined for later) 

I love these chips- the closest thing I could compare them to would be the flavor of that homemade dip that everyone makes for the Superbowl, but more cheesy- with a hint of the cheese flavor used on Smartfood popcorn. A quick look at the ingredients reveals the following: cheddar cheese, cream, sour cream, swiss cheese, monterey jack cheese, parmesan cheese, jalapeno pepper powder, onion powder, and garlic salt among notables. So: 4 kinds of cheese, 2 kinds of cream, and some spice. That's exactly what they taste like. In fact, if you look closely, you can see the amount of cheese caked on these things: 

A few friends I know adore these, and a few hate them. But if you're reading this blog, you're already thinking of trying them. Please do, you won't regret it. AND, you'll make Doritos continue on with this seasonal magic. 

Everyone wants a bag.

A.

-Mike

Also, if you see these in stores, you'll see them next to "Tailgater BBQ" Doritos. Don't bother with these. I had them last year, and was so disappointed with them that I refuse to eat them again, not even for an enormously popular blog. They aren't worth $3.50 and my time. They taste like a standard BBQ flavor, only minus a lot of the flavor, and the addition of a charcoal-esque burn taste. Hey Doritos, YOU ALREADY MAKE BBQ CHIPS, AND THEY'RE DELICIOUS. And, you already made cheddar and BBQ too, which are also light years better than this crap. If you want to just have either of these be seasonal, I'll accept that. But stop with these- they aren't good. BRING BBQ TO THE US.

Limited Edition Creamsicle Oreos!!

Here is the sequel to Rich's post- the other new Oreo flavor- CREAMSICLE.

From original creamsicle frozen pops to Orange Juliuses to mixing Tropicana orange and vanilla bean coolattas, the flavor of orange and vanilla together is consistently awesome. Pair this with Oreo's surprisingly good "golden" cookies? 

Excitement. 

These things are beautiful- the orange and vanilla lay on top of each other in some sort of sexy cookie firosting dance- truly a work of delicious cookie art. 

Here is the weird thing though- every single one of them that I twisted the top cookie off had the orange on top. Was this some sort of irony? Was it me subconsciously only pulling off the cookie on the more orange side? Or do these secretly have more orange than vanilla?

Judging by the taste, it would seem that the latter is a possibility. Are these good? Absolutely. Are they creamsicle flavored? Not really. The inherent problem with these is that the filling in an oreo isn't really vanilla- it's just sweet and frosting-like. In contrast to a chocolate oreo cookie, it feels like it's vanilla- but if you think about it, it's really just sweet and not very strong on vanilla flavor. 

The orange flavor in these is strong, so the "vanilla" frosting and golden cookie have to really work hard to match it. They try, but they don't succeed. These are really just orange Oreos (Orang-eos?) with a slight creaminess to them. So for being labelled as creamsicle, these fail, but they are still pretty delicious. How many cookies have you had with orange frosting? I can't think of any. Definitely buy these. They are very good. 

B+

I kind of wish they make a triple decker like in the Neapolitan cookies though. Oh wait, I can just do that myself...

Or I could step it up a notch...

(this was ridiculous. the strawberry and orange overpowered everything, but it was still kind of awesome.)

P.S. Hey Oreo, when you make ORANG-EOS, I want a cut. 

-MIKE

Triple Double Oreo Neapolitan cookies

When you run a food blog, sometimes you creep the Internet looking for word on snacks being released soon. Sometimes you hear about them from friends who live far away, like the Coconut Twix. I've been waiting for a certain someone to send me one in the mail for months but no dice. But a month ago I saw these cookies online,  from Oreo, the TRIPLE DOUBLES. I've looked in every store I've gone in since then.
Tonight the universe aligned. I walked down an aisle and as if drawn to them by some unseen force and there they were. I snapped up a package of them and then skipped out of the store, literally.

The Stuff of Legend...

Now at first glance you may not notice why these cookies are so incredible. You probably say to yourself, "Oh yeah look, it's a Golden Oreo with Strawberry frosting...wait...is that?.....Could that be ANOTHER LAYER OF FROSTING?! This time Chocolate??? AND THEN ANOTHER COOKIE???
Yup. That's what you're looking at.

It kind of messes with your eyes...

You see, the Oreo Triple Double is basically the Club Sandwich of cookies. Cookie. Frosting. Cookie. Frosting. It's kind of like they mixed this...

With THIS...

