Review: Hot Dog on a Stick Veggie Dog and CHEESE DOG

We were at "the failing Lakeline Mall," to borrow a phrase, today. It was the first time we've visited since the Disney Store closed, and we learned today that the only other toy store there is going to close soon, too. There are so many more empty storefronts than there were before Christmas. A lady at the Round Rock outlets Cinnabon said the mall was really struggling; they *just* opened up a new AMC theater, but maybe it's just not bringing people into the mall itself.

However, there was bright spot in our trip, besides just the hanging out with my kiddo. I haven't gotten Hot Dog on a Stick in decades, probably since I left Arkansas and used to get corn dogs at Central Mall in Fort Smith.

Two items on their menu that I'm sure were not available 20+ years ago caught my eye: a veggie dog, and a cheese dog with the choices of American or Pepper Jack cheese. Also, they have a "2 for $5.55" menu which includes them both, as well as a couple of other offerings. Individually, the dogs would have been a bit over $3.50 each, so it was a no-brainer.

Of course, they batter the dogs and fry them on the spot. This was the cheese dog. I notice that although they don't wear the ridiculously tall hats anymore, they do have them available for the children.

This kid was just coming out of a spin when I took this. The hat apparently makes him do circles.

Chow time! The cheese dog, I opted for American, is on the left. Use the process of elimination to locate the veggie dog.

Both had a satisfyingly crunchy outer shell. There was extra batter on the cheese, which I am sure is so it wouldn't explode in the fryer. I tried making fried cheese a few weeks ago, and it was a disaster. The cheese here stayed fully contained. I'm guessing they use something akin to Velveeta, because the cheese was molten, even when it wasn't super hot.

The veggie burger was good; I don't think there's much sense in using a stellar hot dog for a corny anyway, since it's all about the batter and frying, but this one held up nicely to the expected corn dog flavor.

But the one I'm going to be dreaming about until I can go back and get another was this cheese dog. It was perfect. Kind of how you want mozzarella sticks to be, but they often aren't because people don't cook them long enough and the cheese stays hard so the coating falls off. Not here. The coating is actually the structure, and because the American cheese doesn't have a super strong flavor profile, you can really enjoy the salty sweet crunch of the cornbread batter.

Hopefully I'll get to enjoy at least one or two more before time runs out. Delicious.

Review: Taco Bell's Cap'n Crunch Delights

When I saw these on the interwebs, I knew I had to try.

The response from my Facebook friends was mixed, but pretty much either in the "These are awesome!" camp or on the "Yuck! I'd rather eat a skunk tail" side.

Which made me want to try them even more.

So, first, here's the ad:

Here is how they're described on Taco Bell's website: "The new Cap'n Crunch™ Delights™ are warm, light pastries, coated with fruityCap'n Crunch's Crunch Berries™ cereal and filled with creamy, sweet milk icing."

So now you know.

Now here's my experience with them.

First a caveat: These might look and taste much better freshly fried at the store. I had to drive mine home, so they spent about half an hour in the car.

We got a 4-pack, which is just under two bucks, which means we are looking at about $.50 per... uh, ball... for lack of a better word.

Here we go!

Hmm... the ground cereal doesn't really show too well on the red dough. Maybe it's just a bad angle or bad light? I moved them to an area with more natural light.

Uck. Not much better. Still doesn't look too appetizing. The colors just get lost in the glaze and the red. This might be different when they're fresher.

Time to taste one!

Well, then. It looked like my drive home had caused the icing to absorb up into the pastry. So, no real milky icing to report.

However, it tasted good. It didn't have a Cap'n Crunch taste, though. It tasted like a doughnut hole that had been rolled in any kind of sugar or cookie or something vaguely sweet but random. Good, but not proprietarily-flavored, as far as I was concerned.

The second one I tried fared better in the filling department. And I stood by a window to take its picture, so you could actually see it.

There ya go.

Again, good. Tasty. Like a doughnut hole. No biggie. Not disgusting. Stirred no particular opinion either way. James said something about how it wasn't horrible. It might be a weird choice for Taco Bell, though, as I don't really see a tie between its cuisine and doughnut holes, but that's probably why I'm not in charge of their marketing.

