Category Archives: Reviews

Review: Honeycomb Cereal (It’s Back! Original Flavor)

Post Honeycomb Cereal Original Flavor 2018 Cereal Review Box

You know the end of the movie, when the big bad has been defeated and the main, side, tertiary, and no-name characters (who will definitely get fan fiction lore) are all celebrating a fight/romance/exorcism well done?

That’s where we are—in the third act of Honeycomb’s story.

Here’s the IMDB-worthy synopsis for those who eat their breakfasts under the comfort of a shady rock:

Honeycomb cereal, good for years.
Lots of people, eat Honeycomb for years.
Post Foods, makes Honeycomb all natural.
Post Foods, thinks they know what people want.
Post Foods, is wrong.
Hundreds of people, mad about Honeycomb.
Hundreds of people, blame me, divine meddling, spam the word GARBAGE.
Post Foods, brings back Honeycomb
Cool, hip blogger, reviews Honeycomb again

Long story short, BIG REAL HONEY FLAVOR is back, baby, and Andre the Giant is fist-pumping in his grave. Now let’s see if all that buzz holds up. Continue reading

Review: Pop-Tarts Sugar Cookie & Brownie Batter Splitz

Kellogg's Pop-Tarts Splitz Sugar Cookie Brownie Batter Review Box

You can’t just slap two things together and expect it to be delicious. As a midnight pantry plunderer since a young age, I’ve learned this the hard way. Because it’s a slippery slope. First there’s peanut butter and honey sandwiches, then there’s peanut butter and pickles.

Before long, you’ve branched out into condiments and there’s ketchup on your Cheetos and popcorn. Shame not the boy I was: admire the man it hardened me into.

The first of Pop-Tarts’ two* new** Splitz varieties is far less risky—sugar cookies and brownies are long-time alumni of Grandma’s Dessert Table University—but it doesn’t necessarily mean the two are better together.

I mean, one was voted Most Creative (because of the icing) and the other was voted Biggest Stoner.

Of course, the only way to test these two’s flavor chemistry is to hunker down on the couch with a box and hope my pants down split three pastries later. A paramedic with a sewing machine is on hand.

*The other is Strawberry Cheesecake.

*Not entirely new: P-T Splitz were born and killed a decade ago in more boring flavors.

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Review: Malt-O-Meal French Toasters Cereal

Malt-O-Meal French Toasters Cereal Review Bag

Malt-O-Meal definitely lives in an alternate universe—an alternate timeline, if you will. In this version of breakfast reality, Cookie Crisp was less corny, Count Chocula never changed after the ’90s, and Post didn’t release Oreo O’s first—that’s like America losing the Space Race!

Oh, and French Toast Crunch’s squared form survived Y2K.

What do I mean? Well if you recall, French Toast Crunch—the clear ancestor of Malt-O-Meal’s French Toasters—started as bread shapes, changed to curved, Cinnamon Toast Crunch-like swirled squares, then disappeared (or at least disappeared to the Canadian tundras, where they remained available through 2012) until their 2015 rebirth. Yet now, here’s French Toast Crunch bizarro cousin, keeping tradition alive.

It took me too long to find this cereal (it came out a year ago—but my stores haven’t carried it until now. I blame the second coming of bread-shaped cereals), so I’m looking forward to some closure on my search for: it’s time to see if F. T. Crunch’s dark reflection (and I mean that in the best way) can keep its flavor modern.

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Review: Trader Joe’s Crunchy Cinnamon Squares Cereal Milk Chocolate Bar

Trader Joe's Crunchy Cinnamon Squares Milk Chocolate Bar Review

I love cutting out the middle man—or in the case of this Cinnamon Toast Crunch-inspired chocolate bar, cartoon baker.

See, when I eat a healthy(ish) cereal like Trader Joe’s Crunchy Cinnamon Squares, I like to reward myself for making good decisions. I don’t go overboard, and I always aim for balance: I’ll top my hot dogs with pizza (a vegetable), put extra syrup (made from trees!) on my pancakes, or I’ll eat a dozen fun-sized candy bars.

(As they’re objectively the least fun candy bar size, I’m doing the world a favor.)

But now thanks to Trader Joe, I don’t have to waste time between snack(ish) and treat, time that I’d just waste breathing, walking, or *shudder* exercising. By merging their pretty-good Crunchy Cinnamon Squared into an appropriately squared milk chocolate bar, TJ’s has radically optimized my calories-per-minute stats.

No more Homemade Double Decker Mayonnaise Oreos for this happy fella! Continue reading

Review: Trader Joe’s Crunchy Maple Ladders Cereal

Trader Joe's Crunchy Maple Ladders

Falafel and honey.

Hummus and chocolate sauce.

Chana masala and marshmallow fluff.

As you can obviously tell by these obviously real and totally classic flavor combos, pairing chickpeas with sweet flavor is a totally normal and not eyebrow-raising thing to do. I mean, why else would Trader Joe’s make a chickpea, corn, and rice flour cereal flavored with maple syrup? People have definitely probably maybe been roasting garbanzo beans in whipped cream for centuries!

