Although Popeyes is a fast-food chain mainly noted for its famed chicken, seafood has always been a prominent sidekick on its menu. A Louisiana themed restaurant wouldn’t be complete without a fried seafood po’boy, after all, and shrimp is the quintessential Gulf of Mexico seafood.
And though shrimp plays its part in Popeyes’ menu, hushpuppies do not. To our recollection, hushpuppies have never been a part of Popeyes’s menu. Maybe this is because hushpuppies are more of a Deep South thing than a New Orleans thing? Who knows.
But what about both shrimp and hushpuppies combined? Could a combination of two classic Southern dishes be greater than the sum of their parts? Popeyes’s Hushpuppy Butterfly Shrimp (their limited time offering for July) attempted to fuse these two classics to create a Frankenstein-esque monster of deliciousness. Combined with a new Cajun Cocktail sauce, and we may have had a winner on our hands - we’ll find out after the jump.
Arby’s is in a very confused place. With the price of beef being sky-high, Arby’s has been trying to develop a greater range of pork, poultry and fish offerings to balance out their menu. The addition of new fish sandwiches on their menu had necessitated the addition of a fish-focused pairing: hushpuppies.
Released in late December on the cusp of the new year, Arby’s Jalapeño Hushpuppies were an attempt to create a side dish specifically for Arby’s latest fish sandwich offerings.
After the jump, we’ll put these puppies on the show circuit and give them an official judgement… Or just see if they tasted good.
In December of 2013, Taco Bell came out with one of its most… innovative limited time product offers in a while: the Grilled Stuft Nacho. Promising to be all the goodness of a plate of nachos that could be held in one hand, it became a minor sensation fulfilling Taco Bell’s typical promise of cheap food that was easy to eat. It was discontinued rather quickly before we could give it a try.
It was reintroduced for a brief period at the end of May 2015, and we got our hands on it then - but did it live up to the expectation of a full-fledged nacho experience in the palm of your hand?
Alone, on the surface of Mars, the only thing that you have to keep you company is the sound of your car’s engine. You don’t know how long it’s been since you’ve seen another person, but you are certain the ghostly inhabitants of each house you find offer you no help in your journey. Each time you crash into a mysteriously appearing rock, it only highlights your loneliness - oh great, you’ve fallen through the floor again…
Naut is a 2014 game created in Unity by the French game collective Klondike. It was produced specifically by three of the collective’s members: Lucie Viatgé, who did the game’s visuals and animation; Tom Victor, who programmed and did tech art; and Titouan Millet, who did music and additional coding.
After the jump, we explore the existential crises of Mars as viewed through the windshield of a convertible car.
Hey, when was the last time you had something with pretzel in it? Not like, actually eating a pretzel, but when was the last time you ate a pretzel bun, or pretzel crust, or anything made with pretzel? Months ago, right? Right. So why is it, on June 29, 2015 on this dear sweet planet Earth, that Little Caesars decided to re-introduce its Soft Pretzel Crust Pizza?
Don’t get us wrong - it’s not a bad pizza, at least in our opinion, but the pretzel fad is over. Their last limited time offer was a bacon-crusted deep dish pizza, which was sensible because bacon will never die as long as Americans continue to love making their hearts suffer (as Wendy’s has recently proven with their Baconator Fries), but the Soft Pretzel Crust Pizza got a lukewarm reception the first time it was around when the pretzel fad was actually relevant. We can’t claim to read the minds of the Little Caesars corporate brains, but this just seems like a bad idea.
Regardless, we missed out on an opportunity to review the pizza proper the first time it came around and figured we’d jump on it while it was still (moderately) relevant again. We actually adored the pizza when it was new, so we really wanted to see if a few months off the menu would change it much.
After the jump, we’ll give this out-of-date fad cash-in another try and see if it’s gotten any better… or worse.
Hey kids! Do you like Taco Bell? Do you like Duke Nukem 3D? Of course you do? Well, what if I told you there was a way you could enjoy Taco Bell and Duke Nukem 3Dat the same time -Wait, didn’t we do this already?
Taco Bell: Tasty Temple Challenge was an advergame given away with Taco Bell’s kids meal in 2000. Even for advergames, the concept is pretty inane: You play as “Baja Bill”, an adventurer exploring deep into a lost jungle temple to find an imprisoned Grande Meal. Yes, you’re on a quest to rescue precious Taco Bell food from an ancient faux Mayan-Incan-Aztec-Racist Caricature temple. As you battle your way through the temple, you combat snakes and scorpions by… lighting them on fire?
After the jump, we’ll explore the Tasty Temple, discover its secrets, and figure out how some free games demand their own kind of payment.
