u/JaliscoOaxaca

Some people only lick the creme inside their Oreos and discard the rest.

For the first time ever, I find myself agreeing with those barbarians.

The fried dough-flavored cookie is virtually tasteless. I found myself eating way more of these than necessary because I thought something was wrong with me.

Twenty minutes later, a negative COVID test revealed that it is, in fact, not me; it’s you, Nabisco!

I don’t know who hurt the product development team, or what childhood devoid of the fairgoing experience they have suffered through, but whoever engineered this flavor has never had that end-of-summer, mosquito-swatting while touching your first boob under the bleachers kind of day, and to evoke those memories by calling this cookie anything remotely close to fried dough is a falsehood that I refuse to allow.

Fried dough is delicious, and going to the fair without getting it feels like a waste of time. It’s so good that a person can almost entirely ignore the ever-present smell of livestock and the abrupt impact of unaware parents continually crashing strollers into your Achilles while you eat. I wanted an approximation of the flavor without the bruises, but I just got a cookie that tasted like flour; it’s barely even sweet.

On a positive note, the inside features one of the coolest creme flavors I’ve ever had. The creme is a dark brown layer, a white layer, and another dark brown layer, which makes it look like a traditional Oreo. And it tastes like one too!

It’s a phenomenal and creative idea that makes me happy to write food reviews.

However, in an Oreo, the cookie is supposed to work in harmony by embracing the creme. This sorry attempt at a cookie stifles the product as if it were hugged by Lennie from ‘Of Mice and Men’.

If you’re curious, but don’t want to spend money on these, eating a thin Oreo between saltines would produce the same effect.

Haiku:

Aggrieved by a snack

Brilliance enveloped by “blah”

Fairs would have riots

⭐️⭐️

​

My excuse for being late to write this review is that I'm keeping the vibe simpatico with Nabisco’s flaccid energy of being very late to jump on the chicken and waffle trend that most of us have already been beaten over the head with.

This summer, both Oreo and Chik Fil-A became the latest dinghies in a flotilla of capitalists trying to cash in on long-established commodities that mom and pops had stalwartly been selling for decades. 

Alas, I am just one man fighting against the tide, and actually I’ve addd to the swell by purchasing some too.

 As a kid, chicken and biscuits were always a fun treat for me, but only if I can get some maple syrup on the biscuit; Shout out JIM DANDY CHICKEN (review’s in the works). 

This Oreo’s cookie portion reminds me of a sweet, greasy biscuit, which tastes very similar to the cookie they used in last winter’s CHOCOLATE COVERED PRETZEL OREO,except this newer venture also has the taste and crumble of MCDONALD’S PLAIN COOKIES from the 1980’s. The old  Pretzel Oreos left me craving actual fried chicken. The current product doesn’t have that poultry-provoking salivarity and, thankfully, doesn’t taste like chicken. As a society, we’re not ready for savory Oreos yet, but if they ever decide to go down that road I’d like to be on the committee for the Beef Patty & Coco Bread flavor.

Inside, we get a double creme; there’s a thin layer of beige creme w/ flecks in it that tastes like maple syrup and also mimics the grit of fried chicken crumbs. I don’t love it because it tastes and feels like sweet, whipped margarine, but I appreciate the commitment to the theme. There’s also a darker tan creme which tastes like a stronger but cheaper facsimile of maple syrup. The texture of that portion is mercifully more akin to the standard Oreo creme that we love and trust.

Eating several of these unmasks a strong overall corn flavor. Like that of cheese puff sans cheese but with margarine/ vanilla extract esters. Never mind the taste, though; the most compelling thing I experienced eating these was the FEELING. Somehow they’ve managed to evoke the mouth and stomach feel of eating too much fried chicken w/o the product really tasting like fried chicken. It’s a level of wizardry that leaves me impressed, but equally uneasy.

