Diet Coke-Babies

cereal, soda, and other important topics

The Friendly’s Wattamelon Roll Betrayal

Posted by robbposch on April 28, 2020
Posted in: Food, Food Review. Tagged: drama, food, food review, friendly's ice cream, friendlys, ice cream, long island, summer, walmart, wattamelon roll. 66 Comments

This post was originally published on August 14, 2013. This updated intro serves only to add that the current situation is the bleakest it has ever been. Friendly’s management, local retailers, bulk food distributors – no option exists to move this valuable product from the eastern half of the country to the western half.

This is a tale that almost has it all – sadness, triumph, and betrayal.  The one thing it is missing is a victorious ending.

Growing up on Long Island, there were three main places to get ice cream: Carvel, Friendly’s, or some other place that wasn’t Carvel or Friendly’s.  Friendly’s eventually rose to the top for me, on the strength of their ice cream rolls, most notably their Jubilee Roll.

 01

The Jubilee Roll was a Christmas tradition with my family.  It’s one of those “this isn’t very interesting to read about if you didn’t grow up with it” situations, so I will be brief.  But basically, to a kid, that pink part on top was worth twice its weight in gold.  It caused many a fight between my sister and me.

As much love as I had for the Jubilee Roll, it became a distant second once I found my true love – Wattamelon Rolls.

Wattamelon Rolls are, literally, one of the greatest things mankind has ever created.  It is a sherbet roll shaped like half of a watermelon, with watermelon sherbet and chocolate chips making up the fruit, and lemon sherbet making up the rind.

While that description makes it sound good, it doesn’t nearly do proper justice to the glory that is the Wattamelon Roll.  I need to learn one of those languages that has more letters than English, in hopes that having  extra letters to work with might help explain how good it is.

 02

Some people look forward to summer because of the warm weather, being off from school, traveling, or some other less-important reason.  I looked forward to summer because that’s when the Wattamelon Rolls would be stocked.  Summertime became a race against the clock to ingest as much as possible, until the sad day came when they were taken off store shelves until next year.

If only I had known that “only available in the summer” would soon become the least of my problems.

After moving from New York to Colorado Springs, I came to the depressing realization that Friendly’s doesn’t have a location west of Ohio.  I was scrambling for ways to get my fix.  Could I have a friend ship them overnight?  It would be expensive as hell, but maybe if I got four or five in one container, that would at least last me a week or so.

Finally, I went to the source – I emailed Friendly’s.  I sent them a long, impassioned message about how important Wattamelon Rolls were to me, and the lack of them where I live was causing my soul to decay.  I said if necessary, in case they have some sort of shipping minimum, that I would buy an entire pallet of them.  Sure, it would cost a lot of money, and I’d have to figure out where to put them, but I’d make it work if it came down to that.

After pouring my heart out, my only reply was the remarkably un-friendly, “Friendly’s does not ship its products.”  No “sorry for your loss”, or “thanks for your feedback” or any token gesture of sympathy.  Just a terse rebuttal that destroyed my day.

I endured that miserable summer, and trudged through another year, completely devoid of joy.  Then, on one fateful day the next summer, I got a text from my goth brother Eric.  It was a picture of a Wattamelon Roll, with a message reading, simply, “?”

Apparently, my dad had stumbled upon them in Walmart.  They were stocking them with the ice cream cakes.  I bounded down the stairs, with a gigantic smile on my face, to show my wife.  She knew all about my trials and tribulations, and I knew she would share in my happiness.  While I think much of her shared joy was largely pity and some shame at my levels of excitement, she at least patronized me.

 03

An hour or so later, we were off to my parents’ house.  My dad had bought two of them, but decided to put them in his cart at the start of his shopping trip, so they were quite melted, even after being in the freezer for a couple of hours.  While it wasn’t ideal, it was good enough for me.  Half eating, half drinking it, I was in heaven.  Not literally, obviously.  Although if that’s what heaven turns out to be, I don’t think I’d complain.

So, that summer was a wonderful one.  I was paranoid that the Walmarts around me would sell out, so I made sure to always have my freezer stocked.

 04

And, lest you think I am a weirdo, I will point out that I don’t store sodas in the freezer.  That can is filled with frozen fat.

Of course, the summer had to come to an end, so I knew that the Wattamelon Rolls would go back to being shelved until next year.  Well, I guess not “shelved” so much as “not made for another 8 months”.  But if they just put the existing stock into deep freeze and sold them a year later, I’d still buy them.

Come May of next year, I began to be on the lookout for them.  I didn’t see them, and figured maybe June was when they’d hit stores.  Halfway into June, I was getting nervous.  By the end of June, it became depressingly clear – it didn’t seem like Walmart wanted to be my friend anymore. 

I contacted Friendly’s and Walmart about this debacle.  While they weren’t helpful, Friendly’s put the blame on Walmart, claiming Walmart decided not to carry their products this year.  With Walmart landing in the defendant’s chair, it became time to take the efforts towards them.

