Author: Kevin

REVIEW: Pepperidge Farm Dessert Shop Chocolate Brownie Cookies

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Pepperidge Farm Dessert Shop Chocolate Brownie Soft Dessert Cookies

Hi, my name is Blade and I’m here to review some cookies.

You may have heard of me. I am also known as the Daywalker—I am a vampire. Well, I was born half-human, half-vampire. So I have all their strengths and none of their weaknesses, except for the blood thirst. But I manage to keep that in check with a serum, and I can walk around in the sunlight like all the rest of you. I’m basically a regular human being with super strength, reflexes and a healing factor.

To be upfront, I think some of those qualities make me superior to human beings and perhaps transcendent to human rules, but the IRS doesn’t agree, and subsequently I’ve run into tax problems, which explains why I’m writing about baked goods on a website. And I’ve eaten human flesh, which means my tastes are more adventurous than yours, I’m sure.

However, I do have a sweet tooth. Love those snacks. They come far second on the list of cravings, though, behind human blood. To recap: Number one craving with a (silver) bullet, human blood. Number two, baked sweets. My aunt used to make these snickerdoodles that were sublime. You guys tried cronuts yet? The real ones from New York. Amazing, right? Dominique Ansel done changed the game! How about pureed frozen bananas? Stuff tastes just like ice cream! Yeah, I love sweets. Number three is probably gas station Spam musubi, believe it or not.

Being half something and half something else, the folks at this site thought it would be a good idea for me to review the Pepperidge Farm Dessert Shop Chocolate Brownie Cookies, because it’s half a cookie, half a brownie. Here is the question: Does this product combine the strengths of the cookie and the brownie? Or is it all weakness, like those new Spider-Man films? The short answer is no, this cookie is not awesome like me. It is just okay.

It is soft, so soft and chewy, like the best cookies. The initial bite has a light, bitter cocoa sting with a hint of sweetness, like a brownie! It’s pretty good. And the cookie never gets too sweet, either. I like my chocolate on the bitter side and I like my Avengers movies quippy. The problem is that the cookie doesn’t go anywhere else. There’s no depth of flavor. It’s not rounded out by a torrent of butter or balanced with any other sensation. It just keeps hitting the bitter note over and over, which gets tiring. It’s also chewy but not gooey, like a brownie would be. The density is of a supermarket mass-produced cookie, and not of a deep, cakey, homemade casserole-dish brick of cocoa goodness.

Pepperidge Farm Dessert Shop Chocolate Brownie Soft Dessert Cookies Closeup

You can see chocolate chips in the cookie, but you can’t really taste them in the product. The chips get lost in the shuffle somewhere, overshadowed, so seeing them there is like being teased. I bet it’s sort of like being imbued with an unquenchable thirst for human blood and seeing humans walking around literally everywhere, walking, dancing, taunting, necks exposed, welcoming, and never once taking a sip. Or maybe like a chocolate lap dance. It’s disappointing that the cookie does not live up to the Frankenstein potential of a cookie-brownie, but the flavoring spins so far out of control in one singular direction it doesn’t even function that well as a cookie-cookie.

The Pepperidge Farm Dessert Shop Chocolate Brownie will not be making it into Blade’s cookie rotation. It’s a valiant attempt at combining brownie powers and cookie powers into one thing, but it’s a little bit of a reminder that the X-Men are special, and, really, most genetic mutations end in early death and not in telekinesis or the power of flight. I guess against all odds companies will always try to harness the warm, homey goodness of a brownie into items. “Motherfudgers always trying to ice skate uphill.” That’s a quote of mine that I altered to appropriately fit into this piece.

Thanks for reading, folks. And a quick reminder I am immune to garlic so I am available to review non-Olive Garden Italian cuisine. And vampires don’t sparkle! Gosh, Twilight is my Madea. I guess Madea is also my Madea. Shout out to Joss Whedon. I’m available for the next Avengers. Or Ant-Man! I’ll take Ant-Man! Edgar Wright, I loved Shaun of the Dead. It should have been vampires and not zombies, though. Everybody check out Let the Right One In. Check out all my movies too. I’m not in Blades of Glory, though. That’s not me. Hmm, actually, also, I’m only half human, so I should only pay half human taxes. Okay, I’m going to go re-fill out my W-9. Bye.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 cookie – 140 calories, 50 calories from fat, 6 grams of fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 10 milligrams of cholesterol, 90 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 11 grams of sugar, 1 gram of fiber, and 2 grams of protein.)

