REVIEW: Doritos Dinamita Flamin’ Hot Queso

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Doritos has a long history of Super Bowl commercials. This year, it’s using the ad spot to relaunch its Dinamitas line with a handful of flavors that are not exactly new to shelves despite the packaging proclaiming newness in capital letters. Flamin’ Hot Queso Dinamitas first appeared in 2021 in bags considerably more cheese-colored and less bold than this iteration. A few years later, they’re back dressed in red and black, and the Dinameter’s pushing all the way to “EXTRA HOT.” It was impossible for me to approach these chips without picturing some sort of Looney Tunes character unwittingly ending up with a mouthful of dynamite so let’s find out if these cause my stomach to comically explode while smoke pours from my ears.

Opening the bag reveals these rolled up corn chips to be covered in classic red Flamin’ Hot dust, but the smell leans more traditionally cheesy-Dorito than anything intensely hot. They’re definitely extra crunchy, like the back of the bag notes, and the flavors that hit me first are corn and cheese. I wouldn’t really say the cheese represents queso in any noticeable way, but they reminded me of the Spicy Nacho Doritos variety. Despite every chip-tube being thoroughly coated in the finger-staining fire powder, I didn’t find these to be all that hot. I have a fairly high tolerance for heat and a very high tolerance for rapidly shoving snack food into my mouth, so even as my fingertips, knuckles, and wrists began to turn scarlet from repeated trips into the chip bag, I felt like the Dinameter was exaggerating. This is where I picture a greedy character gleefully gobbling up poorly disguised sticks of dynamite, unaware of the impending boom.

I don’t know if it’s the more compact rolled shape or what, but these are very easy to eat a lot of, and I didn’t find myself needing to reach for anything to quell the burn. Is it nice to have a beverage with them? Sure! If I found myself without one, would I still eat three servings? Also sure! The heat does start to creep in and slowly build in the back of the mouth, but they never turn the dial into “extra hot” territory for me or leave me feeling like I’m ready to spit flames at whatever nemesis tricked me into eating them. While these might fall short of their claim of being extra hot, they excel at being extremely snackable. With a solid cheesy base flavor and a hot-without-blowing-your-head-off heat, they’re a fun way to shake up your regular chip game. I can see people finding these hotter than I did, but if you’re heat-sensitive, you probably aren’t chasing down Dinamitas in the first place. If you’ve enjoyed anything Flamin’ Hot in the past, I think you’ll be more than happy to risk internal combustion and chomp on these.

Purchased Price: $5.49
Size: 10.75 oz bag
Purchased at: Mariano’s
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (14 pieces) 150 calories, 8 grams of total fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 140 milligrams of sodium, 17 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 0 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Burger King Candied Bacon Whopper

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If only you could’ve seen my face when I rolled my eyes after hearing about Burger King’s Candied Bacon Whopper. Candied bacon? Bacon jam? Oooh, fancy, Burger King. Are you providing cloth napkins now, too? But after eating it, I need to put my foot in my mouth, and I will gladly do so, as long as there’s a Candied Bacon Whopper attached to it because I’m surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

The newest Whopper variation features a flame-grilled beef patty, tomatoes, lettuce, crispy fried onions, garlic aioli, sweet bacon jam, and brown sugar candied bacon on a sesame seed bun.

I will skip writing about the beef patty, tomatoes, lettuce, and sesame seed bun because if you’ve had a Whopper, you know what those bring to the table. So, let’s start with the bacon jam with chewy bacon bits. It’s sweet, smoky, and a little peppery, and I could be cliche here and say it’s my jam, but I can’t because, on its own, I can taste why it needs the other toppings to make this Whopper special. Its flavor doesn’t have a strong punch.