My requests on Facebook, email, “Contact Us” forms, even phones became something akin to carpet bombing.  I assumed they would ignore me because, well, that’s what Walmart usually does.  So I figured even if they wouldn’t listen to me, I could maybe annoy them into action.

So far, a year later, my efforts have gone unnoticed.  My Wattamelon Roll intake is limited now to once a year, when I go back to New York.  This was my lunch when I was on Long Island last week:

 05

I may have to look into the old idea of having someone ship me some. 

I will not give up on my efforts.  Even if nothing ever happens between Friendly’s and Walmart, I can at least know I didn’t sit back and allow my misery to grow without a fight.

It’s an incredibly stupid decision by Walmart, since I was literally buying almost all of their stock in my city.  There’s five Walmarts within a thirty minute radius of me, and among all of them, they had maybe two left on the shelves after I bought all of mine.

They sure sold a lot better than the trash they keep in their ice cream cake freezer now.  And Wattamelon Rolls are light years better than anything in there.  Have you had one of those M&M ice cream cakes?  Dire stuff.

So in the off chance someone from Walmart is reading this, or even Friendly’s – make this relationship work again!  As in every divorce, the true victims are the children.  Or the thirty somethings who just love eating like children.

Cereal Review : Dippin’ Dots Cereal

Posted by robbposch on June 19, 2018
Posted in: Cereal Reviews, Food, Food Review. Tagged: cereal, cereal review, dippin' dots, food, food review, ice cream. 1 Comment

Walmart is no stranger to the “hey make us a cereal and base it on something people recognize” game.  From their Dreamworks cereals, to the approximately thirty varieties of cookie-based cereals, you can always count on something you won’t find anywhere else.

 

Whether you actually want to eat those exclusive cereals is another story.

 

01

 

Joining this very exclusive “what’s something people like and / or remember okay make that a cereal” club is Dippin’ Dots cereal.

 

There have been many ice cream-related cereals in the past.  In fact, my most recent review that I did a couple weeks back (don’t fact check that) had an ice cream cereal.

 

But Dippin’ Dots seems like a harder challenge, in that much of its appeal is the novelty of how it’s made and served.  Making a cereal with cereal pieces with a diameter of about 5 millimeters served at about 20 degrees seems impractical.

 

They could stuff the box with dry ice and include safety gloves, but that might push the price point above where they’d like to be.

 

But if you’re going to make a cereal based on a product with the lofty slogan of “The Ice Cream of the Future”, you probably need to step up your game a little.

 

Dippin’ Dots comes in two varieties : Cookies ‘n’ Cream and Banana Split.

 

02

 

I tried Banana Split first, mostly to get it over with.  I hate banana-flavored things.  You know what’s really good that’s banana-flavored?  Bananas.  Beyond that, not much else.  But for the sake of science, I soldiered on.

 

Luckily, if I didn’t wind up liking it, I would only be stuck with a leftover amount of… uh, a pound of cereal.

 

Walmart has had some perverse obsession with GIGANTIC boxes of these licensed cereals.  Their cookie cereal boxes are like 24×18 inches.

 

04

 

Banana Split gave me a bit of hope upon opening, as the banana smell wasn’t as weaponized as I was expecting.  The color of the cereal was quite sad, with pale browns and pinks, and a generic Kix-looking color.

 

They probably could have gotten away with “It’s Dippin’ Dots because the cereal pieces are round, like the little ice cream spheres.”  But they attempted to pay tribute to actual Dippin’ Dots with the clusters that are mixed into the cereal.

 

The clusters have an appearance akin to “when you step on a big piece of styrofoam and it breaks up into a million little bunches”.  The texture probably isn’t dissimilar, either.

 

05

 

Unless they all sank to the bottom of the box, don’t count on a Dippin’ Dot cluster bonanza in your bowl.  I think I spotted three in my serving.  The clusters are an interesting novelty, but the real star of the show is the strawberry part.  The strawberry cereal pieces are pretty strongly flavored.  You can see in the pictures that the strawberry flavoring is trying to force its way out.

 

Aesthetically, that’s kind of creepy and off-putting, but it tastes quite good.

 

Overall, Banana Split is fine.  I liked it a decent amount, especially given my hatred of banana flavoring.  It was enjoyable enough where I will eventually finish the box, but wouldn’t buy another one.

 

[insert “I guess” seal of approval here]

 

 

03

 

Cookies ‘n’ Cream seemed like the much safer bet, and the one I was looking forward to more.  It seemed pretty foolproof – some chocolate puffs, some vanilla puffs, and some chocolate and vanilla clusters.

 

It may be 2018, with phones in cameras reaching crazy levels of quality, but I am still awful at taking pictures.  Even with that in mind, this washed-out-looking picture is pretty much an accurate representation of the cereal’s coloring.

 

It is incredibly boring to look at.

 

06

 

 

Granted, cereal in the bowl never looks as good as it does on the box.  And it doesn’t really matter too much about how a cereal looks in the bowl.  But jeez.  It’s visual sadness.

