Ben & Jerry's Red Velvet Cake

Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream is known for their unique flavors. Whereas some ice creams would have a vanilla flavored ice cream with peanut butter cups, Ben & Jerry's goes beyond that by adding things such as chocolate and peanut butter swirls in their ice cream. Instead of using bits of peanut butter cups, they will use big chunks, or, in some cases, halves of peanut butter cups. It's no wonder then that they have a large following. Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream has tapped into that part of the human brain and appetite that keeps craving for more, more, more.

Enter Ben & Jerry's Red Velvet Cake flavor. I will admit in this entry that I have never had red velvet cake or cupcakes before. I've heard of people raving about how good it is, but I've never really had the drive to go out and try it for myself. This ice cream is supposedly cake batter flavored with cream cheese frosting swirls and bits of red velvet cake scattered throughout. I figured I might as well try this flavor and see if I liked it enough to go out and buy some actual red velvet baked goods.

Ben & Jerry's Red Velvet Cake Ice Cream

The ice was good enough; it was smooth, and didn't give too much of a cake batter flavor. Sometimes ice creams will have too much of that raw cake batter flavor that is off-putting to me. I liked the cream cheese swirls, as their slight tartness cut into the sweetness of the ice cream. However, the component that I didn't like so much were the red velvet cake pieces. The pieces all tasted a bit too gummy for my liking. Instead of eating cake, it felt like I was eating clay. I can't compare this to real red velvet cake, but I will say that the ice cream and swirls were good, and the only thing I didn't like were the gummy pieces of red velvet cake.

Ben & Jerry's Red Velvet Cake: 7/10

Yaki sauce potato chips

This purchase was another spur of the moment, “Why the heck not?” kind of buy. Barbecue is a great flavor for potato chips. It’s hard to go wrong with sea salt & vinegar. However, sometimes you want to break away and try something new. Sometimes you want to try something that you might not see again. Who knows how long a new flavor will last? Maybe it’ll last a few weeks, or maybe it’ll be good enough to be permanent. Regardless, you can’t take those kinds of risks and assume that that flavor will still be there tomorrow.

In comes Yaki Sauce potato chips. Do I know if this is even the right name? Of course I don’t. What I do know is that I don’t know what Yaki sauce is. There’s a cow on top, and it looks kind of tired. It’s like the Eeyore of cows. Well, maybe it looks so dejected because there’s a steak in the bottom right corner. From this, I will assume that this is something that you dress your steak in.

A Yaki sauce potato chip

The texture of the potato chip is dryer and a bit thicker than a regular potato chip, but not as thick as a kettle chip. The flavor is sweet, like a barbecue flavored potato chip, but there is no salty flavor at any point. There’s also a slight curry flavor that comes at the end. I liked this chip and found it to be very flavorful. It’s a nice detour from the flavors that are available everyday at your local supermarket.

Yaki sauce potato chips: 8/10

O'Zack Gyoza flavored chips

BBQ, Sour Cream, Cheddar, Salt & Vinegar...these are some of the flavors we normally see when we buy potato chips at the supermarket. However, instead of BBQ, why not have BBQ brisket flavored potato chips? Why not have a fried chicken flavor? Maybe it's because it would be difficult for chip manufacturers to emulate the flavors and aromas. However, in the past I wrote about chips that tasted like beef tongue sprinkled with a bit of lemon (gyutan). If that flavor can be made, why not the above listed?

From the country that brought you potato chips that somewhat did the flavor of grilled beef quite well, we have gyoza flavored chips. Gyoza, potstickers, whatever you want to call them is probably not on the top of the list of potato chip flavors that Americans want. It's probably not on any American's list. However, Japan has decided to be more adventurous with their flavors, and thus has produced gyoza flavored chips.

An O'Zack chip

The aroma of the chip is very reminiscent to that of a pot sticker. You get a hint of pot sticker skin an then you get a slight pork flavor to finish. Overall, it was quite a surprise that they were able to do this. It is not just a novel chip, but it is a good chip as well. It seems as if Doritos is the only chip that dares venture out of the normal chip flavor comfort zone. One day I would like to find steak flavored potato chips or something ridiculous like that in a grocery store.

O'Zack Gyoza flavored chips: 8.5/10

Twix Coconut

Coconut is a touchy subject for some people. Some love it, some hate it. When I'm talking about coconut, I'm not talking about the fresh kind, I'm talking about the flavoring you find in candy of course. There are some people that love Almond Joys, while others may have a strong dislike for it. However, what would happen if you were to mix coconut with a beloved candy bar?

It's hard not to like Twix. Flavor wise, it's delicious. Texturally, it combines chewy and crunchy in a pleasing fashion. The only Twix variety I see a lot of in stores that isn't Original is Twix PB, so Twix Coconut is a bit of a risk, but it's Twix so it has to be good, right?

Cross section of a Twix Coconut bar

Texturally, this is still the Twix you know and love. However, when it comes to flavor, you have to ask yourself, "Do I like Twix more or do I like coconut flavoring more?" Well, if you like Twix more, you might not like this as much as Twix Original just because the coconut flavoring pretty much overwhelms everything else. I happen to like coconut, so I didn't mind it at all, but if you have an aversion to coconut this won't be your favorite. Overall, this is was good, but I think I would prefer Twix Original.

