Tag Archives: 7 rating

Review: Malt-O-Meal & Coldstone Creamery Birthday Cake Remix Cereal

Malt-O-Meal Cold Stone Creamery Birthday Cake Remix Cereal review box

Okay, here’s the scoop:

I’ve wanted to start out a review with “here’s the scoop” since I started this blog.

There, now that I got that out of the way, here’s the review:

Birthday Cake Remix is one half—alongside Our Strawberry Blonde—of a landmark partnership between Malt-O-Meal, classically known for their economy-sized cereal bags, not for their industry clout, and Cold Stone Creamery, a left-field ice cream chain with about as much breakfast aisle experience as Meow Mix.

Seriously, this is about as expected as Malt-O-Meal teaming up with Stone Cold Steve Austin to release “And That’s The Bottom Lime” cereal.

So not only does Malt-O-Meal & Cold Stone’s Birthday Cake Remix open the door for other zany cross-category cereals in the future (I’m lookin’ at you, Insomnia Cookies), but it also opens my mouth.

For cereal to enter.

Because I’m ready to eat it now.

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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: 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: 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: Peach Cheerios Cereal

New Peach Cheerios Cereal Review Box

You have to feel bad for the humble peach.

It’s spent countless millennia and evolutionary paths to become perfectly shaped and juicily flavored for consumption. Yet we buffoonish humans just laugh at it. Because it kind of looks like a fuzzy booty.

Well I’m here to be your champion, my peachy friend. I’m very proud of you for becoming the star of General Mills’ latest limited edition Cheerios variety—a feat I imagine requires multiple levels of American Idol-style performances that would leave lesser fruit crying into their crisper drawers.

Suck it, durian: no one wants prickly, smelly Cheerios.

So now that you’re joining the proud lineage of fruit pyramid-friendly flavors like Strawberry and Pumpkin Spice, no one will be able to mock you any more, or to make you the butt of many jokes. I won’t allow it.

No ifs, ands, or butts. Continue reading

Review: Birthday Cake Cookie Crisp Cereal

New Birthday Cake Cookie Crisp Cereal Review Box

Happy Birthday, Cereal! I made you a milk-filled cake, invited your friends Oatmeal and Toaster Pastry, and even put up your favorite ring-shaped strea—

Wait, you’re telling me National Cereal Day doesn’t commemorate the birth of cereal: the moment so many years ago when a prehistoric oat plant miraculously popped out a Cheerio? Man, I went to the wrong Sunday school.

Regardless, I can’t let this National Cereal Day pass without reviewing something birthday cake flavored. It’s just too convenient that General Mills’ Birthday Cake Cookie Crisp arrived on my doorstep (thanks GM!) just in time for the big day. An odd duck—or at least a lone wolf—of a new cereal, Birthday Cake Cookie crips has ironically debuted with little fanfare or celebration. I was at least expecting a downtown NYC jubilee featuring a giant cookie-shaped cake that some B list celebrity would pop out of.

Now I’ll have to fulfill my dream of seeing Brad Garrett covered in buttercream some other way.

This cereal looks suspiciously similar to both 2009’s Sprinkles Cookie Crisp and 2016’s Holiday Sprinkles Cookie Crisp, but until we get a proper revival of O.G. Vanilla Cookie Crisp—I’m talkin’ bearded Cookie Jarvis and all—I’ll happily give any cake, pastry, muffin, or even donut-flavored Cookie Crisp a try.

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Review: Ideal Oats Oatmeal – 3 Flavors!

ideal-oats-oatmeal-review

Look, oatmeal is no one’s idea of ideal.

Sure, it’s healthy, wholesome, warm, nourishing, and all that jazz, but it’s also ugly. Those moist, lumpy, and occasional drippy beige chunks? Second only to canned tuna on my list of “tasty foods I’d swipe left on if Betty Crocker made a dating app.”

That’s why I’m giving props to Ideal Oats for trying to glamorize, or at least revolutionize, the classic breakfast with a face for radio. Billed as “Oatmeal, Reinvented,” Ideal Oats not only aims to help the fitness-conscious with 20g of protein per, but it also aims to overthrow the oatmeal aisle oligopoly of Apple Cinnamon and Maple Brown Sugar by bringing in never-before-seen flavors.

Needless to say, as someone whose recent exercise log primarily consists of long walks to the back of the grocery store to buy more Reese’s Cup coffee creamer, it’s the flavors that make most excited for this review.

All three cups featured below were sent to me by Ideal Oats, but I promise the freeness of the oats won’t influence my review. When it comes to peanut butter and bananas, I don’t lie: not after the infamous “Mario Kart PB&J Incident of 2008.”

I’m still finding tear-stained crumbs in my carpet. Continue reading

Quick Review: Great Grains Coconut Almond Crunch Cereal

Post Great Grains Coconut Almond Crunch Cereal Review Box

The coconut is an odd organism.

A sphere of tropical water protected by a hairy rind so thick you could clock a cartoon character ‘cross the noggin without cracking it, the coconut as an edible fruit takes a backseat to the thing’s most iconic purposes: flavoring piña coladas, serving as a hula girl brassiere, and signaling the entrance of an invisible horse.

Yet the coconut’s incomparable flavor has still developed a cult following—most people either hate coconut, are indifferent about it, or go absolutely cuckoo and nuts about it, rubbing its various oils and butters over their face, arms, and…uh…upside-down cakes.

That’s why every time a coconut cereal comes out, I applaud it. It must be a risk for the company involved, yet it’s still a rare treat that lets me have a breakfast luau without busting out the maple-glazed pig roast.

Case in point: I’m excited to review Great Grains Coconut Almond Crunch, because two nuts are better than one.

Wait…no. I take that back! Continue reading