 

Flavor-wise, it doesn’t get too much more exciting.  It’s mildly-flavored cereal puffs and chocolate clusters.  I thought for “Cookies ‘n’ Cream”, they could have been a little more experimental with the cluster flavoring, but at least the chocolate clusters taste pretty good.

 

The cereal itself is good enough, but it tastes like an average version of every other chocolate & vanilla cereal you’ve ever had.  It’s worth it for the Dippin’ Dots novelty, and getting through a box will be no trouble, but this also won’t be a repeat purchase.

 

[insert “shrug” here]

 

Cereal Review : Apple Cinnamon Toast Crunch & Cocoa Puffs Ice Cream Scoops

Posted by robbposch on July 14, 2017
Posted in: Cereal Reviews, Food, Food Review. Tagged: cereal, cereal review, cinnamon toast crunch, cocoa puffs, food, food review, new cereals. 1 Comment

General Mills seems to be fully understanding the power of nostalgia.  After it acquiesced to the internet by re-releasing French Toast Crunch, I assume it sold well because they’re fully on board the Toast Crunch train.

 

01

 

When I saw Apple Cinnamon Toast Crunch, it was sitting next to Blueberry Toast Crunch and Strawberry Toast Crunch.  I’d heard Apple was coming out, but what were these other flavors?  Upon closer inspection, they were just the decidedly mediocre Tiny Toast, rebranded.  General Mills saw the mighty sales power of the Toast Crunch name, and applied it to the “Target’s Cartwheel app has these things at 50% off almost every day” miniature toast line.

 

I wasn’t particularly excited for Apple Cinnamon Toast Crunch, as apple cinnamon is never a cereal flavor I’m into.  Apple often sucks as a flavor in general, so I just have to be grateful that I have yet to see a “Sour Apple” cereal.

 

Side Note : Just a friendly reminder to Skittles to sort your life out and bring lime back and get that apple abomination out of the classic mix.

 

02

 

As for the cereal – it’s good.  What saves it is cereal shape.  The “toast” shape and texture works very well here, somehow much better than in Tiny Toast.  Or maybe it’s just that Tiny Toast’s flavor was so off-putting that I didn’t notice the texture.

 

It’s not a perverse level of apple cinnamon.  It seems to be a happy medium that should work for people that love the flavor and those that aren’t so much a fan.

 

What I kind of really want now is a toast-shaped cereal, but with the Cinnamon Toast Crunch flavor.  Can we have that please General Mills?  Thanks.

 

[insert “I won’t buy it again but I won’t caution against buying it” seal of approval here]

 

Seeing Cocoa Puffs “Ice Cream Scoops” cereal on the shelf brought an almost overwhelming wave of ambivalence crashing down on me.  I saw it on the shelf and thought, “Oh.”

 

03

 

I hate to disparage a product that’s trying, I guess.  But Cocoa Puffs is easily the weakest of the major chocolate cereals.  I’m pretty sure I haven’t bought a box in about 20 years.  I will occasionally have it in a hotel’s breakfast bar, because it’s a better option than Corn Flakes or granola.

 

So I wasn’t too excited for this.  The box doesn’t drum up much excitement, either.  The Neapolitan shades are strangely washed out.  Like I got one of the last boxes made on the production line before they refilled the ink.

 

04

 

It also seems like they didn’t put enough ink on the cereal pieces themselves.  The colors inspire sadness.  Like if there was an Instagram filter named “blah”, it would look like I applied it to the picture of the cereal.

 

Also, the cereal is bad.  The only flavor is strawberry, but a very medicinal-flavored strawberry.  Like if one day Yoo-Hoo came out and said, “Oh by the way the Strawberry variety is also now good for when you have a bad cough.”

 

Good thing I have a “Family Size” box of this.

 

[no seal of approval]

 

Cereal Review: Cinnamon Pebbles & Cap’n Crunch’s Blueberry Pancake Crunch

Posted by robbposch on February 15, 2017
Posted in: Cereal Reviews, Food Review. Tagged: cap'n crunch, cereal, cereal review, food, food review, new cereal, pebbles cereal, reviews. Leave a comment

When it comes to “we should probably release another random flavor”, Pebbles cereal does battle with the good Cap’n for supremacy.  Both cereal lines’ extensions are often forgettable.  But they try, and that’s the important thing.  And here, we have both brands offering up another variety.

 

01

 

Cinnamon Pebbles seems like an obvious choice, since that’s a flavor that can work for almost any cereal.  But Pebbles cereals aren’t exactly the most subtle of cereals, flavor-wise.  And that often works to their advantage.  I wouldn’t argue against someone claiming Cocoa Pebbles is the best chocolate cereal out there.  And Fruity Pebbles are awesome.

 

Pebbles two core cereals are the Andrew WK of cereals – they have something they do well, it’s simple, it’s loud, and it’s awesome.

 

For the most part all of their other varieties have been forgettable.  Not bad per se, just… I’m not sad any of them are gone.  Or if I see they are still on the shelf, I have the groundbreaking thought of, “Huh.  There it is.”

