REVIEW: Burger King Cheesy Tots

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Burger King Cheesy Tots

There are numerous Facebook pages dedicated to bringing back Crystal Pepsi. These Facebook pages probably outnumber the amount of unopened Crystal Pepsi bottles and cans in existence today. But despite all the Facebook likes and ALL CAPS pleads these pages have accumulated, Crystal Pepsi is still just a memory from the 1990s.

Another product I was surprised to find out has numerous Facebook pages dedicated to its revival was Burger King’s Cheesy Tots. However, unlike Crystal Pepsi fans, Cheesy Tots fans can celebrate with ALL CAPS Facebook posts because the starchy and cheesy menu item is back for a limited time.

To be honest, I didn’t experience the pleasure of stuffing my mouth with Cheesy Tots the first time they were around, so I’m glad my mouth has a second chance.

Burger King’s Cheesy Tots come in three sizes: small, medium, and large. I picked up the medium, which came with ten of them. (A small has eight pieces, while a large has 12.) The side dish looks like school cafeteria chicken nuggets, but within the thick, crispy, and golden brown exterior is an interior that’s basically a tater tot bleeding light orange American cheese.

Burger King Cheesy Tots Innards

Speaking of the cheese, it’s slightly chalky. Although that texture could’ve been caused by potatoes that were broken down while being deep fried. The cheese also lacked flavor. In other words, the Cheesy Tots weren’t very cheesy. They did have a nice potato flavor, similar to tater tots, but with its very mild cheesiness, I can’t say I’m impressed with them.

Burger King’s Cheesy Tots don’t come with a dipping sauce, but I wish they did. I do think they would go well with Burger King’s Zesty sauce and I also believe they would be a neat topping to add to your Whopper. However, by themselves, I don’t think they’re good enough to make me want to create Facebook page dedicated to bringing them back when they go away again.

(Nutrition Facts – Medium size – 350 calories, 150 calories from fat, 17 grams of fat, 5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 20 milligrams of cholesterol, 880 milligrams of sodium, 34 grams of carbohydrates, 5 grams of fiber, 1 gram of sugar, and 15 grams of protein.)

Item: Burger King Cheesy Tots
Purchased Price: $3.39*
Size: Medium
Purchased at: Burger King
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Nice potato flavor, perhaps better than their fries. Nice crispy exterior. Burger King’s Zesty sauce. Crystal Pepsi.
Cons: Not very cheesy. Cheese was slightly chalky. They look like school cafeteria chicken nuggets. They don’t make me want to make a “Bring Back Cheesy Tots” Facebook page.

*Because I live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the price I paid might be significantly higher than what you’ll pay.

SPOTTED ON SHELVES – 1/9/2013

/ / Spotted on Shelves / 4 Comments

Here are some interesting new and limited edition products found on store shelves by us and your fellow readers.

Crystal Light Liquid

MiO’s sister brand, Crystal Light, has come out with her own line of liquid water enhancers, which include the following flavors: Blueberry Raspberry, Iced Tea, Mango Passionfruit, Strawberry Lemonade, Peach Bellini, and Pomtini. Now I guess we wait for MiO’s brother brand, Kool Aid, to bust through with his own line of liquid water enhancers. Oh yeah! (Spotted by Zachary at Walmart.)

Pringles Limited Time Only Cheeseburger

Pringles Limited Time Only Sea Salt & Pepper

I’m extremely disappointed the graphic designer who designed the Sea Salt & Pepper container didn’t put a little grey or white in the Pringles guy’s mustache. Junk Food Guy has a review of the Sea Salt & Pepper crisps. And Chip Review has a review of the Cheeseburger Pringles. (Spotted by Lael at Walmart.)

Keebler Chips Deluxe Triple Chocolate

I have yet to see a store-bought chocolate product break the through the triple chocolate level. Chocolate cookie, chocolate chips, and white chocolate chips got the cookies to the triple level, but I’m sure the Keebler elves could’ve easily dipped them in chocolate and then topped them with chocolate sprinkles. BOOM! Chips Deluxe Quintuple Chocolate Cookies! Damn, I should be a Keebler elf! (Spotted by Adam at Weis.)

Oscar Mayer Carving Board Pulled Pork

I could spend hours making my own pulled pork. Or I could spend seconds opening a container of Oscar Mayer’s Carving Board Pulled Pork. Or I could spend minutes in my car driving to a decent barbecue place. (Spotted by Adam at Walmart.)

