REVIEW: McDonald’s McCafe Frozen Strawberry Lemonade

/ / Reviews / 52 Comments

McDonald's McCafe Frozen Strawberry Lemonade

If I didn’t have a calendar, all I would have to do is see what McDonald’s is offering in order to figure out what time of the year it is. When they release their Holiday Pie, I know it’s fall. When the Shamrock Shake is available, I know spring is right around the corner. And, whenever the McRib is offered for a limited time, I know it’s that time of year when I eat a McRib and then think to myself, “Nope, it’s still horrible.”

But now, I have the McDonald’s McCafe Frozen Strawberry Lemonade to let me know summer is near. Although, I think it’s a permanent addition to the McCafe menu, so I may think it’s summer all the time. But then again, I do live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where it pretty much always has nice beach weather.

The McCafe Frozen Strawberry Lemonade is made by pouring blended frozen lemonade into a cup with strawberry syrup. As the lemonade slush is poured into the cup, the strawberry syrup mixes with some it, creating a swirling pattern. After the two are put together in a cup, they aren’t completely mixed together to blend all the flavors. That mixing is up to you, the straw that’s included, and your wrists.

However, I think McDonald’s doesn’t want you to mix the two because it’s kind of hard to do so with the included straw and because that swirling pattern looks so pretty before the heavier strawberry syrup settles to the bottom of the cup. But, I’d recommend fusing the two flavors together because when the strawberry goop comes to rest at the cup’s bottom, a sweet strawberry shot is what you’ll be tasting with every suck from your straw, leaving you with less of the syrup to slightly neutralize the tartness of the lemonade slush.

If you owned a box of crayons as a child, you know red and white make pink, while red and yellow make orange. But get ready to have your primary colored world turned upside down because thoroughly combining the yellow lemonade slush with the red strawberry syrup turns the McCafe Frozen Strawberry Lemonade pink. It’s what Hello Kitty would drink if she wanted brain freeze.

Looking past the weird color anomaly, the McCafe Frozen Strawberry Lemonade is tasty and refreshing. The ice crystals have a satisfying crunch and create a fluffy slushie. The tart blended frozen lemonade is front and center and the strawberry syrup moderately turns down the tartness, but in the process the strawberry flavor is nearly non-existent. So, basically, McDonald’s should’ve called this slushy beverage the McDonald’s McCafe Frozen Lemonade That’ll Turn Pink If You Mix It.

But, as tasty and refreshing as it was, I had trouble finishing the entire 16-ounce cup. Because, at a point the lemonade got annoyingly tart and the drink as a whole got annoyingly sweet. Thank goodness for freezers because I can enjoy the leftovers later by throwing it at the faces of glee club members.

Overall, the McDonald’s McCafe Frozen Strawberry Lemonade is a pleasant reminder that summer is near.

(Nutrition Facts – 16 ounces – 270 calories, 0 calories from fat, 0 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 30 milligrams of sodium, 68 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 67 grams of sugar, 0 grams of protein, and 310% vitamin C.)

Item: McDonald’s McCafe Frozen Strawberry Lemonade
Price: $2.59
Size: 16 ounces
Purchased at: McDonald’s
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: A tasty and refreshing reminder that summer is near. Fat free. Awesome amount of vitamin C. Swirling pattern is pretty. Shamrock Shakes.
Cons: Not enough strawberry flavor. Becomes hard to finish since it gets to be annoyingly tart and sweet. You have to do the mixing. Breaks the laws of primary colors.

REVIEW: Extra Dessert Delights Orange Creme Pop Gum

/ / Reviews / 5 Comments

Extra Dessert Delights Orange Creme Pop Gum

When I picked up the Extra Dessert Delights Orange Creme Pop Gum, I wondered why they would call it that when there’s an Orange Creamsicle printed on the front of the packaging. And then I thought why would they create a gum that emulates something that happens to imitate something else. That something is an orange cream soda, and that something else is an Orange Creamsicle.