 

02

 

And Cinnamon Pebbles are… fine.  They’re just completely one-note.  Surprisingly, I would have expected them to be sweeter than they are.  They are plenty sweet, I just assumed Pebbles would go overboard.  The cinnamon flavor is odd – it’s more “natural” tasting than you would expect.  They hedged their bets between “real” cinnamon and “cereal” cinnamon, and wound up in this not overly satisfying middle ground.

 

But the cereal is good enough.  It’s Cinnamon Pebbles – they’re giving you what they’re saying they would.  It could be better, but if it sounds good to you, you’ll probably like it well enough.  What an exciting endorsement of the product!

 

[insert sure why not seal of approval here]

 

 

Cap’n Crunch’s offering is Blueberry Pancake Crunch.  I’ve never loved the maple / waffle cereal flavors.  They’re just a flavor I don’t want to eat that much of.

 

03

 

The artwork on the box is tough to process.  It’s kind of awesome looking – odd blues and garish designs.  But at the same time, the visual strengths are precisely what make me not want to eat the cereal.  Something about the aesthetic is off-putting.  I think it’s the shade of blue.  The light blues (and the washed-out colors of the cereal) make it look like the box didn’t get colored in correctly, or something.

 

04

 

The odd coloring continues with the cereal itself.  You’d think “blueberry pancakes” would involve a darker blue and a darker brown for the cereal pieces.  Instead, we get a mix of Kix and the light blue Crunch Berry.  They even already have a darker blue Crunch Berry ready to go, which makes way more sense for a blueberry, but instead went with this one.  It’s a fine mix of colors in a vacuum, but to be “blueberry pancakes”, the wrongness of the shades – like on the box – don’t inspire me to want to eat it.

 

When finally eating the cereal, thankfully it’s pretty good.  I haven’t had a waffle or whatever cereal in a while, so my memory for comparison isn’t the best.  But from what I can recall, the Cap’n’s maple-ness isn’t as strong, which I prefer.

 

Also : Cap’n’s seems like the correct formatting, but it looks horrendous.

 

I don’t get much blueberry, but you do get that Crunch Berry flavor which is an adequate enough substitute, I suppose.  Not shockingly, the cereal doesn’t convey any subtle pancake flavor.  But then again, neither do pancakes.  They just taste like whatever sugary coating you’ve doused them in to make them edible.

 

Like Cinnamon Pebbles, this cereal gives you what it says it will.  Also like Cinnamon Pebbles, I don’t think it’s particularly great, but enjoyable enough.  Another “if you like the description, it’s worth a shot” cereal.  Maybe I can spin all of this as me reviewing these two cereals together to form a cohesive theme.  So let’s go with that.

 

[insert sure why not seal of approval here]

 

Thus concludes my thoroughly-planned, and artistically organized “Cereals Where If The Description Sounds Good To You, You Will Probably Enjoy Them Somewhat I Guess.”

Cereal Review : Keebler Cereal

Posted by robbposch on January 31, 2017
Posted in: Cereal Reviews, Food, Food Review. Tagged: cereal, cereal review, cookies, food, food review, keebler, reviews. Leave a comment

Following The Girl Scouts’ recent foray into the cereal game, we also now see another company with strong cookie-credentials putting a cereal out to market.

 

Keebler has tried its hand in the past at cereal.  About ten years ago, Cookie Crunch was a cereal that combined Fudge Stripes and chocolate chip cookies, and ingeniously removed all the things you like about those cookies.

 

01

 

Trying again, Keebler isn’t messing around this time.  It’s not a Kellogg’s branded Keebler cereal, with a catchy “Cookie Crunch”-esque name.  Instead, this cereal is just straight-up “Keebler Cereal”.  No Kellogg’s supporting act on the box.  This is Keebler’s self-titled album of cereals.

 

Wisely avoiding putting out yet another Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs type of “ball” cereal, Keebler spruced things up with mini chocolate chip cookies.  Whether that will be a good thing or a bad thing, we will see.

 

02

A rare “contents may have settled” warning on a cereal box.

 

 

The cereal holds up to its box-claimed aesthetics.  You’ve got your bog standard cereal balls.  But the little cookie pieces actually do a good job of looking like little cookies.

 

03

 

Tasting like little cookies, on the other hand… eh.  Keebler wouldn’t want to package these up to sell in the cookie aisle, that’s for sure.  But when translating an actual product to a cereal piece, you’ve got to grade on a curve.

 

The cereal cookies aren’t good cookies on their own terms, but they are good cereal “cookies”.

 

As for the cereal’s flavor – it’s quite good.  The chocolate maybe isn’t as strong as I’d like, and the cookies get a little lost in the mix when eaten with the bigger cereal pieces.

 

The milk is adequately chocolate-ified, and it leaves some of those little chocolate chips in the milk, which is a nice bonus.

 

Keebler Cereal is kind of a weird case.  It doesn’t do one thing particularly great.  The chocolate could be stronger, the pieces could be more distinct, it could taste a little more like cookies.  But at the same time, I found myself really enjoying it.  I killed the box in a few days, and it’ll be one I will buy again.

