Golden Grahams Treats, OMG, Golden Golden Grahams Treats!

Seriously, what's it about these things that are so fricking good?  I loved Golden Grahams Treats ever since I was a kid. I grew up and they were taking out of my life when big companies decided the market in Canada was no longer good enough. That's an assumption, why else would they get rid of this beloved childhood nugget? Anyway, the trip of trips - you guessed it, Florida - would have me seeing this on the shelves at Walmart. I couldn't believe it, I think my jaw hit the floor. I had to regain my composure and be restrictive when I instinctively wanted to buy all of what they had in stock - America, you do NOT know how good you have it over there!

So fast-forward the clock a bit a year or two later and wouldn't you guess it, Golden Grahams treats are being sold @ Costco. Right here in Canada! My eyes light up and my heart started to race when I saw the stocked pallet of Golden array shining from the distance. It was just too good to be true! And these were the big boxes of 24, roughly 700g per package. Ask me how much I bought. 3. I bought 3 '24 cases of Golden Grahams Treats all for myself! I got home and couldn't wait to try it, but again I had to restrict myself and allow it to sit in the cupboard, so I can at least so it made it there and I had will-power. 

But that didn't last long. I waited long enough and I finally got to try these gems once again since I've last had them two years ago. They're still as awesome as I remember it. They treats I remember having though were I a little bit wider in frame and didn't have a chocolate surface. It also was a square, much like its rivalling treat, Rice Krispies. The golden grahams cereal pieces were just as rich and crunchy as they were before they hit the bowl, spent 5 seconds in milk and turned to mush. The marshmallow, the ooey-gooey marshmallow, is the glue that holds this thing together. And oh yeah, it was DEE-LISHOUS! General Mills, I thank you. Whatever reason you guys had to pull these treats out of Canada is forgiven, because it is SO worth having it back now after all those years! 

To my fellow Canadian brethren's, do not miss your opportunity to try this yummy piece of history, because they won't be there for long. They had it at Costco for a couple of weeks and then it was gone for months. I looked everywhere! Went to every Costco within a drive and didn't find it stocked. It was only at one Costco - luckily the one closest to my house - that I got my hands on these. 

As I write this, I can't help but think about that one scene from the The Simpsons where Homer's singing, "My Golden Grahams" so hilariously. But missing out on this is no laughing matter. 

Snap, Crackle, Pop.. Chocolate Krispies, good or not?

 

Rice Krispies Treats bring me back to the good ole' days of the original Rice Krispies cereal. When I use to fill the bowl with Rice Krispies and then fill the bowl even further with spoonfuls of sugar. Not exactly ideal now as a grown full adult, but as a kid, the Rice Krispies cereal didn't come to life unless that sugar was in it! Fast forward more than a decade later and I'm shoveling Rice Krispies packaged cereal bars down my gullet like a mad-man, 6-8 treats at a time.



On my trip to Avon Park, Florida during the summer, I stopped by a local Wal-mart there and filled my trolley with every Kellogg's, Post and General Mills cereal bars under the corporate sun, leaving me with a grocery bill longer than Lindsay Lohan's rap-sheet. What accompanied the colorful array of small packaged treats, cookies and other junk you wouldn't DARE let a child near alone, was a box of Rice Krispies Treats Double Chocolately Chunk.



It's funny, because I would  not of got if it wasn't for a unfortunate event of seeing Fruity Pebbles Treats, but no Cocoa Pebbles Treats with it! So to compensate, I picked up *two* Fruity Pebbles Treats and this, along with Cheerios cereal bars, and went on my way. These ended up being one of the last foods I tried since my trip. I've already eaten almost everything else! The bars are 22g each and come in a package of 8. That's fine. Portion control size, I can use that. They're 100 calories, 4grams of fat, 75mg of sodium, 15g of carbs, and 9grams of sugar each. Oh, and they have a gram of fiber!



The box gives the cereal bar a much more bulkier appearance, but that isn't the case. It's about half that in height and the chocolate chunks are NOT that prominent, at least not for the size I bought. What I can say about this though is that it does give off a a mild Cocoa scent. Sure as hell better, the damn thing says it's Double Chocolately. So why do I feel jibbed? Probably because "Double Chocolately" was a bit of a stretch. Maybe when they're saying Double Chocolately they're comparing it to the original, which has none in the first place.




