Chex Mix Muddy Buddies Cookies & Cream

Under the radar, Chex Mix Muddy Buddy flavors have been coming out at a nearly Oreo-ian pace.  I’ve tried some, resisted others.  The straight chocolate-peanut butter Muddy Buddies are my favorite, and while I can, and have, made them at home, the mass produced, megaprocessed factory uniform batches on supermarket shelves are just so tempting.

I’m pretty sure I picked up this Cookies & Cream flavor up-upstate in a Walmart.

Artificially flavored, of course, but with “Real Cookie Crumbs!”  I think it was the real cookie crumbs that sold me.  These actually sat in the snack cupboard for a while before making their way to the front of the line.

Nothing too fancy here.  Typical 80% coverage of crispy Chex cereal pieces.  Nice cookies & cream aroma.  Some dark flecks that I’m going to assume are the ballyhooed real cookie crumbs.

They’re pretty good.  Quite sweet.  Crunchy.  Yes, they taste like just about anything that is “cookies & cream flavored”.  You can imagine what they taste like.  Creamy vanilla with chocolatey cookie.  As long as you’re OK with the serious sweetness, give ‘em a try.  A few go a long way in terms of satisfying a sweet tooth urge.

Now if I can just figure out why they think they need a bowl of ice cream on the front of the package…

Burger 3 at Burger 21

I went for another chicken burger, trying the Chicken Parmesan burger this time.  It’s described as:

Lightly-fried, homemade Parmesan crisp, white American and provolone cheeses, tomato sauce, toasted brioche bun

The Parmesan crisp isn’t visible here – a crispy disk of Parmesan rests on top of the other cheeses, under the top bun.  By now my distaste for fast food brioche buns should be well known, so you can see I swapped out for a sesame seed bun.  Good choice.  I poured the cup of tomato sauce over the top and ate away.  After the first couple of bites the crisp was no longer crisp and the flavor was lost in the sauce.

Overall, it was fine, well assembled and cooked, which has proven standard at Burger 21 so far.  At most other places this would be a plus burger.  But honestly I’ve already developed higher expectations for Burger 21, so this was just sort of OK.  If you’re craving this sort of burger it’s a fine choice, but I think they have better.

Only negative on this trip was a realization that the whole wheat bun is just a bit too crumbly.  Something’s wrong there, it’s very possible to make a whole wheat bun that is soft.

Fries still nice.  Thai ketchup awesome.  Great service.

Burger 1

Burger 2

Burger King small order review

Desperate for a quick bite, I succumbed to the hype and stopped at Burger King yesterday on a long drive and tried some of their chicken nuggets.  Let’s keep this as brief as my visit:

They have a lighter, more granular coating than the thick envelope encasing McNuggets.  Way more “chickeny” tasting than McNuggets – more like one of those ‘make healthier nuggets at home!  hint: they’re baked not fried!’ tastes.   They’re cheap.  They’re just not that exciting.  I’m not even going to bother looking up the nutritional info (bad blogger!), they seem marginally healthier than McNuggets.  But I guess if I want homemade taste I’d make them at home and they really would be healthier.  If I’m buying fast food nuggets, I guess I want McNuggets.  These, to me, were closer to Wendy’s nuggets, which aren’t all that exciting, either.

I also added on a cheap bacon cheeseburger because, well, hmmm…why did I?  I guess the fact that I haven’t eaten at Burger King in years made me wonder if they’re as bad as many claim compared to the other two biggies.  It wasn’t offensive, really.  It just wasn’t really anything.  The bacon had some bacon flavor and was nice and crispy actually.  The burger itself was barely noticeable, flavorwise.

It was all just so very m’eh.

At least now I know.

Help! Vanilla Frosting Combos

Anybody finding the Vanilla Frosting Combos locally?  I’ve got nothing but fail going on.  Walgreens in Clifton Park had a few but they sold out.  Not even a whiff anywhere else.

Anybody?

—

Update: Thanks to commenter Matt these were tracked down in Clifton Park.  First few I popped I have to say are…OK.  Just OK.  The ‘frosting’ is a bit off and has a peculiar aftertaste.  One comment I heard was that these were very sweet, I actually find myself wishing the frosting was sweeter…but then again I like sugary sweet frosting.  They’re…OK.