 

[insert seal of approval here]

Cereal Review : Girl Scouts Thin Mints & Caramel Crunch Cereals

Posted by robbposch on January 4, 2017
Posted in: Cereal Reviews, Food, Food Review. Tagged: caramel delites, cereal, cereal review, food, food review, girl scout cookies, girl scouts, samoas, thin mints. Leave a comment

Girl Scouts cereal makes so much sense.  They’ve got the built-in variety, so that can have an assortment of flavors.  They’ve got name recognition.  They’ve got Thin Mints.

Apparently, someone finally thought, “Wait, so why haven’t we done this yet?”

And now there’s Girl Scouts cereal.

01

In the least shocking news ever, Thin Mints is one of the two varieties.  Seeing it, I figured it had to be good, because, well… Thin Mints.  But then I was trying to think if there had ever been a cereal that was minty.  I can’t think of any.

A mint-flavored cereal, upon second thought, was slightly disconcerting.  Given that lots of people eat breakfast cereal at breakfast (which I find to be an incredibly overrated time to eat it), will it give flashbacks to when you just brushed your teeth moments earlier?

And if you are one of those people that lives in cereal commercials or in a magazine ad – and have that bizarre setup of having a glass of milk and a glass of orange juice on the table – will you get that horrifying “Drinking orange juice right after brushing your teeth” flavor?

My excitement over Thin Mints cereal was tempered a bit due to these fears.  But I was still going to press on to discover the truth.

The cereal’s packaging doesn’t mess around, which is a good idea.  Its near wall of green instantly says, “HEY!  THIN MINTS OVER HERE!  COME HERE YOU SLOB AND GET YOUR THIN MINTS!”  But with a bit more subtlety.

02

Opening the box, the smell is pretty on point.  It doesn’t have that chocolate glaze smell, because it doesn’t have a chocolate glaze, but it does do a very good job of imitating the chocolaty mintiness.

As for the flavor?  It’s really good.  The toothpaste fears were not necessary, since it is balanced out by the chocolate.  I know the mint flavor is important to Thin Mints, since they’re called Thin Mints, but I had almost expected them to shy away from the mint a bit and let chocolate run the show.  I figured that flavor balance would be easier to pull off in a cereal.  But they managed to replicate the cookie’s flavor remarkably well.

The milk didn’t get as flavored as I’d like, but the cereal still leaked a bit into it to give it some decent flavor.

 

[insert seal of approval here]

03

The second of the two cookie cereals is Samoas.  I assume this is the second most popular flavor, which makes it a good sidekick to Thin Mints.  And also… wait, what the hell?  “Caramel Crunch”?  What is this?

There is a picture of a Samoa right there, so obviously the Girl Scouts aren’t trying to pull a fast one and just give us some random caramel cereal.  Why can’t they call it Samoas?

I looked into this, because if there’s one thing my writing is known for, is its exhaustive research, and found out this is a whole big thing.  Turns out, Samoas aren’t even called Samoas all over the country.  Depending on which of the two bakeries the Girl Scouts use, they are either called Samoas or Caramel deLites.

A few thoughts on this:

1) Caramel deLites is a horrible name.  What is with that formatting?  It looks like some Snackwells nonsense.

2) I still have no idea why they’re called Samoas.

3) Little Brownie Bakers kills ABC Bakers in the naming department.

So presumably, Girl Scouts had to come up with a compromise for the cereal name, since naming it after only one cookie would piss off the other bakery.  And the Girl Scouts don’t want to lose their Diplomacy merit badge.

Based on the picture on the box, with no chocolate on the cereal pieces, or any significant texture to be reminiscent of the coconut pieces, Caramel Crunch looks like it’s meant to be a bowl of little doughnuts.

The initial smell is… fake.  Just a wall of “caramel”.  The cereal itself doesn’t get much better.

04

The only flavor you get is caramel.  No coconut, no chocolate, no “cookie” – just caramel.  The first bite or two is fine, though nothing special.  The more you go along, the more it becomes a monotonous journey into the deepest caverns of artificial caramel.

I hadn’t known about the Caramel deLites naming before reading about all that bakery stuff.  So before all of this, if you asked me what Samoas tasted like, I’d have said they were coconut with chocolate.  It wouldn’t even occur to me to talk about the caramel.  I mean, it’s there, but it seems like it’s just there to hold the coconut together.

But apparently, with the cookie’s other name and this cereal’s name and taste, Samoas are supposed to be all about the caramel.  Bleh.  Let me know when they release Chocolate Coconut Crunch.

 

[no seal of approval]

Also, make Lemon Coolers cereal please.

Cereal Review : Tiny Toast

Posted by robbposch on July 13, 2016
Posted in: Cereal Reviews, Food, Food Review, Uncategorized. Tagged: cereal, cereal review, food, food review, french toast crunch, general mills, tiny toast, toast. Leave a comment

My mental and emotional experiences with Tiny Toast have run a very wide gamut.  I first heard about it a while back, when I saw an article about General Mills releasing its first new cereal in (insert surprisingly large number that I now forget) years.

