REVIEW: Taco Bell New Cantina Chicken Menu

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Taco Bell’s new Cantina Chicken Menu features three major new ingredients:

  1. A slow-roasted chicken with a mix of Mexican seasonings, including garlic, onions, and chilies.
  2. Avocado Verde Salsa that features tomatillos, green chili peppers, and avocado pulp.
  3. Shredded purple cabbage.

Okay, the addition of purple cabbage makes it more like 2.5 major new ingredients, but the purple stuff is a welcomed addition that not only brings color but also a pleasing crunch to those menu items with it.

Cantina Chicken Crispy Taco

This was my favorite from the new menu, which features slow-roasted chicken, three-cheese blend, creamy jalapeño sauce, and three-cheese blend grilled on the outside of a white corn tortilla shell. Sure, it looks like the white corn tortilla shell got bear-hugged by the grill press because it was almost split into two when I pulled it out of its wrapper, but it’s still delightful.

There are few ingredients, but what made the difference for me was the cheese grilled on the shell, which gave it a different crunchy texture and a notable cheesiness that also let the jalapeño sauce and the mild flavors of the slow-roasted chicken come through. It was a nice cheesy chicken taco with a slight kick from the jalapeño sauce, and the addition of the Avocado Verde Salsa gave it a mild avocado flavor, making it taste even better.

Price: $3.79*
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 290 calories, 16 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 50 milligrams of cholesterol, 520 milligrams of sodium, 17 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, less than 1 gram of sugar, and 16 grams of protein.

Cantina Chicken Soft Taco

The soft taco version doesn’t contain the exact same ingredients as the crispy taco. It’s stuffed with slow-roasted chicken, avocado ranch sauce, lettuce, shredded purple cabbage, pico de gallo, and cheddar cheese.

Peel back that flour tortilla, and you’ll see a rainbow of ingredients I don’t find quite as tasty as the crispy taco version. There are a lot of different flavors here, more so when the Avocado Verde Salsa is added, but among those flavors, it’s hard to notice the chicken. Maybe mine didn’t have much, or maybe there’s too much of a rainbow of ingredients. It’s a fine tasting product, but it was kind of a letdown after tasting the crispy taco one first.

Price: $3.99*
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 210 calories, 10 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 40 milligrams of cholesterol, 520 milligrams of sodium, 19 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 2 grams of sugar, and 12 grams of protein.

Cantina Chicken Burrito

This menu item has double the slow-roasted chicken than the soft taco version, avocado ranch sauce, creamy chipotle sauce, lettuce, shredded purple cabbage, pico de gallo, and cheddar cheese in a flour tortilla. So basically, it’s a thicker, meatier, and saucier Cantina Chicken Soft Taco, but it tastes better than the smaller menu item.

With more chicken stuffed inside, the protein and its seasonings are more noticeable than with the soft taco. What’s not noticeable is the cheddar cheese, but that was expected with the inclusion of two sauces. With more space in a burrito-sized flour tortilla for additional chicken, there’s more of a flavor balance, even with the inclusion of the Avocado Verde Salsa, which kind of makes it taste like there’s a little guacamole in it. Overall, a solid tasting product.

Sometimes, I make fun of Taco Bell with these split burrito shots by saying it’s always a sea of brown, red, and white, but the purple cabbage here adds some desperately needed color. But let’s be honest, the number of folks who cut Taco Bell burritos in half is tiny. Raises hand.

Price: $7.59*
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 540 calories, 30 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 85 milligrams of cholesterol, 1170 milligrams of sodium, 43 grams of carbohydrates, 6 grams of fiber, 4 grams of sugar, and 25 grams of protein.

Cantina Chicken Quesadilla

The simplest of the Cantina Chicken menu features the chicken, creamy chipotle sauce, and a three-cheese blend in a folded and grilled flour tortilla. This seemed the perfect vessel to showcase the new slow-roasted chicken and Avocado Salsa Verde because there’s little in the quesadilla to get in the way if you don’t dip it into the included guacamole and sour cream containers.

However, without the new sauce or any of the dips, the quesadilla’s flavor doesn’t really tickle my taste buds. But even with them, I can’t say I enjoyed this as much as the other offerings on the Chicken Cantina Menu. Adding the guacamole and sour cream overwhelms the ingredients in the quesadilla, and the new sauce enhances the avocado-ness of the guacamole. While the menu item is fine, I’d pick any other Cantina Chicken Menu item over this one.

Price: $7.99*
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 570 calories, 32 grams of fat, 16 grams of saturated fat, 90 milligrams of cholesterol, 1330 milligrams of sodium, 43 grams of carbohydrates, 4 grams of fiber, 3 grams of sugar, and 29 grams of protein.

Cantina Chicken Bowl

Finally, we have the priciest of the bunch but also the most filling. It comes with slow-roasted chicken, seasoned rice, black beans, Avocado Ranch sauce, reduced-fat sour cream, lettuce, shredded purple cabbage, pico de gallo, guacamole, and cheddar cheese. I’m a fan of any bowl Taco Bell dumps multiple ingredients into, and I’m definitely a fan of this one.