Have a heart, CVS

Aw, c’mon, CVS.  Really?

JANUARY 11, PEOPLE!

The Valentine’s Day stuff is bad enough that started popping up at and before Christmas…but Easter?  EASTER already, CVS???

Burger 2 at Burger 21

We made it back to Burger 21 in Latham for our second burger recently.  I wanted to try a chicken burger since I’d just had a great beef burger the day before at City Squire in Schenectady (I don’t know if they have a new cook or what, but their burgers have really stepped up a couple of notches in the past months, from ‘decent, sometimes pretty good’ to ‘consistently great and sometimes amazing’).  I opted for the Buffalo Chicken Burger, described on the menu thusly:

“A crispy buffalo chicken burger, lettuce, tomato, bleu cheese crumbles, ranch dressing, toasted sesame bun”

What did I get?

That’s a big burger

Yeah, pretty much as described.  Even pretty much as shown on the website’s menu and don’t tell me that’s not a little bit amazing.  Look at the size of that danged thing!  I was actually a little thrown off, trying to figure out how to get the burger into my face.

The chicken burger, a fried breast (not a ground chicken burger), was indeed crispy, hot, and tasty.  I didn’t taste anything ‘buffalo’ about the burger itself, instead the ranch and cheese crumbles on top were joined by a decent splash of buffalo sauce.  I brushed off most of the lettuce.  The tomato, as expected this time of year, was pretty pale and lame.  The bun was fine, nothing fancy.  As you can see, you get an extra little cup of ranch.

I was very pleased with the heat level of this burger.  At first the level of spiciness was pretty tame, but by the time I was done a nice, gentle burn had developed, never getting what you would call hot, but it was noticeable.  Towards the end I added on some of the ranch for extra creaminess.  It was filling with a shared regular sized fries, without being too much.  I would definitely get this again.

We tried a few more of the sauce bar options this time.  The apple cider sauce was OK, a little weird to me, my wife seemed to like it more.  I’m not sure what I’d want it on.  I also went for the toasted marshmallow sauce.  Wow.  Mistake.  I’m not sure what it is that people like about this.  My wife and I both found it absolutely foul.  She couldn’t even identify any marshmallow, but I definitely could taste marshmallow in between the foul initial taste and unpleasant aftertaste.  Bleh.  On the other hand, the Thai ketchup remains super tasty.

Pretty impressed so far after two visits to Burger 21.  I don’t think I can actually compare it to Five Guys, which I also had recently.  They’re just really different.  If they were equidistant I think I would go to Burger 21 more often for the wider array of options, despite the prices being a bit high, but sometimes I would still crave the simple, melty, juicy package of a Five Guys cheeseburger.  Love the fact that they’re offering “little” fries now, a much more reasonable portion.  Basically the regular size without the overflow.

Frosted Chocolatey Strawberry Pop-Tarts are here

It took a few stops, but we found these new Frosted Chocolatey Strawberry Pop-Tarts.  Not much to get into here.  Chocolatey, dry Pop-Tart shell with a not too sweet chocolatey frosting on top.  Strawberry Pop-Tart filling.  The filling is actually sort of pleasant.  I haven’t had a fruit Pop-Tart for years, maybe this is normal?  Decently fruity, not overly sweet.

ingredients ingredients ingredients…”filling made with equal to 10% fruit” Wha-?

I kind of like the back:

2 outta 3 ain’t bad

The Minotart is sort of funny, although the painfully months-out-of-date # below it is cringe inducing…the fact that I even recognize it tells me that no one ‘hip’ is still using it.  Prune Nacho Flop-Tarts?  I’m easy, that’s pretty hilarious if you don’t take it too seriously (although…where are the nacho Pop-Tarts??!!).  The bottom panel’s pretty lame, though.

want some?

They’re just not super amazing or anything.  Somehow they’ve combined strawberry and chocolate without it tasting luscious.  It’s surely the fault of the dry toaster pastry edges, as with most Pop-Tarts.  I did try heating one and I’d say there was minor improvement as the pastry softens slightly, but it wasn’t game changing. Found at Hannaford for something like $2.19.