Tag Archives: 8 rating

Review: Limited Edition Cap’n Crunch’s Touchdown Crunch Cereal

All brands celebrate football season differently. M&M’s slaps eye grease and jerseys on their famous spokescandies. Pepsi erects giant cyborg quarterbacks made out of cardboard and 12-packs for grocery store displays. But Cap’n Crunch? He releases an entire football themed cereal!

It’s called Cap’n Crunch’s Touchdown Crunch cereal, and it was first introduced in 2009. However, there’s one key difference between today’s Touchdown Crunch and the one from 7 years ago. If you cross-compare the boxes, you’ll see that Cap’n Crunch got buff!

Since the Cap’n is a 53-year old cereal mascot, I can’t see why he suddenly reformed his fitness plan. Maybe it was to silence all those high school bullies who made fun of his gravity-defying eyebrows.

Or maybe it was just to impress attractive mermaids. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, cap'n crunch, quaker. 5 Comments

Aug. ’16

Review: General Mills Limited Edition Pumpkin Spice Cheerios

Like Michael Meyers or Freddy Krueger, the taste of Halloween is already quietly creeping onto store shelves. But unlike Mike or Fred, pumpkin spice wants to please your taste buds instead of leaving them severed and bloody on the kitchen floor.

After all, pumpkin spice is addicting, and that’s why we keep inviting it back into our homes like dimwitted stock characters in a vampire movie. So whether you’re a pumpkin spice nut or a frustrated recoverer of “pumpkin spice fatigue,” please forgive me for disrupting your hot dogs ‘n’ lemonade days of August with General Mills’ new Limited Edition Pumpkin Spice Cheerios. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, cheerios, general mills, pumpkin. 9 Comments

Jul. ’16

Review: Starbucks “Pop-Tarts” — Cinnamon + Brown Sugar Megpie

Despite what you may have seen or heard, this isn’t an actual Starbucks Pop-Tart. It isn’t a Starbucks Toaster Strudel, either. And it certainly is not a Starbucks Magpie, since i’m pretty sure the coffee chain’s aviary license expired decades ago.

No, Starbucks’ latest sugary coffee companions are the invention of New York baker Meghan Ritchie, and they’re called Megpies. More specifically, they are “artisan tarts,” which Google Translate claims is hipster-speak for “please don’t shame me as I dip this double-decker Pop-Tart into my Cotton Candy Frappuccino and accidentally spill some on my portable typewriter.”

Individually wrapped and sold next to the register, these all-natural Megpies come in strawberry and cinnamon + brown sugar. I can only assume this is a non-sugar coated (but still literally sugar coated) attempt to mimic Pop-Tarts’ two most popular flavors: Frosted Strawberry and Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon.

Since I’ve eaten enough Tiny Toast cereal this summer to give myself a not-so-tiny bloat, I decided to give the berries a break this time and give in to Cinnamon + Brown Sugar’s spicy temptation.

Oh, and if you’re wondering why I didn’t try one of each, it’s because these Totally Not Pop-Tarts will run you back $3.95 a pop, which is indeed more than the cost of a 16-count Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop-Tart box. That’s fine, Starbucks, as long as this Megpie has few shares of Google stock buried in its gooey innards. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, cinnamon, non cereal, pop-tarts. 15 Comments

Jun. ’16

Review: Kashi Dark Cocoa Karma Cereal

The main teaching of karma is “what goes around comes around.”

Then how come Kashi’s new Dark Cocoa Karma shredded wheat cereal comes as a square, and not a round loop?

Looks like you really missed a chance to tie your tasty breakfast offerings into the cyclical nature of moral interchange, Kashi.

That’s okay. I’m willing to forgive your philosophical blunder if this exciting cereal actually tastes good. I say “exciting” because Dark Cocoa Karma is essentially the second ever cereal—after Chocolate Toast Crunch—to combine chocolate and cinnamon in the same bowl.

Time to pop on a DVD of My Name is Earl and find some cinnamon chocolate zen. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, chocolate, cinnamon, kashi, shredded wheat. 9 Comments

Jun. ’16

Review: General Mills Strawberry Tiny Toast and Blueberry Tiny Toast Cereals

The first toaster was invented in 1893.

