Frito Lay Pizza Flavored Snack Mix

One of my favorite lines of snacks is the Munchies line. The concept behind Munchies is combining chips such as Doritos, Cheetos, and other Frito Lay products and mixing them all together in one bag. They come in various flavors. The only downside is that sometimes there are pretzels in them, which is a no go for me. The other chips have a crisp, light texture, whereas the pretzels are kind of a hard road block. The other day, I found that snack mixes like Munchies aren't found just in the U.S.

That's right, Japan has its own line too. I recognize Doritos and Cheetos, but I have no idea what Mike Popcorn is. Anyway, in my previous post I mentioned that pizza flavored chips are hard to come by, well the Frito Lay company has decided to shove the opposite in my face once again. The pizza on the bag looks quite nice and artisanal.

Cheeto, Dorito, Mike's Popcorn

The pizza smell and flavor were there, but the flavor was a bit lacking. It was a bit underpowered flavor wise, which is hard to do with Doritos or Cheetos. I can't speak for Mike's Popcorn. The texture of the Cheeto and Dorito were the same as the ones found in the States, but the popcorn was a bit stale. This is why I don't like to buy pre-packaged and pre-popped popcorn unless it's drizzled with all kinds of stuff. There was a divide among my students as to whether this was good or bad. The younger students seemed to like it, but the older students didn't like it at all. To sum it up, it had a good smell and initial flavor, but it was a bit under flavored and the popcorn was stale.

Frito Lay Pizza Flavored Snack Mix: 7/10

Doritoes Pizza Supreme

Previously, I had written about a new flavor of Ruffles. In the same entry, I stated that Doritos were among my favorite chips. It's always exciting when Doritos comes out with a new flavor. Doritos Tailgate BBQ earned a 10/10 rating from me. Unfortunately, I haven't seen it since writing the review. Hopefully, the next flavor would be able to fill the void

Pizza, now there's a flavor one seldom sees when it comes to chips outside of Pringles. What does pizza taste like in chip form? Maybe it tastes terrible, maybe it tastes good. I wouldn't know unless I tried this flavor.

A Pizza Supreme flavored Dorito

As my students put it, "This tastes like Goldfish", and I'm sort of inclined to agree. For those that don't know, there are pizza flavored Goldfish. For those that do know, imagine the flavor coating on the pizza flavored Goldfish on a Dorito. That's basically it. It was good, but not great. The flavor didn't seem to be as intense to me as their original flavors such as Nacho or Ranch. A solid flavor on a good chip.

Doritos Pizza Supreme: 8/10

Molten Hot Wings Ruffles

Among my favorite chips are Doritos, Cheetos, and most kinds of kettle chips. Others include Funyuns, and Lay's potato chips aren't too far behind. However, the chips that would be somewhere on the bottom of my list are Ruffles. I'm not sure why I don't like Ruffles as much as other chips. When I eat them, the taste is fine. I think the one of the main reasons why I don't like Ruffles is because they're a bit harder than other chips. Plus something about the ridges throws me off.

That doesn't mean, however, that I won't be willing to try any of their new endeavors. Enter Molten Hot Wings flavor. Besides the picture on the front, you wouldn't know that this was a new flavor of Ruffles. Other chips such as Doritos and Lay's tend to color coat their bags according to the flavors. With a bold new flavor such as Molten Hot Wings, I would think they'd make it flashier. However, it's not the bag of the chip that matters, but rather the chip itself.

A Molten Hot Wings Ruffle

Initially, the flavor was like that of Cheddar & Sour Cream Ruffle. However, the smell and flavor of buffalo wings came through. The flavor was good. What would have made this chip even better is if they had some kick. Even though it has the word molten in the name, there was VERY LITTLE spice. You could eat half a bag and not notice any sort of heat coming from the chip. I think you could recreate this flavor by mixing a bag of Cheddar & Sour Cream Ruffles with some Frank's Red Hot Sauce. This was a solid flavor, but I would have liked it to have lived up to its molten name.

Molten Hot Wings Ruffles: 8/10

3 Musketeers Cherry

No, I'm not dead yet, I just had a VERY relaxing week off which consisted mostly of Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Anyway, Valentine's Day was many weeks ago, and when I bought these candies, a few days had already passed. Who can pass up candy that's more than 30 to 50% off? I know I can't, so here's a write-up on one of them.

3 Musketeers is not my favorite chocolate bar. If I had a choice between this and any other chocolate bar, I'd probably choose the other bar, but not if the other bar was a Baby Ruth. It's not that 3 Musketeers is terrible, it's just that it's just not good. The chocolate fluff is boring and the flavor is forgettable. A plain chocolate bar is preferable over a 3 Musketeers bar in my opinion. However, as you can see, this is a cherry flavored 3 Musketeers bar. They have Mint 3 Musketeers which is better than the regular 3 Musketeers. That's available year-round though, so I figured at a discounted price, 3 Musketeers worth giving a shot.

A fun-size 3 Musketeers Cherry cut in half

This is definitely the best of the 3 Musketeers bunch in my opinion. The cherry flavor isn't too overpowering like that of a cherry cordial. The cherry essence is a nice compliment to the the dark chocolate flavor. Neither flavor dominates, and both are able to mix very well. The cherry fluff gives a sweet fruity flavor while the dark chocolate holds it back from being too sweet. While, this was good, I could see it becoming disgusting after too many. It is better than regular 3 Musketeers though, and because of it's unique, seasonal flavor, I might choose this over a different candy bar.