This was a valiant, yet transparent effort that felt soulless, and I'm really disappointed that the cookie portion wasn’t better because they were so close to getting it right with the pretzel ones.

Haiku:

Cookie’s good and wrong

Real feelings from fake flavors?

Beyond Meat’s jealous

⭐️⭐️⭐️

BTS OREOS

Knowing nothing about BTS, the decision to purchase these brown sugar pancake-flavored Oreos was based solely on trying a new product. What does help, though, is that this is singularly the most beautiful cookie Oreo has ever produced. As a fan of all things purple, the dark lavender (achieved from radishes) and brown color scheme almost make it too pretty to eat.

Sentimentality yielded to hunger, and I dove in.

Initially, the cookie tastes like ½ cooked pancake batter crossed with a slight floral flavor. It’s odd and surprising, but in no way is it unpleasant. As the opening volley wanes, a familiar, comforting taste of shortbread takes over. Specifically, the cookie ends up tasting like GIRL SCOUT COOKIE TREFOILS. While performing my dissection, I noticed the cookie is more oily than the average Oreo, but not excessively so.

Inside, there’s a 2-tiered filling; A thin, light-colored beige section which also tastes like raw pancake batter, but is sweeter. Not bad, but slightly chalky on the lips. 

The larger portion of creme is a darker filling that tastes like the as-advertised brown sugar, but in reality its flavor is closer to that of turbinado sugar, like SUGAR IN THE RAW.

I applaud Oreo for making something different, but it’s also a bit of an awkward departure from the norm. While being enjoyable, I’m not likely to buy them again.

This product is supposed to be inspired by a Korean street food called hotteok, sort of like a pancake with thick sweet filling. I’ve never had one, so I can’t comment on how close it comes to mimicking the real deal.  Eating authentic hotteok is now my latest fixation, so if anyone has recommendations near L.A., I’m all tastebuds.

Haiku:

New, yet familiar

Hooray! Palate expansion

Kimbap digestif?

⭐️⭐️⭐️

BUSH’S ROCKET POP FLAVORED BAKED BEANS

It wasn’t until I opened the shipping box that I believed that this was even a real product. In the weeks prior to physically getting my hands on this, I assumed that the online images I’d seen were an A.I. prank that got out of hand. Once these beans were in my possession, I did the next logical step: Let them sit on my counter for a month. Each trip to the kitchen fostered an awkward staredown with this can, and each time I kinda said, “I’m not in the mood for this shit right now.”

🛑 For the TLDR crowd, you can scroll to the bottom for a haiku that explains my experience.

Not through commitment or valor did I eventually decide to eat these. I actually just ran out of counter space and remembered that this big ass can of beans needs to go. Opening it revealed a slurry of bean juice that was cloudier and much thicker than what is found in a can of normal beans. Mercifully, but disappointingly, it didn’t have any of the funky artificial colors of a ROCKET POP. The scent wasn’t strong, revealing just slight wisps of popsicle, and surprisingly the product mostly smelt like garlic.

After 4 minutes in the microwave, the olfactory sensation would be transformed into a miasma that made me not want to eat this at all. Heated up, this smelled like farts and rubber. In the mid-80s, my family lived in a house that had old radiators; I got a set of rubberized toy Disney characters for Christmas, and, being derelict in my room-cleaning, I left Dumbo on said radiator, amongst the lead paint-chips one day. It’s been 40 years since I’ve smelled the scent of a melted Dumbo figurine, but these beans brought me right back to that time. 

Yay, nostalgia?

Further sniffs also revealed a saucy tomato smell that, in conjunction with the as-advertised popsicle scents, became pretty sickening.

Tasting a heaping forkful revealed that the Rocket Pop flavor wasn’t too strong, and of the 3 popsicle sections, the white/lemon part stood out the most. The most off-putting thing about eating this was the thick, corn syrup-textured medium in which the beans were suspended; Despite being piping hot, it gave the food the mouthfeel of something that was congealed. It was fresh, but felt discarded

While the flavor’s not going to win any awards, the taste didn’t leave me disgusted; however, the texture and smell made me, as a person, FEEL disgusting.

