Reviews

REVIEW: Taco Bell Chicken Bacon Ranch Nacho Fries

Marvo / February 27, 2026 / Reviews / 2 Comments

At this point, I feel as if I don’t need to explain what Taco Bell’s Nacho Fries are, and how there’s always a loaded version of them that usually features standard Taco Bell ingredients that, in the past, may have been chosen by pulling out slips of paper from a flipped-over bell. In the present, I imagine the physical pulling has been replaced by an in-house AI chatbot called Gidget, after the chihuahua from the 90s Taco Bell commercials.

If Gidget does exist, its latest creation is the new Chicken Bacon Ranch Nacho Fries, featuring slow roasted chicken, pico de gallo, bacon, cheese, nacho cheese sauce, and avocado ranch sauce. There are also Chicken Bacon Ranch Street Chalupas, which include almost everything above minus the nacho cheese sauce, wrapped in toasted cheddar chalupa shells. However, when the Toasted Cheddar Street Chalupas debuted last year, I wrote that “if it ever comes back, I’m sure I won’t be sticking it and its bread-y flavor in my mouth again.” So I didn’t give them a try and stuck with the fries. Hey! That rhymes!

A quick search of this site confirms that chicken, bacon, and ranch are a common fast food combo, and the Nacho Fries are an excellent vessel for highlighting them, providing a slightly crispy, seasoned bed for those toppings to rest on. I was skeptical that the nacho cheese sauce could be paired with the avocado ranch, since one might cancel out the other. But the orange goop added a cheesier layer that complemented the creamy, slightly tangy avocado ranch rather than competing with it.

The biggest letdown was the chicken, but mainly because my order didn’t seem to have much of it. It looked less like a star of the menu item and more like it had been accidentally included in my order on its way to being added to another order. At least, there were enough bacon crumbles to make up for it. The pico de gallo was a welcome addition, bringing bright, acidic bursts with each forkful, and doing a nice job of cutting through the richness of the sauces.

Overall, Taco Bell’s Chicken Bacon Ranch Nacho Fries are as good as many of the previous loaded Nacho Fries iterations. There’s a lot of flavor, and the fries are a great carrier for all the sauces and toppings. But at the same time, there’s nothing about it that makes it a must-order, and if you happen to miss this limited-time offering, there’s no need to feel any amount of FOMO.

Besides, Gidget will have something new for us soon enough.

Purchased Price: $6.99 each
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 350 calories, 24 grams of fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 40 milligrams of cholesterol, 940 milligrams of sodium, 22 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 2 grams of sugar, and 13 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Jack in the Box Oreo Matcha Shake

Marvo / February 26, 2026 / Reviews / Leave a Comment

While other fast food chains trot out minty green products for St. Patrick’s Day season, Jack in the Box is going green in a different way this year with its Oreo Matcha Shake. To be honest, I wish matcha were a more prevalent flavor in the fast food world and replaced mint as the unofficial St. Patrick’s Day flavor. We already have peppermint covered in the winter, so one less minty seasonal flavor seems like a perfectly reasonable ask.

The Oreo Matcha Shake is a vanilla shake blended with matcha tea and Oreo cookie crumbles, then topped with whipped cream and even more Oreo crumbles. It’s a little surprising to see a matcha shake from a major fast food chain, since matcha remains a rare sight outside of coffee chains. But then again, it’s not that surprising coming from Jack in the Box, a chain with a long history of thinking outside the Jack in the Box. Need I remind you of the ube shake?

As for its flavor, it delivers the familiar sweet and slightly bitter profile that matcha sweets are known for, though it’s more restrained than a matcha-flavored Kit Kat from Japan. Here it’s gentler, likely diluted a bit by the vanilla shake base. But that’s probably for the best, since a full-strength matcha blast through a straw might be a lot to ask of the average fast food customer, and this is approachable enough that even matcha newcomers might find themselves pleasantly surprised.

The Oreo crumbles were plentiful, as they tend to be in Jack’s Oreo shakes, and they provided welcome bits of texture with each sip. However, I can’t say they contributed much in the way of chocolate flavor. Throughout the entire shake, I could only detect matcha, which makes me wonder whether the slight bitterness of the Oreo crumbles simply gets absorbed into the matcha’s bitterness. It’s not a dealbreaker, but if you’re ordering this expecting a matcha-chocolate experience, you may want to temper those expectations.

If matcha matches your taste buds, the Jack in the Box Oreo Matcha Shake will make them very happy to have met. And if you’ve never tried matcha before, this is a pretty delicious place to start.