In all seriousness, once you get over the novelty of this psyllium-rich, gluten-free cereal’s ingredients, the more baffling question is: why ladders? Trader Joe’s site poses this explanation:

“Does every morning feel like an uphill climb? Is breakfast a bore, a chore, or—worse—a battle? We hear you. In fact, we’ve been there. So, to help make that sluggish, uphill climb feel more like a victorious ascent, we’ve created another great breakfast cereal.”

But that seems like a stretch to me. If they wanted to make a cereal shaped like something morning-friendly, they could have make crunchy coffee cups, chewy snooze alarms, or crispy traffic-free commutes. But no, instead we have these ladders, which look like modernized Graham Crackos that migrated to Canada.* As a certified maple fanatic who is seriously considering a French Toast Crunch tattoo, I’m ready to see if these ladders can climb up to my lofty standards. Continue reading

Review: Steak ‘n Shake Froot Loops Milkshake

Toucan Sam himself always told kids to “follow your nose!” And I’m glad he did, because I’ve got a good nose for B.S. (Bumbling Shenanigans).

What do I mean by this? Oh, just the last 5/11 of Steak ‘n Shake’s name. For a place that prides itself on its arctic milk products, presumably made by milking polar bears, a lot of Steak ‘n Shake’s milkshakes seem a little lazy—almost as lazy as putting only one apostrophe on a truncated conjunction that deserves two.

But that’s none of my fast food business, I say while sipping a milkshake like it’s hot tea.

The shakes, on the other hand, are my bloggerly business, and time and time again, I’ve been disappointed by S&S shakes that don’t make the most of their ingredients, instead seemingly dusting chunks of M&M’s, Kit Kats, Cocoa Krispies, or otherwise, when the more logical thing to use would be a flavored ice cream base.

This is why I’m remaining tentatively skeptical of the chain’s new Froot Loops Shake: joining a quintet of other breakfast flavors, this dairy concoction is far from daring. Not only has it been done before, but this Froot Loops Shake has huge talons to fill, as last year’s Burger King Froot Loops Shake was a fantastic tropical elixir infused with magical cereal syrup.

I don’t expect Steak ‘n Shake to use fancy strawberry ice cream or anything, but are a few pumps of mysterious fruit goo too much to ask? Continue reading

Review: Honey Oh’s Cereal

Honey Oh's Cereal Review Box

To paraphrase Heath Ledger’s Joker: “Release a new cereal, and no one panics. Tweak the recipe of an old cereal, and everyone loses their minds!”

Yes, these past couple years have seen a mass vocalization of irritated cereal fans, many of which seem to think teh very fabric of their remembered childhood is under attack by greedy, scheming cereal companies who are corrupting their favorite breakfasts and effectively erasing their personal history in the process.

While some cereal formula changes may be done to save cash, some, like Honeycomb and Trix, have merely been misguided attempts to make cereals all natural—which companies think consumers want. And though diehard fans shut down those last two changes with cries of “the naturalness of my cereal is none of your beeswax!” and “silly General Mills, Trix are for artificial colors more technicolored than Joseph’s dreamcoat!” other cereals, like Alpha-Bits and now Honey Oh’s remain metamorphosed into something new altogether.

This is all to say that cereal companies should probably keep their Tony-sized paws off the classics, and consumers should probably be more clear about what the heck they want out of their morning meals. But while that debate will doubtlessly roll on until my comments section is quarantined by the CDC, I finally found these newly formulated Honey Oh’s for review.

Formerly known as “Honey Graham Oh’s” or “Honey Graham Oh My Goodness They’re So Good But Leave My Mouth Torn To Shred’s,” these new rings dared to remove graham from one my own favorite cereals. I’ll remain un-opinionated until I try them, but there is one thing I’ll say for sure: Post better have shipped their leftover graham flour to the Teddy Grahams factory. Continue reading

Review: Vanilla Milkshake Pop-Tarts (2018)

Kellogg's Frosted Vanilla Milkshake Pop-Tarts Review Box

Snack to the future!

Unless you’ve been living under a Fraggle Rock, you’ve probably noticed that food and beverage companies are capitalizing on America’s recent wave of nostalgia—a yearning for the ’80s, ’90s, and in the case of Vanilla Milkshake Pop-Tarts, even the early 2000s—brought on by the cruel world we live in now that’s so nonsensical it would nominate Boss Baby for an Oscar.

Yes, from Crystal Pepsi and Oreo O’s to Ecto-Cooler and Chicken Fries, Big Foodstuff has been throwbacking so hard the chiropractic industry has been thriving. The only thing missing now is Planters PB Crisps, the last two pieces of which have been spotted dangling from the back of Mr. Peanut’s Silverado.

And while all those wacky retro fonts and radical blurbs of pandering marketing copy are starting to get old, I support this snack-studded nostalgia trip if it means I keep getting to taste revived old Pop-Tarts like Vanilla Milkshake. Originally released in 2008, Vanilla Milkshake recently re-debuted alongside Strawberry Milkshake, and thanks to my region’s award-winningly slow-to-stock-new-things Walmarts (where Vanilla Milkshake is an exclusive flavor), I only finally found them this week.

So while a budding lactose intolerance keeps me from enjoying real vanilla milkshakes (almond milk, ftw), now I can live vicariously through these frosted ravioli. And yes, that’s the last time I’ll ever make a “Pop-Tarts are ravioli” joke. Continue reading