Category Archives: Reviews

Review: Chex Quest HD

Have you ever eaten a bag of Chex Mix and thought—boy, I wonder which of these pieces would kick the most ass. Well wonder no more, because Fred Chexter of Chex Quest fame is back, and he’s brought a ragtag crew of starchy squadmates with him.

For fans of this blog, Chex Quest needs no introduction. I’ve already written multiple articles on the game and how my childhood fondness for it set off a chain reaction culminating in my site’s immaculate conception from the Milky Way’s milkiest æther. If you need a quick refresher on how we got to this point, allow me to brief—I don’t want my current play session to get soggy.

In 1996, General Mills contracted a small game studio, Digital Café, to design a CD-ROM to be packaged in cereal boxes. Working on a tight timeframe, they ended up doing a full, family-friendly DOOM conversion about a snotty Flemoid alien invasion of a breakfast star system. The hero, Fred Chexter, uses Zorch technology to send the lil boogers back to their home dimension. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: chex, chex quest, general mills. Leave a comment

May. ’20

Review: Bones Electric Unicorn Fruity Cereal Coffee

As much as I love cereal, it’s hardly a heartwarmer. On rainy days such as these, when the air is thick with mossy malaise and the rooftop drums in staccato spurts, a chilly lightning bolt of sugary milkiness straight to the gut isn’t as satisfying as a deep glug of hot coffee—the kind that blossoms in your belly like a rollicking rafflesia. Well, minus the corpse stench, of course.

I’ve long been a religious coffee drinker for such reasons of inner immolation, and while I’ve reviewed my fair share of cereal-flavored coffee creamers, never once could I even conceive that there’d be straight-up cereal-steeped coffee beans. That was until Empty Bowl listener Tasha tipped me off about Bones Coffee—a company known for outlandish small-batch coffee flavors like PB&J or Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream—and their Electric Unicorn blend. Not a new flavor but a recently reformulated one, Electric Unicorn coffee is said to be flavored like fruity cereal. As this is a nebulous bit of nomenclature that could refer to anything from Froot Loops to Raisin Bran (technically), I felt it was up to me to find out whether these beans live up to the brouhaha behind them. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: coffee, non cereal. Leave a comment

May. ’20

Quick(ish) Review: Banana Special K

Evolution is a slow process, one that’s unlikely for an individual to fully witness. That’s why it’s taken me so long to write about Banana Special K—this is a cereal brand that debuts new flavors in geological increments. With no fanfare and little variation in box design, trying to spot a new Special K is like trying to spot a new paint sample at Home Depot from three aisles over.

As an on-the-beat cereal blogger who lives in the milky moment—the ever-crunchy now—I could scarcely tell Banana Special K (which actually came out closer to January) from Vanilla & Almond.

But it’s better late than never, so I’ll try to make this quick—err, I mean Kwik. With a capital K. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: banana, kellogg's, special k. 1 Comment

May. ’20

Quick(ish) Review: SpongeBob Sea Berry Pop-Tarts

When you get right down to the rock bottom of it, there are really only two types of Pop-Tarts people: People who like fruity Pop-Tarts and those who prefer Chocolate Pop-Tarts. Yes, there some Pop-Tarts that can’t be easily sorted onto this continuum, but with the exception of fan-flavor-ite Brown Sugar Cinnamon (which really should be considered a member of the extended “brown sweetness” family alongside Cousin Chocolate), I can’t think of any Pop-Tart flavors beyond the choco-fruit binary that have a significant fan following. Yes, this includes Confetti Cupcake. And no, this doesn’t and in fact can’t include The Chosen One.

It was supposed to bring balance, which is why Kellogg’s destroyed it.

Long story short, I’m a chocolate Pop-Tart kind of guy. Chocolate Chip is probably my favorite of the O.G.s, while Milk Chocolate Graham forever has my heart for evicting that freeloading marshmallow from S’Mores Pop-Tarts. Yeah, I said it.

This is why, though I love classic Strawberry Pop-Tarts, I don’t think the likes of Blueberry, Cherry, and Raspberry—the latter of which I can’t remember ever having eaten more than once or twice. When Kellogg’s first tried to re-skin Raspberry Pop-Tarts as Spidey Berry Pop-Tarts, I gave them a pass. But now that Spidey Berries have been mashed en masse to produce an ocean’s worth of SpongeBob’s Sea Berries, I figured it was fate telling me to give the flavor another shot—or else the next time they came back it’d be as Beetle Juicy Pop-Tarts. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: non cereal, pop-tarts, raspberry. Leave a comment

May. ’20

Review: Gluten-Free Cinnamon Cheerios

For one spice, cinnamon sure wears a lot of hats. Just like Sailor Moon with her disguise pen, cinnamon can be just about anything: the faint infusion grounding Cinnamon Toast Crunch’s hyper sweetness. The sinful spear wielded by a Hot Tamale. Or the soon-to-be-regretted cornerstone ingredient in the tempting elixir known as Rumchata (or the more nefarious, Fireball).

