Crunchkins - Walmart

Crunchkins - Walmart 

 Okay, this is a (relatively) new candy product a lot of people were excited about, but I (sadly) was not one of them. 

From the second I saw the promo image for this product I felt like it was going to be a disappointment. Why? Look at those flavors! It seems like this is going to be another case of fancy flavor names that the product can't deliver. I mean, Birthday Cake and Fudge Brownie? Aren't those just fancy ways of saying "Chocolate" and "Vanilla?" But Glazed Donut? That one I wasn't sure about. My curiosity won out over my gut instinct. Lets see who was right, my gut, or my brain

Candyology 101 Episode 35 - Whatchamacallit (and review!)

 

Whatchamacallit - Walmart

On today's Candyology 101 we're munching on the Whatchamacallit bar, A Hershey's bar that never quite took off. It has a loyal following, and some fun marketing, but I don't think I've ever had one...until now! Tune in to learn more about this under the radar bar, and then check out my first impression review below!

Subscribe to the show via iTunes, Stitcher, or RSS.
Plus, we're now available in the Google Play Music Store!

Or you can download today's MP3 file HERE. 

Don't forget to check out my review under the cut!

Peppermint Crunch Junior Mints - Target? (I think...)

Peppermint Crunch Junior Mints - Target? (I think...)

One more day until the weekend. Just one more day. We can do this...I can do this.

It's been another really intense week with my day job and side-work, for a closer look at all the stuff I do besides food blogging check out my personal/art blog HERE, but for now, let's dig into my giant food-stash for a minty, Christmas-y, #tbt review!

Meiji Marble Chocolate - Asian Food Market

Meiji Marble Chocolate - Asian Food Market

Meiji Marble, in a box? If you're unfamiliar with Meiji products, their candies are often sold in long skinny cardboard tubes with a matching cardboard cap. The only time I've ever seen Meiji Marble in a box, and not their signature tube, is when it's part of a mini-sampler, or a special flavor mix, but this looks pretty normal to me. I can't read much of the packaging, but from what I can see...this looks like normal marble chocolate. I guess we'll open it up and find out.

America Mix Skittles - Walmart

America Mix Skittles - Walmart

Apparently Memorial Day/Fourth of July themed candies are a thing and for some reason all of the candy companies are releasing theirs super early. So...America Mix Skittles. That's a thing. Part of me wants to make fun of it, because it's America-themed Skittles, but as cheesy as it is, it's nice to see Skittles doing something new, and let's face it, it's a good marketing move. With the upcoming election and national holidays these are going to sell like hot cakes!

Let's get this review started! Taste the patriotism!

Herr's Chickie's & Pete's Famous Crab Fries Seasoned Chips - 7-Eleven

Herr's Chickie's & Pete's Famous Crab Fries Seasoned Chips 
w/White Creamy Cheese Sauce Flavoring - 7-Eleven

This is quite a long product name, maybe even the longest in Sometimes Foodie history! 

Chickie's and Pete's is a popular crab house/sports bar-chain that only exists in NJ and PA. As far as the atmosphere, it's very similar to a TGIFridays, but the menu (obviously) leans towards seafood. Fear not fish-haters, they offer non-seafood items, like hamburgers, pizza and cheesesteaks too. I mean, how can you sell food in PA without a Philly cheesesteak on the menu? You'd be kicked out of the city! This popular local restaurant chain teamed up with PA's favorite snack company, Herr's, to make chips flavored like their most popular menu item, the crab fries! Being the Jersey-girl-food-blogger that I am, I think I'd lose my east coast foodie card if I didn't give these a try. So I went to 7-Eleven and grabbed myself a bag.