Purchased Price: $6.29*Size: Regular
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 780 calories. (No other nutritional information is available on the Jack in the Box website.)

*Because I live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, things are a bit pricier here. You’ll probably pay less than I did.

Fast Food Jack in the Box

REVIEW: Oreo Stuf of Legends Cookies

Vin / February 26, 2026 / Reviews / 2 Comments

Greetings, true believers.

Are you ready for one of the biggest crossover events in comic history? Yes, even bigger than Archie vs. Predator! Maybe not quite as big as Godzilla vs. Charles Barkley, but still pretty big. It’s up there.

Earth’s mightiest heroes have assembled once again, but this time in sandwich cookie form for the new “Stuf of Legends.” They’ve made the jump from the printed page and the big screen onto… Oreo wafers.

Does that sound fun? Well, this might be the laziest issue of “What If” ever.

Stuf of Legends are just regular Oreos with a twist. Not the classic Oreo twist, you can still do that, but these cookies have a gray colored crème that turns blue. That’s essentially it. And here I thought heroes never dye.

Almost 90 years of creative inspiration to pull from the pages of Marvel Comics, and this is what they landed on. Ya know what? Fine. That’s fine. Excelsior!

Who am I to judge? I couldn’t muster even a few “creative” alternatives.

I was trying to think of some Marvel heroes that changed color, and… yeah, don’t bother Googling that, lest you want to hear the worst people’s stupid opinions on which Captain America is better. No, they didn’t ruin your childhood, MagnetoMike73.

Speaking of Cap, he’s joined by a couple dozen of his fellow heroes/anti-heroes/mutants/robots/aliens/I think one dude is just a regular non-powered guy – the whole gang’s here embossed on the cookies, which I guess is the ultimate selling point. It’s cool, but I still wish they did something more interesting flavor-wise.

I took a picture of all the characters and team logos represented in my pack. Feel free to see if you can name them all. Hint – they’re all Skrulls!

Do you want me to review an Oreo? These taste exactly the same, although I do believe they are slightly dryer. Perhaps it’s the gray crème with the little white thumbprint of it all.

As far as the crème goes, I dipped it and also did the typical untwist-and-lick technique, and the gray-to-blue transition was uninspired at best. If I had to rank these amongst the myriad of Oreo variants we’ve seen in the past decade, I’d say they are about a Thor: Love in Thunder out of Avengers: Infinity War. I still like ’em, but they aren’t going near the top.

While the imagery of the blue crème doesn’t exactly pop off the page, it did make my mouth extremely blue – not even Beast blue, I’m talking navy Nightcrawler blue. I spared you all the pic of my disgusting maw. They didn’t even really turn the milk blue, which I assume was intentional, so as to not run into brand confusion with Disney’s other rapidly declining blockbuster property.

So, we’ve got dressed up O.G. Oreos in one of three “collectable” bags, with various, almost indecipherable characters chiseled on the cookies. They’re worth picking up as a one-time purchase if you’re a fan of the MCU – Mondelez Cookie Umbrella.

That said, if you don’t care, skip ’em. The blue isn’t fun enough to warrant what I fear is coming next. As Uncle Ben says, “With blue power comes green… well, you know.”

Cute, but hopefully DC and Hydrox cook up something a little more creative.

Purchased Price: $4.97
Size: 10.68 oz package
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2 Cookies) 140 calories, 7 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 90 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 12 grams of sugar, and less than 1 gram of protein.

Cookies Nabisco Oreo

REVIEW: Costco Double Chocolate Mint Sundae

Marvo / February 25, 2026 / Reviews / 5 Comments

This year’s McDonald’s Shamrock Season is here!

But if you have a Costco membership card, I might recommend grabbing it and heading to your nearest warehouse to get your hands on the new Double Chocolate Mint Sundae instead. Of course, that’s after you pick up paper towels, frozen chicken, a pillow-sized bag of chips, rotisserie chicken, a bag of romaine hearts that’ll rot before you get halfway through them, batteries, and a bunch of other things that’ll easily total over $200.

The seasonal dessert at the Costco food court features mint-flavored soft serve swirled with chocolate sauce and topped with more chocolate sauce and cookie crumbles.

