Girl Scout Cookie Nestle Crunch bars...Finally a candy bar stepped up their game.

I imagine a short time ago there was a meeting of minds in some Nestle board room- one of those ones where people toss out ideas on what their hottest new limited edition candy bar should be. There must have been some boring guys who got up and rattled on about doing something new with white chocolate, or something equally as mundane. I imagine the head honcho was staring out the window with a look of distaste on his face as boring idea after boring idea was thrown his way.
I'm guessing at this point, just when everyone thinks the meeting is over and nothing got accomplished, some revolutionary candy bar hero steps forward. At first, his voice is lost in the chatter of the others, but then he raises it to be heard over them. His words strike a chord with the man in charge, who suddenly silences the crowd and ushers the man forward and asks him to repeat what he said. Three simple words.
"Girl Scout Cookies."
A hushed silence falls over them all.
Followed by applause. They hoist him up on their shoulders and parade through the office.
A trio of candy gold is born.
The LIMITED EDITION GIRL SCOUT COOKIE FLAVORED NESTLE CRUNCH BARS.
Hold onto your hats, ladies and gents, because they are EXCELLENT.
First up is the THIN MINTS...

If you're like me, you're no stranger to sitting down with a sleeve of Thin Mints and then looking down a half hour later and realizing that you just ate way too many cookies. So you twist the wrapper shut and put it down on the table, only to open it back up a minute later when you decide that 4 cookies aren't worth putting away. Do yourself a favor and don't get more than one of these candy bars because the exact same thing will happen.  You'll wake from a candy coma covered in wrappers and not know what happened.

It's basically chocolate wafers with chocolate mint cream in the middle, with crispies, covered in more chocolate. It's exactly the flavor of a Thin Mint cookie, just with a different texture. It's lighter, more airy. I feel like this works in its favor, allowing flavor to move around better in your mouth. Everything about it is delicious. I couldn't say a bad thing about this candy bar if I tried.

Next up is the Peanut Butter Creme...

I figured these would be called Tagalongs, like the actual Girl Scout Cookie, but hey, I'm sure the folks at Nestle have their reasons. This thing is like a Reese's Stick on steroids. It's bigger, thicker, and more intense. It's like a Reese's stick got made fun of for being thin and weak and stuck a needle in its butt, drank protein shakes, and hit the gym for a year.

It's two giant chunks of wafers with peanut butter creme in the middle with some crispies on top. It's a simple recipe, but man is it good. If you're a peanut butter lover, like you all know I am, then you will enjoy this candy bar. It cuffs you across your smiling face with peanut butter flavor and unlike a Reese's Stick, it has those crispies on top adding a little extra texture. It's all in all a perfect peanut butter fanatic's candy bar.

Last but not certainly not least...the Caramel & Coconut...AKA SAMOA!!!!!!

Ladies & gents, this candy bar is a work of friggin' art. I'm actually finishing one as I type this and it's glorious. It's like golden light is shining down from candy bar heaven and when I look up into it, God himself is looking down at me, giving me a thumbs up.

Despite the other two being so good, this one easily wins the top spot among the three. It's wafers with coconut caramel creme, chewy caramel and toasted coconut covered in chocolate. It somehow perfectly captures the flavor of a Samoa, but I think also improves it somehow. Perhaps it seems like the chocolate here is lighter, or maybe because it's not as chewy as a real Samoa, so the caramel doesn't overtake it. It seems like every part of this candy bar works in unison to create perfection. If you're a fan of Samoa cookies or coconut in general, scoop these up. Hell, good luck, because I'll be honest with you, I'm going to be buying up every one of these that I see. I'm going to stockpile them like I'm on an episode of Doomsday Preppers.

My final words on these... they are all fantastic.
Thin Mints- A
Peanut Butter Creme- A
Caramel & Coconut- A+

Review by Rich

INTO THE DEEP: Deep River Aged Cheddar & Horseradish Chips

Sometimes you're on a roadtrip to the largest video game arcade in the world for your gf's bday, sometimes you're hungry and need to stop to get something to supercharge the upcoming gaming experience, and sometimes you find something so outstanding that you need to blog about how goddamn awesome they are.
ENTER: Deep River Snacks Aged Cheddar Horseradish kettle cooked potato chips. 