Hot Tamales Tropical Heat - Dollar Tree

Hot Tamales Tropical Heat - Dollar Tree

Sorry I missed a few review days this week. Last night I gave a presentation to the Gloucester County Art League about all the stuff I create and do. On top of running this food blog I also run an art blog, a few online shops, I freelance from home (mostly graphic design), I sew, sculpt polymer clay charms and trinkets, and I sell all my work at conventions. All of that, plus 9-5 graphic design and printing job. Sometimes I get stretched pretty thin with all that I do, but even when I'm sleep deprived and running on sugar, I wouldn't change it for the world. 

For today's review I have something that has been sitting in my stash since last December, these Tropical Heat Hot Tamales! Let's see if these candies live up ti their name, or if their spiciness is just a marketing gimmick.

Strawberry Honey Tong Tong - H-Mart

Strawberry Honey Tong Tong - H-Mart

Tong Tong? I may love Korean snacks and watch K-dramas (THIS is my favorite), but I can't speak Korean, so even though there are plenty of context clues on the bag to let me know what this product actually is, I had to google "Tong Tong" to figure out what the product name means. 

According to the good ol' internet, it's a slang term for being "chubby." Which, if true, is freaking adorable. They named a junk food after what junk food does to you! I wish America would have fun with their product names like that. Then again "Honey Chubs" might not be as warmly received by the general public here in America... 

Maltesers Malty Chocolate Drink - Food Review UK

Maltesers Malty Chocolate Drink - Food Review UK

I made 2 YouTube videos (video 1, video 2) reviewing the products I got from my swap with Food Review UK, which was awesome, but a few of the products they sent over required a bit more prep so along with the videos I have a few items I'll be reviewing in blog post form. The first of which being this awesome Maltesers drink powder!

Cookies & Cream Pocky vs. White Cookie Pepero

Cookies & Cream Pocky vs. White Cookie Pepero

It's a battle of the brands! Korea's favorite, Pepero, versus Glico's Taiwanese Pocky! (This box came from Taiwan, not Japan, so it could differ slightly from the typical Japanese Pocky, so I wanted to be sure I pointed that out before we got started.)

Not only is this a handy way to get through two products from my stash at the same time, but it'll be interesting to see the difference between these two popular chocolate-coated snacks sticks. They look similar, and they're the same flavor, but trust me, they're very different. Which brand shall be victorious?

I'll be comparing them in three rounds, packaging, taste, and value for your money. Best out of three, wins!

Mike and Ike Shredders - Dollar Tree

Mike and Ike Shredders - Dollar Tree

For the record, this product has been sitting in my to-be-reviewed pile for half a year, but I swear it ALWAYS looked like this! (It did, I promise!)

I saw these "Shredders" at the Dollar Tree when they were first introduced and I thought they looked interesting, sort of like mini Sour Straws. Each bag had a little plastic window so your could see the product inside and they all looked kinda...icky. There were two flavors available, this Sour Wildberry one and some pink colored bag with another flavor variety. This flavor looked like it had less sour sugar coating and it also looked kind of oily, while the other had a sour-sugar overload! I grabbed the best looking one of each and tossed them into my cart because I'm a food and candy blogger and I can't resist trying new stuff. Then they sat in the giant back-logged food-valanche pile of products I've been meaning to review for over half a year! (So much for being "New.") I'm slowly but surely working my way through the backlog and since we just recorded a Mike and Ike themed episode of Candyology 101, what better time to tear into these bags? First up, the less sugary-looking of the two, Sour Wildberry!

Meiji Poifull Drink Mix - Asian Food Market

Meiji Poifull Drink Mix - Asian Food Market

Poifull may look like jelly beans, but the texture is completely different! The outside is sugary and kind of crumbly, similar to Jelly Belly style beans, but the inside is chewy, bouncy and soft. It's almost like a panned gummy, and it's absolutely delightful! Unlike a lot of American jelly beans, these are also flavored inside and out! The cores are each a different color to match their sugary exterior. For this mix in particular we have four soda-themed flavors, and I'm super excited to give these a try!

Cadbury Creme Egg Cookies - Target

Cadbury Creme Egg Cookies - Target

Hippity Hoppity Easter....was a month ago,. Whoops. So happy #tbt to you all! 

