Food review: America

Bill and Kristen bought us many delightful treats and I ate most of them so here we goooooo~

TGI Fridays Potato Skins (Cheddar & Bacon)

These start off great, and then get worse the more you eat. They originally taste like Rashuns (which is awesome because Rashuns are awesome) and then after the fifth one they taste like feet. They are not potato skins btw, they are just reconstituted potato like everything else in America.

Rating: 2 stars (4 stars if you only eat a couple)

Burger King Ketchup Chips

I didn't eat these because tomato sauce is gross. They smelled a lot like Tomato Munchos though. Which probably means they are gross. Bill liked these.

Rating: 1 star (estimate)

Doritos: Late Night Taco flavour

These tasted exactly like what they are, which is Doritos that have been dusted with the seasoning sachet you get in an Old El Paso taco or burrito kit. They tasted okay, I guess. Would be easy for non-Americans to replicate.

Rating: 3 stars

Sun Chips

Inferior Grain Waves.

Rating: 3 stars

Peanut Butter M&Ms

I will never understand America's boner for peanut butter. These were the worst M&Ms I have had. They are better than if someone made M&Ms with raisins inside, I guess? They are still M&Ms though. Everyone else seemed to like these for some reason.

Rating: 2.5 stars

Almond M&Ms

Superior Peanut M&Ms. Would eat again.

Rating: 4 stars

Pretzel M&Ms

THESE ROCKED MY WORLD

Rating: 5 stars

Milky Way

I didn't try any of this, but it just seems like a Mars bar without the caramel? How is that good on any planet?

Rating: 2.5 stars (estimate)

Butterfinger

I did try this, but I can't really remember it. It was really chewy? Maybe a wafer or some form of nut at the bottom of it? I dunno I don't remember it being that exciting. Butterfinger is a really unappetizing name btw

Rating: 2.5 stars

Baby Ruth

Again, I think I tried this, but I don't remember it too well. Kind of like a Picnic I think? Maybe this was the chewy one. I do remember this being significantly better than the other ones.

Rating: 4 stars

Candy Review: Chunky

Ingredients: Milk chocolate (sugar, chocolate, cocoa butter, nonfat milk, milkfat, lactose, soy lecithin, natural and artificial flavors, PGPR - an emulsifier), peanuts, raisins, TBHQ and citric acid (added to preserve freshness)


After the Whatchamacallit, I was heartened to see that "chocolate" was the first ingredient here (although actual chocolate was a minority ingredient in that "chocolate"). Nestle bills this as "milk chocolate with peanuts and raisins". Pretty standard, just fruit and nut in a little 40g square. Shara opened this, and was overwhelmed by the smell. Indeed, having consumed this some time ago, the smell coming from the wrapper is still quite powerful. It smells like chemicals. A lot like chemicals. The taste was a bit better, but still not great. The raisins and nuts were fine, but the chocolate itself didn't really taste of anything. The closest it got to chocolate flavour was a very mild taste of instant coffee. Shara said it tasted like charcoal but I thought it just tasted like a bunch of sugar with some peanuts in it. Again, I feel much worse after having consumed it, but I don't want to put all of the blame for this on the candy bar.

My rating: 2.5 stars
Shara rating: 0.5 stars

Candy Review: Whatchamacallit

An associate has provided me with a number of candy bars from America. As I make my way through them I will document my progress and give you the definitive outsider's view of amusingly named high fructose corn snacks. Today's is the Whatchamacallit.

Ingredients: Sugar, high fructose corn syrup, crisp rice, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (palm kernel and soybean oil), vegetable oil (cocoa butter, palm, shea, sunflower and/or safflower oil), partially defatted peanuts, non-fat milk, chocolate, partially hydrogenated coconut oil, corn syrup solids, whey (milk)


This is the candy bar I was most excited to eat. The wrapper claims it is made with chocolate, peanut flavoured crisps and caramel. That made it sound like a cross between a Snickers and a Kit Kat, which is a great concept for a candy bar. That's more or less what it turned out to be too, but to be honest I found it a little underwhelming. It felt like the rice, peanut and caramel were all competing for attention rather than working together, and this made the experience a little forgettable, at least compared to, say, a Snickers. The chocolate was pretty thin and bad too. I feel it could be improved by replacing the rice with wafer a la the Kit Kat, or perhaps swapping to dark chocolate. I should note that this candy bar contains 9 grams of saturated fat, which represents 45% of your recommended daily intake (this is slightly less than one Big Mac). I do feel incredibly sick afterwards, but to be fair to the candy bar, this could be just as easily due to the popcorn I ate for dinner.

My rating: 3 stars
Shara rating: 3.5 stars