The point is that, though it’s simple to write off the likes of Cinnamon Cheerios as ‘just another cinnamon cereal,’ the rich historical matrix of cinnamon cereals proves that very few of them—from Cinnabon Cereal to Cinnamon Crunch Krave—present the exact same shade of auburn delight. So while your first reaction—as mine was—to Cinnamon Cheerios may be “oh, it’s just Diet Oat Crunch,” I’m happy to report that not only are Cinnamon Cheerios a wonderful gluten-free option for cinnamon cereal fans, but their approach to cinnamon is different enough to make both worthy of a place in your pantry.

But I’ve said too much: let’s start from the top of the bowl. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: cheerios, cinnamon, general mills. 2 Comments

Apr. ’20

Review: Cinnamon Toast Crunch & Lucky Charms Light Ice Cream

I’m putting on my waffle cone chainmail and wielding a shield forged from molten maraschino cherries, because what I’m about to say will no-doubt spark a meltdown in the frozen brains of whole-blooded ice cream diehards everywhere:

I like light ice cream.

Yes, I know it has a lot less authentic milk fat, and I know there’s a certain broad threshold between light ice cream and ‘frozen desserts’ that further muddles the clarity of creamishness involved. But I’m also a grown baby with sensitive teeth and a mild lactose problem, so something soft and tolerably intolerable is a lot more appealing than a brick of pasteurized pain in my gut.

I like to think that Edy’s/Dreyer’s made this pair of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Lucky Charms ice creams light solely so I, their favorite cereal reviewer, could safely discuss them. I know, in reality, that it was a matter of cost, but hey: let me have this fantasy as I go scoop deep into churned versions of General Mills’ two most spun-off cereals. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: general mills, ice cream, lucky charms, non cereal, toast crunch. Leave a comment

Apr. ’20

Review: Confetti Cake Pop-Tarts Bites

Mainstays, icons, the A team: every brand’s got ’em, whether they’re flavors or sub-brands.

For Quaker cereal it’s Cap’n Crunch (and maybe Life). General Mills has Cheerios, Lucky Charms and Cinnamon Toast Crunch to do the bulk of its flavor licensing work. Post’s are arguably Honey Bunches and Pebbles, which is, itself, a two-faced Janus of Fruity & Cocoa. Likewise, Kellogg’s translates to Frosted Flakes and Froot Loops, plus Pop-Tarts, too.

As above, so below. If brand-level marketing has to tick certain option boxes, so too should a peripheral Pop-Tarts product have to do justice to what I’m calling The Big Four. Pop-Tarts’ finest. We got the higher ups in Bites form, as well as Chocolatey Fudge—which is a quasi-quintessential Pop-Tarts variety alongside Cookies & Creme.

But we’ve heard nothing about #3 & #4, S’Mores & Wild Berry. They complete this sacred quartet by further balancing rich and fruity sweetness.

No, instead of going with a proper, albeit unberried, wild card flavor like Hot Fudge Sundae or a Gone Nutty! variety, we got Confetti Cupcake Pop-Tarts Bites. Well, now it’s just Confetti Cake. Whether this was meant to be a symbolic instance of macro- vs. microcosm or not, one thing’s for certain: Confetti Cupcake Pop-Tarts were never that good to begin with. Certainly not Bites material. Heck, If I wanted a handful of bite-sized compound sugar bombs, I’d spread Cool Whip between some Frosted Animal Cookies.

But I’ve whined enough. I’ll pop open a pouch with an open mind, and give these angel-cake devils their due.

Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: kellogg's, non cereal, pop-tarts. Leave a comment

Apr. ’20

Review: Kellogg’s JUMBO SNAX (Corn Pops, Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops & Apple Jacks!)

Kellogg's JUMBO SNAX Review Snackable Cereal

Yes, pictured are the complete contents of one of each JUMBO SNAX 0.45oz pouch.

Look out, Frosted Honey Bunches of Oats—you’ve got an usurper approaching your throne of supreme cereal unnecessity. If you thought “Honey Bunches with 66% rather than 33% of its constituent components glazed in sugar” was silly, meet Kellogg’s JUMBO SNAX: four classic cereals enlarged so they’re…more…snackable?

Ah yes, of all the issues plaguing breakfast cereal, my main concern is that the darn stuff keeps slipping through the sieve of sausages I call fingers. I can’t tell you how many thriving ecosystems of microorganisms I’ve nourished beneath stadium bleachers where lost Loops go to be resorbed by Earth’s foundations.

But sorry, mosses who’ve evolved to masticate: no more free rides! This boy has enough JUMBO SNAX pouches to strap a bandolier with Jacked-Up Jacks and Weapons-Grade Caramel Corn.

So now that I’ll have no trouble doing so, let’s articulate the nuances of each variety. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: apple jacks, caramel, corn pops, froot loops, frosted flakes, kellogg's. 3 Comments