Tag: Fast Food

REVIEW: Jack in the Box Pumpkin Pie Shake

Marvo 12 Comments

Jack in the Box Pumpkin Pie Shake

I was first introduced to tryptophan by Mr. Claybaugh, my seventh grade history teacher. He told us about how turkey contains tryptophan, which is an amino acid that can make us sleepy. Mr. Claybaugh also told us that the only cure for overcoming the effects of tryptophan was to eat lots of pumpkin pie.

I don’t know if he was telling the truth or not.

Unfortunately, I haven’t really had a chance to prove it. Like most people at Thanksgiving, I always eat lots of turkey, mashed potatoes, ham, and yams. When dessert time rolls around, there isn’t much room for anything else, so I’ll only eat a slice of pumpkin pie, which probably isn’t enough to defeat the effects of tryptophan.

So before going on my trip to Las Vegas, I decided to find out the truth.

So I went to the national grocery store chain I shop at and looked for turkey. Unfortunately, finding a turkey right before Thanksgiving turned out to be a difficult task, because the store sold out. I thought about it for a few moments and a lightbulb popped into my head.

I walked to the deli counter to see if they had turkey and they did. I asked for a pound of turkey, which I received nicely sliced.

Now I that I had my turkey, all I needed was the pumpkin pie. Unfortunately, finding a pumpkin pie right before Thanksgiving also turned out to be a difficult task. Because it was almost Thanksgiving, I needed to order a pumpkin pie 24 hours in advance.

So instead of buying a pumpkin pie, I decided to pick up the new Jack in the Box Pumpkin Pie Shake, which is made with pumpkin-flavored ice cream seasoned with nutmeg and cinnamon. Close enough, right?

Now that I had my turkey and my “pumpkin pie,” the experiment could begin.

I ate the pound of turkey and then I tanked the medium-sized Pumpkin Pie Shake. The shake was really good and it tasted like pumpkin pie. Too bad Jack in the Box is only making these for a limited time.

After finishing off the Pumpkin Pie Shake, I sat in front of the television and watched the Tony Danza Show.

Minutes later I fell asleep.

After I woke up and wiped the drool from my face, I realized that maybe the Pumpkin Pie Shake wasn’t a good substitute for an actual pumpkin pie.

I also realized there are other things that will work much better to combat the effects of tryptophan and the Tony Danza Show. These include coffee, caffeine, and crack.

Item: Jack in the Box Pumpkin Pie Shake
Purchase Price: $2.29 (medium)
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Tastes like pumpkin pie. Surprisingly good. Don’t have to worry about pie crust.
Cons: Not a good replacement to overcome effects of tryptophan or the Tony Danza Show.

REVIEW: Taco Bell Zesty Chicken Border Bowl

Marvo 14 Comments

Taco Bell Zesty Chicken Border Bowl

Sometimes I buy a product to please the Television Advertising Gods in hopes that they stop playing the DAMN annoying commercial that promotes the product.

This was the case with the new Taco Bell Zesty Chicken Border Bowl.

The commercial goes something like this:

Some guy and his cute girlfriend come up to the register. The guy asks the person at the register if it’s true that the employees won’t make a Zesty Chicken Border Bowl, until they order it. The person working the register says yes.

Then the guy jerks around with the Taco Bell employees by not completing their order for the Zesty Chicken Border Bowl. This goes on for a while, until the cute girlfriend interrupts him and finishes the order.

Why is it that some cute and smart women end up with assholes?

Anyway, in hopes of putting a stop to this commercial, I purchased a Zesty Chicken Border Bowl with it’s grilled, marinated all-white-meat chicken; cool, crisp lettuce; fiesta salsa; hot steaming rice; and warm beans. It also came with a dressing, which apparently gives it its zest.

I decided to taste the dressing first to find out if it was going to be another McDonald’s buffalo sauce.

Well the dressing tasted like crap, but I thought the Zesty Chicken Border Bowl wouldn’t be a Zesty Chicken Border Bowl without the zest, so I added it.

To my surprise, mixing it with the Border Bowl made it taste pretty good.

I guess it’s kind of like how fertilizer smells and tastes like crap, but when added to a flower garden, it makes the garden look beautiful.

You might be wondering how this is possible. Well let’s just chalk it up as one of those mysteries that may never get solved because most people don’t care, like whether or not Creed was a Christian rock band.

Despite sacrificing a Zesty Chicken Border Bowl, I still see the DAMN commercial.

It’s a good thing the Zesty Chicken Border Bowl is tasty, because it looks like I’m going to have to eat a few more to please the Television Advertising Gods.

Item: Taco Bell Zesty Chicken Border Bowl
Purchase Price: $3.79
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: A meal in a bowl. Border Bowl tastes good with dressing.
Cons: Damn annoying commercial. Dressing tastes like crap without Border Bowl. Didn’t please Television Advertising Gods.

REVIEW: McDonald’s Chicken Selects

Marvo 16 Comments

McDonald's Chicken Selects

Damn, I’m such an idiot!

I knew I shouldn’t have picked the spicy buffalo sauce for the McDonald’s Chicken Selects!

I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!

The voices in my head were telling me I should go for the tangy low-fat honey mustard or the creamy ranch dipping sauce, because there was no way the McDonald’s spicy buffalo sauce could even come close to the sauce Hooters uses for their spicy, hot, juicy, voluptuous boob…I mean…Buffalo wings.