Haiku:

Just lead-fumed throwbacks,

No joy of popsicles here

Odd visceral scents

⭐️⭐️

I was just hungry, and not interested in presentation.

For some reason the rice in Pic 1 came out horribly, so I made a second batch.

COKE CHERRY FLOAT

Deny it, hide from it, or choose to ignore it entirely; Eventually we reach an age where even the most vehement perpetuators of neoteny develop some wrinkles, and we come to the realization that there isn’t enough time to do everything, and certainly not time to do it well.

So in our own heads we make silent concessions to let up off the accelerator, to focus on completion of the task, rather than completion of the ideal. Initially, such lapses in care allow us to keep up appearances without any vituperation from others.

Their unknowing bolsters our corner-cutting payoffs. It’s an increasingly product-driven age in which we suckle from; Where concepts like quality and originality are cute, aspirational, pie-in-the-sky assignments given to lower-funded departments, while those at the top prioritize metrics like units sold and the number of social media mentions.

In the boardroom, Joy is not a deliverable.

A float is the essence of joy. No one has ever said, “I’m in a rush, let me hurry up, dig into the freezer, move aside the ground beef and that old bag of veggies I promised I was going to eat, find the ice cream and strain my wrist for 1 or 2 scoops of vanilla.”

A float is a whole process that feels slightly laborious, and entirely celebratory. Making the dessert is a venture toward epicondylitis that makes the pain worth the effort (I prefer to use the frosty mug to ice down my burning forearm in between bites and sips).

Shout out to those who’ve read this far, for that was just preamble to the maelstrom.

Cracking the bottle open brought forth a welcome committee that didn’t have the energy to produce the crisp “soda sound” one would expect; the bottle actually sounded like it was experiencing agonal breathing when it let out its haggard sigh. I move on to the next sense and stick my nose over the barrel of this corn-syruped pistol to inhale what smells like sweet, wet cardboard. If you’ve ever left one of those tiny boxes of raisins sitting in your school lunch box over the weekend, then you can probably imagine the scent I’m talking about.

Coca-Cola has already successfully sold the individual products that make up this concoction. I’ve spent a non-insignificant amount of legal tender on CHERRY COKE, VANILLA COKE, and CHERRY-VANILLA COKE, separately. The latter makes me wonder how the company could improve on that. Perhaps make the vanilla more creamy?

No, they didn’t do that. Someone in a suit and tie collaborated with someone in a lab coat and decided that the solution was to make the cherry taste nearly nonexistent.

Equally offensive is the confirmation of my previous supposition: there is no fizz to this soda. It has the effervescence of a float that was forgotten about, in which the melted ice cream mitigated the carbon dioxide dissolved in the liquid, but that sounds too much like science, and I’m not going to get into a chemistry lesson.

So…Copper, the 29th element on the periodic table, only made up a small fraction of the modern penny; still, for cost concerns, the U.S. government ceased manufacturing them last November.

This soda has a weird metallic taste that makes me question if Coca-Cola purchased some of those coins and threw a couple of them into the vat at the factory as if it were a giant wishing well.

“I hope these idiots buy this one too”

In summary, we got little of the advertised taste, a bit of metallic flavor, no fizz for our burping contests, and a whorish pastiche of a dessert that should never be rushed.

Like a divorced parent with custody once a month, this product tries to cram a depth of experiences into too brief an encounter with awkward alacrity, which ironically may be described as “thirstiness”; however, this drink fails to resolve the physical manifestation of said adjective.

Haiku:

Bliss comes naturally

Smiles come from face muscles

Not Coke’s force-fed grin

⭐️⭐️

OCEAN SPRAY STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE 

Just about any tall vessel can be a drinking glass. Some of my favorite beverages have been sipped from an ice-filled repurposed jelly or mayonnaise jar.