 It's not all that underwhelming though. The bar has a good balance of crunchy and chewy, largely in part to the Marshmallows that does a great job of channeling the cocoa flavor with the texture. The chocolate chunks, the decent-sized chocolate chunks, are non too bad either. The taste like generic dark-chocolate, lacking any real defining characteristics in the mix but that all gets lost among the overall chocolate flavor of the whole. Overall, you may not be all impressed by it, but it's good eat! Good chocolate taste, in no way premium, but a decent reach for the price margin! =D




7/10

WILDLICIOUS - Because WILD makes a WORLD of difference!

The pastry addicts at it again! Another pop-tart review to crack out because my endless supply has been running low lately and I have the gamut of Pop-Tart selections to NOM through. Here's WILDLICIOUS Frosted WILD! Strawberry Pop-Tarts. OH YEAH! THERE'S YELLING BEING INVOLVED HERE THAT MEANS IT MUST BE GOOD! Its exciting display of vibrant rainbow-like colors just screams this Pop-Tart's gonna be F#%#-ing EPIC!



But I must not get carried away. The Pop-tart has a lovely aesthetic design of pink red-ish hues and a red drizzle lining like an overview of a wacky-race. Unlike its pale-colored Frosted Strawberry counterpart. It's saying, "Yeah - you may got those sprinkles all over you buddy but what else, huh!? Look at me I got fricking green sprinkles AND I'm some concoction of pink and red baby, WOO!!! Other being a whole lot ...prettier, I dare say? - than the Frosted Strawberry it has a pleasant smell to it, too. That must be due to it being baked with real fruit, as Kellogg's proclaims.



So I pop it in the toaster, wait 3 minutes and grab my hot-to-the-touch toaster buddies and OFF I AM to my room quarters! I hoard over them like an evil gremlin ready to swoop, boy do they look good. I break them apart first - which I normally do - in a couple of equally-sized squares. The tempting Strawberry frosting staring back at me. I take my first bite and I'm immediately filled with the pleasant taste of Strawberry. But wait - this doesn't just taste like the normal Strawberry I'd get from the classic Frosted Strawberry stuff, there's something different. This strawberry... tastes amplified. Could it be? Could it really be that they managed to make the Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tart even better?




Surely I was dreaming. In all of half a second it took me to process these swirls of thought I was taking my next bite and it was confirmed - Kellogg's did it. The Sweet pleasant taste of Strawberry was not only familiar... but exciting! The palette of frosting and strawberry drizzle mixed with the strawberry frosting made it a Pop-tart I wouldn't forget.The pastry's crust is typical of Pop-tarts pastry's crusts. It was soft - somewhat hard and crunchy when toasted - and wasn't really the center of attention, as always. I was sad when I finished off the two pieces of Strawberry toast because I wanted more! Ah, the catch. These yummy bad-boys are great, but they just don't do a wallop on the waist-line. In other words, pop in another batch, fellas, you're pastry friends are gonna need company.



Overall I'd say The WILDLICIOUS Frosted WILD! Strawberry Pop-Tarts are like the Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts, on steroids. If there's one way to out-do a classic, you make it wild. It just makes sense. But remember, if you're a man - like myself - you're gonna have to at-least pop in more than 2 of them. Less than that won't cut it. Believe me..






8/10

Cookoo For Cocoa Puffs Treats!

So you're generally getting an understanding on just what I do here. Given the theme of my reviews I don't think it's possible to elude any of you much further. Now that you got a vague perception of what exactly these reviews will be revolving around the majority of the time you can either tune out or watch me indulge my junk food obsession further. The choice is yours...





Wherever a cereal-bar mascot lures on the  impressionable innocence of the youth and their sensational appetites for cheap artificial sweets in the breakfast aisle, I will not be far off! And yes, that orange, long-beaked bastard will be more than happy to trick your taste-buds out like a Pimp My Ride episode. I obviously picked me up two boxes because I'm weak! Look at the NEW! letterhead in big jump-out captions! Look at that smug bird with his human-shaped hands out, inviting us in for what will clearly be our diet undoing! DAMN YOU, GENERAL MILLS. DAMN YOU!!!




