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!

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.