I snagged one of these bags up for $1 and was slightly weary, knowing that horseradish is a flavor that is traditionally handled very poorly by, pretty much everybody.

the disappointment when you realize the bag of chips you bought is half full :(

The smell of these tasty little crisps filled my 91 Cutlass with the greasy goodness from what you come to expect from a kettle chip.

chip dusting level:omega

Upon snacking down on one of these beautiful dusty creatures, you immediately get the aged cheddar flavor, old and musky, exactly like an aged cheese is supposed to taste. And then it hits you, the quick horseradish burn that fills your mouth with flavor fast as if Paul Walker himself was driving a suped up flavor Honda into your mouth. And just like Vin Diesel at the end of Fast 5, the burn is gone, and you're left waiting, wanting to stare once again upon his muscly visage in the form of glorious taste upon your tongue.

man, that got a little weird....

ANYWAY, buy these chips.
I'll be on the lookout for larger bags of these in my grocery store like a wild man hepped up on bath salts looking for a face to shred apart and devour.

i give these chipchops:
A

-josh

Popeye's Rip'n Chick'n

Sometimes, living in New Hampshire, we see commercials on television promoting restaurants that are nowhere near us. Normal people say to themselves, "Heck, if I'm ever on a road trip and I see one of those places, I'll be sure to stop!" But we are another breed. When we see one of these commercials we immediately consult the internet. We find out where the nearest one is and try to decide if it's worth the drive to go check it out.

Well when we were contacted by Popeye's chicken, asking if we'd be interested in reviewing their new Rip'n Chick'n, we did just that. Looked like the nearest Popeyes that wasn't a small rest-stop version was a little over an hour away, so we hopped in the Fatguyfoodblog-mobile and made it happen. 

None of us had ever had Popeyes before so we were eager to try it out. Our first impression when walking through the door was surprise at how insanely busy it was. 

and this was at 3 in the afternoon!

The staff wasn't messing around though. They were like a well oiled machine, taking orders, filling them and getting customers on their way in record time. The entire time we were there, the line was this long, a flow of people constantly through the door.

They were running a great deal for the Rip'n Chick'n. $3.99 for the chicken, fries and a buttermilk biscuit. That became the backbone of our meals. How can you pass up a deal like that? We couldn't. So we all got that and then some other things from the menu.

helluva spread right there

So what exactly is the Rip'n Chick'n?

It's a bunch of stuck together chicken fingers!

Some Rip'n Chick'n's are prettier than others. 

The Rip'n Chick'n is basically a chicken breast that is sliced into strips but still connected at the bottom. Then it is battered and fried creating something similar to a blooming onion... but chicken. It's a bundle of chicken fingers that you tear off to eat. Definitely an interesting meal. They kind of looked like deep fried crab...

or in Mike's case, an alien hand. 

HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

You rip it...then you dip it. 

The first thing I noticed after plucking a petal from this chicken flower, was that it was definitely spicy. One of the descriptions says it's marinated in 4 different peppers before being battered and fried and you could definitely taste them. But being a wimp when it comes to hot stuff, I was still able to enjoy this without it getting too hot. But don't be fooled, the Rip'n Chick'n does have a bite to it! It was a bit too much for wimpy Mike to like it, but he wasn't doing himself any favors by dipping already spicy chicken in what was a very cool dipping sauce- "blackened ranch." All in all the chicken was great, the spice was tasty and I thought the batter was great. Their array of dipping sauces worked out nicely for these too, (except for them being extra money per sauce. Good thing we charmed one of the ladies there into sneaking us a few).

The biscuits were buttery & delicious!

Looking around, it seemed like they were having another promotion...THE SUMMER OF PEACH! So I was sure to pour myself a peach iced tea, which I noticed you could purchase by the gallon jug! That's a fat guy's dream. Like that drink you just poured yourself at the fast food restaurant? BRING HOME A JUG! But the other part of the summer of peach? The Peach Pie! So I got one of those but decided that I should also get an apple one and put them in a head to head battle.

The peach was tasty and sweet. But in the end the apple pie won this bout with ease. It was covered in a pound of cinnamon sugar and every bite was delicious. 

So in the end, our adventure to Popeye's was a success. We found and reviewed the fabled Rip'n Chick'n, and introduced ourselves to a corner of the fast food universe that we had never visited before. We no longer have to wonder what Popeye's is like when we see the commercials on television. There's no longer that gap in our fat guy brains. We've filled it in with tear-away chicken fingers, cinnamon-sugar dusted apple pies, incredibly crisp and quality chicken tenders and nuggets, and Cajun fries (which were quite crisp and delicious). We have to say, if you find yourself out in the open and you spot a Popeye's and you've never had it, stop on in. Scoop up a Rip'n Chick'n, a couple of apple pies & a jug of Peach tea. You'll be glad you did.
For more information on Popeyes restaurants or the Rip'n Chick'n check out www.popeyes.com.