This, however, tastes as if it comes from a container that wasn’t properly washed out, and that container formerly housed a candle.

This is more of an olfactory juice than a flavored one. 

As soon as I twisted the cap, the air was filled with the scent of baby powdered dolls and nail polish remover. 

It’s a powerful non-potable smell that dominates the experience.

Don’t let that lead you to believe that the taste is weak. The flavor is quite assertive, but it’s a wandering, non-committal patchwork of lingual befuddlement that gives the essence of white grapes, crayons, baby toys, and chapstick. The ingredient list doesn’t contain those last 3 items, but it also doesn’t contain any strawberries either.

Frighteningly, it manages a small victory by ekeing out some strawberry flavor, but it’s a plasticky one. As a whole, this is too sweet, and the cranberry taste is severely underrepresented; however, there is absolutely no shortcake flavor, which I’m actually thankful for, because it would probably cause me to develop a negative association with cake, which would be anathema to my greatest love.

Also, forget about mixing this with liquor to force it down. I wasted some good vodka on this, as swirling the two together made a drink that tasted the way kerosene smells.

This is a limited edition product, but somehow it’s survived on the shelves here since late winter. I don’t know who’s buying this, but they probably won’t be alive much longer.

Haiku:

Brightly hued warning

The poison dart frog of juice

My urethra’s cooked

⭐️⭐️

ARBY’S PEACH COBBLER ROLL

In neither temporal measurement nor distance traveled does the journey of self-awareness need to be a long one.

From the time I barked my order into the drive-thru’s loudspeaker to the time I pulled up to the window, debit card in hand, I had already experienced an epiphany. For in those grave 30 seconds between thought and execution, I remembered that I hate peaches.

🛑 For the TLDR crowd, you can scroll to the bottom for a haiku that sums up the rating. 

Low-level panic set in as I don’t want to waste 350; Both the approximate price and the calorie count. 

There’s no turning back now.

Between my thumb and forefinger, I hold one of the rolls. It’s very hot, but my inquisitive fat boy nature dictates that I focus on the food’s form factor before I eat. Ignoring the discomfort of my two most important digits, I note that the roll is quite heavy for its size.

More important than its heft, I realize that the outside feels incredibly crispy and fried hard, but not to the point of being dried out. It reminds me of the shell of a good egg roll mixed with a dash of that old-skool MCDONALD’S FRIED APPLE PIE (review in bio) texture that McDonald’s came close to recapturing recently, but could never supplant the greatness that they achieved during the smoking-in-restaurants era.

Upon biting into it. I’m welcomed by a satisfying, tasty grease flavor that marries the dough in a funnel cake type of flavor. The grease and dough are so well-balanced that both are prominent without either being intrusive. As a bonus, the crunch level is phenomenal.

Internally, the filling doesn’t taste like peaches at all, which is why I liked it, but the world doesn’t revolve around me, and fans of that awful stone fruit are going to be disappointed. The interior does taste like fruit, and it’s quite pleasant, but I have no frame of reference to tell you which fruit that would be. It’s a warm, egg yolk-textured magma that makes me feel equal parts satisfied with the mouthfeel and distressed by the unnatural flavor, which portends health consequences from chemical exposure.

Haiku:

Faux fruit right and wrong

An uneasy flavor quest

Assuaged by crispness

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐

OREO - FIRECRACKER POP

My default name for this flavor is “BOMB POP”, but as this product name suggests, what we are presented with is a collaboration with the Popsicle company’s version of the treat. The only difference between the 2 products is the shape, in which Firecracker pops are more aerodynamic and have a greater ribbed-for-her-pleasure texture.

Just as no one asked me for that clarification,  not one damn person asked for this fusion of products to be made. Oreo can infuse a lot of flavors into its cookies, but who the hell wants a cookie that tastes like something from the ice cream truck? (Unless it’s CHOCO TACO)

Skeptically, I peeled open the bag and instantly smelled popsicles. The scent is scarily accurate. 

