Category Archives: Reviews

Review: International Delight Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Coffee Creamer

If you’re like me, coffee is as much a cornerstone of every balanced breakfast as a bowl of cereal—and the two pair perfectly like yin and yang. Seriously: just picture a yin yang, with one half being coffee with a dab of cream and the other being milk with a single Cocoa Puff.

My love affair with bitter coffee and sweet cereal is pervasive, so much so that I couldn’t resist reviewing a buzz-worthy new coffee product that brings all the whimsical childhood spirit of a breakfast cereal into the comparatively adult territory of caffeinated beverage flavor-enhancing agents: International Delight’s new Reese’s Cup Coffee Creamer.

I hope you’ll forgive me for not reviewing an overtly cereal-related product on this blog—though I promise this post will end in me pouring the stuff on cereal—but I’ve been meaning to branch my content topics into other breakfast staples, too. If you hate this idea, let me know in the comments. Or if you love this idea and want me to tackle Eggo waffles, scrambled eggs, or scrambled egg-stuffed Eggo waffles next, let me know that, too.

But while you gather your spoons and pitchforks, let’s revel in some socially acceptable liquid candy! Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 7 rating, chocolate, non cereal, peanut butter. 7 Comments

Aug. ’17

Review: Quaker Multigrain Flakes Cereal – Honey Vanilla

Can you feel it, fellow breakfast clubbers?

We’re at the epicenter of a Quakerquake.

Much like the seismic phenomenon from which it draws its name, a Quakerquake is a tough to predict event that really shakes up the norm. It occurs when Quaker, on a whim, decides to release an onslaught of new products—often of shaky quality—to flood the breakfast aisle with various tan boxes that look identical to the company’s other thousand oatmeal receptacles. This is why aftershocks of a Quakerquake will often be felt months later: they leave the “NEW” label on their flavors so long, you won’t know whether the antioxidant-rich. steel-cut. all-natural apple cinnamon oatmeal came before or after the gluten-free, sugar-free, enjoyment-free apple cinnamon.

I guess with babies (and suckers) born every day, oatmeal is always bound to be new to someone.

Long story short, these new Quaker Honey Vanilla Multigrain Flakes are from the cereal arm of Quaker’s latest a-Quake-ening. It debuts alongside Cranberry Apple Multigrain Flakes and Oats & Honey with Vanilla & Pecan Granola. I chose to review this one first, because even though Cran-Apple is more autumnal, last week’s Shredded Wheat burnt me out on fruit, while the granola simply has too many ampersands to be trusted.

Plus, granola is barely cereal anyway. It’s like that weird cousin who ate gravel in kindergarten. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, honey, quaker, vanilla. 7 Comments

Aug. ’17

Review: Frosted Mixed Berry Shredded Wheat Cereal

Well, well, well: here we are again, Shredded Wheat.

My first experience with one of Shredded Wheat’s new trilogy of flavors, which not-so-subtly tries top compete with Frosted Mini-Wheats by, well, frosting the brand’s iconic miniature wheat biscuits and stuffing (allegedly) flavorful stuff inside, was cosmically bland. I swore I wouldn’t try another flavor. I started smashing all square and/or thatched things in my apparent. I even told people I was allergic to wheat—just the sight of it, not the taste.

But after being coerced by a trusted source to give this Mixed Berry variety a try, and after (unsurprisingly) failing to find Count Chocula when it’s still hot enough out to boil swimming pools into holy water, I find myself staring at a bowlful of vaguely mauve biscuits.

Alright, Shredded Wheat. Let’s do this. Just don’t forget: bore me once, shame on you. Bore me twice, I’m going to start crank-calling the National Wheat Foundation out of juvenile spite. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 6 rating, blueberry, post, raspberry, shredded wheat, strawberry. 4 Comments

Aug. ’17

Review: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bites

Before eating Generals Mills’ new Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bites, you are required—by intergalactic law, I’m assuming—to listen to Yello’s ’80s hit “Oh Yeah” and mentally replace all instances of the words “Ohhh yeahhh” with “Doughhh yeahhh.” Only then may these goo-oozing (goozing for short) Cinnamon Toast Crunch-specked doughnut holes roll off your plate and directly onto your taste buds.

Okay fine, if you have poor wi-fi or are enjoying your Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bites from a submarine, the Parisian Catacombs, or a coffin you were prematurely placed in—alongside your favorite microwave—I’ll give you the pass on the song. But since these microwaveable freezer aisle treats are one of the season’s most hyped-up cereal confections, they deserve some sort of ceremony.

So while you arrange the cinnamon scented candles into a doughnut shape with an effigy of Dunkin’ Donuts’ Fred the Baker in the middle, I’ll ceremoniously devour mine. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, cinnamon, general mills, non cereal, toast crunch. 1 Comment

Aug. ’17

Review: Trader Joe’s Organic Purple Maize Flakes

Ha, purple corn? Yeah, right.

What’s next? Purple carrots? Purple Doritos? Purple ketchup? That’ll be the day!