Now, at this point, some of you might be yelling at your computer monitor calling me an idiot because you’ve seen what’s wrong with the picture I’ve painted in my head. And some of you might be following the same wrong path my mind took while trying to figure this out. But here is where I right the ship.

“Pop” is a synonym for soda, although I’ve never called it “pop.” I’ve always called it “soda” because that’s what the fizzing voices from an open Pepsi tell me I should call it. But because I saw the word “pop” and orange cream soda exists in the world, I put two and two together and thought the gum was trying to emulate the flavor of an orange cream soda, which tries to taste like an Orange Creamsicle. Eventually, I realized that when I originally put two and two together, I got 22 when I should’ve gotten four.

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why the gum was named after a soda, but had a picture of an Orange Creamsicle on its packaging. I even bought a six-pack of orange cream soda, hoping that the fizzing voices from an open bottle would tell me why. The only word I heard when I put my ear next to the bottle’s neck was…Wikipedia.

I searched for “Creamsicle” on Wikipedia and was directed to the Popsicle page. Yes, a capital P with a circled R near the end to designated it as a register trademark. At this point, I realized “pop” was the non-trademarked term companies can call their frozen treats without getting letters from Unilever’s lawyers. Also at this point, I thought I shouldn’t tell anyone about my stupidity, but then I couldn’t come up with an intro for this Extra Dessert Delights Orange Creme Pop Gum review, so here we are.

Of course, this confusion could’ve been avoided if Wrigley’s teamed up with the Popsicle brand and called it “Orange Creamsicle.” Or they could’ve called it “Orange Creme Frozen Dessert Treat,” but I imagine the graphic designer designing the box would not be pleased with that horribly wordy name. Or I could’ve realized that orange cream soda is not a dessert.

Extra Dessert Delights Orange Creme Pop Gum Naked

The Extra Dessert Delights Orange Creme Pop Gum smells like orange Metamucil, which is something no product other than orange Metamucil should smell like. After putting the gum into my mouth it starts off with a strong orange flavor, then after several chews the creme part comes in, and it’s not bad. But after 45 seconds, its flavor dramatically drops. If I was a woman and the Extra Dessert Delights Orange Creme Pop Gum was a lover on top of me and he was done in 45 seconds, I’d be pissed.

However, since I’m a man, although with boobs, and the Extra Dessert Delights Orange Creme Pop Gum is just gum, I shouldn’t be pissed, but I am. When the flavor diminished, what I was left with was a very mild orange flavor until I decided to spit it out, or throw it into the hair of someone I think needs a haircut.

That very mild orange flavor is the major problem with it. At this point, it doesn’t taste like an orange creme frozen dessert treat. It’s just orange without the vanilla, and that folks is…vanilla.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 stick – 5 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of sodium, 2 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of sugar, 2 gram of sugar alcohol, and 0 grams of protein.)

Item: Extra Dessert Delights Orange Creme Pop Gum
Price: $1.19
Size: 15 sticks
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Flavor for the first 45 seconds is not bad. It’s sugarfree gum. 5 calories per stick, which I just burned whille typing this review. Orange Creamsicles. Wikipedia.
Cons: Smells like orange Metamucil. Too much orange, but not enough creme. My slow mind. Pissing off graphic designers. Putting two and two together and getting 22. A 45 second man.

REVIEW: Berry Burst Ice Cream Oreo

/ / Reviews / 36 Comments

Berry Burst Ice Cream Oreo

Spring has finally sprung in the Northeast, so all sorts of great things are happening! Grass is rising. Birds are singing. People are getting tan. My hay fever is so bad that I am wondering if cutting off my nose would really be all that spiteful to my face. Most importantly, “Writers from New Jersey review new Oreo flavors” Week is going on at The Impulsive Buy! (All of our themed weeks are incredibly wordy, exactingly descriptive, and don’t follow the normal Sunday-Saturday week schedule.)

