Whatchamacallit: Well, I don't know what to call you either

When I think of Whatchamacallit candy bars I think of my youth. I remember seeing advertisements for them in my brother's comic books. I vaguely remember TV commercials for them, but beyond that I don't ever remember them getting that much attention. There was definitely very little attention brought to this candy bar beyond the early 90's, and yet it still endures on candy stands. Like Twix PB, it's been a long time since I had a Whatchamacallit. I remember them being good, but I don't really remember what was inside them. This is why I decided to buy a bar and have a taste.


Here's the packaging for the bar. As you can see, the wrapper itself is rather plain. When I think of beige colored wrapper I typically think of Almond M&M's. The wrapper also gives us a small picture of the bar, which candy bar wrappers rarely do. I suppose it's because everyone knows what Twix, Snickers, and such look like, but what does a Whatchamacallit look like?


This is what the inside a Whatchamacallit looks like. On the top you can see the caramel filling, and in the middle and bottom of the bar there's the peanut-flavored crisp. What were my impressions on the bar? In my opinion it was a bit confusing. The layer with the crisp disappeared rather quickly and the caramel lingered for a bit afterward. In a sense I suppose it would be like if someone decided to take a Kit-Kat, Reese's Peanut Butter, and Twix caramel and put it in a bar. Of course that sounds great, but in practice there was a bit too much going on and it didn't seem to blend well. However, the bar is pretty good and it deserves to get a bit more attention. I mean if 100 Grand bars got commercials back in the 90's, why shouldn't Whatchamacallits?

Snack Randoms: Why you trying to kill me, Korea?

So the other day, some friends and I arranged to have dinner at a Korean restaurant. I arrived at the destination a few minutes earlier than them, so I decided to walk around a nearby market. I saw that a brand of flavored seaweed that I liked was on sale, so I decided to grab a bag. Next to that bin, I saw bags of different snacks. It turned out that these were bags of "fried green peppers". Since they were of the same brand as the seaweed, I decided to pick up a bag of that as well. After a delightful dinner, followed by some delicious shaved ice, my friends and I parted ways and went home. When I got home I looked forward to opening this bag up:


The peppers in the picture look delicious, like little fried squid or fried crab or something. I then proceeded to open the bag. The first pepper I pulled out reminded me a bit of dried squid or something along those lines, covered in some sort of sugar or grainy substance. I ate it and the flavor was pretty good. It was sweet and salty and it had a nice crunchy texture. However, seconds after my tongue and throat started feeling a burning sensation. I wondered, foolishly, if I should try another pepper to confirm that it was spicy. My thoughts were confirmed and I began feeling a somewhat burning sensation in my stomach. I started to wonder why these green peppers were so spicy. Of course, peppers are spicy, but why did these little buggers sneak up on you after you swallowed them? Upon further analysis I found this:


Those lighter bits you see in the middle are the seeds of the pepper. As many people know, the seeds are one of the spiciest parts of the pepper, and these things were hiding a lot of them. This is a pretty light example, as some of them were filled from bottom to top with seeds. I discovered that if you removed that part from this snack, there was far less irritation and the experience, while less adventurous, was much more manageable. The words "fried green peppers" really should have tipped me off that this would be spicy. If those words weren't enough, the bag was color coded with red, and most of the time we know red means hot. Regardless, I learned the hard way that these things were hot, but if you took out the seeds in the core, they became much easier to eat.

I would say that the best part of this was sharing this with some students and not telling them what they were eating until they had started chewing. They guessed things like, "Wait, are these onions or something?" and I would respond with, "Don't worry about it." I'm an excellent tutor.

Twix PB: The Red-Wrappered Step Child

I was meaning to do this entry some time ago, but some other candies got in the anyway. Anyway, the two commonly available Twix are the classic caramel Twix, which is a 10/10 when it comes to candy, and Twix PB which I usually find near the checkout at stores. I remember back when I was younger, probably when I was in elementary school, I loved Peanut Butter Twix. Of course I loved the regular Twix as well, but I recall REALLY liking Peanut Butter Twix for some unknown reason. It disappeared for a while, and it wasn't until probably around high school that I finally ate another Peanut Butter Twix. I decided to try it again and I was kind of disappointed. I'm not going to say that it was bad, but it certainly nowhere nearly as good as I remembered. It was like one of those moments where you see a cartoon or movie that you used to really like as a kid and then realizing it was pretty mediocre.