Item: Pepperidge Farm Dessert Shop Chocolate Brownie Cookies
Purchased Price: $2.50
Size: 8.6 ounce bag
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Not too sweet. Chewy, soft. Not terrible.
Cons: Flat flavoring. No depth. Goes nowhere. Boring.

REVIEW: Hot Pockets Limited Edition Angus Beef Melt

Kevin 5 Comments

Hot Pockets Limited Edition Angus Beef Melt

Some memories are best left in their own time. Case in point: Third wave ska, Disney Afternoon cartoons, JNCO pants. Let them be. Revisiting these things is a risk, a danger to the fond nostalgia they might evoke at this point in time. This is because they are objectively poor (and memories are unreliable), composed of a multitude of components and emotions, including the way we picture our younger selves—hopeful, untainted, resilient. Memories are a trick. We’re all on the same page here, right? Memories are a trick. Got it? Good.

Cue the time machine. Sometimes it’s a phone booth, sometimes it’s a DeLorean, and sometimes it’s a British phone booth. In this case it’s a supermarket freezer, packed full of frozen treats, yearning to be consumed. The colorful packaging displaying giant carb pills chock full o’ meat ‘n dairy tantalize and beckon, ready to send you back ten, fifteen, twenty years. Whatever you like, master. Look, it’s even a fixed run! Hot Pockets Limited Edition Angus Beef Melt. What a beaut.

Remember Hot Pockets?

Flaky crust injected with beef or pork — an inside-out pizza, a sandwich with no edges. An afternoon treat before soccer practice, or during a Mortal Kombat II jam sesh. Enjoyed with a cold Fruitopia. Mom, stop trying to make phone calls, I’m on AOL! Aw, man I got Hot Pocket all over my hip-hop Looney Toons t-shirt. I know, I know. We just went over this. Memories are lies, yeah yeah. … Eff it, we’re going back! It’s a time machine, bro. You can’t not go. It’s a time machine. Don’t be lame. Let’s do it. Start it up!

The Hot Pockets Limited Edition Angus Beef Melt sucks. The box promises Angus beef, portabella mushrooms, provolone and mozzarella and “soft-baked bread.” The bread is soft, yes, sort of like a ciabatta or something. It’s also super soggy after the requisite minute and fifty seconds in the microwave. Maybe there’s a conventional oven plan we can put this on? The box has no instructions for that. All the best, we’ve seen microwavable burritos. We don’t have 40 minutes to sit around waiting for a Hot Pocket to thaw.

Hot Pockets Limited Edition Angus Beef Melt Innards

There are a few hits of “premium meat” flavor and mushroom taste, which is somehow immediately fleeting, taken over by steaming hot filling that tastes like nothing. The photo on the box is stuffed with beef and cheese, and the bisected reality is one of a space worm from Dune that feeds on bad choices and nostalgia. The beef on the box is sliced and layered. The beef in the actual pocket is chopped into bits, resembling the leftover bits from a deli slicer. Even the box has memories that lie.

Hot Pockets Limited Edition Angus Beef Melt Closeup

The worst part is that it’s not substantial at all. It barely registers as a snack. If you’re not gonna make it good to eat at least food coma us so we can dream about a Hot Pocket that is satisfying on some level. It was a bad omen when taking it out of the microwave, the Hot Pocket looked like a pet gerbil that had made a doodie mess out of its backside all over the plate. It looked shameful, like it had made a mistake. It’s not your fault, though. The mistake was all ours.

As the time travel effects wear off and we slingshot back to the present, we see a whirlwind of our past: First girlfriend, favorite teacher, Chuck Berry’s cousin Marvin Berry, wife of multiple time travelers Rachel McAdams. Reflecting on our trip, Prophet Gaffigan was right. We should have never gone back. Now the entire past is up for scrutiny. Maybe everything in the past sucks, except for Batman the Animated Series, Starter jackets, and the Hubble Space Telescope.

The question is: Did the Hot Pocket get worse, or was it never good in the first place? The answer doesn’t matter. In 2014, it’s garbage. We’re all about e-cigs, Teslas, and Google Glass now. Perhaps it was a fine product for children. But we’re adults. We’ve had sushi. We’ve eaten Ethiopian food. This is not for us anymore. Forget it, Jake. It’s Hot Pockets.

(Nutrition Facts – 270 calories, 90 calories from fat, 11 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 25 milligrams of cholesterol, 490 milligrams of sodium, 33 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 2 grams of sugar, and 10 grams of protein.)

