Trick of Treat - Minecraft Edition: Suspicious Stew Pringles

Yesterday's not-really-Halloween-but-kind-of-Trick-or-Treat-adjacent theme continues! Today I have these Suspicious Stew flavored Pringles. 

Minecraft is something beyond my elder-millennial scope, so I asked my younger cousin to explain it's, "Suspicious Stew," item to me. She said it is kind of like poison, it makes your screen get all wiggly. Makes sense to me as an in-game item, but when there are other more positive foods in the game they could have gone with, I do think it's a strange choice for a limited run flavor. (A "sus" choice?)

Sadly, I bought these for whatever normal price they were going for at Walmart, but if you do want to try these for yourself, they seem to be popping up at Dollar Trees already for a lower price, which does not bode well for my snacking experience. 

I DESTROYED These - Hot Honey Pringles

The title for the post completely reveals my thoughts on these. Normally there's this coy game of, "I don't know, will I like these?" But, I destroyed this tennis ball can of chips in 2 days. When you are surrounded with as much junk food as I am (completely by choice), that's saying something.  

Hot Honey was on-trend a few years ago, but it's prevalence and popularity has started to wane. I still love it though. It reminds me of eating chicken nuggets with honey as a kid. Like a warm nostalgic blanket that somehow grew up along with me. 

However, this was not love at first chip.

Aldi's Journey to Japan - Take 2 - Ponzu Ginger

Journey to Japan Ponzu Ginger Chips -Aldi

Aldi likes to release "around the world" products, with a particular recurring focus on India, Germany, Italy, and Japan. These were the flavor companion to the Wasabi flavored chips I reviewed a little while ago, and the newest addition to the "Journey to Japan" line.

If you haven't already read my wasabi review, spoiler alert, they're good, but not great. I am on a mid to high tolerance range for wasabi/horseradish, it takes a lot for me to feel the burn, and I wanted those chips to pack a punch. They didn't. Here's hoping that this flavor is a bit more unique and flavorful.

Wasabi Potato Chips are How I Roll

Journey to Japan Wasabi Chips -Aldi

Remember the Wasabi and Ginger Kettle chips from the Lay's Do Us a Flavor Contest? (I think they were from the second ever contest.) They were delicious, with a sushi-like profile thanks to the wasabi and ginger with a hit of soy sauce. I was sad to see them go, but I feel like their execution needed a bit of work. They were good, but not perfect. Still, it's a flavor profile that doesn't have any equivalent in the American potato chip market. Until now. 

Extra Toasty? Cheese Crackers

Extra Toasty Baked Cheese Crackers - Aldi

Other than the stuff you see here on the blog, I rarely buy brand-name products. My normal grocery shopping routine is Aldi, BJ's, and now Lidl, and I'm usually sticking to house brands. 

For the most part, there really is no difference, but I'm not totally blinded by my penny-pinching-ways, there are a few brand name items that I do swear by, like Crunchy Cheetos, Cool Ranch Doritos, and my beloved Honey BBQ Frito Twists (which have no equivalent), but the Aldi cheese crackers are pretty on-par with Cheez-It. Especially Aldi's reduced fat cheesy crackers, which are my cheesy snacking cracker of choice.   

While I'm not be a card carrying member of the extra-toasty-are-the-best-Cheez-It club, I do appreciate finding the occasional extra toasted cracker in my box. So I was excited to see these offered at Aldi, the only problem? They're only available in one size, Family Size. So let's hope these were worth it!

Caramel Pumpkin Lay's (I Think?)

Caramel Pumpkin Chips - Hung Vuong Market

Halloween may be over, but we're not through with pumpkin-season yet. Although I pretty much ruined all things pumpkin related for myself, forever, I still can't resist new and wacky items, like these chips. 

I found them all alone in the snacking aisle with little to no English, so all I had to go on was a translated ingredient label, and the imagery, which made it seem like these were some kind of sweet caramel and pumpkin flavored chip, and I figured...why not give it a try?

You can check out the video review above, or keep reading for a fully written post and close-up photos.  