Yeah, so back to the story. Two boxes sat in the cabinet as I gobbled my way through almost a years supply of crap foods in less than a month before setting my sights on the chocolate bad-boy. There was a brief, unsettling stare-down between me and that big-goofy mug on the box, but I couldn't blame him. He was in my pantry, therefore he'd won. I shamelessly opened the package in defeat and pulled the neatly wrapped rectangle from out of the box, examining its almost weightless feel and aesthetic design. Yeah, and as you'd guess, there it was. That bird. That damn, anthropomorphic vertebrate taunting me. "You have not got my soul yet, vermin!" I yelled in a comical, Adam West banter before I began to unraveled the plastic cover.



The Coco Puff cereal I use to know, fused into a rich, milk chocolate binding. Its top, drizzled in chocolate. Its bottom, submerged in a rigid chocolate fortress. The smell was delightful! The strong scent, immerses you in those nostalgic days of pouring your bowl with 3x the recommended amount of cereal and then lifting the bowl to your face as you gulp down the remaining chocolate-y milk-contents after the cereal is done.



Now, taking a bite. It's not bad at all. The smell was certainly validated of Cocoa Puffs cereal and you get a pleasant milk-chocolate taste. (NOTE: You ever open a box of Cocoa Puffs cereal, rip open the plastic package and that sealed in scent when that bag's first opened hits you like a ton a bricks? Yeah, every packaged treat is like that.) Kudos, General Mills. Awesome presentation, decent execution.



Overall? A nice triple chocolate treat, 100 calories for every 24g bar. Stronger in scent and taste to its cereal counterpart and mildly convenient for those on-the-go.... that wanna sabotage their diet quickly and painfully while telling themselves "It's only 100 calories. It's only 100 calories!". Don't expect this to fill you up though, because it won't! And exercise caution if you're giving this to your  kids. 1 too many of these and you'll be in a doctors office faster than that damn Cocoa Puffs bird can get a quick-witted word in!





6.5/10

Hey - I care for more caramel, please!

Alas, a powerful being has emerged! Among the chosen few arises a cookie worth being declared of its rich, meaningful tapestry. It's history ever-changing through the straws of time as it dawns many cloaks and outfits but keeps its bountiful title: Chips Ahoy!


Ok. The Introduction was a bit much, but I've loved these cookies as a boy. I'm WELL aware of its arguably mediocre taste, but as a child I didn't know any better! To me this was an angel strumming the harps as it hums sweet nothings, hundreds of thousands of feet in the air on a cloud fortress made of solid gold with an army manning the front entrance, right next to St. Peter!



But along came its lesser known brother, Chips Ahoy Chewy Gooey Caramel.  Now Chips Ahoy Chewy is an entirely new beasts of its own. It's soft. It reminds you of the cookies "Ma-ma" use to make. You remember that smell? Ah, wasn't it grand? Well, that bad-boys at the Nabisco office cracked out a new gem, and let's just say - it's not shining as bright as its brother.



I Carefully peeled back the resealable lips from the package and there it stood - rows and rows of innocent looking cookies bunched in formation. Large Chocolate Chip boulders amassed the pale, doughy coins like craters. The cookies themselves, miniature in size. How miniature you say? Miniature enough that the Cookie Monster would frown as it tries tirelessly to grasp the chewy buttons through its mitten-like fingers and feigns his memorable gorging noises, but the cookies just won't do.



For emphasis on how gooey this Chewy Chips Ahoy really was I softly clamped my fingers into both opposite sides and slowly pried it apart. The caramel to biscuit ratio was really disappointing. Upon visually looking at it it'd be hard to tell if this cookie actually had caramel. It was puny! RAGE! RAAAAAGGGEEE! Biting into one you get that familiar soft, doughy-texture one would normally perceive from a Chips Ahoy Chewy, right down to its familiar taste.


 So it was sad to know that among the chocolate chip, the caramel wasn't all that existent. You could *taste*a small tint of caramel, sure. And it does evenly coat the palette, but it was thin, and devoid of any real-defining flavor. In other words, think bargain bin, Dollar-store quality. This was it. I can't say I didn't enjoy it though, because well, it was Chips Ahoy! And however mediocre it is, I'll STILL LOVE IT!.

