Category Archives: Reviews

Review: Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios Cereal from General Mills

I’ve long had a theory that every cereal a person could ever need can be formed through a triangulation of three “primary flavors.” The three corners of this Cerealluminati Pyramid (working title) are formed by chocolate, peanut butter, and strawberry. Think about it, ~~sheeple~~ people: while those three flavors are near-universally delightful by themselves, by pairing them you can make a choco-pb cereal, a PB&J cereal, or a chocolate fondued strawberry cereal.

And if you happen to find some hipster niche of cereal lovers that isn’t pleased by any of those, you can just combine all three and tear a rift in space-time through sheer flavor alchemy.

New Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios are proof that my philosophy of breakfast geometry isn’t so obtuse after all—in fact, it’s pretty acute. See, even though General Mills has a near-monopoly on chocolate peanut butter breakfast cereals with Reese’s Puffs, they still decided to release another cocoa-nutty product. That’s because, as a key bastion of my Cerealluminati Pyramid, the mouth-watering power of chocolate and peanut butter together really is that persuasively strong.

Unless, of course, my deeper conspiracy is true, in which case the prophecy of threes has yet to be fulfilled:

Conspiracy theory:
Those Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios are holed-out Reese's Puffs, so the holes can be used for a Reese's Pieces Cereal.

— Cerealously 🥛🥣 (@cerealouslynet) October 8, 2017

But allow me to trade in my tinfoil hat for an equally shiny spoonand dig in—if I’m gonna be a nutcase, I’d rather be a peanutcase. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 10 rating, cheerios, chocolate, general mills, peanut butter. 14 Comments

Oct. ’17

Review: Quaker Gingerbread Spice Life Cereal

October 14th, 2017: the day Dan finally shut up about wanting a gingerbread cereal.

Yes, this is a landmark day—literally: the spot where I excitedly stamped my feet upon tasting Gingerbread Spice Life Cereal is now craterous enough to be deemed a geologic point of interest. I’ve begged for a gingerbread cereal (Gingerbread Toast Crunch, to be more specific, but gingerbeggars can’t be choosers) since the first year I had enough teeth to eat both a gingerbread man and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. And after decades of disappointment, that stoically grinning Quaker Oats guy must have finally felt my annoying laments reverberate through his 2-dimensional cardboard plane, because we now have Gingerbread Spice Life Cereal: America’s first ever gingerbread breakfast cereal.

I told myself I’d wait ’til winter months to review this stuff, since i have so many autumn treats to write about, but pumpkin spice and caramel apple be damned: if I don’t give my inner child this one, he’s going to beat my internal organs with a whiffle ball bat and a pair of Sock’em Boppers. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 7 rating, gingerbread, holiday, life, quaker. 8 Comments

Oct. ’17

Review: Burger King Cinnamon Toast Crunch Shake

Lucky number seven, everyone.

That’s right: Burger King’s Cinnamon Toast Crunch Shake is the seventh cereal milkshake I’ve reviewed in the year 2017. In fact, it’s the seventh cereal milkshake I’ve reviewed ever.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch is a top candidate for Most-Beloved Cereal Ever. Alongside, Honey Nut Cheerios, Frosted Flakes, and Cap’n Crunch, it’s a cult classic—and for good reason: it’s got cinnamon sugar swirls in every bite. It’s the taste you can see!

Well now it’s the taste you can suck, too, thanks to Burger King. I don’t know how it took so long for the Meat-Puck Maestro to adapt this fan favorite, but I’m glad he did. The cylindrical ivory tower standing before me, adorned with an ethereal whipped cream peak and filled with modest beige freckles, is certainly an unassuming beast, but I’m ready to take down its pasteurized soft-serve Walls of Jericho with my plastic reverse-trumpet.

Or as some call it, “a straw.” Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 9 rating, cinnamon, non cereal, toast crunch. 1 Comment

Oct. ’17

Review: Steak ‘n Shake Breakfast Cereal Shakes (Cocoa Krispies & Frosted Flakes)

As I patiently wait for my local Burger King to stock their new Cinnamon Toast Crunch Shake—hurry up, Mr. Beef Royalty: it’s cold waiting out in this tent made of Whopper wrappers—I figured I’d finish my review series of Steak ‘n Shake’s menagerie of breakfast cereal-infused arctic beverages.

When we last left our humble, shake-sucking heroes, they had polished off Cinnamon Crunch and Honey Smacks Shakes at an ungodly hour under the gaze of Sauron-tinted neon lights and nearby angst-tinged teenagers. I recommend you read Part 1, if you haven’t already, because I don’t want to re-tread too much old ground in this post—after all, my stomach still hurts from the whole “mildly lactose intolerant” thing.

The things I do for breakfast journalism.

In short, though, the shakes were good, but BK’s shakes were superior in every way, on account of them actually mixing in syrupy cereal ~~magic~~ syrup instead of just plopping cereal pieces on top. This could’ve put the kibosh on my pasteurized odyssey, but the Steak ‘n Shake waiter said Cocoa Krispies and Frosted Flakes were by far the most popular flavors. Tempted by this forbidden fruit (“Frosted” is a fruit, right?), I set off with my shake-craving sidekick once more to put that waiter’s money where my dairy-sensitive gastrointestinal system is.

Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 4 rating, 9 rating, chocolate, frosted flakes, kelloggs, rice krispies. 3 Comments

Oct. ’17

Review: Franken Berry Cereal (2017)

For those about to ~~rock~~ read my third annual review of the exact same cereal, we salute you!

Listen, Frank. Can I call you Frankie? Francis? Franco-Prussian War?

You know I love you, man. It’s true, it’s true: I tell people I love the taste of Count Chocula the best—not counting my estranged (emphasis on the strange) love, Fruity Yummy Mummy, who’s currently jamming to “Walk Like an Egyptian” in some funky undead pyramid disco in the sky.

But from an aesthetic standpoint, I like you best. I promise. No I don’t mean you, you. Let’s be real here: Boo Berry is both suaver and cuter in his debonair porkpie hat. I’d let him take me to the Poltergeist Prom any day. No way my father would let me get picked up by a pink dude with steampunk apparatuses on his neck. We live in the clean energy age, Francesco.

But your cereal? Those neon pink ghosts and pastel marshmallows? The pastel marshmallows that make the whole thing feel like a Taiwanese night market?
Hoo, doggy! Or should I say, A-WOO, werewolfy!

François, your artificially strawberry-flavored cereal is the prettiest I’ve ever seen. I’d hang it on my refrigerator if it contained enough magnesium per serving (I don’t understand how magnets work). But for now, I have to eat it. So let’s forget about the Count, forget that I just swooned so hard over Boo Berry that I crashed through your coffee table, and let’s have Franken Berry for breakfast. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 5 rating, general mills, halloween, monster cereals, strawberry. 14 Comments

Sep. ’17

Review: Steak ‘n Shake Breakfast Cereal Milkshakes (Cinnamon Crunch & Honey Smacks)

Whoever first decided to pair milkshakes with cereal deserves a monument. Only a giant marble shake cup will do, preferably filled with liquid platinum and gold nuggets to stand in for soft serve-soaked cereal nibs. It’s an unexpectedly genius idea: sure, cereal and milk have an esteemed history, but you don’t generally associate an indulgent dessert like a milkshake with anything breakfast related—unless you had a bad night at the casino and want to make one last terrible 4am choice.

Now I may revoke my celebration of the breakfast shake’s inventor if this confection enables the shuddersome creation of cereal-infused cheese, but for now, let’s celebrate this golden age of shakes by uniting sugared cereals and cold cream cylinders in holy gastro-matrimony—at a place that’s literally 50% founded on milkshakes.

Yes, Steak ‘n Shake has 5 new Breakfast Shakes—technically 4, because one is Caramel Latte and you can tell the other shakes are only bringing him along because their moms made them (I’ve been there, buddy…as Caramel Latte). I intend to review all of them—Frosted Flakes, Cocoa Krispies, Cinnamon Crunch, and Honey Smacks—eventually, but based on how late my shake-seeking partner and I made it to The House of Beef and Lactose, I didn’t want to be up until 4am with a sugar-addled brain and an abdomen swollen to the size of a cow’s first three stomachs.

Because at that point, I’d feel terrible enough to go back for a fifth. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 6 rating, 7 rating, cinnamon, honey, kelloggs, non cereal. Leave a comment

Sep. ’17

Review: Quaker Green Apple Fig Oatmeal with Antioxidants

“Aw, I gotta play with that guy??” Green Apple whines. “But Mom, he’s totally uncool! Fig always gets picked last when we play fruitball—a total poindexter.”

Yes, I imagine figs as the unpopular kid in the brutal playground hierarchy of the personified fruit world. I mean, fig has what: fancy mostarda and some under-celebrated cookies named after the inventor of calculus? I don’t blame you, Green Apple: if Momma Quaker forced me to go on a playdate with Fig, I’d turn sour too.

Yet here we are anyway: about to dive into a steaming bowl of Quaker’s newest instant oatmeal flavor: Green Apple Fig. If you’re wondering why I’m using so many colons in this review, the answer’s simple: with 4 grams of fiber and enough infused antioxidants to take a true crime TV channel off the air, this Green Apple Fig oatmeal is all about the colon.

And now that we’ve gotten my token crude joke out of the way, let’s dig in! Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 5 rating, apple, non cereal, oatmeal, quaker. 3 Comments

Sep. ’17

Review: Nature’s Path Love Crunch Dark Chocolate Cinnamon & Cashew Granola

We should all be thankful for nuts.

Yes, from squirrels and industrial fasteners to Eddie Murphy professors and Link from The Legend of Zelda in a Deku forest, the humble nut has helped us do a lot of cool things—whether it’s put together cars or make a whole movie based on flatulence jokes.

Heck, without the nut, my favorite breakfast pastries would just be called “do’s.”

Nature’s Path obviously understands the under-celebrated nut, because their Love Crunch Dark Chocolate Cinnamon & Cashew Granola, which has a name so long that typing it is giving my fingers biceps, is the nuttiest granola I’ve ever had. And I don’t mean nutty like “gee lads, let’s get nutty and do backflips off a suspension bridge,” though putting chocolate and cinnamon together is pretty bold.

But is the taste of these nutty nuggets worth toasting, or Comedy Central Roast-ing? Let’s find out. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, chocolate, granola, nature's path, nut. Leave a comment