Item: Hot Pockets Limited Edition Angus Beef Melt
Purchased Price: $2.00
Size: 2 sandwiches/box
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 2 out of 10
Pros: Very cheap at a buck a piece. Maybe one bite of okay flavor.
Cons: Not substantial. Contents eventually taste like nothing, like a waste of product. Should be at least filling if not tasty, but is neither.

REVIEW: Wendy’s Asian Cashew Chicken Salad

Kevin 25 Comments

Wendy's Asian Cashew Chicken Salad

Ah, the fast food salad. Perfect for those on a diet and in a hurry and who aren’t very picky and are already at the restaurant with a group and don’t mind dropping some decent change on some lean meat and a handful of greens.

If you fall into that flower-like Venn diagram of compromise, it means you’ve probably made some questionable decisions in your life to get to this place (Or you’re just a mom with kids… which means you’ve definitely made some questionable decisions. Bam! Pow! Splat!). Anyway, Wendy’s wants your sad money, so they rolled out this new thing, the Asian Cashew Chicken Salad.

It’s topped with chicken, edamame, red bell peppers, cucumbers, cashews and *takes deep breath* Marzetti Simply Dressed Light Spicy Asian Chili Vinaigrette dressing *ends deep breath*. Woo whee. That dressing name is so long it looks like a Panic! at the Disco song title, or a Jaden Smith tweet. Plus, it comes in packets and you put it on yourself (Cardio for the day!). It has a light peanut-y balsamic flavor and an escalating spice that initially lets the rest of the ingredients breathe a bit.

The chicken is pretty good—standard grilled fast food chicken, salty and warm. The red bell peppers taste like red bell peppers. Cucumbers are cucumbers. The edamame has burnt spots, because it’s “fire roasted” but there is no roast flavor in them and they kind of sit there helping out a little bit, attempting to round out the taste. The various lettuce mix is fine, crunchy and cold. The pieces of cashew come in their own baggy, as to not get soggy.

Here is where things get difficult. A salad with so many “heavy” items as this one has the problem of construction. You dump your own dressing. You dump your own cashews. There are never enough cashews. Sometimes Wendy’s might slip you two packets of dressing. Sometimes one. Your mileage may vary. What if you put all the dressing in one corner of the salad? You’re screwed.

It’s tough to collect a bit of slippery soybean, lettuce, cashew and bell pepper in one bite on a plastic fork. When that happens, it’s a good salad. But that mostly does not happen. It would be a different story if all the ingredients were individually bright (they’re not), and if the dressing pulled all the components together into a unified front (it doesn’t). The dressing progressively gets spicier and the subtle peanut flavoring gets overpowered at a point, losing any semblance of depth. With all the fork dancing around the plate scooping up the toppings to make perfect bites, the second half of the meal is straight up spicy lettuce.

The Asian Cashew Chicken Salad is actually very low in calories, but also costs a pretty penny. You must be shelling out for that diet. Weird, some of the fattest people I know are Asian (E. Honda, Sammo Hung, Totoro). All in all, it’s not bad, but it’s not great either. But when the planets align and Hanukkah lands on Thanksgiving again, and we are put in a position of purchasing a fast food salad, it’s a solidly okay bet.

So this might be the best it gets as far as fast food salads go, Moms With Kids. Then one day your kids will be at Wendy’s 3000 ordering a Western Cashew Chicken Salad. (Ingredients are the same but Future China now owns the planet.) But maybe it doesn’t have to be this way. Break the cycle. Go with a Baconator and a side of chili next time. Enjoy your life. Love yourself.

(Nutrition Facts – Full Size – 380 calories, 120 calories from fat, 13 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 90 milligrams of cholesterol, 970 milligrams of sodium, 1130 milligrams of potassium, 33 grams of carbohydrates, 18 grams of sugar, 6 grams of fiber, and 36 grams of protein.)

Item: Wendy’s Asian Cashew Chicken Salad
Purchased Price: $6.29
Size: Full size (half size available)
Purchased at: Wendy’s
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Chicken is decent. When all components are in one bite, tastes pretty good.
Cons: Hard to get even distribution with ingredients. Back half of meal is just spice in mouth. Pretty expensive.

