le petit ecolier - white choc

Le Petit Ecolier white choc cookies reveal what a strict taskmistress innovation can be. there was the little schoolboy, happy for 150+ yrs in his French milieu as a butter biscuit topped w/ a slab of milk choc. Then mkt forces intruded and he was forced to welcome a baby brother: a spinoff in dark choc. Not enough. So the parent co. spawned another sibling, EXTRA dark choc. Still not enough. so now: white choc. (there’s also been a couplo bastard cousins: hazelnut & crisped rice.) This white choc is pleasingly not too sweet; but all Le Petit Ecoliers are good - not too many ingredients and they use butter (vs. butter-flavored hydrogenated oil).

Kashi Go Lean - MALT

my first reaction to Kashi Go Lean high protein & fiber bar in a malted choc crisp flavor was, there is a god. i mean, after all, malt. But it’s rather a chore to eat. Maybe this is a regular deal w/ these hardcore protein/fiber bars... but this mofo has 49 frickin carbs (and I am not one of those carb-counter people). also 13gs protein & 270mgs potassium - possibly good 4 U but holy davy jones’ locker, this 290-cal sinker knocks you out while simultaneously jacking you up w/ bogus alternative sugars (evap cane juice, honey, brown rice syrup, barley malted syrup, pear juice concentrate). plus the malt flavor wasn’t very strong. I guess it’s meant as a meal replcemt? in any case: back to my old agnostic ways

Fusion Cafe

for those dallas-based malcontents who might not see the personal benefit of hearing about a place in plano, here’s a quick throw-away: some IL-based sub-sandwich chain called Jimmy John’s has opened a buncha branches in the dallas area (by SMU, @ preston-forest, Addison, Arlington, denton); they appear to be a beefier version of Subway. And now to the real item: Fusion Café, a coffeehouse (yo to the kneejerk "indie-is-better" crowd) in downtown plano in a site vacated by another indie, Coffee Haus (whose cousin across from SMU also closed. boohoo indies etc). Fusion faces a slight liability since it’s not on the main 15th st. drag but A++ to see it open in plano’s historic old downtown blah blah (which btw, the dipshits who run plano recently hired a task force to tell them that they need fewer antique shops and more coffeehouses. DUH)

Fusion Cafe, 1545 K Ave. 469-241-9099

tostitos multi grain

Which is worse: that Tostitos multi-grain is a "whole-grain" version of a $&# tortilla chip? or that the premise of whole grains suckered me into buying a bag. "multi grain" has become another one of those catch-phrase selling points, like oat bran and, of course, dark choc. The absurdity of "whole grain" Tostitos is that Tostitos = corn chips. or at least they used to. can you have an ear of corn made out of wheat? Anyway the grains are: corn, oat, buckwheat, & wheat. versus frito-lay’s practically identical sun chips, which have: corn, wheat, rice, oat. Someone should do a side-by-side taste test.

nestle dark choc raisinets

not sure if you've caught wind of the rumor going around – it’s about dark choc stopmeifyou’veheardit that it’s good for you. all those dark choc items you've seen aren’t even the tip of the iceberg. stats!:
$ one third of the new choc items this year are dark - up from 1/4 in 2005, sez Datamonitor's Productscan Online
$ new dark-choc prods have already hit 278 this year (279 if you count today’s blog item?) (and it's only sept!), compared to a total last year of 217
$ Sales of dark choc are up 40% this year, sez Ad Age, driven by reports that the antioxidants make it heart healthy
in that area, Nestle dark raisinets scores 2-for-1, cuz raisins have antioxidants too. this 11-oz foil package claims to have 7 servings, w/ 180 cal, 32 carbs, 8 grams of fat

dulce de leche Oreo, yawn

Today's theme is "marginal"... after all, these ltd-ed dulce de leche Oreos are only marginally new (they've been out a while), marginally of interest (oh boy another dulce de leche item which i would've ignored altogether but these were on sale), & marginally edible (they taste way grossfakesweet). dulce de leche has many fans, but the flavor succeeds best in a dairy context. what IS of interest is how these underscore the importance of oreo's standard filling. you'd think most of the "oreo flavor" lay in the choc cookie, but no, for oreos to be oreos, they need the white goo

*note how cookies in photo mimic the ones on the box!

mint choc chip pop tart

They were free-sampling these last nite over at nokia, thus providing me w/ an instant blog item: mint choc chip pop tarts. so what, right? except that the mktg campaign for these is all about eating them frozen; the pop-tart peeps were handing them out ice-cold (from a retro-looking fridge). other priorities prevented me from eating it on the spot, as served, icy-cold (and besides, it seemed vital to get it home unscathed for a pic); after sampling it at room temp, I just hope it tastes better cold. Talk about sweet. Yuck. But how clever to push it as a snack competing w/ ice cream/novelty items, potentially expanding the pop-tart audience past the breakfast crowd.

Pepperidge Farm Chocolate Delight

Pepp farm duz so many new prods, they could star in their own blog. Most of it's just Another New Flavor of Milano, but the Chocolate Delight line is semi-unique cuz 1/2 the 6 flavors are avail at Target only. That includes Marbella, choc cookies w/ a "rich choc layer" & choc cappuccino "crunchies"; and 2 others, mint & amaretto. if you can’t get to target, shed no tears; the choc tastes fake, like frosting, and the "crunchies" taste like ash. Celebrate instead that the Choc Raspberry Rialto, another in the line with a choc sandwich & raspberry filling that's a little better, is avail everywhere