Twix Coconut: 8/10

Puccho Grape Gummyball (I think)

On the day of July 3rd I panicked. I owed my students candy, but some of the candy they wanted wasn't available at my regular candy spot. I drove a little farther and found not just the candy I was looking for, but I found some I had never seen before. I decided that this would be a perfect time to pick some up, seeing as how I wouldn't have this chance until the next weekend.

First up is a candy which has a name that I don't know. When it comes to these, it's usually really good or really bad. I'm not sure what's up with the mascot on the candy. He/she/it seems very angry for some reason. Probably because you're going to eat it. It sort of reminds me of a Buu from Dragon Ball Z. I do know, however, that it was grape because of the color. Purple always means grape.

Yeah, I'm not sure what this says. The English label with the nutritional information literally says "candy" where it should have a name

It looks kind of like a purple moth ball

The gelatinous inside of one of these suckers

The first thing that I thought was, "This is a pretty good sour candy, it even fizzles like soda candy". Generally, soda candies are sweet, but not this, it was very sour. Not Warhead sour, but still good. After a while, the candy began to crack, and I got to the second layer. The hard exterior was crumbling while I got a hit at the chewy insides. I didn't know whether it was gum or not because it was dissolving at a fast rate, but it seemed to get smaller. It eventually all melted and I thought, "That was pretty darn good." Because of the depth and many layers of the candy, I thought this was very good. I would like to try the soda flavored one in the future.

Puccho Grape Gummyball: 10/10

Ben & Jerry's: Phish Food

It's summer, it's hot, so that means it's time to indulge in everyone's favorite summertime treat: ice cream. Admittedly, I like ice cream during any weather, but during summer it tastes even better. It's a cool relief from the heat and it tastes delicious. Ergo, I decided to do a piece on it.

Ben & Jerry's is famous for not just their unique flavors, but for their price as well. A pint of Ben & Jerry's is around the same price as a quart of most other brands. However, you won't find flavors like Cherry Garcia or Chubby Hubby with other brands. That being said, I can appreciate a simple vanilla as much as something like Phish Food. This was inspired by a topic that I saw on the forums of bodybuilding.com, so I decided to go with a flavor that was regarded as one of the best.

The story behind the name. The band Phish apparently really likes Ben & Jerry's.

Overhead view of Phish Food

Given the choice between vanilla, strawberry, or chocolate ice cream, I would probably choose the first two over chocolate. I'm also not a big fan of Rocky Road, which is what this flavor's description was leading me to believe. However, this was a very good flavor. It was rich and like the other Ben & Jerry's flavors I have tried, there was a lot of stuff going on outside of the chocolate ice cream. It wasn't too sweet, and despite the picture above, there's A LOT of marshmallow and caramel swirls, which are also delicious. I guess the only thing that I can't gush about are the fudge fish. Whereas the rest of the ice cream is smooth and rich, the fudge fish are somewhat of a hindrance. They're like a protective measure to make sure you don't finish the ice cream too quickly. Even though they got in the way, the fish are still good and just think of them as overgrown chocolate chips. Unless you truly detest chocolate, I would say that this was a great flavor.

Ben & Jerry's: Phish Food: 9.5/10

Green Tea Oreo Soft Cookies

Today is my birthday. That doesn't mean there's going to be a special post or anything, I'm just putting it out there.

Summer is a bad time for candy. I'm not saying it's a bad time to eat candy, it's just that when you walk out of the store, you'd better eat that candy bar soon, or else you've got liquified candy. I've had a protein bar liquified after I left it too long in my car. It's a particularly bad time for chocolate candy because chocolate loses its shape so easily. As opposed to let's say, a bag of Skittles, a Hershey's chocolate bar is going to start melting in the first minute in the heat. Well it's a good thing the item I'm going to write about isn't candy then.

Green tea and Oreo cookies? Why not. I've had crisp Japanese cookies that have had green tea filling before, and they've been good, so why not the king of creme filled cookies? Admittedly, I've never had an Oreo Soft Cookie before, or a Cakester, as they're called in American stores. I always believed that it's hard to improve upon the original Oreo design, but why not give this a try.

These are individually wrapped

It looks a lot less appetizing in real life, let me tell you that. I think the heat pulled the cookies apart

This was the stain that was left behind. Kind of concerning

The initial flavor of the cookie is very much like the cookie part of an Oreo in that it is not sweet, but slightly bitter. The texture is much softer than an Oreo cookie (hence the name Soft Cookie), and it felt kind of oily. The filling, to my surprise, lacked sweetness. This was new to me because the cream filling of an Oreo is generally recognized as the best part of the cookie. When the cream is not sweet, but only subtly sweet, I'm not sure if I like it or not. Well, I guess if I have to ask myself, "Was this good?" then I think I know the answer. The smell of green tea was there, but I was hoping for a sweeter cream. If you're a fan of green tea and don't like your sweets to be too sweet, then this would be for you. However, I would probably spring for a bag of good old Oreo cookies instead of this.

Green Tea Oreo Soft Cookies: 5/10