Maybe it was the carbon monoxide from the beat up Volkswagon Golf in front of me in the drive-thru lane that prevented me from changing my mind. Or it could have been the thoughts of bouncing Hooters girls.

Yes, Hooters girls…Ummm…

Uh, what?

Oh!

So what makes these Chicken Selects better than the not-so-select Chicken McNuggets?

Most notable: They don’t have the embarrassing name of McNuggets.

Check this out. If you use the word “McNuggets” to replace the word “testicles” in any sentence, people will still understand the sentence.

For example: The Hamburgler was kicked in the McNuggets by Mayor McCheese, as he tried to steal hamburgers from that big fat purple blob, Grimace.

Oh yeah, I forgot: Robble! Robble!

So I was stuck with the spicy buffalo sauce, which wasn’t very good. Just like the voices in my head predicted. However, if there was something good that came out of this, it would be getting a five-piece Chicken Selects meal instead of the three-piece meal I ordered. Bonus, baby!

Two more premium-quality, 100 percent white chicken breast meat, seasoned and lightly breaded so they are crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside that I get to dip into a spicy buffalo sauce that I don’t like.

Thank goodness for universal condiment: Ketchup.

Item: McDonald’s Chicken Selects
Purchase Price: $4.39 (3 pc Value Meal)
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: White chicken breast meat. Accidentally got 5 pieces. Heh, heh…McNuggets!
Cons: Spicy buffalo sauce wasn’t that good. Slightly expensive for just 3 pieces. Robble! Robble!

REVIEW: KFC Snacker

Marvo 2 Comments

KFC Snacker

I was going to start off this review with some sexual analogy about how some women say size doesn’t matter. Then I realized how overused these types of analogies are. I’ve even used it in a previous review. I didn’t want to stoop to that level again, because this is a classy, well-respected quasi-review website that averages 20 visitors a day.

I could have said something like, “The KFC Snacker is small, but many people say it’s cute.”

Or I could have said, “The KFC Snacker maybe small, but it tries its best to get the job done.”

Or “The KFC Snacker is small, because it admits it’s very cold outside.”

Or “It’s not the size of the KFC Snacker that matters, it’s the motion of the ocean of secret herbs and spices.”

Okay, that last one was pretty lame.

However, instead of complaining about how small the KFC Snacker is in the form of badly written sexual innuendoes, I will tell you that the KFC Snacker was disappointing because of it’s size and performance.

The KFC Snacker is roughly the size and shape of a bar of soap, which is about half the size of other chicken sandwiches offered by other fast food joints. It comes with a sesame seed bun, some lettuce, mayonnaise, and a strip of chicken with the Colonial’s secret herbs and spices, all for 99 cents.

The $1 McChicken from McDonald’s isn’t as tasty as the KFC Snacker, but you definitely get more bang for the buck, since it is significantly bigger. I guess Colonial’s secret herbs and spices are getting rare or something.

Despite the typical delicious taste of those herbs and spices, I couldn’t get over the disappointment of how small it was and how it probably wouldn’t satisfy most people’s hunger.

I guess in the case of the KFC Snacker, size really does matter.

Item: KFC Snacker
Purchase Price: $0.99
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Typical Colonial secret herbs and spices. Tasty.
Cons: Too small in size, but cute.

Jack in the Box Natural Cut Fries

Marvo 1 Comment

Natural Cut Fries

“Bigger and thicker” is how Jack in the Box is promoting their new Natural Cut Fries. I’m sure the same phrase has been used to promote other things. I won’t list them here, but I’ll let you use your imaginations…your dirty imaginations.

These new Natural Cut Fries replaces Jack in the Box’s previous fries, which honestly made me think, “This REALLY was a potato at some point?”

Jack in the Box is also promoting their Natural Cut Fries by saying they leave on the skin of the potato.

In case you didn’t know, the most nutrient part of a potato is the skin. However, when you cut up a potato with the skin and deep-fry it in extremely hot oil, the most nutrient part becomes the paper French Fry sleeve they come in.

After watching the Jack in the Box commercial on television, I was so looking forward to trying these fries.

I was thinking it was going to be like In-N-Out Burger fries, where they have some dude chopping up the potatoes in the kitchen, but then I remembered that this is crappy fast food and that the fries were probably chopped in some big factory, then flash frozen, then dumped into large brown bags, shipped across the United States in a 16-wheeler, and poured frozen out of the large brown bags into a waiting basket that will be dipped into a tub of boiling oil.

The Natural Cut Fries are bigger and thicker than Jack in the Box’s original fries and after trying them; I have to say they’re definitely better. However, their taste doesn’t stack up against the 800-pound gorilla of the French Fry world, McDonald’s French Fries.

I guess sometimes “bigger and thicker” doesn’t mean better.

Also, “average and I know how to use it,” always means better.

Right, ladies?

Item: Jack in the Box Natural Cut Fries
Purchase Price: $2.29
Rating: 2 out of 5
Pros: Potato skin!!! Bigger and thicker than Jack in the Box’s original fries.
Cons: Still doesn’t beat out McDonald’s fries in taste. Bigger and thicker, doesn’t mean better.