After that time I had pretty much stuck with regular Twix and chose not to touch Twix PB. Well it's been years since I last had a Twix PB, and with the creation Stephen Loves Candy, I decided I should at least analyze its faults.

The reason the regular Twix is a fun-sized one is because I bought a huge bag full of them and didn't feel it necessary to buy a full sized one.


The cookie in the Twix PB is a black one as opposed to the brown one in the regular Twix. The cookie in the Twix PB is also much more crumbly than the one in regular Twix. The texture of Twix PB is in fact much softer and crumbles easier than Twix regular, which I argue makes it last a shorter period of time in your mouth. If you're looking on the bright side, that means you can eat it faster than a regular Twix. In terms of flavor, as I've stated before, I'm a big fan of peanut butter, but I don't like the kind in Twix PB. The peanut butter in Twix PB is something along the lines of extra creamy. It's a bit too smooth for my liking. At this point I feel like I'm nit-picking. I will say that Twix PB is not a bad candy bar, but rather I had high expectations for it because it's a Twix product. However, you can also see on the wrapper it says "Also try Twix Caramel". Even Twix PB knows that it will disappoint those who love regular Twix.


Hail to the king, baby! This is a top 3 when it comes to best candy bars. I apologize for the appearance of the bar; it was a bit softer than I had expected when I broke it in half. What's not to like about this candy bar? It's so good they give you two in a pack. The caramel isn't too soft or too sticky. The cookie has a nice crunch. All of this is covered in delicious chocolate and wrapped in a golden wrapper. There's not much more to say, other than if you don't like Twix you probably can't appreciate life either.

To sum things up, the Twix is better than Twix PB, but Twix PB isn't a bad candy bar. Maybe you can enjoy it better if you pretend it's not affiliated with Twix, otherwise you'll be somewhat disappointed that it's carrying the Twix name.

Candy Randoms: To Energy Drink Lovers

I braved treacherous weather in order to bring this edition of candy randoms. Whilst driving to a Japanese market, I faced poor visibility, moderate rain, and drivers that refused to turn their lights on. When I finally arrived, the sun had come out and all was good. However, when I was done shopping, it started raining again. Damn Mother Nature's mood swings.

Anyway, I picked up a few bars or sticks or I'm not sure what to call them of candy. I think the correct term is stick, but I'm still not sure. Anyway, the first I will discuss is this:
The English label reads: "Soft Candy (UHA ST PUCCHO GENKI)" which is, of course, no help to me. I was informed by a friend that it's a type of energy drink in Japan.

This is what the candy looks like unwrapped:

As you can see there's some white bits in it. If you look at the lower right of the wrapper you can see a bit of white crumble. What is that white crumble you ask? Well if I had to choose from one of the ingredients on the label, I'd have to say that would be the baking soda. Anyway the taste of the candy, as described by myself and another friend, is like Red Bull. Yes, this little yellow rectangular prism is Red Bull flavored candy and I have to assume that the energy drink version is like Red Bull as well. Overall, it was an interesting candy and, based on this, I can't wait to see what the other candies I bought taste like.

Candy randoms: Miscellaneous 7-11 cubes

While I was out on a Diet Brisk Ice Tea run at 7-11 (99 cents for a liter), I decided to give the items near the cashier the time of day. Usually I see some generic baked goods, like cookies, there or sometimes they have bananas there for some reason. This time I saw these:

The flavors that I didn't get were Chocolate and Chocolate Almond I believe. How often do you see things that are Vanilla Cherry flavored anyway? And I always love things that have peanut butter in them, so I figured that was my safety if I didn't like the Vanilla Cherry cubes.

