Choc covered Craisins

Does a certain blog pretty much exist for limited-edition products? Yes. Are ltd-eds nonetheless starting to get old? Keep crying wolf, nobody's gonna buy it anymore. 'specially when, as in these choc-covered Craisins, ltd ed (or in this case, "special edition") is code for "test run", i.e. if it sticks against the wall, keep selling it. The point of a ltd ed izzat it’s special and you can’t get it after a certain time. If they keep hawking product intros as ltd eds, well, a certain blog will prob keep covering it anyway (esp since these are pretty good, like Raisinets but w/ a little more sweet-tart kapow), but expect some pretty petulant pouting from hereon in.

Peanut everywhere

Two fotos - la dee da
Observant types may note a theme here, namely that Nestle is taking an idea and beating to death. How about a hint. Begins with a P? Ends with a T? Has the word "nut" in it? Did you say "peanut"? Correct. Both the 100 Grand w Peanuts & the Nestle Crunch w Peanuts (which fyi is not the same as the recent Nestle Crunch w/ peanut butter cream) are limited editions. Both even use the same #$!& typography. I suppose adding peanuts to just about anything is OK, esp if you're a peanut fan. And the 100 Grand bar is OK. But thumbs-down to the peanut Nestle Crunch.

Choc Covered Nutter Butters

Are Nutter Butters popular? Never had 'em; are they any different from girl scout do-si-dos? Anyway, now there’s a Chocolate Covered Nutter Butter. It’s part of a new milk choc-cov trio that includes oreos & mint oreos. The idea of dipping these various cookies isn’t new. And choc-covered oreos came out previously as a limited ed. The kraft website seems to call nutter butters a subset of oreos, and the co even had a recall last fall cuz some choc-cov nutter butters got mixed in w/ the choc-cov oreos. Anyway, the choc-PB merger seems to have infinite appeal to big corps, doesn’t it?

*21-gun salute to Twisted Link for foto & concept

Gooey's Treats Yogurt Shop

'member when frozen yogurt used to be a thing, when there wuz a froz-yog stand on every corner? For various reasons, it’s sort of over, but there are still hangers-on. Gooey’s is a 2-store chain in Dallas that picked up where I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt left off. (In fact, they used to once be ICBY stores.) There’ll always be lactose-intolerant types out there who appreciate a place like Gooey’s, where the product's 98% lactose free and where they also sell cakes, cookies, & other sweets. It's all soft-serve, they have a total of about 18 flavors, and they change flavors every 3 wks.

NEW location: 19177 Preston Rd. 469-737-8986
11700 Preston Rd @ SE corner Forest Ln. 214-691-9319

Stuie's Place Deli & Grill

Deli pickings around Dallas are slim, and are any of them kosher? This new one -- Stuie’s Place Deli & Grill – is. It has meat-but-no-dairy (unlike sleezy McDonald's French fries which it turns out are not only made w/ the old transfatty oil, but also have dairy AND wheat. What next: razor blades?). Anyway, on to poor Stuie's menu: matzo ball soup, salads, samwiches -- wraps, pitas, deli meats, hot open-faced -- plus hot dogs & burgers, plus entrée-y things like spaghetti, chick-fried steak, ribeye, brisket, plus Dr. Brown’s sodas, plus "Shabbat packages w/ rotisserie chicken & challah bread" plus homemade ice cream, nondairy of course. There is an actual Stu: Start Mishler, who moved here from NY and previously co-owned Café Fino, an also-kosher pizza place

800 North Coit Rd, Suite 2550-B, Richardson, 972-664-0123

no links to speak of, just 100% news today

Tryst

1. no fun links 2. from a press release & 3. not breaking-news: hat trick! So here it is. Tryst is a new restaurant-lounge on the South Side above Nellie's Sports Bar (which Tryst owner Brittney O'Daniel is also opening, ambitious wench that she is) in the same bldg as Gilley's, by Poor David's Pub and the South Side loft bldg and Amuse (Doug Brown's new place). So buzz-buzz to all that. Tryst has a big ol' patio & VIP lounge, but the newsy part is that it's where chef Todd Erickson turned up after his abrupt exit from Hector's on Henderson. The menu has, how do you say, whimsy: "beaten up chicken", lamb chop "lollipops", beef on a stick w/ 3 sauces: pomegranate-horseradish, ginger-peanut, & Tryst bbq.

1385 South Lamar, no fone yet, opening late Feb

Overload Smores

If you like marshmallow (and what campfire girl doesn’t), then you might be drawn to Overload Smores. Its cookie base, marsh dome, & choc coating evoke a Smore, a trendy flavor (and one that seems to attract chicks, tho I’m happy to stand corrected on that). It’s a 3-pack, each sprinkled w/ a different, semi-Nestle item: crunch, candies, & a weird Butterfingery nugget. But it’s not by Nestle, it’s by a small NY indie, S&S (who btw has done similar prods to this, w/ reesey type cups and/or other toppings). For marsh fans, it’s good but clumsy: too tall to bite and also, cookie + dome fall apart instantly.

Wheat Thins Chips

Wheat Thins Chips are not brand new. But they are new around here. And at NYCE, where regular Wheat Thins are regularly consumed, there’s genuine interest in the product (as opposed to the usual professorial / "reportorial" approach observed, oh my yes). So: these kinda blow. Now, if the goal is to be able to eat the same # of crackers (official serving: 9) and incur less calories, then mission accomplished. (regular WTs = 150 cals, 6 gs fat. these chippies = 130 cals and 4 gs fat. carbs: same.) But next to the regulars, these taste sawdusty & flimsy. And there’s actually more sodium (300 mgs vs 280 for regular). So: feh to these, and prob to the Ritz chips, too which george hamilton has been hawking like crazy on TV lately.