REVIEW: McDonald’s Bacon Clubhouse Burger

Kevin 21 Comments

McDonald's Bacon Clubhouse Burger

Ronald McDonald clicked his pen. It was the first sound that caught his attention, even though the third quarter numbers had been flying around the conference room for half an hour. A uni-ball Jetstream. Click. The muffled adult-Peanuts voices chorused into a wave of nonsense. Click. Outside the window he could see a hawk. Click. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple knocked against his tie knot. Click. Ronald darkened his previously doodled Stussy “S” on his notepad. Click. Ronald gave a tiny nod. Click.

So another McDonald’s burger finally has special sauce. The Bacon Clubhouse Burger sports a new bun, bacon, and caramelized onions on top of the special sauce. That seems like it should be a bigger deal that McDonald’s put their formerly exclusive Big Mac topping on another thing. Maybe it’s not because customers can ask for it literally any time as a condiment and put it on any sandwich. Or even things that aren’t sandwiches. Bring it home. Put it on some Brussels sprouts. Put it on your cat. Put it on as a facemask, Mrs. Doubtfire style (Hellooo!). Or maybe freeing the sauce is not a big deal because it’s flanked by so many other new components that work together to make a pretty damn good fast food burger. Teamwork, guys. But f’reals, on this Miami Heat of a burger the special sauce is LeBron*.

The bun. Oh, the bun. So soft, so buttery. It sets the tone for the entire sandwich and is probably the softest roll in recent fast food memory. The bun of a burger is like a mattress. You want to have a good one if you’re gonna spend most of your time sleeping on/eating it. Though if the bun is the bed, there’s one hell of a mating ritual going on inside. The special sauce lends a light tang, never overpowering.

McDonald's Bacon Clubhouse Burger Topless

The caramelized onions are sweet and deepen the flavor of the sauce, combining with the slice of creamy white cheddar to coat the burger in a very full taste. The pieces of bacon show up every once in a while too, crispy and adding a bit of a salt kick. The sweetness of the sauce-onion combo overshadows the potential smoke and sugar power of the bacon a bit, but the pig also serves as a good textural change of pace. The tomato is fine. The lettuce is fine. Sorry, you guys don’t get in on the mattress fun, but you can watch if you like.

The actual burger patty is tricky. McDonald’s is using their Quarter Pounder patty here, and as any frequent McDonald’s patron knows, sometimes the meat can be a crapshoot. I ate two Bacon Clubhouse Burgers for this review and the first time I was treated to a rubbery, dry disc that really highlighted a problem. With this burger, McDonald’s is setting itself up to compete with other “fancy” burgers, and while the toppings elevate the Bacon Clubhouse in taste, it left me desiring some decent beef. It was like putting lipstick on a pig. I guess that’s a bit confusing, considering there’s actual swine on this. It was like putting lipstick on Robin Williams (It was a run by fruiting!).

The second time I had the burger it was leagues better. The meat was moist and served as a nice base for the meal. The problem remained, though. The star was most definitely the melded combination of toppings and the bun and not the flimsy, thin protein. Nothing like some so-so cow to remind us we’re still eating McDonald’s. That being said, both times I was very impressed by the depth of flavors in the sandwich and I think that it might be the best burger on the menu in a long time, if not ever.

*LeBron James is special sauce. Erik Spoelstra is the bun. Dwyane Wade is bacon. Chris Bosh is caramelized onions. Shane Battier is white cheddar. Ray Allen is tomato. The beef is Mario Chalmers. Lettuce is Norris Cole.

(Nutrition Facts – 720 calories, 360 calories from fat, 40 grams of fat, 15 grams saturated fat, 1.5 grams trans fat, 115 milligrams of cholesterol, 1470 milligrams of sodium, 51 grams of carbohydrates, 15 grams of sugar, 4 grams of fiber, 39 grams of protein.)

Item: McDonald’s Bacon Clubhouse Burger
Purchased Price: $4.69
Size: N/A
Purchased at: McDonald’s
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Great flavors. Cheese, special sauce, onions combine to elevate burger to next level. Burger bun is so soft.
Cons: Burger patty is unimproved.

REVIEW: Dunkin’ Donuts Eggs Benedict Breakfast Sandwich

Kevin 3 Comments

Dunkin Donuts Eggs Benedict Breakfast Sandwich

11:32 a.m.

The Weinstein Company

Pitch meeting

Harvey: Let’s hear it.

Kevin: Okay, so the Chronologizer draws historically evil people from the universe and gives them a chance for redemption. They are put on a time-traveling super team with state-of-the-art technology and zoom around righting the wrongs that are being perpetuated by the destructive Future Lord. The fabric of time-space is on the line. And here’s the kicker: They’re called the Benedicts. And they’re all named Benedict.