The brown sugar candied bacon doesn’t look like the shriveled-up pork pieces that are Burger King’s regular bacon. The sugary coating makes the bacon look better but doesn’t help give it a crispy texture. It’s not as sweet as the bacon jam, which allows its salty and porky goodness to come through. When combined with the sweet and savory jam, they give the burger a tasty barbecue-like vibe. Also, at times, I tasted something that reminded me of teriyaki sauce, so that might be the garlic aioli making itself known among the other toppings.

As for the crispy fried onion pieces, their flavor helps complete the barbecue vibe I’m tasting. They also give the burger some crispy texture, which I wish was from the bacon and lettuce, but I will take it any way I can get it.

Sure, Burger King’s Candied Bacon Whopper has almost the same amount of sugar as a 20-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew, but that helps make this Whopper sweet and sahweet (Am I using that properly, kids?). I can understand how that sweetness might turn off a few taste buds, but mine appreciated every bite. I’m sorry, Burger King. I thought you couldn’t pull off something like this, but I was wrong.

Purchased Price: $15.29 (meal)
Size: Small meal
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 850 calories, 49 grams of fat, 13 grams of saturated fat, 1.4 grams of trans fat, 103 milligrams of cholesterol, 1090 milligrams of sodium, 71 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 72 grams of sugar, and 41 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Monster Energy Ultra Fantasy Ruby Red

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Grapefruit is not my favorite fruit because it makes my taste buds tap out the moment the fruit’s bitterness hits them. I can count the number of times I’ve had the citrus fruit with one hand. But if every grapefruit tasted as wonderful as this Monster Energy Ultra Fantasy Ruby Red Energy Drink, I would eat so many that counting them would quickly surpass all the digits attached to my body, all 21.5 of them.

Fantasy Ruby Red sounds like a name you’d see on a flyer passed out on the Las Vegas Strip, but calling it Ultra Grapefruit would’ve given it kind of a 60-year-old posing as a teenager vibe to it. The energy drink has a pleasant citrusy scent but didn’t immediately register as grapefruit to me. After a few more sniffs, I could pinpoint the fruit, but there’s a little something else fruity hitting my nose that I just can’t place.

The energy drink’s flavor could easily be mistaken for another fruit. It’s sweet with a bit of tartness, and there’s definitely none of the bitterness that grapefruit is known for. There were moments when I detected a hint of grapefruit, but if someone told me this was blood orange flavored, I’d believe them, ignoring the beverage’s not-blood-orange pink color.

While a tremendous tasting citrusy energy drink and definitely something I’ll buy again, I wouldn’t say I liked Fantasy Ruby Red as much as last year’s Strawberry Dreams. But if you accidentally pick this up instead of Strawberry Dreams because, at a quick glance, their pink cans could be confused for each other, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with Fantasy Ruby Red.

Purchase Monster Energy Ultra Fantasy Ruby Red on Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Purchased Price: More than one should pay on eBay
Size: 16 oz can
Purchased at: eBay
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 can) 10 calories, 0 grams of fat, 390 milligrams of sodium, 6 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of sugar, 2 grams of erythritol, 0 grams of protein, and 150 milligrams of caffeine.

REVIEW: Kellogg’s Extra Crispy Clusters Cereal

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Am I losing my mind? Kellogg’s Extra Crispy Clusters are just granola in a box, right? “Crispy Clusters” are just granola clusters, right? Nothing about them makes them special than Nature Valley or KIND granola, right? With these definitely being granola, I can’t help but want to call them Extranola. But what makes them “extra” over other granola, I could not tell you despite eating several servings of both varieties available — Almond and Cinnamon.

While both flavors are crispy, which I’ll write more about in a moment, only the Cinnamon one slid out of the bag in cluster form. But the Almond one was mostly a bunch of loose granola in the bag as if it got beaten up by boxes of Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds as retaliation for stepping on their oat cluster cereal turf.