Nabisco’s latest non-fudge-covered Oreo is the Berry Burst Ice Cream edition. I can’t find any information online about this new flavor, so we’re left to our own devices when it comes to figuring out which berries are included in the “Berry Burst.” I was hoping for a combination of blackberries (fruit), Blackberrys (phones), and Halle Berry circa 2001.

Once I actually bought and opened the package, it became obvious that the primary and perhaps only berry flavor involved was strawberry. Despite my stuffy nose, I was hit by a strawberry aroma that strongly reminded me of Special K Red Berries cereal. The scent was very pleasant and surprisingly not-too-artificial.

Berry Burst Ice Cream Oreo Naked

The filling did taste like a really sweet batch of strawberry ice cream. There were little red specks that I imagine were supposed to be tiny berry shards, but they didn’t add anything in texture or taste. Since these Oreos seemed to be single stuffed rather than Double Stuf, the strawberry flavor became a bit too understated when I ate the cookies whole (“whole” meaning without taking them apart, not meaning eaten in a single bite… though, you know, there’s no wrong way to eat an Oreo).

I never got a chance to try the limited edition Strawberry Milkshake Crème Oreos in 2008, and I have a sneaking suspicion that they’ve recently been re-named and re-packaged. Even if that’s the case, these Berry Burst / Strawberry Milkshake Oreos are fairly tasty, so if you love Oreos to begin with, go ahead and give them a try. Apologies that this review is on the short side, but I really have to get going – X-Men, Swordfish, and Monster’s Ball aren’t going to add themselves to my Netflix queue.

(Nutrition Facts – 2 cookies – 150 calories, 60 calories from fat, 7 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 120 milligrams of sodium, 60 milligrams of potassium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 13 grams of sugar, 1gram of protein.)

Other Berry Burst Ice Cream Oreo reviews:
Grub Grade

Item: Berry Burst Ice Cream Oreo
Price: $2.99
Size: 15.25 ounces
Purchased at: Kmart
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Pleasant and not-too-artificial smell. Filling tastes like strawberry ice cream. Spring has sprung. Halle Berry circa 2001. Eating cookies whole. TIB theme weeks.
Cons: Flavor becomes too understated when you eat the cookies without taking them apart. Not really any berries other than strawberries. Might just be the same product Nabisco came out with three years ago. Seasonal hay fever.

REVIEW: California Pizza Kitchen Pizza & Appetizer Crispy Thin Crust Four Cheese Pizza Spinach Artichoke Dip 10 Flatbread Wedges

/ / Reviews / 10 Comments

California Pizza Kitchen Pizza & Appetizer Four Cheese Spinach Artichoke

Well, it was bound to happen. DiGiorno started it with their Pizza & Cookies and their Pizza & Wyngz. As we all know by now, once one company comes up with a batshit crazy idea, competitors must keep up with their level of insanity. And thus, California Pizza Kitchen Pizza & Appetizer Crispy Thin Crust Four Cheese Pizza Spinach Artichoke Dip 10 Flatbread Wedges was born.

CPK makes some of the highest-quality frozen pizzas out there. They have a wide variety of flavors that go well beyond your typical Pepperoni or Supreme, thus reflecting their products as gourmet, or as gourmet as you can get in the frozen food aisle. You might be wondering why they would kowtow to such ridiculousness. Just call me Sherlock fucking Holmes, because I did a little sleuthing and found some interesting information.

In early 2010, Kraft sold its North American frozen pizza empire to Nestle for $3.7 billion. This included brands like DiGiorno, Tombstone, and…you guessed it…California Pizza Kitchen. Given this information, it becomes clear that this is not a matter of competitive craziness. It’s more like two siblings sleeping together in the same bed. That bed is made with tomato sauce, cookie dough and spinach artichoke dip. That bed is messy in more than one way.