See what I'm saying? It is pure genius. Two things that are delicious apart from each other. Take great qualities from each and combine them into a SUPER SNACK. That's the category the Triple Double falls under from now on. This is a next generation cookie. This is extreme. When we were kids they wouldn't have had the balls to do this, but they do now.

So you have the delicious crunch of the Golden Oreo, which I didn't give a chance for a long time because the original Oreo is so good that I thought it was a stupid gimmick that couldn't live up. I was wrong. They are fantastic. Mixed with the Chocolate and Strawberry frosting? Still great. A ton of sweet flavors doing battle in your mouth. Does it taste like Neapolitan ice cream? Yeah. They definitely do, and their colors help that perception along quite nicely.

Cookie Carnage. 

The only downside to these is that they are a giant cookie and are quite rich. This is a downside because you cannot eat as many. They make you sugar sick a lot faster than their classic counterparts would. This is a small price to pay for such an awesome, extreme, next generation cookie.
If you see these at the store, buy them. Don't even think about it for an instant. Buy them, and rip the package open on the way home so you can sample them. You'll probably turn around and go buy another package.
I give these an A for ALL OUT EXTREMELY AWESOME COOKIE.
Review by RICH

BK Minis and Sundaes!

I saw a commercial last night for new Burger King Minis- tiny burgers, cheeseburgers or chicken burgers in packs of 4, 6, or 8. So, 12 hours later, Josh and I took a trip to our local Burger King, where they weren't even on the menu! After an awkward conversation with the drive-thru girl, we had our lunch.

Here's what the boxes look like:

and inside:

These are weird. First of all, all of the bread is connected. So if you're sharing these, your fingers will be all over each other's food. And the weirder part? The meat is connected. Yes, the MEAT is connected. I know there are far more gross things to be bothered by when eating fast food, but this really bothered me.

WTF?

As you can probably tell by this picture, they were pretty haphazardly put together. I know it's FAST FOOD, but come on Burger King- you make a point at lying to everyone in your commercials, saying that everything is cooked right there on the spot, can you at least pretend to care how your food looks?

But I digress- as a fat guy with a huge beard and long raggedy hair, I will stick with lying to myself and saying that too much emphasis is put on looks. What matters is this: How were they? I'll let Josh's face answer that question:

meh.

They were the definition of blah. The burgers tasted like burned meat and pickles- I barely tasted anything else. When 70% of the sandwich is the bread, the heart of the sandwich has a pretty serious job to do, and it failed. Theroll was actually the highlight- very light and fluffy. But the inside was a big failure.

Does this look like anything you'd want to eat?

The chicken was decent though- it could have used more mayonnaise, but the lettuce was crisp, the "chicken" was crunchy and pretty tasty- more like a McDonalds McChicken than any chicken Burger King usually puts out (so, a vast improvement). I definitely tasted a strong pepper flavor. We both liked the chicken more and were sad that we had to eat our burgers instead of just more chicken.

Even though the chicken was pretty good, the problem with these is that there is just no need for them. I've never really understood the appeal of sliders and mini burgers- it's just more bread! Why order something you love in a mini version where they just replace what you love with bread? Doesn't make an ounce of sense to me. And these are no different. And even if you wanted to eat a mini burger just for a snack or something on the side, they should sell them in packs of 2, and have them individually wrapped, or at least not connected like some science experiment gone wrong.

Here's how I see it: 

4 mini chicken burgers= Just short of 4 bucks- tons of bread, connected meat, and tiny.

2 value menu chicken sandwiches= Around 3 bucks, individually wrapped, more meat, more everything.

1 tender crisp sandwich= Around 4 bucks, enormous and delicious.

4 mini cheeseburgers= A little over 4 bucks, tons of bread, connected meat, tiny, not good

2 double cheeseburgers= Around 3 bucks, individually wrapped, tons of meat, more cheese, delicious

2 double stackers= 4 bucks, individually wrapped, tons of meat, more cheese, delicious sauce, BACON!

1 deluxe burger= More than 4 bucks, but enormous and delicious.

It just doesn't make sense. I give these a D-. The chicken was decent and I guess this may appeal to some people, but I see these as nothing more than a gimmick that people will try because it sounds neat and then, disappointed, return to what they got before. 