Last year these limited edition cookies were plastered all over social media and they were driving all of us American food bloggers crazy because we didn't get them. (Although we get plenty of stuff other countries don't, it's just that "grass is always greener" thing we all experience from time to time in the heat of an awesome foodie moment.) This year Cadbury got the memo and realized they could make even more money selling these limited edition cookies overseas, so this Easter they were being sold at Target along with a couple other Cadbury products. I may have gone a little overboard because I grabbed two packages the moment I saw them. I mean, they're Cadbury Eggs in COOKIE form! How could that go wrong? 

Candyology 101 Episode 34 - Mike & Ike

Which is your favorite?

On today's episode of Candyology 101 we take a look at Mike and Ikes. This jelly-bean-like confection comes is a ton of different flavor varieties and it's really affordable, but it's never gotten the same recognition as other fruity candies like Skittles or Starburst.

We take a brief look at this tubular candy to discuss how it's made, how long it's been around, and we share our favorite mixes and individual flavors. Plus! Cybele tries to quiz me to see if I can pick out the legit Mike and Ike mixes in a sea of fakes. (How did I do? Tune in to find out!) Then, as always, we finish things off with our treat or trick section to let you know what sweets are headed our way soon. Be sure to share your favorite Mike & Ike mix below!

Have you been liking Candyology101 so far? 

Please head on over to itunes and give us a little review to let us know how we're doing.

Meet the cast:

Cybele from Candy Blog

Maria (Me) from Sometimes Foodie

Listen to the player above, check us out on Stitcher, or you can download the MP3 file. If you want to subscribe to the show, it’s available on iTunes and via RSS.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

Like Sometimes Foodie's Facebook page to keep up with all my foodie adventures!

Mike and Ike Root Beer Float - Dollar Tree

Mike and Ike Root Beer Float - Dollar Tree

Those Cotton Candy Mike and Ikes weren't alone, they were released with a matching faux-vintage box of Root Beer Float candies and I couldn't just review one without the other, could I? (Well I could, but I'd feel like a bad food blogger.) Besides, I like root beer and root beer flavored sweets. When I was little root beer flavored medicine was always my favorite and I loved eating those little root beer barrel shaped hard candies. As an adult I still like root beer, I just don't care for it in cookie form.

Fun Fact: Root beer is extremely unpopular in Japan! This post went viral on Tumblr, then it quickly spread all over the rest of the internet.

Image ©  Yuru Yuri San☆Hai  - Comment credited to nerdfighterwhatevernumbers

So it's pretty safe to say that these candies would be a flop in Japan, but what will I think of them?

Asian Pear & Ginger Kombucha - Aldi

Asian Pear & Ginger Kombucha - Aldi

Has it really been a few weeks since I've reviewed an Aldi item? Time to fix that! 

A year ago Aldi sold these Kombucha Wonder Drinks and I reviewed the black cherry version. It was pretty good, not great, but much better than I was expecting a fermented tea to taste and I easily finished off the bottle. Since then, kombucha's popularity has grown and it's become pretty mainstream. You can now buy several flavors of kombucha at one-stop convenience stores like Walmart and Target! Since I didn't quite fall in love with my first bottle I decided to grab another to see if a different flavor could win me over. (And see if I can better understand the overall appeal of this fermented food and beverage trend.)  

Mike and Ike Cotton Candy - Dollar Tree

Mike and Ike Cotton Candy - Dollar Tree

In preparation for our next Candyology 101 recording, I grabbed a few different flavors of Mike and Ike candies from the Dollar Tree, which carries a pretty wide variety of flavors. I'm a sucker for cute retro stuff, and my mother loves cotton candy sweets, so picking this one from the lineup was a no brainer!