Taco Bell's Grilled Stuft Nachos, a review

The idea of Taco Bell's newish Grilled Stuft Nachos made me laugh. It's like CiCi's macaroni and cheese pizza. So many carbs. But I like nachos, and I like tortillas, so it was worth a shot.

The website advertised that the nacho pocket is 7 inches by 7 inches (halved, because it's a triangle) for $1.29. So, even if it stunk, it's not like I'd have wasted a lot of cash.

And here's the deal: It didn't taste bad. It was actually pretty good. But it stunk. Literally.

When I pulled away from the drive-through, the nacho pocket was on top of the bag, and a scent of damp sick wafted up from my lap. I mentioned to Daphne, "This food smells like barf." She agreed that it did.

We got home and I pulled everything out... yep, it was definitely the Grilled Stuft Nachos that smelled weird. I think it's the "grill." It smelled like something steamed, but not well. Like steamed in an old, dirty sock.

It looked neat though.

It's basically a giant tortilla folded into a triangle and pressed in a steam bath/grill. I was very hungry and forgot to take a picture before I took a bite (yes, I ate it because sometimes things that stink taste good... like cheese, and cooked broccoli or cauliflower, etc.).

It is seasoned beef, nacho cheese sauce, a second zesty nacho sauce, red tortilla strips, and sour cream.

All together, it tasted a lot like almost everything else from Taco Bell, if you get it "supremed." Which is to say: not stellar, but not terrible.

Dat smell, doe.

It is still assaulting my nasal passages, and I finished eating this more than an hour ago. Time for some field research...

Nope. Of the three reviews I read, no one mentioned a vomit smell. One said it smelled delicious, like a crunch wrap. Well, then, I feel ripped off.

Also, two mentioned that theirs weren't folded properly and fell apart. Mine held its structural integrity well, even though I opened it for a picture. Also, some people's had their toppings evenly distributed instead of in strips, which I think would make this more pleasant to eat.

Anyway, go for it. It won't kill you. Just don't inhale first.

Review: Popeye's Waffle Chicken Tenders

So, this is a thing now...

It might be "hot" in the culinary world, but if so, it's been sitting under a heat lamp. Chicken and waffles is not a new phenomenon. It is allegedly a tried-and-true southern tradition, although I grew up in the south and never heard of it until about a decade ago, thanks to The Food Network.

Since that time, I've tended to order chicken and waffles everywhere I've seen it, just to get different takes on it. Trust me, IHOP does it very differently than The Third Base (whose balsamic syrup is both jarring and delicious. Did I mention that the waffles have cheddar cheese in them?).

When my friend alerted me to the Popeye's chicken waffle tenders, I knew I had to try them.

I had to wait for more than ten minutes for my tenders, but at least I knew that they were being made fresh. Of course, then I had to drive all the way home, so I still didn't get to taste them.

What I noticed when I pulled them into the car with me was that they *did* smell overwhelmingly like waffles. I was pleasantly surprised.

This is what I got:

The meal had three large tenders, fries underneath, and a biscuit, in addition to the sweet honey maple sauce (which contains egg yolks, as well; wonder why they don't advertise that in the title).

The tenders were vaguely seahorse-shaped. One appeared to have whose wingy things, even. (Sources say that they're called "fins." Whatever.)

And here's a cross-section. They're real cuts of meat, not processed meat glued back together. So that's a plus.

That said, they're just chicken tenders. I had gotten used to the smell in my car, and the flavor wasn't any more "waffle-y" to me than regular chicken tenders are. Maybe this could work better if they made the fries out of waffles and gave out straight-up syrup instead of honey mustard maple dipping sauce. 

The sauce was good, too... I ended up dipping my fries in it, and they were tasty to the point that I was disappointed when I ran out of sauce before I ran out of fries.

So, basically, these are good chicken tenders... but they're not really discernible as an homage to chicken-and-waffles except when the initial scent hits. Since I live within lazy-person walking distance of a Chick-fil-A, I'm not likely to get into my car to pick up an order of these any time soon.