Tag Archives: 8 rating

Review: Trader Joe’s Hot Cocoa Frosted Toaster Pastries

If bizarre sci-fi television series from the ’90s have taught me anything, it’s that there are parallel versions of this world couched in other universes. Some have minor differences, like a perplexing land in which Thanksgiving is celebrated in October. In others, though, we might see some truly uncanny results of the Butterfly Effect. It seems Trader Joe’s mad scientist cousin (unlike Trader José, Dr. Trader Cornelius lacked the name chops for his family’s grocery biz) has been messing with enriched choclanium again, because my preferred cozy beverage has merged with another snackish reality, just like that time Captain America met Batman.

Trader Joe’s Organic Hot Cocoa Frosted Toaster Pastries arrived as something of a dark horse (see, it works as a reference to both comic books and chocolate… I’m a lonely man, OK?). Without much heralding, these sly slats of sweet science turned up on shelves recently, if a bit out-of-season given their clear holiday vibe. The packaging is plain in that TJ’s way, so we get no hints on the flavor there. Best to dive in and see what’s on the other end of this iced nexus.

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Posted by jared m.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, holiday, hot cocoa, pop-tarts, trader joe's. 2 Comments

Sep. ’18

Review: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Toaster Strudel – Cinnamania!

Uh, yes, General Mills customer service hotline? Yes, I’d like to file a serious complaint of the geometrically misleading nature.

See, your popular breakfast cereal product “Cinnamon Toast Crunch,” with its cinnamon-swirled, famously see-able taste, frequently tells me in its commercials—featuring cannibalistic cereal creatures who send a bad message about disrupting the food chain, but that’s a different phone call—to “Crave those Crazy Squares.”

Yet, the cereal’s newest crossover product, Cinnamon Toast Crunch Toaster Strudel, lacks the proper equilateral dimensions to qualify as a square. At best, they’re rectangular prisms, but even that forces me to uncomfortably suspend my knowledge of high school mathematics in order to enjoy this product.

Not that this is the first time you’ve spurned Cinnamon Toast Crunch’s signature shape, but after this egregious misstep, I must request that you atone for your mistake by changing the trademarked slogan to either “Reach toward those Rascally Rectangles” or “Quest for those Quirky Quadrilaterals.”

I’ll forgive your twice-toasted error for now—at least until breakfast is over—but just know one thing: your obtuse disregard for geometry has been acutely noted. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, cinnamon, general mills, toast crunch, toaster strudel. 2 Comments

Sep. ’18

Review: Buffalo Wild Wings & Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berries Blender!

We already know that human sports exist within the cereal world: Wheaties is practically an in-universe ESPN, Tony the Tiger coaches little league, and Cap’n Crunch has played in so many games that a human man of his age would have retired with soggy joints years ago.

But this past year or so of cereal–restaurant tie-ins suggests that our beloved cereal mascots, many of whom are older than us, have turned to a new form of friendly competition—one that avoids lost teeth and crunched bones. The bowling of the cereal world, this is a sport ironically played in a cup:

Milkshake Mixology!

Yes, Buffalo Wild Wings & Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berries Blender is, by my count, the ninth major cereal milkshake to debut in recent memory. And while the Cap’n may be wearing palate guards now, my slightly lactose-intolerant stomach has tried them all.

But will B-Dubs and C-Crunch’s drinkable dessert be an ace serve against Burger King’s incredible shake trio? Or will it post up next to Steak ‘n’ Shake’s milquetoast quintology of bench-warming waterboys?

There’s only one way to find out, and it involves going somewhere I never go without the supervision of an overbearingly athletic family member who will doubtlessly inquire deeply about my collective one year of Kindergarten soccer experience.

(I almost got kicked off the team for trying to tickle other kids too much. True story.)

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Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, cap'n crunch, milkshake, quaker. 4 Comments

Aug. ’18

Mini Review: Reese’s Puffs Bats Cereal

Holy early Autumn, Bartman! Just yesterday I was fending off the Sprites of Summer with honeysuckle and incense, and now you’re telling me the Bats of Fall are already echolocally a-knockin’?

Well forget the onion bread we have in the oven: it’s garlic season.

But not until after a brief detour through Dog-Day Eager Beaver season. See, the likes of Tony the Tiger, Toucan Sam, and now the constituents of some Count Choco-Peanut Buttula love to release their annual signature cereals before the dog days have finished yipping. While this is great for Halloween cereal lovers, it’s admittedly a bit sad when I overeagerly and unrestrainedly review them all before mid-September and I’m left writing about the trigonometry of Frute Brute’s incisors by 10/31.