These things can be described as cubes of fudge. I decided to taste the Vanilla Cherry flavor first, because as stated before, Peanut Butter was my safety. The Vanilla Cherry, in a word, was amazing. If you've ever had cherry flavored ice cream, this cube is very reminiscent of it except sweeter. I didn't expect to be wowed by an impulse buy, but this cube proved me wrong. It even had bits of candied cherries in them. Next I tried the Peanut Butter cube. This was disappointing as it did not have that much of a peanut butter flavor and it was quite gritty. I didn't expect my safety cube to be the one that would disappoint me.

The next time you're at your local 7-11 and you see these cubes, you should definitely get the Vanilla Cherry cube. If you're a fan of cherry ice cream, as I am, then you will absolutely love it. I don't know how they did it, but this candy has convinced me that more things should taste like this. However, knowing the items near the cashier at 7-11, these won't last long, so you should go see if they're available at your local 7-11.

Candy Randoms: Japanese gummy candy

I often spend unnecessary amounts of money buying candy, especially when I see candies that I wouldn't normally see anywhere else. An example of this is when I go into a specialty candy store or into an Asian market. Hence I will be posting Candy Randoms, a series in which I comment on impulse buys. Below are candies that I purchased from a Japanese market. These candies are sometimes stacked in front of the cashier and are marketed toward impulse buyers like myself.


I'm not even going to try and translate what this says. According to the picture there's a white candy with multi-colored orbs in it.

Here's what the candy looks like unwrapped.It doesn't look as colorful as the wrapper displayed, but it certainly is colorful. It looks kind of like an eraser. Anyway how does this candy taste? Well, the consistency is like Hi-Chew, but a little tougher. There are also little jelly orbs in them that are a bit tougher than the white part. An interesting candy and the packaging is nice.



Here's a peach version of the candy above. Or is that a butt? You don't know, but I hope it's peach flavored. Unlike the other candy, the orbs that are shown are only pink, which makes sense since it's peach flavored.


As you can see the candy is much lighter than the previous candy. The consistency is just like the previous candy and the flavor is about the same except it has a bit of peach flavor to it. I liked this candy, but my students did not like it as much as other variations. They cited a "weird aftertaste" as the main reason as to why they didn't like it. I did not detect anything odd, but it's one man's word against his students'.

Overall, these candies are a nice departure from what candies I normally eat. However, I suppose I've been visiting Asian markets so much, that I eat these candies more than candies I would see at an American supermarket. Try to find an Asian market with these candies so that you can experience something new. Unless you're from Japan or something, then it's old news I suppose.

Strawberry Milanos, a new challenger

Today when I was walking toward the cashier at my local Target, I saw something marketed as new near the impulse section:


I wondered, to myself, if these could be better than Double Chocolate Milanos. Double Chocolate Milanos, in my opinion, are the best kinds of Milanos because they often times I find that there's too much biscuit to chocolate in other kinds of Milanos. Anyway, back to the point, I immediately grabbed a bag despite the fact that these weren't marked down unlike the other kinds of Milanos.

Driving home as quickly as I could, I looked forward eating these cookies. In the world of chocolate, I rarely see a strawberry-chocolate combination. It really made me think because chocolate-covered strawberries are delicious. Candy makers should stop tippy-toeing around strawberries and chocolate and start making strawberry chocolate. I mean, they have orange chocolate, and have you ever tried chocolate-covered oranges? They're not that great. Unlike of course, chocolate-covered strawberries.

Once I got home, I pulled out one of these:


Looking at the bag, I was somewhat disappointed with what I got. I was expecting a good layer of strawberry filling, but it seemed as if there was a scant amount. I decided to break the cookie in half:


Eh...I suppose you can see the strawberry filling, but not really. How did it taste? Again, compared to Double Chocolate Milanos, the biscuits really steal the thunder, or I suppose mask it. Honestly, if you gave me these and Raspberry Milanos, I probably couldn't tell the difference. It's unfortunate that the strawberry-chocolate combination wasn't as great as I expected, but it's probably because the biscuit to chocolate ratio was uneven. I won't give up on finding a bar with this combination, but it's not found here. My verdict is that if you like Milanos then you should get these just to see if you like them. I'm still a Double Chocolate Milano man.