Cherry Kit Kat

To complain that Kit Kat's releasing too many ltd editions is to bite the hand that feeds me, since new prods are the very lifeblood & all that. Any other wk (or any other new Kit Kat) and I’d wait a few days to avoid the disaster of having TWO kit kats in ONE wk. But we are ramping-up to val day - which means that the Ltd Ed Valentine Mini CHERRY Kit Kat will be avail barely a wk. Also, there’s been such limited sighting of this* that it’s practically a NYCE exclusive. But 2 notes: 1. Hershey seems increasingly addicted to the whole ltd ed thing (creating a sense of fatigue, no?) 2. they’re def on some kind of cherry kick, aka it seems 2B no coincidence that this comes right after the Xmas cherry-filled Hersheys kiss

*shout-out to stacy for spotting

marble mocha macchiato

Next wk Starbucks intros a "new" bev, the Marble Mocha Macchiato. It's not really new, but a big hoo-ha prod intro'll cover the demise of Chantico, the profound choc drink so super-rich (they made it w/ cocoa butter), it wuz more dessert than drink. Marble mocha = white choc mocha syrup, milk, espresso, & choc drizzle. Weird thing: they’re free-sampling it Feb 15, missing the big Val-Day opp by a day. Meanwhile, coming to conv stores in march are 2 new bottled drinks: 1. Starbucks Iced Coffee, a "milky sweetened coffee drink sold in 8-oz cans" (which um is different from Frapp & DoubleShot how?) 2. Strawberry Frappuccino.

Tab, pepsi milkshake, blah blah

Mosta the time the goal at NYCE is to write about stuff not reported elsewhere, ie, actual "news". Getting yr "news" offa press release sucks but some prods do merit mention. So here’s some re-hash you can find in lotsa other places. And let’s do a 2-for-1 so as to increase perceived value: 1. Tab Energy, which Coke announced mths ago another effort by the pathetic soft-drinkery to seem relevant and is free-sampling like crazy at Fashion Week in NY and will have a cutesy ad during the Oscars. 2. Pepsi / Ben & Jerry’s are gonna launch a bottled milkshake you can buy in the refrig section of conv stores similar to the deal pepsi has w starbucks

Kit Kat Milkshake

Continuing the theme of Ltd-Ed Items That Only A Few People'll Care About (and yet, care about passionately), here’s Kit Kat Milkshake, the newest and ostensibly coolest flavor ever ... for malt fans, that is, since "milkshake" seems to imply = "malt", yes? And when you eat it, you maybe do get a malty impression (tho one could also describe the taste as "dusty"). However, bait & switch alert, cuz there IS NO malt. There is sugar, milk, cocoa butter, wheat flour (?), & refined palm kernel oil (ick). There is yeast. But no malt

Reese's Double Chocolate PB cups

You’d think there’d be a finite # of spin-offs but Reese’s seems intent on proving otherwise w/ another new limited edition: Reese’s Double Chocolate peanut butter cups. One hates to be a corp toady but their new-prod team really deserves a hi-five, not only for the creativity of ideas but also cuz these are pretty effing great (altho the new-ish caramel cups ain't so hot). As the NYCE-generated foto shows, instedda the usual tan-colored, PB-only filling, it has a chocolatey color & flavor too. Yumsters.

Olive Garden Limoncello Lemonade

Olive Garden, home to fine Tuscan fare (snicker) (and fyi, i ordinarily SHUN the hack term "fare", so it’s sardonic here, ok), has a new bev that may impel the otherwise reluctant to cross the breach: Limoncello Lemonade. Limoncello is the delish liqueur made from submerging lemon peel in vodka and letting it ferment. (Authentic limoncello uses lemons from the isle of Capri & the Amalfi coast.) Limoncello, "Sicily’s signature liqueur", is sposedly easy to make at home. But sigh it takes weeks to age. That said, OG's drinkie won’t be avail til feb 13. It’s a combo of Caravella limoncello, Smirnoff Citrus Twist, & froz lemonade. You could just go buy the Caravella & skip the Olive Garden experience, but what the hey

Wraps: Great & Mega

Wrap sandwiches originated in Calif in the 80s and seemed for-sure to go big nationally. Some chains formed, and yes WF & Subway do wraps but jeez (insert cricket sounds here)... 20 yrs later, 2 wrap chains are hitting DFW as we type: Mega Wraps, birthed in Canada (uh-oh! ha), and Great Wraps, an Atlanta co. steered by 2 Coke execs (double uh-oh). Both try to counteract typecasting by also-serving soupsaladsmoothies even samwiches on ohso-trendy ciabatta. The sales pitch on wraps = healthy and yet these wrapsters are all ++ on "philly cheezsteaks" too which doesn’t seem very wrappy...

Mega Wraps: legacy park, plano 972-473-3514, advancial tower, 1845 woodall rogers 214-661-7835, and coming soon to 3100 independence pkwy, plano
Great Wraps: coming soon to an undisclosed location in garland (helloo, can you say "unhelpful corp communications"?)

Raising Cane's

More chicken,* but the angle at Raising Cane’s is that they only have ONE thing: chick fingers. FRIED chick fingers. OK they have slaw & FF too but you get what I’m saying. But chick fingers are pretty dang popular – big hit w/ kids, in nugget form at McD’s, the basis of everything at Chick-fil-A, even Wingstop now has a version they call "boneless chick wings". Raising Cane has a backstory: spawned in baton rouge by a go-get-em prodigy (whose "brainstorm" owes oodles to a chickchain from the SE called Zaxby’s) who named the chain for his dog. The chick fingers are "fresh, never frozen", as if that matters to the grease-lovin’ audience.

720 hebron parkway Lewisville, 214-488-4488, w/ another branch TK in richardson

*one more chick item and this could become Chicken Week!