Oh, what’s that? You say all four of those things have existed before? Deep down, I knew it all along. After all, I was (and pretty much still am) that weirdo kid who would’ve happily dipped his purple Doritos in purple ketchup had the two existed concurrently.

(Staggering the releases of Heinz EZ Squirt and Doritos Rainbows by a decade and a half must’ve been a deliberate move by the junk food deities made for our protection.)

And it’s because I am such an oddball snack-loving goofball that I’m excited to try Trader Joe’s newest cereal: Organic Purple Maize Flakes. And it’s because I love the color purple so much that it took me until I got home from Trader Joe’s to realize the Hendrixian pun in this product’s name—I spent the entire car ride with visions of Grimace and Oprah all in my brain. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 4 rating, trader joe's. 17 Comments

Jul. ’17

Review: Quaker Overnight Oats – Toasted Coconut & Almond Crunch

Is it just me, or has the humble coconut been having a quietly nutty couple years in the breakfast aisle?

Before 2016, we rarely saw the milk-stuffed tropical sphere appear at breakfast time—unless we watched Monty Python’s Holy Grail while eating our Saturday morning munchies—but now it seems like every Girl Scout, superfood, and massive anthropomorphized consonant is paying homage to the fruit with translucent slivers of coconutty love. I can’t say for certain just why there’s been a coconut resurgence. Perhaps it’s piggybacking off the coconut oil fad, but I like to believe it’s because Super Mario Sunshine’s 15th anniversary is next month.

Regardless, it unfortunately doesn’t feel like any recent coconut breakfast food really nails the coconut experience—Nature’s Path’s latest Love Crunch flavor comes closest, but even then, the dark chocolate is the star of the show.

I know what you’re probably thinking: “Oh, since this is his introduction to a Toasted Coconut & Almond Crunch Overnight Oats review, that must mean this new Quaker product finally breaks the ‘weak coconut streak’ like a cracked coconut over a marooned cartoon islander’s head!”

Wrong. Sorry to break the bad news, like a cracked coconut broken over a…you know…but this second flavor of Quaker Overnight Oats I’ve tried (after the borderline heavenly Raisin Walnut & Honey Heaven) doesn’t get coconut right, either. But what it does get right is that other nut in its name. Boy, does it ever. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 7 rating, almond, coconut, non cereal, oatmeal, quaker. 4 Comments

Jul. ’17

Review: Quaker Overnight Oats – Raisin Walnut & Honey Heaven

I don’t remember learning about Raisin Walnut & Honey Heaven in Sunday school. Is that where young folks who like to eat breakfast like senior citizens go when they die? If so, the whatever higher power is up there can hurry up and smite me, because there’s nothing I secretly love more than eating bowls full of fibrous cereal and grapes that got the shrunken head treatment.

Hey, something’s gotta balance out all the Cinnamon Toast Crunch I eat, um, for science.

Yes, Raisin Walnut & Honey Heaven was my natural first choice when presented with Quaker’s four new Overnight Oat flavors. The little cups of oats, which you’re supposed to pour milk on and refrigerate for 6+ hours before eating (my condolences to the world’s insomniacs), also come in Toasted Coconut & Almond Crunch, Blueberry Banana & Vanilla Bliss, and Orchard Peach Pecan Perfection.

Why each flavor sounds so euphoric and zen, I don’t know, but I do know I’ll now forever picture the Quaker Oat guy’s face on the Buddha’s plumply smiling body. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, non cereal, oatmeal, quaker, raisin. 4 Comments

Jul. ’17

Review: Nature’s Path Love Crunch Dark Chocolate Macaroon Cereal

In this era of snarky infographics and predacious BuzzFeedian BuzzFoodies, it’s hard for anyone to mistake the difference between a macaroon and a French macaron anymore—though I’d argue that it’s much easier to confuse the French macaron with French president Emmanuel Macron.

Yes, everyone, their grandma, and their hyperintelligent pet ape who will one day overthrow humanity or at least star in a memorable sitcom knows that a macaroon is a shredded and toasted mound of sweet, sweet coconut, while a macaron is an ethereal pastel hamburger made of almond flour, powdered sugar, and filling pipetted with the care of a hummingbird whisperer.

And even though I knew this, just like Caesar, I’m still upset that Nature Path’s newest Love Crunch Cereal is Dark Chocolate Macaroon and not Dark Chocolate Macaron. Yes, that cereal would probably just taste like Chocolate Cheerios, but it’s the principle of the thing! I want colorfully crunchy cereal sliders so small White Castle would sell them by the Crave Catamaran!

But fine: I’ll sop up my tears with a bowl of this expensive, though likely delicious Love Crunch Cereal. Despite costing $4 and containing hardly enough cereal per box to feed a hummingbird whisperer’s daily clientele, the first Love Crunch Cereal I tried blew me—nay, propelled me—away with raw sumptuousness.

Now that I’ve got a safety net behind, let’s get with the propelling, Dark Chocolate Macaroon! Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 9 rating, chocolate, coconut, nature's path. 3 Comments