Much like everything at Costco, this sundae is more than you need and offers an amazing price. It’s large enough and inexpensive enough to make the Oreo Shamrock McFlurry look McFeeble and green with size envy. Speaking of color, I’m trying to remember whether Costco’s dessert had a green tint. I keep squinting at the photos above and swearing I see some green, but I could’ve sworn the creamy base was just white while I was eating it. Maybe the food court’s LED lighting was doing something strange to my phone’s camera. However, in the end, it doesn’t really matter, because once you mix things, the chocolate syrup blends into the soft serve, turning everything grey. Delicious grey.

The mint in this sundae rises to a level of slightly chewed Wrigley’s Doublemint Gum, and the chocolate, even though my sundae looks like it got caught in a chocolate flash flood, still allows the mint to come through. However, if you want a stronger minty punch, I feel McDonald’s Oreo Shamrock McFlurry has Costco’s offering beat, but only slightly. Also, because it’s smaller, the McFlurry has a better soft-serve-to-cookie ratio. By the time I got to the bottom half of the sundae’s cup, the cookie crumbles made rare appearances.

However, while Costco’s Double Chocolate Mint Sundae may not be as minty or have as many cookie bits as McDonald’s offering, it still tastes amazing, and I say the chocolate syrup makes it more decadent. Also, its low $2.99 price for something twice the size of a McFlurry makes it taste a bit sweeter. I hope it returns every year so we can celebrate Costco Double Chocolate Mint Sundae Season!

Purchased Price: $2.99

Rating: 8 out of 10

Nutrition Facts: 790 calories. (No other nutritional information is available)

Fast Food Ice Cream Kirkland Signature

REVIEW: Pepsi Prebiotic Colas

Marvo / February 24, 2026 / Reviews / Leave a Comment

I watched one video about beans on Instagram, and now my feed has bean thrown into fiber video purgatory. But I’m glad that happened because I do need to consume more fiber. Americans, on average, consume only about half of the recommended daily fiber intake of 20 to 25 grams. Thankfully, there is a growing market of prebiotic and probiotic beverages to help. Brands like Poppi and Olipop have been around for years, but Pepsi has now entered the chat with a prebiotic cola line.

It’s currently available in two flavors: Original Pepsi and Cherry Vanilla. Each can provides three grams of fiber sourced from corn soluble fiber. Three grams might not sound like a lot, and truthfully, it isn’t — but when most people are lucky to hit half their daily fiber goal, every little bit counts. Beyond the fiber, Pepsi Prebiotic Cola is low in sugar and calories, and sweetened with cane sugar and stevia rather than artificial sweeteners. Oh, there’s also 38 milligrams of caffeine.

As someone who has tried plenty of prebiotic sodas, I was genuinely curious how these would stack up against the established players, and I came away pleasantly surprised. With Poppi and Olipop, there’s a certain quality to them that subtly signals “this is a prebiotic soda.” With these colas, that’s absent. While they don’t taste exactly like classic Pepsi or regular Wild Cherry Pepsi, they do somewhat remind me of their Pepsi Zero Sugar counterparts, which I’m a fan of. Although their flavor is a tad toned down compared to the previously mentioned zero-sugar cola. Surprisingly, my tongue didn’t notice the stevia, which I suspect might’ve been masked by cane sugar.

Now, three grams of fiber is admittedly modest. Olipop, for example, packs around six to nine grams per can — hitting roughly 20 to 30 percent of your daily value — and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish Pepsi could match that. But I’d also guess that pushing the fiber content that high might come at a cost to the taste, so it’s probably a reasonable trade-off. However, these Pepsi Prebiotic Colas do offer a price that makes Poppi and Oilpop’s prices eye-popping. I paid a little over nine dollars for an eight-pack, which works out to just over a dollar a can. That’s half the price of the previously mentioned brands.

Some of you might be saying I should get my fiber from fruit, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains, and of course, those are the best options. However, I don’t see anything wrong with sneaking a little extra fiber into my day with something that tastes better than other prebiotic/probiotic colas and is also cheaper. Much like fiber videos in my Instagram feed, I have a feeling these are going to keep showing up in my life — and I’m completely fine with that.

Purchased Price: $9.19
Size: 8-pack/12 fl oz cans
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 can) 30 calories, 0 grams of fat, 35 milligrams of sodium, 6 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 5 grams of sugar (including 5 grams of added sugar), 0 grams of protein, and 38 milligrams of caffeine.

Pepsi Soda

REVIEW: Taco Bell Chicken Bacon Ranch Nacho Fries

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REVIEW: Jack in the Box Oreo Matcha Shake

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REVIEW: Oreo Stuf of Legends Cookies

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REVIEW: Costco Double Chocolate Mint Sundae

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REVIEW: Pepsi Prebiotic Colas

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