NatureMade Adult Gummies

Still waiting for adult prescription medication gummies, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, and Bristol-Meyers Squibb. (Spotted by Marvo at Target.)

Thank you to all the photo contributors! If you’re out shopping and see an interesting new or limited edition product on the shelf, snap a picture of it, and send us an email ([email protected]) with where you found it and “Spotted” in the subject line. If you do so, you might see your picture in our next Spotted on Shelves post.

REVIEW: Burger King Philly Chicken Sandwich

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Burger King Philly Original Chicken Sandwich

When I first heard about Burger King’s new Philly Chicken Sandwich, I thought they were going to top one of their Original Chicken Sandwiches with thin slices of steak, chopped onions and peppers, and cheese, similar to what Carl’s Jr. did when they topped one of their burgers with innards of a Philly Cheesesteak.

But Burger King didn’t and I’m a bit sad about it.

According to the Burger King website, here’s what they did:

A lightly-breaded chicken fillet topped with traditional Philly-Style toppings – a colorful mix of bell peppers and seasoned grilled onions, served with American cheese and smothered with a creamy cheese sauce. All served hot on a toasted sesame bun.

Oppa Philly-style toppings?

If putting bell peppers, onions, and cheese on top of another food allows one to label it “Philly,” then I’d like to see supreme pizzas be called Philly pizzas and fajitas called Phillitas.

When I pulled back the top bun of the Philly Chicken Sandwich, the bright red and green bell peppers made it feel like it’s still the Christmas season. There was a good amount of peppers and onions on the sandwich, but there was even more cheese. The bell peppers and onions had a crunchiness to them and gave the sandwich a nice flavor.

Burger King Philly Original Chicken Sandwich Innards

The orange goo that prevented the veggies from falling out tasted like typical American cheese and actually provided some decent flavor, which is surprising for fast food cheese. But I guess it’s easy to taste the cheese where there aren’t any sauces or mayo to overpower it.

As for the chicken patty, it was dry, but I’m not surprised by that because I believe every Burger King Original Chicken Sandwich I’ve ever had has come with a dry patty. Before taking my first bite, I already knew that the chicken patty in my Philly Chicken Sandwich was going to be devoid of any juiciness because the breaded exterior was darker than the skin of a tanorexic.

The Burger King Philly Chicken Sandwich is a decent fast food menu item, albeit a salty one. The flavor of the toppings almost completely made up for the dry chicken patty. Although, I think it would’ve been better (and more deserving of the Philly name) if Burger King also topped it with thin steak slices.

(Nutrition Facts – 550 calories, 25 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 75 milligrams of cholesterol, 1870 milligrams of sodium, 54 grams of carbohydrates, 8 grams of sugar, and 30 grams of protein.)

Item: Burger King Philly Chicken Sandwich
Purchased Price: $4.99
Size: N/A
Purchased at: Burger King
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Decent sandwich. Crunchy veggies. Cheese had flavor and kept veggies from falling out. Christmas-y innards. Awesome source of protein.
Cons: Bell peppers, onions, and cheese equals Philly? Awesome source of sodium. Not having thin steak slices. Tanorexia.

NEWS: Subway Testing Creamy Sriracha Sauce

/ / Fast Food News / 2 Comments

Subway, the fast food place micromanagers probably love, is testing a creamy sriracha sauce at select locations. The spicy sauce was spotted by the folks over at Foodbeast.

Currently, Subway’s spiciest sauce is probably their Chipotle Southwest Sauce, which I don’t think is at all spicy. Last summer, the sandwich chain tested a wasabi sauce, but it has yet to show up nationwide.

Brand Eating posted a review of the new sauce:

The sauce is a bright, almost neon orange; it almost makes you think you should take a Geiger counter to it. I figured I might as well just taste it by itself and dabbed some on my finger. I got some sweet tanginess paired with creaminess before the heat hit me. Wow! This is some seriously spicy stuff!

I hope this rolls out nationwide. But if not, I guess I could take the bottle of sriracha in my fridge and splooge some of it on my next Subway sandwich.

REVIEW: Kellogg’s Cinnamon Jacks

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Kellogg's Cinnamon Jacks

Of all the eternal questions I often ruminate on, none perplexes me more than that of Apple Jacks’ place in the universe.

