Category Archives: Reviews

Review: Pop-Tarts Bites (Strawberry & Brown Sugar Cinnamon!)

Understanding the pervasive appeal of Pop-Tarts Bites is easy:

Would you rather have a bite of pie, or a bite of entire pie?
A red Skittle or a concentrated rainbow pill?
The east wall of a gingerbread house, or the entire 20-acre gingerbread farm?

My point is that while any individual bite of a Pop-Tart—which maxes out at around a quarter-Tart in extreme cases, or at least in my own—cannot possibly contain the same measured deliciousness as the entirety of a Pop-Tart, as in all of the crust and everything inside, in one bite. It’s like having a party-sized pizza, which typically have contentiously hand-soiling Cheese Only slices, vs. a whole-crust-and-kaboodle Pizza Roll.

Yes, Pop-Tarts Bites are tasty enough to surpass my typically quasi-topical recipe for review introductions. These spiritual successors to Pop-Tarts Mini Crisps (née Popsters) naturally come in the toaster pastry brand’s two unshakeable pillars of flavor: Strawberry & Brown Sugar Cinnamon. The de facto Pop-Tarts royal family will begin appearing in all their shrunken glory come January, but for now, I was postally blessed via Kellogg’s with enough pouches to last me ’til Christmas (edit: Christmas Eve) (edit 2: Christmas Eve Eve).

(edit 3: I need to stop eating these)

Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 9 rating, brown sugar, cinnamon, kellogg's, pop-tarts, strawberry. 8 Comments

Dec. ’18

Review: Trader Joe’s Gingerbread Spice Granola

Ginger is the Michael Ironside of spices. That is to say, you may not recognize the flavor on its own, but that spicy rhizome appears in just about every baked worth its sodium bicarbonate. Like the iconically forgotten character actor, ginger is more versatile than a cyborg tardigrade. We’re talking about a guy who has shown up in everything from The A-Team to some project called Lucky’s Treasure, which seems relevant to our interests*.

And like that masterful performer, the absence of ginger is more notable than its presence. It’s no secret that a real gingerbread cereal has been at the top of our wish list for years (no, I refuse to recognize that failed prototype). Like Dan, I’m heavy on anything made of, containing, smelling like, or crafted in the same kitchen as gingerbread. Cookies? Absolutely. Cake? I believe that would be an empty plate you’re holding. Post-Thanksgiving, we’ve officially entered Hansel and Gretel territory until well into February. Trader Joe’s, ever on their seasonal jam, recently dropped this spicy bomb on us: Gingerbread Spice Granola.

As a cereal journalist-slash-critic, I have carefully tempered expectations most of the time. Not here, though. The package art alone is enough to breathe life into my Grinchy sense of objectivity (can we have Michael Ironside in that movie, too? Don’t tell me Col. Dugan harassing some Whovillians wouldn’t be a masterwork). It’s no Gingerbread Toast Crunch, but gingerbread in any form is cause for high hopes. To the bowl! Continue reading →

Posted by jared m.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 6 rating, gingerbread, granola, holiday, trader joe's. Leave a comment

Nov. ’18

Review: Millville Snickerdoodle Kookies Cereal

Is it time for a Cinnamon Toast Coup yet?

Loose crunchologic records suggest the crazy squared cereal’s cinnamon dynasty dates back to roughly the Byzantine era, while recent calcium dating suggests its dominance began way back in the Earth’s primordial soup, wherein the CTC clan of sugar-specked protozoa were the only ones of their kind that didn’t sog into earlier extinction.

Regardless of its origin, there’s little doubt that Cinnamon Toast Crunch is the most popular cinnamon cereal out there. And while I love CTC and its rich pedigree of powdered and breaded breakfast-stuff, I’ve long hoped for a challenger to the throne.

Because if the cinnamon spice must flow, so too must some fresh milk.