Hot Diggity Dog Pringles - Walgreens

Hot Diggity Dog Pringles - Walgreens

Hot Dog flavored chips sound like a terrible idea, right? At least I thought so. When I saw these in Walgreens for the first time I nearly gagged at the thought of a mystery meat hot dog flavored chip, and I passed them by without thinking twice about my missed review opportunity, but then a few of my fellow foodies, like The Impulsive Buy, and Junk Food Guy wrote their reviews. After seeing what they had to say I decided to give these chips a chance, and I am SO happy I did.

Strawberry Shortcake Oreos - Walmart

Strawberry Shortcake Oreos - Walmart

Another month, another new Oreo. Between these, Peeps and all the new m&m's...I'm getting pretty overwhelmed! It seems like the second I buy a new flavor of one, three others pop up in it's place. My stomach just can't keep up with it all! Heck, I still have a pack of the limited edition chocolate lemon Oreos somewhere in my avalanche-worthy food horde...I think? They're somewhere around here. I should probably find those and review them soon...

I'll get to those eventually. For now, let's find out if these Strawberry Shortcake Oreos are just strawberry flavored, or actually shortcake-like. 

India's Magic Masala Lay's Chips - India Bazaar

India's Magic Masala Lay's Chips - India Bazaar

Everyday when I drive to my graphic design day job I go past this grocery store called "India Bazaar"which is an Asian-Indian supermarket and I've always wanted to see what was inside. Since it was on my way IN to work, and not on my way home, I never got around to it. (It's not like I have time to pull over in the mornings, and even if I did there's nowhere to keep the groceries I might buy while I'm at work all day except my hot car....) Right before Easter weekend I was able to leave work early and instead of using the highway to get back home, I decided to go the longer route and finally see what the India Bazaar had to offer, and it did not disappoint!

Smarties 'n Creme - Five Below

Smarties 'n Creme - Five Below

Smarties are made right here in New Jersey! Why isn't that something we celebrate or talk about? I mean, we Jersey dwellers go on and on about our tomatoes, why not our candy? I didn't even know they were created here until Cybele told me!

Also, did you know that each color is actually a different flavor? As a kid I hated the white ones, which are orange and creme flavored, and I would always make my mom eat them, but back then all the adults I talked to thought I was crazy! They swore that they all tasted the same, but they aren't! (For the record the flavors are: white is orange cream, yellow is pineapple, pink is cherry, green is strawberry, purple is grape, and orange is orange.) The Smarties line has expanded quite a bit since I was a kid, and now we have a whole line of creme-flavored candies! Will I like them more than I did when I was a kid? Let's find out!

Jamaican Irish Moss (Vanilla) - Asian Food Market

Jamaican Irish Moss (Vanilla) - Asian Food Market

If you're following Sometimes Foodie on Instagram, this might look familiar. I posted a photo of this can on Saint Patrick's Day, you know, cause it says "Irish Moss" and all, but I didn't get around to actually drinking it...until now! (To be honest, I was NOT ready for what was inside, and now even after finding out...I'm still not ready!)

Sometimes Foodie is going 100% healthy and 100% veggie!

That's right! Time to cut out all the junk food and start fresh. Super fresh! We're talking kale smoothies, no more processed sugars, chia seeds on everything, and starting every day with an acai bowl! Rather than eat all this junk food I have stock piled away, I'm just going to...

Project 7 Key Lime Pie Build+A+Flavor Gum - Target

Project 7 Key Lime Pie Build+A+Flavor Gum - Target

I've gushed over Project 7's packaging and overall branding, but to be honest, the only product of theirs I truly love and repurchase on a regular basis are their vanilla peppermints. This company has TONS of gum flavors, but I always feel like the taste never lives up to their fancy flavor names, but maybe that will change now that we have these Target exclusive Build+A+Flavor packs. 

Back when Dessert Delights gum was around they had a Key Lime Pie flavor, and it was my absolute favorite! Since it was discontinued a few years ago I've been missing my chewable pie-flavored fix, so I'm really hoping this will be an adequate (or improved) replacement.