I feel like Nestle has tried to hoodwink all of us, but I’m not exactly sure how, and I can only pour so much of my outrage into frozen pizza conspiracies. You’d be surprised how thin my outrage is spread. Like CPK’s Bordelaise butter sauce on their Garlic Chicken pizza. Yep, just like that.

One reason I can’t get too mad at CPK is that I love spinach artichoke dip. It’s one of my favoritest foods ever. I’ve never had CPK’s version, but pick a chain restaurant and I’ve probably had theirs. I’m not an expert; I just know my dips is all I’m saying.

The store I found CPKP&ACTCFCPSAD10FW in only had Four Cheese as the pizza portion of the equation, but Marvo has seen it with Sicilian, so there are more flavors out there. CPK’s website is strangely mum about the subject, so you’ll just have to check for yourself.

California Pizza Kitchen Pizza & Appetizer Four Cheese Spinach Artichoke Box Back

Let’s tackle the cooking method of CPKP&ACTCFCPSAD10FW. When you’ve got three different items that need to be cooked, things can get tricky. Bear with me as I slog through this mire of directions. It’ll be a pretty dry portion of this review, but if you find yourself giving up halfway through reading this, you may not have the patience necessary to cook the real thing. Consider it a litmus test for your level of interest in making CPK’s Pizza & Appetizer.

Method 1: Appetizer First, As God Intended

Preheat oven to 400. Shove pizza and flatbread into oven, right on the rack. Cook 6 minutes. Meanwhile, microwave dip with plastic cover lifted to vent for 1 to 1:45, depending on your wattage. Stir, recover, microwave 1 more minute. Take flatbread out after the first 6 minutes; cook pizza another 6 minutes while you hurriedly shove dip into your mouth with flatbread wedges so you finish your appetizer before the pizza burns.

Method 2: Appetizer and Pizza at Same Time So You Aren’t Running Around Like Crazy

Same preheat. Cook pizza 6 minutes. Throw in flatbread; cook another 6 minutes. Microwave dip the same way. Eat everything together, turning your appetizer into a side dish. Consider dunking your pizza in the spinach artichoke dip.

California Pizza Kitchen Pizza & Appetizer Four Cheese Spinach Artichoke Wrapped

Unwrapping CPK Pizza & Appetizer was like pulling apart a Russian nesting doll in reverse. There’s plastic shrink-wrapped around the whole package; after you take that off, you free the upside-down cup of spinach artichoke dip. Underneath is more plastic; once you remove that, you have access to the flatbread, which has a grease-stained disc of white paper separating it from the pizza itself. Unearthing all the components was like conducting an archeological dig, except instead of bones or mummies, you’re digging out an improbable trio of junk food.

At first, I was going to choose Cooking Method 1, but then I realized that from the perspective of taking pictures while the food was fresh and not having to run around frantically, having them at the same time would work much better.

Even then, the whole cooking process felt a little like conducting an orchestra. When I made this comment to my husband, he replied with, “Yes, Kelley, that is exactly what baking, photographing, and reviewing pizza and dip is like. You’re goddamned Leopold.” No respect for the process, that man. Honestly though, without the picture-taking I feel the process would have been much less hectic,

California Pizza Kitchen Pizza & Appetizer Spinach Artichoke Frozen-Cooked

I’ll start with the appetizer, since it is, after all…the appetizer. I thought I might have pulled the flatbread out too early because the pizza looked like it was about to burn but the flatbread didn’t look like it had enough golden brown parts like the box said it should. When I was eating it, however, the bread was a perfect consistency – soft and chewy, with a touch of crispiness on the outside. The flatbread also broke apart easily along the perforations into ten wedges that were the perfect size for dipping.

As for the spinach artichoke dip, it wasn’t quite restaurant quality, but I would consider it above average for a frozen dip. I’ve had TGI Friday’s frozen spinach artichoke dip many times, and I think CPK beats Friday’s dip hands down. I would have liked to have seen larger artichoke pieces, but other than that, it was creamy, cheesy, garlicky, and frankly more than I expected out of a frozen dip.