Despite Kellogg’s best efforts, they haven’t come close, while Post and Quaker’s strongest cinna-sieges are comfort classics at best. I guess it’s up to Millville, Aldi store-brand underdog and possible puppet organization, to come out of left field with a cinnamon-seasoned seasonal cereal and hopefully blow me away…from my Cinnamon Toast addiction for at least a few merry mouthfuls.

So come, Snickerdoodle Kookies, first of the S. Doodle cereal lineage: show me what you’re really made of, and don’t hold back. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 9 rating, cinnamon, holiday. 8 Comments

Nov. ’18

Review: Chocolatey Winter Lucky Charms

You know that unfortunate person in your life whose birthday tragically falls within a week on either side of Christmas? The one whose cake and ice cream inevitably end up getting rebranded as pumpkin pie and sugar cookies so their family can make a joke about “2-for-1 discounts?”

I have a theory that Lucky the Leprechaun is that person. Why? Because he seems to be thoughtlessly regifting his Chocolate Lucky Charms like someone who’s lived through a spirit-numbing lifetime spent receiving “festive birthday socks.”

Yes, while the Toast Crunch family’s holiday party went off with nationwide fanfare—and probably more than a few interstellar parades, assuming the aliens got my celebratory transmission—Lucky and his band of merry Charms certainly didn’t try to steal Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch’s thunder.

Rather, we’ve been gifted Chocolatey Winter Lucky Charms, a cereal that takes the Chocolate Lucky Charm flavor General Mills has refined for decades, with the, erm, questionable geometry of holiday marshmallows first seen in last year’s Cinnamon Vanilla Lucky Charms.

Despite sounding unique, the Cinnamon Vanilla variety wasn’t terribly compelling. So maybe it’s for the best GM went the safer route: especially since, astoundingly, I haven’t yet reviewed Chocolate Lucky Charms on this blog.

That means I can consider Chocolatey Winter Lucky Charms a gift of opportunity, if not originality. Much like how coal gives a chance for some (very) early summer grilling. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 6 rating, chocolate, general mills, lucky charms, marshmallow. Leave a comment

Nov. ’18

Guest Review: Trader Joe’s Crispy Quinoa Stars Cereal

break·fes·sion
/ˈbrekˈfeSHən/

noun

Noun: breakfession; plural noun: breakfessions
a formal admission of guilt for violating cereal orthodoxy

“He signed a breakfession to mixing orange juice with Cocoa Puffs. He shall be milkboarded until sunrise as penance.”

Deep breath, Jared. You can do this.

Fellow cereal heads, I have to own up to something. This goes against every sacred principle our people hold. I won’t blame you for pelting me with marbits and extruded grains of various magical configurations. But I can’t go on hiding in the pantry like this. (Literally, because it’s very small and there are, like, fifteen boxes of cereal in there. Plus potential spiders.)

Friends. I don’t like Lucky Charms.

I know. I get it! Just hear me out. The substance of Lucky’s original treasure is about as bland as it gets. Even Corn Flakes at least taste like their eponymous source material, so you can throw a mushy hoedown while contemplating the familial history of Cornelius the Rooster and the NBC peacock. What, you’ve never noticed the obvious resemblance? Something tells me Miss Prissy wasn’t the only fryer in Foghorn’s coop.

The cardboard bits turn to mush and distract from the marshmallows which, while fun, have no taste other than straight fructose. There’s no complexity going on here. Sorry, Lucky, but your two-note song just doesn’t groove me.

So when Dan drew my Trader Joe’s-loving attention to Crispy Quinoa Stars, I was less-than-enthused. The box image immediately trips my ingrained Charms avoidance. These crispy crucibles of the known periodic table look just like the dry kibble that makes LCs such a chore to eat. But, hey, a cereal journalist has obligations, and the people need to know. So let’s fly through the cerealsphere to TJ’s in my (used, beat-up, Honda) rocket ship! Continue reading →

Posted by jared m.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 7 rating, quinoa, trader joe's. 1 Comment

Oct. ’18

Review: 5 Otees Cereal Flavors (from South Africa!)