While we were at Burger King, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to try some of their new soft serve desserts. I don't know where Burger King has been in the dessert department for the last 8 years, but while they were offering weird cakes and cookies, I was ordering dinner at Burger King and then driving my fat ass over to McDonalds to get a McFlurry. They finally stepped it up and got some soft serve. BUT, they don't offer anything like a McFlurry (which we all know is just a delicious, but ultimately failed attempt at making the vastly superior Blizzard). They instead offer milkshakes and sundaes, with some solid combinations. Notable flavors were: M&M, caramel, chocolate, strawberry, and strawberry banana.

I got the M&M, which was soft serve ice cream, mini M&Ms like they have at McDonalds, hot fudge, and for some reason, caramel. 

Here's what it looked like after driving 5 minutes in 80 degree heat:

And here's what it looked like when I gave up on it:

Depending on how you like your sundaes, you should be able to see either the genius of these, or, if you're like me, the problem: WAY too much sauce. I know that's crazy for a guy writing a blog called FATGUYFOODBLOG, but I'm sorry, I like to be able to taste ice cream and chocolate (and caramel for some reason), not just suck down gallons of goo. The entire bottom of this was sauce- there was so much in fact, that I began to lose M&Ms in the mixture. If they'd calm down a little on the sauce, or if I just ordered it with none on the bottom, this would have probably been pretty awesome- the soft serve was pretty good and very vanilla-ey, and the chocolate sauce was fantastic- very thick and gooey like Dairy Queen's. But it was just too much. C+, but I give Burger King an A for finally stepping it up in the dessert department.

-Mike

The Captain America Donut & Tri-Cup Coolatta...

Dunkin Donuts put on their big summer promotion surrounding the Captain America movie.  Nerds got all excited when they started seeing Cap's shield emblazoned on the side of every 400 pound white trash woman's large iced coffee, myself included. When I started seeing the ads for the Star Shaped Captain America donut and the Coolatta with three flavors in one cup, I knew that the day would come where these items would make their way onto the Fatguyfoodblog.

But I'm sure you're asking yourself, "Those items have been out for a while, the Captain America movie came out last week, why on Earth have these items not been reviewed yet?!" Well. The truth is...I've been holding off out of sadness. Because they are awful. 

How could that be? 

I'm about to tell you. 

But first, so you don't doubt my love for the Sentinel of Liberty...

Look into the eyes of a true American Hero.

First, we'll take a look at the Captain America donut...Here's what it looks like in the ad. A work of art:

Now here's that it looks like in real life...crap.

Seriously. How is this even supposed to be the same thing? Granted, I'm not expecting perfection but this? THIS?! It's just a random blob of dough completely immersed in a casing of waxy frosting, then rolled in a pound of Fourth of July sprinkles. 

Inside? Same old jelly they slap into all their jelly donuts. Nothing special at all. This donut was a disgrace to the United States of America. Even the donut itself was slightly stale. No redeeming qualities at all. 

I was asked by my dear friend Abby to review the Captain America Tri-cup coolatta. She must have been wondering where the review was because I kept putting it off. But now she will know the truth. It sucks. 

But...it starts out looking pretty damn cool...

Cool cup, right?

The cup itself is unlike anything we've ever seen before. Pic of Cap on every side, three separate partitions to house the different flavors...

The weird part about it is that it's not a piece that goes down into the cup, that you can take out later for when you want to bring the cup home and keep it. It's built right in. Which...kind of sucks for anything beyond this coolatta. But whatever, right? You have Blue Raspberry, Cherry, and you're supposed to have Vanilla. Everywhere online says that's what the last flavor is. But the kid at Dunkin Donuts that fateful day told me that everyone makes it wrong and that you're supposed to make it with lemonade as the third. Well it turns out, it doesn't matter. Because it's still gross. All three flavors are just completely weird chemical fruit flavors. Totally fake and you know it's just syrup pumped into some ice. It burns your throat and is almost tough to taste the differences in the flavors once you start drinking it. 

Would vanilla have changed it all the much? I doubt it. I'm a fan of coolattas. Mostly the coffee ones but every once in a while I have a Tropicana one. But these flavors here are just awful. I wouldn't even say to try it once. It's not worth it because you can't do much with the cup after.

I drank half and let the other half melt in the sun while I swam in a lake and then I dumped it out and brought the cup home, because no nerd can resist having a cup with superheroes on it. Even if it was from a god awful drink. 

But, in the spirit of Captain America, a man who rushes fearless into battle, I faced down all three flavors at once and lived to tell about it...

So. Gross.

The final verdict: D for DON'T try either of these. Despite your love for Cap. 

Review by Rich.