3 Musketeers Cherry: 7.5/10

Matcha Meltykiss

In America, green tea has been steadily growing in popularity. The health benefits attributed to green tea have led to the rise of green tea extracts being sold in markets. The flavor isn’t bad either, seeing as how there are things like green tea ice cream and there are many different green tea flavored drinks. However, an area that green tea hasn’t been able to gain popularity in America yet is the candy market. If one were to go into an Asian market, or more specifically, a Japanese market, one would see that in the candy aisle there are green tea flavored candies. Some find the flavor of green tea to be delicious, but I could take it or leave it. I would be more likely to buy a cola flavored candy over a green tea flavored one. However, the packaging for the next product looked so nice that I bought it anyway.

Meltykiss is a chocolate candy that comes in little cubes. The outside of the candy is dusted with cocoa powder, giving it a much stronger chocolate flavor than typical chocolate candies. Inside is a very smooth chocolate that has a rich taste. Usually they have a cocoa or strawberry flavor. I’ve had caramelized almond flavor, and now this matcha flavored variety. When I first bought this, I thought that it was mint chocolate because I didn’t read the box. I mean the box has snowflakes on it and everything.

A Matcha Meltykiss cut in half. I swear I didn’t bite this one. Okay, maybe I did, but you’ll never know

The consistency and texture of this Meltykiss is just like all other varieties of Meltykiss. The outside still has the cocoa powder which gives the candy a pleasantly bitter and cocoa flavor. As the candy melted, it became sweeter and the matcha flavor started to come out. Was there anything special about the matcha flavor? Not really, if you like matcha then you’ll like this, if you’re not that enthusiastic about it, then this won’t change much. My favorite Meltykiss flavor is still good old cocoa. This is still a good candy, but it’s not my cup of tea.

Matcha Meltykiss: 7.5/10 (increase the score if you’re a fan of green tea)

Trident Vitality Vigorate

In the world of sugar-free gum, 5 Gum and Extra are at the top, at least to me that is. That isn’t to say that I don’t like other brands of gum, it’s just that my preference leans towards these two. I don’t mind a stick of Stride every now and then or some Orbit on occasion. However, I typically am not a fan of Trident. Their “Layers” line of gum is good, but everything else seems to fall short. Maybe it’s because their pieces are smaller or maybe it’s because their flavors aren’t quite right. I’m not sure what it is about Trident, outside of the Layers line, that doesn’t appeal to me. Recently, they have come out with a new line of gum called “Vitality”. Since it was on sale at Target, I decided to buy some and see if it would change my views on Trident.

The box is very nice and I figured that I couldn’t go wrong with a flavor like strawberry and citrus. If you notice, it also says that there’s Vitamin C in the gum. I’m not sure how well that works as a marketing strategy, but okay.

This is the nine piece package. There’s nothing special about it; it resembles all other gums that are in hard shells.

The inside of a piece of Trident Vitality gum. Yes, I did bite it.

The initial bite and the few chews after were very pleasing. The flavor resembled that of most other citrus flavored gums. I didn’t quite detect any strawberry flavor. How good a sugar-free gum is based on, in my opinion, how good the flavor is and how long the flavor lasts. While the first few minutes of chewing were pretty good, the flavor went away rather quickly. It didn’t disappear altogether, but it mellowed out quite a bit. I like my gum to usually have lasting power for at least past the ten minute mark if not more. Overall, this Vitality line is nothing compared to the 5 Gum and Extra. If anything, I think Trident should put more effort into their Layers line and develop more flavors. The Pineapple-Apple flavor is one of my favorite flavors of gum, but the Melon-Mint is not good. On a side note, I want to see gum makers make a cherry flavored gum and lime flavored gum. The Key Lime Pie flavor of Extra’s Dessert line does not count.

Trident Vitality Vigorate: 7/10

Ghiradelli Dark Chocolate & Strawberry Squares

As mentioned in the previous entry, Ghiradelli is one of the very few chocolate brands that's putting out a strawberry and chocolate combination for Valentine's Day.

The packaging is obviously geared toward Valentine's Day. I'm not going to lie, I'm not a fan of Ghiradelli. Despite them being known exclusively for their chocolate, I just find that their products fall flat, especially in the face of Lindt and Hershey's Bliss line. Their chocolate seems to not have the extra richness that I like in my chocolate. Maybe some like their chocolate to boast a strong chocolate taste, but I like mine to have more than just that. However, they did put out a strawberry and chocolate square, so I must commend them for that. I also like their seasonal product such as their Egg Nog and Peppermint Bark squares.

The horror that is inside each square

The flavor of the chocolate was okay, not good, but just okay. The filling reminded me of cherry and raspberry flavors more than it did of strawberry. That was a bit disappointing. Some parts that seemed to ooze with filling didn't even give off a hint of fruit, which was somewhat confusing as well. Overall, I applaud Ghiradelli's attempt to cash in on Valentine's Day, but overall they produced something that was just okay, and not very good.

Ghiradelli Dark Chocolate & Strawberry Squares: 7/10