 

The first thing I thought was, “Wait, that doesn’t sound right… really?”  The second thing I thought was, “They’re breaking their hermetic seal for something called ‘Tiny Toast’?”

 

01

 

After seeing the packaging, it became pretty clear – General Mills just wants to find more usage for the machines that pump out French Toast Crunch.  Maybe giving into the 90’s nostalgia wasn’t as financially rewarding as they had hoped, I don’t know.

 

But clearly, the head of General Mills wanted to turn that little toaster into a profit machine.

 

Tiny Toast doesn’t seem like the most interesting cereal, in theory.  Without a description like “Cinnamon” or “French Toast”, you might just be expecting… toast.  The “tiny” part goes without saying.  No one would worry that Cinnamon Toast Crunch wasn’t going to fit on a spoon.

 

On the bright side, “Tiny Toast” is a lot of fun to say.

 

Tiny Toast seems to give up on the toast theming almost immediately with the product itself.  It comes in two varieties : Blueberry and Strawberry.  I guess you could argue that they are popular flavors of jam / jelly, that go on toast, but I don’t know if I buy that.  It just seems like, “Here’s a little toast-shaped cereal piece.  Also, it’s flavored.”

 

02

 

One thing the cereal definitely has going for it is packaging aesthetics.  The cereal box looks exactly like something you’d see mock-advertised on Ren and Stimpy.  Simple design, but well-executed with bright colors and a fun logo / font.  So the boxes look awesome.

 

03

 

The cereal pieces look close enough to what they’re supposed to be.

 

The flavor of Blueberry hedges its bets, between “real” tasting and “this is the fake flavor that you expect blueberry cereal to taste like”.  Sitting in this middle ground, it’s a very forgettable taste.

 

It did a respectable job of making the milk taste vaguely like if Blueberry Quik was a thing.

 

04

 

Strawberry, on the other hand, ups the ante a bit with its willingness to lean towards the fake cereal flavors.

 

05

 

The problem is, the fake strawberry flavor doesn’t taste good.  It’s not a horrible flavor, but something is just very off with it.  You can easily eat a bowl, but you might not be about with it.

 

It does, however, finally answer the age-old question of, “What if Strawberry Quik tasted really weird?”

 

[no seal of approval]

Friendly’s Wattamelon Sundae

Posted by robbposch on June 24, 2016
Posted in: Food, Food Review. Tagged: food, food review, friendly's ice cream, friendlys, ice cream, ice cream review, review, wattamelon, wattamelon roll, wattamelon sundae. Leave a comment

Due to my long distance relationship with Friendly’s, sometimes some amazing releases escape even my watchful eye.  So according to my research, this is a month or two shy of reviewing a brand new product.  But that’s not too shabby considering I live about 1,800 miles away from where I bought it from.

 

One of Friendly’s most popular (I’m assuming, but I find letting facts get in the way makes for less fun writing) products are their collection of pre-packaged sundaes.  And without a doubt, their most popular product overall is the Wattamelon Roll (again, assuming – but if someone doesn’t agree with that I don’t want to know that person nor do I want to interact with them on any level).

 

Friendly’s finally decided to Frankenstein these products together, in an attempt to produce an offspring that could unite the families and rule all the lands.

 

01

 

I’ve mentioned Friendly’s rolls once or twice on here (and approximately two thousand or so times a day in real life).  The restaurants serve actual food, but I think that’s largely just so people feel less ashamed, and don’t have to just sit down at a table and say “A very large portion of ice cream, please!”

 

So the ice cream is where it’s at.  And the actual ice cream is all well and good, but the packaged products at Friendly’s are the stars.  We’ve discussed the rolls before.  Well, I’ve talked about them – you have been almost aggressively non-verbal about them.  But one other line of products that is important to describe – especially since that’s what this review is about – are the pre-packaged sundaes.

 

01a

 

They look like this, are slightly larger than the size of a baseball.

 

You might wonder, “If you’re largely indifferent to the ice cream, and the actual sundaes you can buy, why are the packaged ones so special?”  Easy – because they’re pre-packaged.  It’s a little cup with a sundae in it.

 

They come with all the advantages of other pre-packaged versions of food: convenience, not being quite as good as the real thing but for some reason that is okay, and not having to place an order means you don’t have to interact with as many people during the day.

 

As for the Wattamelon Sundae, finding it on the shelf should not prove to be a problem.  I think Friendly’s put something in the package’s ink to make the green actually glow.  The combination of intensely bright green, red, and pink means this sundae will never run the risk of being hit by a car at night.  There was probably a very slim chance of that ever happening anyway, but still – playing it safe is smart.

 

02

 

Besides the garish colors, the other thing that is immediately noticeable on the packaging is what appears to be green slime.  Like, Friendly’s got a really good deal on the factory where Hostess made Turtle Pies, and just figured “Hey, waste not want not!”