Unfortunately, the container was rather small. I ate all the dip in one sitting, and while I do tend to pile it on when I’m dipping, in this instance I attempted to eat like a normal human being and still wound up finishing it off after only six and a quarter wedges. My leftover wedges sat on the plate, brokenhearted, with no purpose left in life. They wanted more dip, and so did my mouth.

California Pizza Kitchen Pizza & Appetizer Four Cheese Frozen-Cooked

CPK’s Four Cheese frozen pizza is not a new product, but I’ve never had it, so it was new to me. Again, I thought I’d burned it, but it came out perfectly cooked, with good browning on the cheese. CPK really did get the cooking times right.

They got the cheese right, too. I’m not an easy person to impress when it comes to cheese pizza; I’m usually all about the toppings and consider cheese pizza to be for boring people who sit in the corner at parties, abstaining from booze and complaining about there being too much smoke in the room.

CPK really impressed me with their Four Cheese, however. And we’re even talking about a frozen pizza. The addition of fontina and gouda really added depth to the flavor and gave the pizza different levels of cheesy goodness. There was just the right amount of tomato sauce to compliment the cheeses, too. I found myself pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the cheese and felt it really could stand on its own.

Is this whole “pizza plus appetizer/side/desert” premise propagated by Nestle silly? Sure. But I really enjoyed California Pizza Kitchen Pizza & Appetizer Crispy Thin Crust Four Cheese Pizza Spinach Artichoke Dip 10 Flatbread Wedges. The dip was delicious, the flatbread a perfect vessel for it, and the cheese pizza surprised me with its depth of flavor. I’ll probably never again cook pizza and cookies together, but I can see myself indulging in this bread, dip and pie trio again and again.

Speaking of DiGiorno, where’s the third player in Nestle’s frozen pizza empire in all this? I’m talking to you, Tombstone. You may be a little more for the budget-minded pizza buyers, but there’s no reason you can’t get in on this game. We’ve already covered, appetizers, sides and desserts, but what about beverages? My suggestion: dehydrated beer packets. Get on it!

(Nutrition Facts – Four Cheese Pizza – 1/3 pizza – 320 calories, 130 calories from fat, 14 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 35 milligrams of cholesterol, 650 milligrams of sodium, 33 grams of carbohydrates, 1 grams of fiber, 3 grams of sugar, 16 grams of protein, 10% vitamin A, 0% vitamin C, 35% calcium and 10% iron. Spinach Artichoke Dip and Flatbread Wedges – 3 flatbread wedges + 2 tablespoons dip – 130 calories, 45 calories from fat, 5 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 10 milligrams of cholesterol, 320 milligrams of sodium, 16 grams of carbohydrates, 1 grams of fiber, 2 grams of sugar, 5 grams of protein, 6% vitamin A, 2% vitamin C, 8% calcium and 4% iron.)

Item: California Pizza Kitchen Pizza & Appetizer Crispy Thin Crust Four Cheese Pizza Spinach Artichoke Dip 10 Flatbread Wedges
Price: $7.49
Size: 1 pizza; 3.9 ounces dip; 10 flatbread wedges
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Cooking times just right. Flatbread just the right texture. Composing a junk food orchestra. Spinach artichoke dip was creamy and delicious. Overdipping. Cheese pizza had good depth of cheesy flavor.
Cons: Not enough dip. Incestuous products from sneaky megacompanies. Not enough artichoke chunks in dip. Cooking takes a lot of planning. Heartbroken unused flatbread wedges.

REVIEW: Keebler Wheatables Toasted Pecan Nut Crisps

/ / Reviews / 6 Comments

Keebler Wheatables Toasted Pecan Nut Crisps

When I stumbled upon the newest addition to Keebler’s Wheatables line, my first thought was “Finally! Someone has tapped into the sorely neglected yet obviously lucrative grey squirrel market!” I’m serious. My brain operates in strange and fascinating ways. I am afraid of word association exercises and what horrors they might reveal about my psyche.