Dragon Ball Heroes Cheesy Snacks - Asian Food Market

Dragon Ball Heroes Cheesy Snacks - Asian Food Market

Last time on food-blogger-Z: Sometimes Foodie was overcome by the earthly flu-virus. Weak, and incapacitated, she retreated to her lair and lay dormant in a healing tank to regain her strength while the other food blogging warriors picked up the slack. Today, she reemerges from the rejuvenation chamber to reclaim her foodie-throne!

I hope you read that in the rough and scratchy voice of the English-dubbed DBZ narrator. If not, click the link to hear a little piece of my childhood. Also, being trapped in my bedroom for nearly a week has made me even more socially awkward, so bear with me.

When I was a little girl I would wake up at, what seemed like, the crack of dawn on Saturday mornings to watch Dragon Ball Z on some basic cable channel. I honestly can't remember which one, but I think they also had the rights to Sailor Moon at the time. I'd crawl out of bed, wake up my sister, and we'd go downstairs to gaze at the TV screen and sing the Americanized theme song which had, like, six words in it. "Dragon, Dragon, Rock the Dragon, Dragon Ball Z!"

DBZ and Sailormoon will always have a very special place in my anime-loving-trash heart, so when I saw these snacks at the Asian Food Market, it was an insta-buy.

Kyushu Seaweed Lay's Potato Chips (Taiwan) - Asian Food Market

Kyushu Seaweed Lay's Potato Chips - Asian Food Market $1.69

With all the candy I've reviewed this week, I am all sugared out. I need something savory and light. Seaweed flavored potato chips should do the trick.

You guys want some Octopus Balls?

Takoyaki flavored Puffed Snacks - H-Mart $1.99

I promised you a non-Aldi review, and here it is: Takyoyaki flavored puffed snacks! (Definitely not something you'd ever see at Aldi.)

For those of you unfamiliar with "takoyaki," it's bite-sized pieces of octopus, coated in thick batter, and baked in small sphere-shaped molds. Once cooked, they are topped with sauces, seaweed, green onion and fish flakes. 

To the typical American, it sounds a little odd, and believe me, a few years ago I was turning up my nose at it, but after giving it a try I can see why this street food is so popular. I'm still not a fan of the bouncy eraser-like texture of the octopus inside, but everything else about takoyaki is great! Fried dough, mayo, BBQ-like takoyaki sauce, fish flakes, onions and seaweed are an AMAZING combination!

Since I'm not a huge fan of the octopus chunks inside (mostly due to their texture) I'm really hoping these snacks will deliver all the takoyaki flavor I love, but with the delightful texture of a cheese puff. Will these octopus balls live up to my expectations?

They're back! - Aldi Pumpkin Seed Tortillas

These are back! This is the item I get the most emails about, so stock up while you can!! #pumpkin #aldi 👅〰🎃💖〰👅 #sometimesfoodie #chips #tortilla #yummy #food #sweaterweather #fall #aldigrocerystore

A photo posted by Sometimes Foodie (@sometimesfoodie) on Oct 3, 2016 at 7:25am PDT

Check out my review HERE. 

This is easily the most asked about item I've ever reviewed on the blog. Be sure to head to Aldi (I'd recommend calling ahead to be 100% sure they're there) and stock up while you can!

Lay's Creamy Bacon Potato Salad Chips - Walmart

Lay's Creamy Bacon Potato Salad Chips - Walmart

Better late than never, right? My friend Sam actually told me about these chips a while ago. Maybe over a month ago? Anyway, they sounded pretty interesting and I wanted to give them a try, so when I saw them at Walmart during my hunt for the Key Slime Twinkies, I snagged myself a bag to review.

Snackbusters: 4 Aldi Chip Reviews in one post!

If there's something weird
And it don't look good
Who you gonna call
Snackbusters!

This really has absolutely nothing to do with the upcoming Ghostbusters movie. I was going through my food stash and decided to review a bunch of Aldi snacks in one fell swoop and with all the hype, and rage, surrounding the new movie, the original Ghostbusters theme got stuck in my head. So, Snackbusters was born! I doubt this will be a recurring thing on the blog, but I gotta get some of this food stuff outta here and this is the best way to go about it. We've got a little bit of everybody here, Specially Selected, G-Free, and Clancy's. Let's get started!