 

03

 

Being so used to what a Wattamelon Roll looks like, looking at the sundae for the first time was odd.  The layer of mutagen was a shocking to see.  Also new wass what appeared to be a fake cherry on top, or maybe a little M&M on some Fat Frog levels.  Further inspection revealed that this was just a little bit of the watermelon sherbet peeking through.

 

04

 

The green part was described as “whipped topping”, which can mean a lot of things.  Usually I think it’s more when it’s a Cool Whip type thing, where if you call it “whipped cream” that’s technically lying and you can face a small amount of prison time.

 

05

 

In this instance, it was more like thin pudding, which reinforces my Hostess factory theory.  The topping kind of ran down when you took a bite, which at first looked creepy, but actually was a good contrast to the firmer sherbet.

 

06

 

The watermelon sherbet is the same Wattamelon goodness we already know and love.  There are chocolate chips / chunks on top of the sundae, but they are still in the sherbet as well.

 

Given the small handful of thousands of Wattamelon Rolls I have consumed, trying the sundae for the first time was a very confusing experience.  It is, to be sure, a very good product.  But it was also an internal battle, constantly thinking, “Wait, Wattamelon Roll doesn’t have whipped cream topping!  Where is the fake rind?  What is going on?”

 

You may have to dig deep, to find that secondary level of courage that you’ve always hoped to never need, to overcome these initial challenges.  Because once you realize this isn’t “Wattamelon Roll crammed into a little cup”, and embrace the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle changes, it becomes an awesome sundae.

 

07

 

The sundae cup still doesn’t solve my main problem – Wattamelon Roll availability.  If for some reason the sundae cups made their way out to me, but not the rolls, they’d be an extremely welcome product.  They would surpass the Watermelon Bomb Pops as my Wattamelon Roll methadone treatments.

 

But since both Wattamelon Rolls and Wattamelon Sundaes are all, presumably, for sale in the same areas, there is some redundancy.  Which is why they were smart to make it a sundae, with an actual change to the roll.

 

As the old cliché goes, “Sometimes you’re in the mood for green whipped topping on your sundae, and sometimes you’re more in the mood for lemon sherbet.”

 

So while there’s a bit of redundancy in the products, they’re different enough to warrant purchasing both.  Especially since when it’s 3 AM and you wake up hungry, it’s much easier to grab a pre-packaged sundae and eat it in bed than it is to cut a slice of Wattamelon Roll when you’re half awake.

[insert seal of approval here]

 

Cereal Review : Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cereal

Posted by robbposch on May 17, 2016
Posted in: Cereal Reviews, Food, Food Review. Tagged: cereal, cereal review, food, food review, teenage mutant ninja turtles. Leave a comment

 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have a decades-long reputation for knowing how to put out a good cereal.

 

I know there was at least one foreign TMNT cereal, which – oddly enough – looked similar to the cereal we’re about to learn about.  I know that’s a very liberal usage of the word “learn”.

 

But when you talk about TMNT cereal, you’re talking about the one and only – the Ralson sweetened Chex with marshmallows cereal.  I know nostalgia can make a lot of things seem better, but I vividly remember how it tasted, and how it is one of my favorite cereals ever.

 

I tried it again a few years back, and I will admit it wasn’t as good as I remembered.  Granted, this was probably because the box expired about twenty years prior, so I’m willing to cut it some slack.

 

Stale attempts to recreate the good old days aside, any cereal to come out now that would dare attempt to put the TMNT name on the box has a hell of an uphill battle.  The original will likely always be king, so any newcomer better step up their game big time.

 

01

 

I’m not familiar with the newer TMNT, the show where the characters look like cheap Happy Meal toys come to life.  I kind of like that aesthetic – it fits the ridiculousness of the Turtles’ world – but it’s not the look that I “know”.  But I’m old and willing to concede that they don’t care about my opinions anymore, especially because I don’t watch the show or buy the toys.

 

02

 

The bragging on the box about no artificial colors or flavors is worrying.  I know cereals are starting to shy away from them, and the TMNT cereal is a great example of how this hurts a cereal.

 

The colors are all sort of sad.  All of them except for Leonardo are okay, just subdued and rather blah for a cereal based on Ninja Turtles.  And Leonardo’s pieces are terrible.  The shade of blue is legitimately ugly to look at.

 

Using no artificial flavors also seems to hurt the cereal.  The taste is… fine.  It tastes like a fruit cereal, but it tastes like it should be a healthy cereal.  One of those cereals on the far end of the cereal aisle, where the boxes always seem to use jungle imagery for some reason.

 

Finally, as for the cereal pieces themselves, they’re pretty well done.  You can tell that they’re meant to be turtles.  However, they look vaguely sinister.

 

03

 

If Giggles cookies, Phanto from Super Mario Bros. 2, and a racist caricature of a sumo wrestler all had a wild night and made kids (I can’t explain the biology of that), the kids would look exactly like these cereal pieces.

 

Overall, the cereal is okay.  Not bad, not great.  If you’re fiending for something TMNT, it should fit the bill.  You might not go back for a second box, but you will be able to know for sure that the original TMNT cereal still reigns supreme.  Also, the new cereal doesn’t come with a free cereal bowl, so there’s also that.