The Toasted Pecan Nut Crisps were strategically placed on the top row of shelves in the snack aisle. That’s a horrible position for attracting the bulk of the snacking population, but it’s prime squirrel territory, provided my local grocery store starts accepting tree-dwelling rodents as valid customers.

Keebler’s foray into the nut-gatherer segment of the population actually makes sense when you think about it. Of course the tree-dwelling elf company would be among the first to respond to the outcry of squirrels frustrated and bored with the usual range of stale mixed nuts offered up by their overly gregarious, primarily elderly suppliers. I think we can all agree that no self-respecting modern urban squirrel actually goes out foraging among the trees anymore.

Back at my alma mater we had squirrels on the main quad that survived solely on McDonald’s scraps and the adoration of the student body. It was damn near impossible to enjoy a Nature Valley bar in the shade of majestic maple tree on a warm spring day without the little guys circling like vultures, ever tighter, ever closer, chattering expectantly. San Diego’s omni-sunny, seasonless climate makes things all the worse by eliminating the need to hibernate and stockpile. It was only a matter of time before our local rodent friends evolved from hunter-gathering to lounging in little eucalyptus hammocks, munching on acorn-blasted goldfish and googling all sorts of disturbing variations of the phrase “huge savory nuts”.

At first whiff, the crisps smell like Honey Bunches of Oats with a twinge of maple syrup. Each one is rife with pecan flecks and salt crystals. I’m left with a fine nutty/salty dust coating my fingertips, making this a decent option for all those grading their snacks on the Doritos scale of puzzling powder-based messiness.

Keebler Wheatables Toasted Pecan Nut Crisps Naked

The flavor is buttery, with prominent pecan, and just a hint of salt. Think pecan French toast, only crispier, like a standard, non-amazing Wheatable. This threw my best friend into a state of existential confusion. She very much likes to categorize, organize, and keep things neat. The nut crisps shattered that careful order in just one bite.

They aren’t really crackers – too sweet. Their hexagonal shape disqualifies them from any special animal cracker exemptions. They certainly wouldn’t qualify as a cookie either, as they’re too flat and crispy. They’re far too nutritionally deficient to pass as breakfast in any but the most desperate of circumstances, yet every fabric of their being practically screams “GOOD MORNING!” from the moment one opens the box. Even the good elves of Keebler seem unable to decide what to make of this monster. The box tentatively labels them as crackers in tiny print below the giant “nut crisps” banner. So they’re crisp cracker snacks? I guess?

If you’re able to get past that philosophical quandary and dive into a box with no regard for labeling, the Nut Crisps are quite delicious and addictive snack… thingies. They apparently also come in almond, but as a former Midwesterner looking to regain some of the street cred I lost in the Popeye’s fiasco, I only bothered to hunt down the buttery goodness of pecans.

(Nutrition Facts – 16 crackers – 140 calories, 60 calories from fat, 7 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 3.5 grams polyunsaturated fat, 2 grams monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 200 milligrams of sodium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 3 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein, 0% vitamin A, 0% calcium, 0% vitamin C, and 6% iron.)

Item: Keebler Wheatables Toasted Pecan Nut Crisps
Price: $3.59
Size: 8.5 ounces
Purchased at: Albertson’s
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pros: Addresses the plight of bored urban squirrels. Tastes like honey bunches of hexagons. Peh-cahns. Good random snack. The Doritos powdery coating scale. Brimming with sunshine and cheeriness.
Cons: Suffers from an identity crisis. Possibly promotes squirrel obesity. Pecan dust never goes away. Makes a very sad stand alone breakfast and an even sadder lunch. Pee-cans. Failing a word association test. Stale mixed nuts.

Scroll to Top