Though it’s not a DOUBLE STUF Oreo, there’s a heavier amount of filling, as each of the three Firecracker flavors (Cherry/Lemon-lime/ Blue raspberry) is ~40% of the volume of a normal Oreo’s creme. Don’t stress the slightly higher 90 calories per cookie. This is 4th of July weekend. It’s a celebration, bitches!

I don't know if I got a dud, but the exterior cookie tasted and looked slightly underbaked when compared to other GOLDEN OREO varieties.

Inside, the cremes tasted exactly like Firecracker pops. I was shocked at how closely they were able to duplicate the flavor. Extra credit for the texture as well. Recently, the fruity-flavored Oreos have had too much palm oil or something that makes them feel slick and heavy. They managed to give these a pleasant, silky mouthfeel without unneeded unctuosity.

Ambivalently, I write this review. After eating half the package, I still don’t know how to feel about these.As much as I laud the efforts here, the cookie and creme do not belong together.

Sadly, the treat made to commemorate the U.S. could benefit from segregation.

Haiku:

Divisive dessert

Quarter millennium doubts

It ain’t boring though

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

#haiku #ribbedforherpleasure

McDONALD’S FRIED APPLE PIE

Last week, I took the time to watch a pre-cancelled James Franco in a show called ‘ 11.22.63’. It’s essentially about a modern era cat who uses a time portal to go back to the 1960’s.

There’s a scene in which he pays pennies for the best apple pie he’s ever tasted. That mini-series is adapted from a Stephen King novel, so there’s a great deal of fantasy involved, but the “pommes de temps” (It’s fun to say) scene definitely shows up in this product.

🛑 For the TLDR crowd, you can scroll to the bottom for a haiku that sums up the rating. 

It’s been like 30 years since Mickey D’s absconded with the OG apple pies like a thief in the night and left us with a flaccid, baked version in their wake. A culinary rug was pulled out from under American fast-food eaters, under the guise of “low cholesterol”, when in reality, the company just wanted something that could be cooked faster in order to maximize profits. I don’t eat McDonald’s much, but I missed them crisp, HOTPOCKET-shaped pies that held an even more dangerous molten center.

Fast forward to now, I’m pleased with the warm, crusty outer shell of this pie. It has a lot of bubbles in the pastry, which suggests that hot oil was responsible for giving asperity to the outside. The crunch is familiar, but lacking a bit of crispness. The old pies had a quality similar to the fat egg rolls at a hood Chinese restaurant. The new ones have a satisfying bite, but they’re closer to that of a taquito.

Internally, thankfully, the beloved molten quality of the ’90s persists and is still capable of burning the roof of your mouth. Less, comfortingly, the apple bits look a little unseasoned. When I was a kid, I recall the guts being deeper in color and having flecks of pie spices. The new version is several shades paler, and though there are chunks of apple, the filling feels more homogenous.

As a kid, maximizing the pie as a true fat boy meant ordering a CARAMEL SUNDAE W/ NUTS to dip the fried pie bits into. This A1C-elevating snack was top tier. Commercially, only a HOT FUDGE SUNDAE is available now. I attempted to use it to enhance my experience, but it added nothing.

While the apple pie is a welcome throwback, I wish they brought back the blueberry version, as that would have a larger margin of error, and the danger of pyroclastic pie filling is more harrowing, but adds to the fun.

Haiku:

Grown-ups need warmth too

While the past is a blanket

This bedding has holes

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This meal sucked

The "tree" is only about 7 inches tall. Is it salvageable?

Kizame.

West Hills (L.A.)

I had to do most of the heavy lifting bc she kept letting them ply her with diet Cokes, but a great time was had and I'd give this place an A-

The shrimp were fried so perfectly that I spent a decent amount of my gastric capacity on those.

The "jalapeno" aspect was lacking tho.