I tried it both warmed, in a microwave for 30 seconds, and room temperature. I find it's slightly - EVER so slightly - better when it's heated up, but to each its own! Overall. The "Gooey Caramel" doesn't bring much to the "Chewy" brand of Chips Ahoy. A very weak impression of caramel slapped into each dollar-coin sized cookie bite of (15g). But if you like Chips Ahoy Chewy, then the Caramel may be a nice, "small" addition to your sweets!




6.5/10 

Pop-Tarts: Bakery Style.

Look at the box! LOOK AT IT! If there was EVER a box trying to market itself to children with its colorful sprinkles, innocent white frosting and in your face letterbox captions, this would be it! Like a magnetic force your eyes are drawn to it immediately! You may wanna shield your children's eyes as you dart through the pastry aisle, averting row after row of sugary treats. A precaution best suited for preventing a supermarket freakout of epic proportions! On the docket? the fairly new Pop-Tarts creation, Frosted Confetti Cupcake. Forget a cartoon mascot shoveling its weak gimmick down your yappers, Kellogg's does that job through eye-popping Pop-Tart visuals!

I've never had Confetti Cupcake before. Or maybe I have. My short term memory sucks. But be warned! The minute you open the package you'll be hit with such a strong, buttery scent you'll nearly convulse! Yeah, it's that nauseating! As soon as I undressed this Pop-Tart's wrapper to expose the polka-dotted pastry underneath, the smell of butter invaded my senses. Yes - all five of them! And guess what? they weren't even toasted yet.

Ahh, I'll never be whole again!

So yeah, 3 minutes later my toaster yelps and that insufferable smell you get once you open the wrapper? multiply it by  3.  The vanilla frosting has a slightly tougher exterior than you'd come to expect from an ordinary Pop-Tart and the colorful sprinkles become a nuisance, falling off all over the place. Down the hatch! Bleh. Mediocrity. Of course, it's a Pop-Tart.





The frosting has that really cheap synthetic taste of Vanilla, ya know? Like the bargain brand pre-baked Cupcakes you buy in those plastic cases for like 4.99$ at your local grocers. And gives the pastry a tough texture. With the overpowering aroma of butter, though  it's hard to get a sense for that vanilla flavor, it pales in comparison. I mean, you know it's there - but that may just be my visual perception sending signals to my brain like "Hey you! Yeah, you - you're eating a vanilla-flavored Pop-Tart! Now leave me alone!".

Down the hatch!

Overall, not bad. I've had better Pop-Tarts and I'd say easily out of all them this would be somewhere on my bottom ten list. As aesthetically pleasing as it may be, the pastry itself is not that exciting. My guess is all the effort was put into making the box colorful enough to distract you from the monotony the lays dormant inside of the package. Curse you, Kellogg's! .....*NOM* *NOM* *NOM*




5.5/10

Festival Fun? ha.

Vanilla I-SCREAM Cone. Vanilla III-SCREEAMM Coone. Yeah - we see the depths of Pop-Tarts creativity in that alone. What's in the box isn't much different. The limited edition Pop-Tarts Festival Fun Frosted Vanilla III-SCREEAMM Coone *exhales* is about as interesting as its play-on words. Heed the warning of mediocrity! I tried this yesterday, but not before reading reviews of it first from The Impulsive Buy, and The Mind of a Big Cat, which said it tasted like the S'mores Pop-Tarts flavor. A little let-down, but still optimistic I opened the box and ripped open the package.



Sure enough, it did look a lot like the S'mores version. Only real difference was this had sprinkles, with no chocolate-marshmallow filling. My Pop-Tarts batch had an uneven frosted coating, but that's OK - the taste it what counts. I popped the bad-boy in the toaster and waited my habitual three-minutes out watching Futurama on the telly at 3:30AM in the morning. The familiar aroma of S'mores Pop-Tarts filled the air and as I sprung out of bed anticipating it's leap from the toaster there it was, hot and ready to go!



I broke the Pop-tarts into 4 slightly equal halves - like I normally do - and proceeded to take my first bite.OK, it smells like the S'mores Pop-Tart. It looks like the S'mores Pop-Tart. But there's a slight distinction in its taste. There's a sense of familiarity there, but the filling has a more vanilla-frosting like flavor than the marshmallow-y S'mores kind. That's a relief - kind of. I mean, at least Kellogg's made some sort of effort in distinction of their new flavor.