There’s Benedict Arnold, revolutionary war leader and defector—a hand wringing traitor. His two-faced attempt to surrender as a general revealed him to be a sniveling backstabber. Then there’s Pope Benedict XVI. A Hitler Youth as a child, Benedict later in life became the leader of a Catholic Church that attempted to whitewash evidence of rampant pedophilia. And Benedict Cumberbatch.

Harvey: Okay, this one…

Kevin: Just look into his eyes.

Harvey: But…

Kevin: Just look into his eyes. Everyone sees it. He’s Khan! He’s Smaug! This guy is some reptile half-breed for sure. He’s gonna play villains for the next twenty years of his career. He’s evil. Just look into his eyes.

Harvey: And what is this over here?

Kevin: This, my dear man, is the Dunkin’ Donuts Eggs Benedict Breakfast Sandwich. I had one the other day.

Harvey: It’s evil?

Dunkin Donuts Eggs Benedict Breakfast Sandwich 2

Kevin: Let me finish. It looks innocuous, like a regular breakfast sandwich that you’d get at McDonald’s or Burger King or, hell, Dunkin’ Donuts. But at first bite, the English muffin is kinda tough and dry, not soft and chewy like a McMuffin.

The texture wouldn’t be a complete deal breaker, but they put so much “hollandaise flavored spread” (that’s what they call it, since it’s not real hollandaise) on the sandwich it’s like squeezing two pieces of plywood together with cookie dough in the middle. It gets all over the place. The amount of sauce they slop on is like Dunkin’ Donuts is passively angry with us. It’s not even a great sauce. The texture is a little like a cross between old mayonnaise and Elmer’s glue. It’s got a creamy taste with a lemony finish (and contains zero eggs), and tries to emulate a real hollandaise with a laboratory mix of butter and cheese. Instead of coming off as zesty, though, the goopy sauce tastes sour.

The actual eggs in the sandwich are decent, with a nice separation of orange-y egg yolk and egg white that makes me think it’s not completely processed. The black forest ham is lost in the shuffle—the sauce is too strong and it overpowers the sandwich. It all ends up tasting like what would happen if a chef described Eggs Benedict to an alien and then it tried to make it once. It’s not spit-out-of-mouth disgusting. It’s more like an I-wouldn’t-buy-this-again snorefest.

Harvey: A so-so Eggs Benedict.

Kevin: Yeah, that’s about right.

Harvey: How is that evil?

Kevin: Okay. If mediocrity is the mother of boredom, and boredom is the mother of evil, then…boom. That’s a Kierkegaard quote, I think. You don’t want to argue with that guy.

Harvey: Let me get this straight. Benedict Arnold, Pope Benedict XVI, Benedict Cumberbatch, and a Dunkin’ Donuts Eggs Benedict Sandwich travel through time to save the universe and redeem themselves in the process.

Kevin: Yeah. Arnold is like the munitions guy, the Pope is the loose cannon, Cumberbatch is the disguise guy and the sandwich is the muscle. Oh, and they are assembled by Terry Benedict, Andy Garcia’s fictional casino mogul from Ocean’s 11. Terry is like their Bosley.

Harvey: Do you have anyone currently tied to this project?

Kevin: Yeah, we have interest from Clooney to play the Pope, and the sad dude from The Office who was in love with Erin to play Benedict Cumberbatch. We were thinking we could go a different direction and get Idris Elba to play Arnold. We’re in talks.

Harvey: Can you get an Egg McMuffin to play the Dunkin’ Donuts sandwich?

Kevin: It would take a few hours in the prosthetics chair every morning, but I think we can do that.

Harvey: All right, then. Congratulations. I think we’re eyeing a 2016 release. Let’s make a movie.

(Nutrition Facts – 300 calories, 80 calories from fat, 9 grams of fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 90 grams of cholesterol, 790 milligrams of sodium, 40 grams of carbohydrates, 7 grams of fiber, 6 grams of sugar, and 15 grams of protein.)

Item: Dunkin’ Donuts Eggs Benedict Breakfast Sandwich
Purchased Price: $3.99
Size: N/A
Purchased at: Dunkin’ Donuts
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Not outwardly disgusting. Eggs possess a nice texture.
Cons: Hollandaise flavored spread all over your lap, sour-y and not fresh tasting. A one-note sandwich—it just tastes like sauce. English muffin is a bit tough.