Box photos courtesy of Gabe Fonseca

Like it or not, sometimes American breakfast aisles can be an echo chamber of crunches. For every truly novel new cereal flavor we get, there are probably half a dozen or more slight refractions of tried and true favorite flavors: chocolate, peanut butter, strawberry, a perennial genealogy of seasonal variants, and so forth. I get it, it’s low risk, reliable reward business, but sometimes I just want to meet the type of fascinating cereal that will blow my mind and taste buds right out of my head, before picking up my essential organs from the floor, returning them, and politely apologizing like a true cereal gentleman.

And often to do this, we have to look beyond our typical pantry borders.

I was first tipped off about Otees by some cereal fan FB group chatter, and two of the South African cereal brand’s flavors stuck out to me: Bubblegum and Creme Soda. I’d never think to see those flavors on U.S. shelves for like 10 years, given the creeping rate of current innovation, yet Bokomo, a company neither Cereal Time‘s Gabe Fonseca nor I could find much about outside of an old commercial, despite it being South Africa’s biggest cereal producer, has released both. I’m glad Gabe is as interested in these unique flavors as I, because after being sent all 5 Otees boxes for his collection by a kind cereal fan, Gabe generously donated some surplus cereal so we could both give our thoughts on the taste.

So without further exposé or delay, let’s get to chewing for an indefinite length of time (I’m looking at you, Bubblegum).

Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: international. 3 Comments

Oct. ’18

Review: Trader Joe’s Caramel Apple Flavored Granola

2018 has been weird. Here at the C.R.U.N.C.H. Tactical Headquarters (Cerealously Research Unified Network for Communications and Hijinks), there’s an eerie calm this Halloween season. As the big Monster Cereals anniversary coincides with Kellogg’s spoony decision to again throw down the gauntlet-shaped marbit, I at least expected to see some excitement. And yet most major news has centered on either the Festivus season or Pop-Tarts’ yeasty second rise to prominence.

So without much in the way of fresh Halloween bowls to plunder, my autumn-obsessed gaze turns to secondary flavors. Just like how Charlie Brown’s Christmas and Great Pumpkin escapades eclipse the rest of his oeuvre (I’ll always remember you, It’s Dental Flossophy, Charlie Brown), certain taste profiles are overshadowed by pumpkin spice’s ubiquity. But what’s a hayride at the pumpkin patch without cider and caramel apples? A new challenger approaches, and it has seriously rosy cheeks.

Trader Joe’s Caramel Apple Flavored Granola makes a bold promise. Cinnamon apple is one thing, but caramel? Joe may have gotten himself into a sticky situation. Reviews like this can result in quite a pun-undrum.

Yep, that just happened. Continue reading →

Posted by jared m.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 7 rating, apple, caramel, granola, trader joe's. 1 Comment

Oct. ’18

Review: Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch (2018)

We are gathered here today to mourn the loss of a breakfast star.

Our dearly departed Cinnamon Star Crunch, who will remain in our hearts, minds, and stomach memories forever, lived a short life. Only on shelves for the 2016 holiday season, the tragically young crunchy cinnamon stars have now died a second death.

To paraphrase Banksy, who, like the palate-tearing stars, enjoys shredding things, “They say you’re discontinued twice. Once when you stop crunching and the second, a bit later on, when somebody mentions your limited edition existence for the last time.”

You see, now that Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch, the ivory-sugared golden boy of holiday seasons 2015 & 2016, has returned to the delight of many, its deliciously

raw (yet processed) yuletide impact will likely wipe Cinnamon Star Crunch from our collective cultural memory. It’s up to we few remaining cereal historians to preserve the cereal’s name, and its sort of, well, uniquely, umm…it tasted like cinnamon, right?

Wait, what am I doing in this black suit and tie? I’ve got Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch to eat! Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 9 rating, holiday, toast crunch. 3 Comments