 

[insert very lazy half shrug of a seal of approval here]

Cereal Review : Jif PB&J Strawberry

Posted by robbposch on March 23, 2016
Posted in: Cereal Reviews, Food, Food Review, Uncategorized. Tagged: cereal, cereal review, food, food review, jif, kellogg's, peanut butter, review. Leave a comment

Despite my unhealthy obsession with cereal, both in the “affecting my mind” and “affecting my body” aspects, I pretty much draw the line at following cereal sales.

 

My knowledge of if a cereal is selling well is usually based on, “They don’t make it anymore, I guess it didn’t sell that well.”

 

So I was kind of surprised to see they still make Jif Peanut Butter Cereal.  I wasn’t a big fan.  I get the appeal, to be sure, but it just seemed like a cereal that didn’t have a huge audience.  It seemed like Jif would come out, people would go “Huh, there it is.” and we’d all move on.  Over time I did grow to really like the box art.  Its almost aggressively dull retro aesthetic became something to respect.

 

Instead, two years later, Jif still exists and is getting a line extension – Jif PB&J Strawberry.  That name sure is awful typed out like that.

 

01

 

Jif kept its 1982 cereal-piece-shapes.  But instead of going for a more odd shape for the jelly pieces, it went with the tried and true Crunch Berry shape.

 

02

 

The color of the jelly pieces seems abnormally bold, in contrast to the very blah coloring of the peanut butter pieces.  On their own, the jelly pieces look like your typical “red” berry piece, but mixed in the bowl they almost look nuclear.

 

Side Note : I finally replaced my previous camera, so this is hopefully the last review where the cereal looks like blurry, off-colored terribleness.

 

03

 

Since I already knew what the peanut butter pieces tasted like, I first tried the jelly pieces on their own.  And they were good.  They were either the same flavor as Crunch Berries, with maybe 10% more “natural-ness” flavoring added, or it’s just Kellogg’s approximation of actual Crunch Berries.  In any case, no problems there.

 

Mixed together, as the cereal is presumably intended to be eaten (since it comes out of the box that way and all), it is a really good cereal.

 

The understated, more “real” flavored peanut butter pieces mesh perfectly with the “fake berry” jelly pieces.  Instead of the opposite ends of the spectrum clashing, they just meet in the middle.

 

If you liked the original Jif cereal, I don’t see why you wouldn’t like this one (unless the dilution of the peanut butter purity is too much to handle).  If you weren’t a big fan of it, it’s worth a shot.

 

[insert seal of approval here]

Posts navigation

← Older Entries
  • Archives

    • April 2020
    • June 2018
    • July 2017
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
    • July 2016
    • June 2016
    • May 2016
    • March 2016
    • February 2016
    • January 2016
    • December 2015
    • October 2015
    • September 2015
    • July 2015
    • June 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • January 2015
    • December 2014
    • November 2014
    • October 2014
    • September 2014
    • July 2014
    • June 2014
    • May 2014
    • April 2014
    • March 2014
    • February 2014
    • January 2014
    • December 2013
    • October 2013
    • September 2013
    • July 2013
    • June 2013
    • May 2013
    • April 2013
    • March 2013
    • February 2013
    • January 2013
    • December 2012
    • November 2012
    • October 2012
    • September 2012
    • August 2012
    • July 2012
    • February 2012
    • November 2011
    • September 2011
    • July 2011
    • February 2011
    • December 2010
    • November 2010
    • September 2010
    • August 2010
    • July 2010
    • April 2010
    • February 2010
    • November 2009
    • September 2009
    • August 2009
    • April 2009
    • January 2009
    • December 2008
    • October 2008
    • August 2008
    • June 2008
    • May 2008
    • April 2008
    • February 2008
    • December 2007
    • November 2007
    • October 2007
    • September 2007
    • June 2007
    • May 2007
    • April 2007
    • March 2007
    • February 2007
    • January 2007
    • December 2006
    • November 2006
    • October 2006
    • August 2006
    • July 2006
    • May 2006
    • February 2006
    • December 2005
    • November 2005
    • October 2005
    • September 2005
    • August 2005
    • July 2005
    • May 2005
    • April 2005
    • March 2005
    • January 2005
    • December 2004
    • November 2004
    • October 2004
    • September 2004
    • July 2004
    • June 2004
    • May 2004
    • March 2004
    • January 2004
    • November 2003
    • April 2003
    • January 2003
    • October 2002
    • August 2002
    • July 2002
  • Categories

    • Candy
    • Cereal Reviews
    • Disney
    • Florida
    • Food
    • Food Review
    • Holidays
    • Miscellaneous Reviews
    • Movie Reviews
    • Soda Reviews
    • Uncategorized
    • Video Games
  • Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Blog at WordPress.com.
Diet Coke-Babies
Blog at WordPress.com.
  • Follow Following
    • Diet Coke-Babies
    • Join 77 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Diet Coke-Babies
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...