brilokuloj: I dreamt that they made a new, hotter variety of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos that came in a black bag.
palabomeno: Will, that wasn’t a dream. Those were real, and you have to eat them.
This is a conversation that actually took place.
Flamin’ Hot Cheetos are an extremely fashionable snack - considering they’re one of the few snack chips that have had a rap written by children about them, they’re unquestionably a favorite among people of all ages. They are hot, sure, but is that really enough? Flamin’ is a state of mind, after all. One man’s red hot is another man’s lukewarm. How can we push the envelope? How can we turn something that’s Flamin’ into even Flamin’er?
XXtra Flamin’ Hot Cheetos are the answer. Promising to be “twice as hot” as regular Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, these chips may just be enough to push our taste buds over the edge. Will they hold up to their doubly intense promise?
We here at Eggware.XYZ love spicy food[1]. We are constantly on the hunt for the most spicy of snacks, no matter the country of origin. But there’s one pepper that’s come into vogue that’s continued to elude us. A pepper that was once the hottest in the world, and still takes home the bronze in heat today. The Bhut Jolokia. The ghost pepper.
Lots of restaurants and snack food providers have tried to obtain the ephemeral essence of the ghost pepper, and many have failed. Like a ghost, capturing the Bhut Jolokia is easier said than done, and it isn’t for the faint of heart to try.
But ghost-chasing is what October is all about, so when we stumbled upon this bag of Trader Joe’s Ghost Pepper Potato Chips, we knew we had may had found a worthy competitor laying claim to the title of The World’s Third Hottest Pepper. Trader Joe’s has always been good for us when it comes to cheap food and wine - will they hold up to the heat of the Bhut Jolokia itself? Hit the jump and find out.
Welcome to Halloween! Or as most people like to call it, October! This Halloween, we want to talk about some of the stuff that scared us the worst when we were kids. It’s time to take a retrospective look back into the past with Retrospectacles’ Spooky Edition, Retrospooktacles, where we will be not just looking through our old memories, but the things that made them terrifying!
Croc: Legend of the Gobbos is a Playstation game that was released on September 29, 1997 by the now-defunct Argonaut Games. It was originally intended to be produced for Nintendo as a video game starring Yoshi, but Nintendo declined and decided to produce their own 3D platformer with Mario himself. If it wasn’t for Nintendo declining this offer, Croc could’ve been the first true console 3D platformer ever released.
Croc, to most people, might be a minor footnote in the history of 3D platformers. But to those who have played it as kids, we may just remember something very distinctive about it: it was creepy as heck.
After the jump, we’ll explore why this Yoshi expy had reason to fear for his life.
Taco Bell, compared to most other nation-wide fast food restaurants, has an extremely dedicated following. Like most fast food places, Taco Bell’s menu is regularly changing, adding new items and removing old. This has led to a lot of contention among their fanbase, as cult favorites tend to be the first to get the ax. These include items such as the Beefy Crunch Burrito, the Bell Beefer, the Blackjack Taco - all cut down in (what their fans will claim was) their prime.
But there’s always been one menu item that’s had an especially loud clamor for its return. It wasn’t a taco, or a burrito, or even a real meal in itself - it was a sauce. The Lava Sauce, the foundation of the now-discontinued Volcano Menu, has been widely requested for a return to the proper menu ever since its discontinuation in 2013. It was essentially a spicy nacho cheese sauce, yes, but fans will claim that the spice made the difference. If you were to hear it from a Lava Sauce lover, it could elevate virtually any Taco Bell food into a heavenly experience, a kind of claim that we only hear about Sriracha sauce nowadays. Although the Taco Bell fans cried loudly for their sauce back, Taco Bell stayed quiet… Until now.
Now, the legendary Lava Sauce is back and featured in the Volcano Quesarito, a standard Taco Bell Quesarito with Lava sauce in place of the regular cheese. We’ve never had the original Lava Sauce, but the idea of having such a monumental sauce for a limited time was too interesting to pass up. Will Lava Sauce live up to its volcanic hype or be a stone cold flop?
Taco Bell has been on a roll recently! We didn’t get a chance to review the Bacon Club Chalupa, but we thought it was very good and an excellent bargain in its $5 meal deal. Their latest offering is the Dare Devil Loaded Grillers, a set of three “loaded Grillers” with super-spicy sauce in three heat levels.
Each Griller is wrapped in a grilled burrito and includes Taco Bell’s seasoned ground beef, nacho cheese, and crunchy red tortilla strips. The primary draw is the Dare Devil sauces, however: Chipotle, Habanero, and Ghost Pepper (from least to most hot).
The sauces for the Grillers are all mayonnaise based, with the Habanero sauce also including sour cream. As the sauce for the Chipotle Griller was an already established sauce on their menu, we decided to only review the two new sauces.
After the jump we’ll take the dare and see if these Grillers are red hot or stone cold.
Popeyes is back with another resurrection of one of their previous monthly limited time offerings: the Rip’n Chick’n. We last saw the Rip’n Chick’n in 2011, but the premise has been seen again in 2014’s Beer Can Chicken. As of late July 2015, they’ve brought the concept by itself back.
Popeyes seems to be taking a bit of a hiatus from new concepts: we saw that next month’s offering will be the Bonafide Big Box, which has already happened back in April. This is probably for the best, because their last few offerings (like the Smoky Garlic Chile Chicken and Hushpuppy Butterfly Shrimp) have been less than stellar. Will this semi-retro offering give us a tasty blast from the past, or is it resurrecting what should’ve been left in the grave? Find out after the jump.
brilokuloj: Paula, I had a horrible nightmare.
palabomeno: What was it?