So while I’m admitting I have a problem, instead of doing anything about it I’ll just pretend I’m eating Reese’s Puffs Sideways TIE Fighters. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, chocolate, general mills, halloween, peanut butter, reese's puffs. 1 Comment

Aug. ’18

Review: Kellogg’s Pumpkin Spice Frosted Flakes

What does late-stage pumpkin mania look like?

Yeah, yeah: I’m not suggesting that this country’s obsession with autumnal seasoning is going to be squashed out any time soon—I’ve made that mistake for about three consecutive years now. But I am saying that we are approaching an absurdity threshold, where even illogical products are being consecrated by this harvested incense.

And the breakfast aisle is no exception. On the surface, Frosted Flakes is a cereal dominated by tame flavors like chocolate and cinnamon—other cereals like this include Golden Grahams and Corn Pops—but it’s trying out this whole pumpkin spice thing with the timeliness of my grandpa doing the Harlem Shake. Plus on the back is a decked-out Halloween music festival called “Tony’s Pumpkin Up the Jams Fest.” Which is honestly a pretty unforgivable pun…

…that I wish I had thought of first.

Taking hipness out of the equation, I must still evaluate Pumpkin Spice Frosted Flakes with the unbiasedly refined palate of a cereal journalist. Or of Einstein’s dog, I guess. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, frosted flakes, kellogg's, pumpkin spice. 3 Comments

Jul. ’18

Review: Quaker Peanut Butter & Honey Oatmeal

I love unconventional pairings.

Sure, peanut butter & honey might not be that strange, but compared to those square food pairs—PB&J, Chocolate & Peanut Butter, Chocolate Strawberry: you know I love you, but it’s been done, mate—PB&H belong more with other alt combos like Banana Maple, Raisin Walnut & Honey, or Coconut & Caramel.

Hey, I guess Quaker Oats is pretty good at this. I predict if oatmeal flavor permeations are going to keep up this rate of release, we’ll see a flavor like this mutate into Peanut Butter & Pickle Oatmeal by 2020.

But until then, let’s dive into a piping hot bowl of freshly microwaved Honey Butters & Oats. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, honey, oatmeal, peanut butter, quaker. 3 Comments

Jul. ’18

Review: Chocolate Strawberry Shredded Wheat

How high is too lofty of an ambition for a bland-by-nature shredded wheat brick?

It seems that the once humble bales are no longer content with simply sweet flavors like Blueberry and plainly Frosted. Now they’re aiming higher, seeking to be in the same strata of flavor decadence as cinnamon rolls, vanilla lattes, and now chocolate-covered strawberries.

With the expectations those desserts carry with them, that’s a heavy burden of responsibility for a crate of thatched wheat to bear. I’ll go into Post’s latest variety with an open-mind, but there’s one thing I’m calling up front:

A shredded wheat biscuit will never be an aphrodisiac.

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Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, chocolate, post, shredded wheat, strawberry. 1 Comment

Jul. ’18

Review: Kashi by Kids Cereals – Honey Cinnamon & Berry Crumble

Children are powerful.

They have the power of mind control, just by releasing water from their eyes. They have the thermal potential to make an ice cream cone drip all over the place, just by looking at it. And they have the power to turn an entire car around, just by doing those first two things.

I know this power because I wielded it so many years ago. Although in my case, instead of drippy ice cream it was dropping an entire pizza slice crust side up onto my mother’s plush car floor mat. I think tomato plants have since grown from the stained point of impact.

Case in point, I’m not surprised Kashi harnessed the imagination potential of real kids to design their two newest healthy cereals: Honey Cinnamon and Berry Crumble. Given Kashi’s tendency toward piece homogeneity, I was surprised to see that each cereal contains two totally different cereal players: a flavor-stuffed pillow is unique to both, but Honey Cinnamon boasts tiny cinnamon snail shells, while Berry Crumble boasts indigo orbs.

Of course, it does take childlike whimsy to break corporate sameness, so if a little youthful thinking is what it would take to get, say, a Choco Taco shaped/flavored breakfast product, then I’m all for seeing Kellogg’s pick the developing brains of more cereal prodigies.

Tony the Tiger could play Kindergarten Cop, right?

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Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, berry, cinnamon, honey, kashi. 1 Comment