ICE CREAM OREO: RAINBOW SHURE, BERT COOKIES!

Sometimes I think we should change the name of Fatguyfoodblog to the GuyswhoonlyreviewnewflavorsofOreosblog. I mean, if you look at our track record, it would really fit. However it just doesn't have the same ring to it. Fatguyfoodblog is almost a household name now anyway, so we can't really change it.
But as you may have guessed, we are once again here to review a new flavor of Oreo. The flavor in question? ICE CREAM OREO: RAINBOW SHURE, BERT!

Sherbet & cookies...together! Kinda. 

So once again we find ourselves faced with a new incarnation of the Oreo. Will it be as mind blowingly good as the Birthday Cake Oreos? Will it have the same strange cream as the Berry Burst Ice Cream Oreos? Will they be too sweet like the Golden Oreo Fudge Cremes? Will one flavor take over the cookie like with the Creamsicle Oreos? Or will they dominate the cookie world like the Triple Double Neopolitan Oreos? (at Fatguyfoodblog headquarters we refer to these as TRIP/DUBZ. I'd like for all of you to do the same.)
What exactly is the deal with the Rainbow Shure, Bert Oreos?

Look at those pretty colors!

Basically they take the Golden Oreo (which I have recently deemed the superior cookie) and slap a whole lot of brightly colored, SHERBET flavored cream in the middle. Much like the Birthday Cake Oreos, the second you open this package your nose is bombarded with the scent of the cookies. However this time it's not as pleasant. It's a VERY strong sherbet smell. It's not bad, but it's just a bit strong.

Looks like Play Doh!

They taste like they smell. Very strong flavor of Sherbet. It's not one of those times where they try for a flavor and don't hit it and it just tastes like chemicals. This definitely tastes like you're eating a bowl of Rainbow Sherbet... just as a cookie. When you do the classic Oreo move where you screw off the top cookie to lick off the cream, you find that the cream is strange. It's thick like Play Doh. It literally felt like I was eating a childs modeling compound. (That's actually what they say Play Doh is on their website). Except... it tastes like too strong sherbet. When you eat the cookie together, it isn't nearly as bad, but in the end these aren't the kind of Oreo that you are able to eat more than one or two of easily.
Unless of course, you are Sherbet crazy. If you are, these will be your favorite cookie of all time.
I give these new Oreos a C+

Review by Rich.

Local Spotlight: Kelly's Cookie Jar

This is a bit of a local spotlight of sorts on Kelly's Cookie Jar cookies, from Exeter, New Hampshire. I found these at Fiddlehead Farms in Dover, and I would assume that you may be able to find them at other places specializing in local foods, although I could be wrong- based on the website, it looks like Kelly's Cookie Jar is literally one person (Kelly) who cooks these at her house and bakes them by order. This means that although they may not be in many stores, you can order your own online, and I may just do that myself. 

What shocked me about these cookies were their size. They're enormous. They are the thickness of 2 cookies stacked on top of each other, and absurdly full of the goodies that make up each flavor. I tried the basic chocolate chip first, and it was pretty impressive.

lookit all those chocolate chips!

Tons of chocolate chips, and the perfect combination of salty and sweet made these rival a lot of cookies I've had. You can really taste the salt, and it works wonderfully. And their thickness makes them almost too much. Almost.

Next up was an incredibly unique flavor- peanut butter toffee. 

I wasn't sure what this meant, but it was exactly what it said- peanut butter flavor with chocolate chips and chunks of toffee. I've never had peanut butter with toffee before, and it works, incidentally also in the sweet and salty way. They compliment each other nicely, and the chocolate chips just drop-kicked these into another world entirely.

Although the first 2 flavors were awesome, I think the Oreo Chocolate Chip were my favorite.

They're delicious, salty and sweet, and filled with chocolate chips and, yes- chopped up Oreos. I think the sheer ridiculousness of having cookies in my cookie made these, while rich and kind of fancy, fatguy-chortle worthy in a way only XZibit can express: 

Xzibit is a huge FGFB fan

Homemade cookies are usually the best, and based on the simplicity of ingredients, Kelly is not messing around in her just-the-basics approach. These are cookies like mom used to make- only better, and you can pretend Kelly is your mom and get your own whenever you want. Except you might be weirded out that your mom was charging you for cookies. 