The first fully functional bread slicer came in 1928.

And in 2016, General Mills released Tiny Toast cereal. Shortly after, bread historians declared a new era of toast prosperity: the Golden Brown Age.

You see, since Cinnamon Toast Crunch isn’t shaped like bread, and since French Toast isn’t made in a toaster, that makes Strawberry and Blueberry Tiny Toast the first truly toast-themed cereals ever made.

It’s hard to believe that Tiny Toast is also General Mills’ first new cereal brand in 15+ years. The only thing harder to believe is that humans had to slice bread by hand like barbarians in order to make toasty delight for 35 whole years.

But it’s true: GM’s last new brand was Harmony Cereal in 2001, a short-lived cereal marketed specifically for women. I’m glad that Tiny Toast is aimed at the much more universal audience of “bread lovers,” and as a self-professed “bread head” myself, I’m just as grateful that both flavors now sit in a bowl before me.

No more loafin’ around: let’s roll!

Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, 9 rating, blueberry, general mills, strawberry. 11 Comments

May. ’16

Review: Coffee Cereal — Original & Café Mocha

Now this is a fun one, cereal fans. I’ve been meaning to try Coffee Cereal for a long time: long before I even knew it actually existed.

See, back in high school, I was given one of those clichéd school projects, the kind you see Urkel and the Olsen twins struggle with on ’90s sitcoms. My challenge was to think of and prototype an invention, an invention no one had thought of before.

Since I ate cereal and drank coffee every morning (and ate lunch alone, probably because of the whole coffee snobbery), I had the genius idea of inventing a coffee cereal. I was all prepared to start designing “Cappuccin-O’s” boxes and rolling Cheerios in espresso powder, but then I found out that Coffee Cereal already exists, made by a small company in Missouri.

Into the metaphorical and literal trash my idea went.

Years later, I’ve finally gotten over my bitterness (though I still drink bitter coffee), and now I’m ready to review the real thing. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 7 rating, 8 rating, coffee. 3 Comments

May. ’16

Review: Kellogg’s Frosted Crush Orange Pop-Tarts

I wish Kellogg’s two new “Soda-licious” Pop-Tarts (Crush Orange and A&W Root Beer) were released in 2020.

Why?

Because that’s when the new Godzilla vs. Kong film is set to debut, and these two flavors would be the perfect movie tie-in. I can see it now: Kong’s Gorilla Sarsaparilla Pop-Tarts vs. Godzilla’s Atomic Crush Orange Pop-Tarts.

Batman vs. Superman, eat your hearts out.

That “Atomic” label is especially appropriate, because as I quickly found out when eating these toaster pastries, Kellogg’s didn’t just go orange. They went explosively radioactive orange. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, kelloggs, non cereal, pop-tarts. 3 Comments

May. ’16

Review: Kellogg’s Limited Edition Frosted Pink Lemonade Pop-Tarts

I have seen into the future, fellow breakfast lovers. And let me tell you, the world of tomorrow is weird.

Get this: in 50 years, all solid foods will be liquids, and all liquid foods will be solids! At dinner, we’ll nibble on chewy orange juice frittata slices for an appetizer, enjoy the hearty and tender roast Coca-Cola main course, and treat ourselves to Grandma’s old fashioned skim milk pie for dessert. Oh, and we’ll wash it all down with glasses of the finest carbonated mutton.

When I asked the flavor wizards of the future how this revolution came about, their answer was unanimous: “It all started with Kellogg’s Frosted Pink Lemonade Pop-Tarts!”

That’s right: before me sits a classic beverage in toaster pastry form. Along with their soon-to-come A&W Root Beer and Orange Crush Pop-Tarts, Frosted Pink Lemonade is leading Kellogg’s “Summer of Synesthesia” series (my name, not theirs).

Let’s see if these pastries can make me feel the summer sun as I sit here drenched and cold from a leftover April shower that apparently doesn’t own a darn calendar.

Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, kelloggs, lemon, pop-tarts. 1 Comment