JUMBO Banana Split Marshmallows - Walmart

JUMBO Banana Split Marshmallows - Walmart

When I was a kid I was always went with the classic ice cream toppings: whipped cream, sprinkles (aka: jimmies) and a cherry on top. (Or 5. I really like cherries.) It wasn't until high school, when I worked at Friendly's, that I was introduced to a whole new world of topping possibilities. Peanut butter cups? Mini gummy bears? Oreo cookie crumbs? Yes, please!

At the time my favorite happy ending (which knowing what I know now is a TERRIBLE name for a 2-scoop sundae) was Friendly's Pistachio ice cream topped with marshmallow sauce, whipped cream, and a cherry. Marshmallow was such a great ice cream topping! Fast forward to now: I'm a banana obsessed food blogger who hasn't eaten at Friendly's since I worked there in 2004, and there's now a marshmallow replicating another of my favorite ice cream creations. If marshmallows on top of ice cream was awesome, marshmallows flavored like ice cream have got to be worth checking out, right? I had to try it!  

Honey Cheese Cheetos - H-Mart

Honey Cheese Cheetos - H-Mart

I hosted my first ever tasting party last night! Which is a lot less fancy than it sounds. Basically I just invited a bunch of my friends over so they could eat excess snacks and sweets I'm reviewing to help with my food hoarding situation. We snacked on junk food, played Wii U games and watched bad horror movies. (Last night's selection was the awesomely bad Zoombies. It featured amazingly bad CG and an epicly dressed character I dubbed "Mr. No-Sleeves." Not the best of bad horror, but it made for a fun evening.)

These Cheetos were one of the many items on last night's menu, so were they a hit, or a miss? Time to find out!

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.

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!

Bamboo Salt Seaweed Cracker - Asian Food Market

Bamboo Salt Seaweed Cracker - Asian Food Market

Here's another product that's been sitting in my to-be-reviewed pile for....an embarrassingly long time. But hey, at least this one is savory! Even though I'm a total sugar addict and there's candy in every room of my house (minus the bathrooms, because ew), it's always refreshing when I finally get to reviewing something savory. Let's see if these bamboo seaweed crackers turn out to be a breath of fresh, salty, seaweed-y air.

Filled Cupcake Oreos - Walmart

Filled Cupcake Oreos - Walmart 

These new Oreo flavors are fun to track down, but I'm starting to get a little burned out. I reviewed the Peppermint ones in January, and since then we've already had the Cinnamon Bun Oreos (review coming soon), a re-release of Red Velvet, and now Filled Cupcake? We're only 39 days into the new year! Oreo is really cranking these things out!

When this flavor was first teased months ago, I really wasn't interested. I figured it was the normal chocolate filling, or maybe the Brownie Batter Oreo filling, with a touch of the traditional white sandwich cookie creme in the center. So it's chocolate, chocolate cookies, and creme. Sounds pretty normal to me. How is this different from Oreo products we've already had? I guess I"ll find out!

Gluten Free Baked Edamame & Lentil Chips- Aldi

Gluten Free Baked Edamame & Lentil Chips- Aldi

More gluten free goodies! Aldi released their G-Free line about a year ago, and it's steadily been expanding to include all kinds of products. I think it's great, but "Gluten Free" foods like these tend to anger quite a few people. I partially understand why, to some this seems like a "hipster diet" or "trend," but there are people out there who truly need these products. I've mentioned this in other reviews, but I have a cousin with Celiac disease, so she and her two daughters (who also have it) can't process gluten. Having a food-related allergy or aliment and eating in a group setting can make a person feel singled out or isolated, especially when they're children at a snack or lunch table. 

For that reason, I like checking out gluten free products so that I can find yummy foods to share with friends and family regardless of a food allergy, and hopefully break the misconception that these specialty foods are bland, boring, or expensive. 

Okay, time to get off my soapbox and get to the food review. (Sorry for getting a bit preachy for a second there.) Time to stuff my face with chips!

New YouTube Review: Paprika Pringles

New Video Review is (finally) up!

Going through my foodie backlog and found this gift from my sister! Sorry for the jump cuts in this one, but if you're one of those people who complain about YouTubers talking with food in their mouth, be happy I cut the footage of me eating the Pringles on camera. Trust me, it wasn't pretty.