But back to their crispiness…

The neglect I gave these while sitting in milk would make any Tamagotchi die, but they maintained their crispiness despite that. I left them to soak while I scrolled through cleaning Instagram Reels. Still crispy. I let them sit in 2% while I collected and counted all the micro USB cables I’ve accumulated over the past decade. Still crispy. But I’m pretty sure giving any granola that same lack of attention while in dairy would have the same result, so it really isn’t that impressive.

If I had to choose between the two Kellogg’s Extra flavors, I’d give the nod to the Cinnamon one. While it tastes like any cinnamon-flavored granola, it’s definitely more flavorful than the other one. Oddly, I also found that the warm spice has more flavor in milk than when eaten dry. As for the Almond variety, the caramelized sugar coating provides a noticeable and pleasant sweetness, and the almonds obviously add a nuttiness. However, as I ate it, it reminded me of whatever the standard Nature Valley granola flavor is. It’s fine and something I would not say no to, but it won’t make my taste buds do a happy dance.

The only “extra” thing I can think of about Kellogg’s Extra is its price, which is extra high compared to other cereals on the shelf. I paid $6.99 for each box, which was the sale price. The regular price was $13.99. But even at the sale price, I can’t see myself picking up another box of what is basically granola with nothing other than the price being extra about it.

Purchased Price: $6.99 (sale)
Size: 20.6 oz box (Cinnamon), 20.2 oz box (Almond)
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 6 out of 10 (Cinnamon), 5 out of 10 (Almond)
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) Cinnamon 280 calories, 11 grams of fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 240 milligrams of sodium, 46 grams of carbohydrates, 5 grams of fiber, 13 grams of sugar (including 13 grams of added sugar), and 5 grams of protein. Almond – 300 calories, 13 grams of fat, 4.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 220 milligrams of sodium, 42 grams of carbohydrates, 5 grams of fiber, 12 grams of sugar (including 11 grams of added sugar), and 6 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Blue Bell Cinnamon Twist Ice Cream

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Life is full of difficult decisions. For me, few are harder than…pint or half-gallon? Yes, I’m talking about ice cream container sizes. It’s quite a conundrum when I see a new flavor in the grocery store freezer. Should I save a few bucks and just get a pint, or be a high roller and pay up for the half-gallon? It’s not even the money so much. Anyone can power through a subpar pint, but if you get a half-gallon that is filled with disappointment, then it just sits in your freezer until that day many months later when you finally open it again to see it has turned an odd color and looks like the landscape of Siberia. The reason for this review’s unnecessarily long introduction is that I faced that decision when buying Blue Bell’s new Cinnamon Twist ice cream. I’m happy to report that I wisely chose the pint-sized version.

If you love cinnamon, as I do, you might think this is the perfect concoction with, according to the package, “brown sugar cinnamon ice cream with cinnamon bun dough pieces in a cinnamon icing swirl.” This ice cream is certainly not bad, and if you break into my house in a couple weeks to steal it from my freezer, it will probably be gone by then, but I don’t regret not going all in on the half-gallon.

The highlight of this ice cream is the cinnamon bun dough pieces. They are about the same size and shape as the various types of dough pieces that Dairy Queen uses in its Blizzards, and they are quite tasty. They are soft and chewy and have a touch of granular texture that really says sugary cinnamon bun dough. However, its friends, cinnamon ice cream and cinnamon icing swirl, sort of miss the mark. Luckily, the dough pieces were plentiful, but the flavor was lacking when I got a bite without one of those wonderful nuggets. And a taste of just ice cream with no bun pieces and no icing swirl had only a faint hint of cinnamon flavor.

Again, this ice cream is fine but also forgettable. If the label promises three different kinds of cinnamon, then it leads to the expectation of some kind of crazy cinnamon party for your taste buds. That’s where this one missed the mark a bit.

Purchased Price: $3.99
Size: Pint
Purchased at: Brookshire Brothers
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) 280 calories, 13 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 30 milligrams of cholesterol, 130 milligrams of sodium, 38 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of dietary fiber, 27 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein.

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