Does it, as we insisted in our youthful ignorance of baggy pants and skateboards, taste nothing like an actual apple? Or does the formula of dried apples and apple juice concentrate really harbor in the crisp and sweet taste of fall’s bountiful crop?

I suppose the answer will never truly be arrived at, but thankfully, Kellogg’s latest spinoff of the ever-popular Apple Jacks cereal doesn’t pose such weighty concerns.

Yes, Cinnamon Jacks really does taste like cinnamon, and manages even keeps alive a fine tradition of creepy cereal spokesmen and challenging back-of-the-box games to boot.

Promising a “brown sugar and cinnamon taste,” Cinnamon Jacks consists of “X” or jack shaped red and orange pieces served up by Cinnamon, the Rastafarian bug-eyed mascot first introduced in 2007 as a foil to the creepy Apple-looking guy who adorns boxes of Apple Jacks. Unlike cereals which advertise themselves as good for you and responsible in their stewardship of the environment and all that crap, the back of the box of Cinnamon Jacks doesn’t send me back to sleep in boredom.

That’s not to say it’s filled up by the usual mazes or cartoons. It’s even marginally educational, complete with words games that make me wish I would have picked up the phone and ordered Hooked on Phonics during those days of playing hooky in elementary school.

The cinnamon flavor is the first thing that registers on my taste buds. It quickly migrates its way into the roof of my mouth to somehow permeate into the schnoz cavity, conferring a distinctive if not sophisticated element which manages to traverse its way somewhere between Wrigley’s Cinnamon gum and classic mulling spices.

Kellogg's Cinnamon Jacks Dry Closeup

The jacks are sweet but not cloying, although I don’t really pick up any distinctive brown sugar elements (brown sugar is not listed in the ingredients, either.) Matched up in terms of pure cinnamon sugar addictiveness against everyone’s favorite cinnamon cereal, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cinnamon Jacks would get clobbered worse than ‘88 Broncos in the Super Bowl. Put up against the likes of cinnamon cereal middleweights like Cinnamon Chex, however, it more than holds its own.

There’s something off with the little jack-shaped pieces though, with their crispy bite yielding to a somewhat disassociated flavor that just doesn’t taste intrinsically yummy to my well-trained cereal taste buds. A quick check of the ingredients lists reveals the culprit: The dreaded whole grain yellow corn flour.

Seriously, what makes companies think that corn and cinnamon work? I may not be up with the latest foodie trends, but I still haven’t seen anyone pour cinnamon and brown sugar on their corn on the cob, while the likes of other corn-based cinnamon cereals, like Cinnamon Honey Comb, have fizzled.

Thankfully there’s enough sweetness and cinnamon flavor to carry me through a dry handful without thinking too much of Kix, but I can’t help but think the little chromosome shapes would taste better and have a heartier crunch if the first ingredient was oat or wheat flour.

Kellogg's Cinnamon Jacks Wet Closeup

For whatever reason, that strange corn flour taste disappears once milk is applied, with the jack pieces transferring their cinnamon sugar sweetness to the end milk while still retaining good flavor in their own mushy right. The end-milk is most excellent; not only drinkable on its own, but added to a morning cup of joe as well.

Cinnamon Jacks isn’t as good as Cinnamon Toast Crunch but that’s okay. It tastes much more like cinnamon than Apple Jacks taste like apples, which is good, because it means that I don’t have to add it to my universal questions to ponder list and can instead go back to wondering about things like how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop or if Luke Skywalker has a middle name.

(Nutrition Facts – 28 grams – 110 calories, 20 calories from fat, 2 gram of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 125 milligrams of sodium, 45 milligrams of potassium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 10 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein, and a buttload/cornucopia/smorgasbord of vitamins and minerals, although no calcium.)

Item: Kellogg’s Cinnamon Jacks
Purchased Price: $2.99
Size: 10.7 ounces
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Finger licking cinnamon-sugar coating. Cinnamon flavor is more sophisticated than what you’d expect from a cereal represented by Rastafarian skateboarding cinnamon stick mascot. Drinkable end-milk. Whole grainy goodness. Not having to contemplate whether or not it really tastes like cinnamon.
Cons: Corn flour taste is too assertive and clashes with the sweetness. No actual brown sugar involved. Not very crunchy. No richness. Learning that Luke Skywalker doesn’t have a middle name after all.

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