These are enormous and flavorful and come in some pretty sweet varieties. I really want to try the white chocolate chip and cranberry ones. 

The only downsides with these cookies are that they're a bit expensive, but when you feel the weight and see the thickness of the cookie, any price seems fair. 

The other downside is that these may be too much for some people. They have the softness of a perfectly cooked cookie, but because of just how thick they are, they lose some of that chewy-ness. They also are quite filling. I want to high five Kelly for making them this big, but at the same time, I want to whisper (so no other fat guys hear me), "can you maybe make these a little thinner?"

I give all 3 of these cookies an A and look forward to trying more. 

-Mike

International Delight : Heath Bar Coffee Creamer

Truth be told, I saw this in the store and exclaimed excitedly, but had no intentions of reviewing it for FGFB. Only because with something like this, there are so many different factors on prep and nuanced portions to how people enjoy their coffee, that I wasn't sure how to attack it properly. So, I decided to say "BUCK IT" and review it on how I make my coffee, the correct way.

feast your eyes on this megalith of coffee creamery

first we start off with the only coffee (nationally optioned) that should ever be delivered into your coffee pot, a Starbucks bold roast. I prefer to grind my beans, but sometimes you have to slum it and go with a bag of ground.

i like my coffee strong, so add a little less water to the brewing process

Pour a generous cup of black gold into your favorite mug

I've slowly weened myself off of adding sugar to my coffee. I enjoy a coffee taste, and the sugar piss that Dunkin Donuts has been offering the past few years as completely turned my stomach to overly sweet coffee. That way you can let the creamer actually do the work of sweetening the coffee, and perform the symphony of candy flavored notes that it so claims it does.

i pour in about 3 teaspoons of creamer

still dark, but sweetened up to my tastes

 

down the ol hatch!

As far as coffee creamers go, this one is just mediocre. It tastes a lot like the Italian Sweet cream offerings, dialed down, and added a hint of candy. you can't really tell WHAT kind of candy, as the candy flavor is so far away you'd need a North Korean missile test just to try and reach it. And just like the last North Korean missile test, this coffee creamer breaks up half way to flavor, and leaves your coffee feeling, weak, impotent, and isolated.

personally, this creamer deserves a C.
if you're a little piglet that has a 80/20 creamer/coffee ratio, you might like it more. 

But as an addendum to an already great coffee, it neither enhances nor detracts. 

snag it up, or don't. 

-josh

BIRTHDAY CAKE GOLDEN OREO FUDGE CREMES

If you read Fatguyfoodblog, you know we love Oreo's. You know that every time we go shopping, we check for a new Oreo, because let's face it, the people at the Oreo factory just love tossing new flavors out into the wild, and we at Fatguyfoodblog headquarters love tracking down these new flavors.
Well imagine my surprise when I went shopping the other night and discovered BIRTHDAY CAKE GOLDEN OREO FUDGE CREMES...

So. Many. Words.

Everyone knows we loved the Birthday Cake Oreo's a while back, so when I saw the logo on this bag, a package of them was in my cart so fast that any onlookers would have only seen a yellow blur. I'm surprised I didn't smash these things to dust when I spiked the package into my cart like I was celebrating a Superbowl touchdown.

SPRINKLES.

So basically what you're looking at here is one Golden Oreo cookie half with Birthday Cake frosting on it. Then it's covered in chocolate (they call it fudge) and gets some sprinkles tossed onto it. Is it good? Hell yes. It's freaking delicious. The second you peel back the sticky metallic membrane covering the cookies your sinuses are drowned in the birthday cake Oreo smell. It's a scent that's almost impossibly good. Like something from another world that your sense almost have trouble comprehending. 

Artsy up-close shot, complete with reflection.

One of the good things about these is that the chocolate fudge that they are dipped in isn't that waxy, tasteless kind you get on some items like this. It's very chocolate tasting and threatens to melt the moment your fingers touch it.

Now if I had to give these a down side, it's that without the other cookie to balance things out, these are too sweet. That just means you can't eat a dozen of them without feeling sick. The birthday cake frosting is very sweet and when coupled with the chocolate fudge outside, it's like a sugar bomb going off in your mouth. I found myself having to take breaks from them for a bit before going back for another. 

Bottom line? These cookies are great. They are a neat limited edition variation of a classic that we know and love, so absolutely try them out if you can. 

I give them an A-!

Review by Rich.