I however didn't taste any Festival. Nor did I feel like I was at a festival when eating this half-concoction of the S'mores treat. The chocolate frosting was sweet, like your generic supermarket chocolate cake, and the sprinkles that were unevenly distributed on the coating didn't bring much more than a gritty, but pleasant crunch. Kelloggs - how dare you. Where do you get off putting Festival Fun in its name? For that matter, why's  "III-SCREEAMM" in the title? OHHHH - Try it frozen. No thanks.



All and all. The Pop-Tarts Festival Fun Frosted Vanilla III-SCREEAMM Coone breaks a lot a promises, like a bad politician. You can to try to imagine real hard that its like a Festival, but it just isn't. It's A S'mores Pop-Tart with a few minor tweaks.AND IT TASTES NOTHING LIKE A VANILLA III-SCREEAMM Coone!


5/10

A dentist's worst nightmare: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Treats

On a trip to Avon Park, Florida a couple weeks back I came across a plethora of cereal bar treats. They had: Coco Puffs Treats (picked it up), Lucky Charms Treats (picked it up), Honey Nut Cheerios Cereal Bars (picked it up), Fruity Pebbles Treats (picked it up) and a bunch more that I don't remember and probably picked up. I'm here 3 weeks later to tell you that I ate off almost 2/3rds of the cereal bars I bought and I'm here to review one of the 4... or 5... or whatever, plenty.

If you're no stranger to the these sugar-laden cinnamon-battered cereal squares you've either eaten enough of them for your dentist to want to yank your head off and mount it on his wall like a prized trophy or you're a parent of a child who's eaten enough of them to keep your local dentist office in business. Either way, you've come across them.

As soon I ripped open the wrapper I got a whiff of its strong cinnamon presence. Almost overwhelming. I took a bite and the cinnamon presence was so strong it bombarded into my taste-buds headquarters like an F.D.A drug bust and started kicking my taste-buds ass!

The cinnamon pretty much dominates most of the other aspects of the treat. The other notable presence would be the sugary flavor, which does feel like a tad much, but I'm a fan of junk-food so it was tolerable. However, the overtly sugar-cinnamon-y taste may be overbearing for those not big on foods that will rot their teeth to its raw nerve.


These treats come at 24(g) per bar. They're not as messy as the cereal version where you're getting the sugar and cinnamon powder all over your fingers, and the nice-crunchy texture compliments the flavor well. Overall, I was SLIGHTLY disappointed that the cinnamon presence was so strong (almost nauseating),  not really allowing any of the other flavors to flourish, but its still satisfying enough to NOM NOM NOM through each bar like the Cookie Monster during his lunch period. Pick these up if you're fan of the Cereal... and get ready for the overinflated dentist bills you'll likely incur. ;)



Rating: 6/10

The Start To Truly Foody-ism

Eek, I know - another wannabe food blogger jumping on the food blogging bandwagon. Cripes, these guys multiply like cockroaches. First off, I'd like to apologize in advance for the terrible literary skills you're gonna witness upon visiting this website. I'm not great at bringing people into my world and sharing my experiences through cleverly worded puns and all that other stuff professional food bloggers do to entice their readers. What I'm going to do is basically try my best to review foods I like on an occasional basis and hopefully you'll like what you see.




I'd like to start by saying I'm a BIG FAN of junk food, so you're going see a lot of reviews revolving around just that. If you're a fan of junk food you'll come to like this page if my wording skills don't scare you off. I eat junk food all the time. I love it. I can't get enough of it. If there was a machine out there that would zap junk food items down to 0 calories across the board on the nutritional scale whilst retaining its flavor, I wouldn't get to enjoy it, because I'd die from a heart attack hearing the news.



I also frequent plenty of Food blogs out there, such as The Impulsive Buy and Fat Guy Food Blog.  I think the only thing that really gravitates me to their blogs, other than seeing pictures of Junk Food items and salivating over them like Pin-up babes, is the way the reviews are written. Insightful, enticing, funny and creative - you won't get much of that here, but I'll try.



There isn't much beyond that to know about me, or this site. Occasionally reviews will be posted of foods I come across and if I choose to make a review of them it'll be done. All the Junk Food Junkies out there - WELCOME TO THE BLOG. To all the veggie-heads who've already made up their mind about me and my website, no hard feelings huh?



-R.J