Another Universal Studios Holiday Getaway

Roll your eyes, or rub your hands with glee, because we’re virtually visiting Universal Studios Resort in Orlando, again!

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Belly Time

Gold Belly, that is. Gold Belly, as you are probably aware, is a site that connects you with sellers all over the country and lets you buy meals and food products to be delivered to the comfort of your home. I guess you could use it for local makers, but that would be dumb given the premium prices you pay on Gold Belly. But if you want a pizza from Rochester, NY delivered to San Diego? Gold Belly is probably your site. And I’m sure they have grown exponentially thanks to covid. I’ve tried it a few times and offer my experiences.

More scallops? Don’t mind if I do.

We recently spent three days in Newport, RI for a short vacation. No real reason to go there in particular except we’ve been there before and hadn’t had a chance to do any of the mansion tours. As an unplanned bonus, we had breezy 70-degree weather and avoided a sweltering weekend in the 90s here at home. It was relaxing, the weather was great, we did a few things, and just got away. We also did quite well in terms of eating. As I was in vacation mode, not blogging mode, I took zero food photos. So, again, enjoy these reviews through the glory of plain text.

Tequila’s second shot goes down better

I’m happy to report that giving Tequila’s in Shop Rite Plaza in Niskayuna went MUCH better than the first time. As I previously wrote, the food was really good, but the customer service/ordering experience was beyond frustrating.

They have since joined up with Mealeo for online/mobile ordering. This has resulted in a bit less customization availability that was welcome on their website ordering. But it also adds some accountability to online orders. Anyway, ordering on Saturday we used the Mealeo app to order. The pickup time was 30 minutes from order and was ready within 5 minutes of that time. Not great, since our order wasn’t elaborate and they didn’t seem to be busy when I went to pick it up, but at least I wasn’t standing around in the foyer for an hour. It was downright bearable.

Desert Drinks & Exotics, first taste

Here it is, the first batch of reviews from my megabox of worldwide treats from Desert Drinks & Exotics!

Desert Drink adventure part 2

Hey, my package overflowing with globetrotting junk food has arrived already!

The box was in good shape, indicating decent handling by UPS. There are a token handful of packing peanuts, but not really enough to accomplish much and there is plenty of void space, as you can see. Items condition as delivered varies from seemingly pristine to pretty darn squashed or squished. The box did bear a fragile label.

The Moon Pies, very susceptible to crushing, look to be in fine shape. The drinks are also looking fine across the board. A couple of chocolate items I think were simply poorly timed because of the blast of heat we’re experiencing. I think there was some melting, coupled with moving around against boxes and bottles, did them a disservice. I’m hoping some cooling with revive them a bit before opening, although I don’t expect them to be pretty.

The boxes of Oreo rolls were pretty crushed and the two bags of flavored popcorn from Egypt look downright trampled. But the Twinkie, also from Egypt, looks fine. The two bags of chips also seem fine with tons of air padding.

My assumption is that any damage, apart from melting, happened on the way to Desert Drinks and not due to their handling or shipping. I’m hoping they won’t be a total letdown like Pringles that inevitably show up as a pile of crumbs of varying sizes in a tube.

Although I’d like to see a little more creative/effective packaging, so far this experience isn’t too bad. In particular, I think they need to think a bit about what they’re selling…heavy, round bottles and cans of beverages and somewhat fragile snack foods. That’s basically what they’re shipping every time. Some way of protecting the snacks from the drinks would be a good idea. Just off the top of my head, maybe dividing the boxes into compartments, one for drinks and one for snacks. It wouldn’t have to be fancy, just a piece of cardboard dividing them might help.

From here I’ll have to decide whether I try them all and post a sum up or, more likely, review a few at a time.

Join me on this snack journey

Maybe you’ve gotten the same ad on social media somewhere…Desert Drinks & Exotics. Wacky fun drinks and snacks from around the world! It was the passionfruit drink picture that really sucked me in, though. Big passionfruit juice fan right here (I even bought passionfruit powder so I could make passionfruit ice cream). Anywho…