But with mostly the same ingredients as previous bowls, it all tastes too familiar, even with the new chicken and the squeezing of an entire Avocado Salsa Verde pouch all over it. Because it contains a generous helping of guacamole, the new sauce kind of blends in with the avocado, making it less noticeable. But I did like the purple cabbage in this. I know. Praising purple cabbage seems weird, but as I mentioned at the beginning of this review, it does add color and crunch. Despite tasting similar to previous Taco Bell bowls, I’d repurchase it.

Price: $9.99*
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 490 calories, 24 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 80 milligrams of cholesterol, 1150 milligrams of sodium, 44 grams of carbohydrates, 11 grams of fiber, 3 grams of sugar, and 25 grams of protein.

*Because I live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, things are a bit pricier here. You’ll probably pay less than I did.

REVIEW: Tillamook Chocolate Collection Ice Cream

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I decided to take up significant space in our freezer to store all four flavors of Tillamook’s Chocolate Collection Ice Cream. Did I have to heat up and eat bags of frozen broccoli, peas, and edamame to make room for the tower of 1.5-quart tubs? Yes. So, thank you, Tillamook, for making me eat a bunch of green vegetables so I could eat a bunch of brown chocolate ice creams.

Brownie Batter

Since the following is the case with three of the four flavors, I’ll get it out of the way here. The ice cream-to-mix-ins and swirls ratio leans heavily to the dairy side, making it hard to get everything in one spoonful. With this flavor, there are brownie dough pieces within the dark chocolate brownie batter ice cream, but they are few and far between. Well, at least, throughout the one-fourth of the container I’ve eaten so far. The smallish pieces have a bold fudge flavor and a pleasant chew that contrasts nicely with the base’s creaminess. But the lack of mix-ins isn’t all that bad because the base has a tasty brownie batter-ish flavor. It definitely tastes different from the bases in the other three varieties, which have a standard chocolate ice cream flavor.

Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) 220 calories, 12 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 40 milligrams of cholesterol, 80 milligrams of sodium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, 5 grams of fiber, 22 grams of sugar (including 18 grams of added sugar), and 5 grams of protein.

Chocolate Hazelnut

Hoping for Nutella vibes here? You’re not getting that. The container contains dark chocolate ice cream with hazelnuts and a hazelnut butter swirl. There are decent-sized hazelnuts, but, oddly, they don’t provide much of any hazelnut taste, only the snap of the nut when I bite into them. Doing all the hazelnut flavor lifting is that stiff hazelnut butter swirl that stands out within the dark chocolate base. Get a spoonful with a hazelnut, some of the swirl, and the base, and you’ve got yourself a Ferrero Rocher on a spoon. But, again, since the mix-ins and swirls aren’t plentiful, most spoonfuls taste like chocolate ice cream.

Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) 240 calories, 15 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 40 milligrams of cholesterol, 45 milligrams of sodium, 25 grams of carbohydrates, 5 grams of fiber, 22 grams of sugar (including 17 grams of added sugar), and 6 grams of protein.

German Chocolate Cake

I didn’t think I’d like this one because I’m not a fan of German Chocolate Cake. But the ingredient I dislike about the dessert, shredded coconut, doesn’t show itself much in this flavor, which contains dark chocolate ice cream with a brown sugar coconut swirl, pecans, and chocolate cake pieces. It’s not very coconutty because the swirl is sparse. I’ve gone through about one-fifth of the container and can recall tasting something coconut only twice. But I did bite through three pecan pieces and two cake pieces, which were chewy but not as much as the brownie chunks in the other variety. But, much like the flavor above, there were too many spoonfuls that were just the ice cream base. This was probably the least memorable of them all.

Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) 230 calories, 13 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 40 milligrams of cholesterol, 65 milligrams of sodium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, 4 grams of fiber, 23 grams of sugar (including 19 grams of added sugar), and 5 grams of protein.

Dark Chocolate Cookies & Cream

Finally, we have a simple flavor that features dark chocolate ice cream with crunchy cookie pieces. “Crunchy” is how Tillamook describes the cookies on the container, but inside, most are as soft as cookies super soaked in milk. But Tillamook didn’t just add chocolate wafers and dust off cookie crumbs from its hands. It included sandwich cookie chunks, so there are also white creme bits. Oddly, that frozen creme does add some texture that should’ve come from the cookies. Unlike the other varieties, this one had a decent amount of mix-ins. However, I will admit that the photo above doesn’t represent the slightly scarcer layers under it. The cookies add a different, dark chocolatey burst than the ice cream. But like the previous two flavors, get a spoonful without a mix-in, and it’s total choco ice cream.

Rating: 7 out of 10<
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) 230 calories, 12 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 35 milligrams of cholesterol, 85 milligrams of sodium, 28 grams of carbohydrates, 4 grams of fiber, 23 grams of sugar (including 19 grams of added sugar), and 5 grams of protein.

Tillamook Chocolate Collection Ice Cream Mix.

Because I had all four flavors and for funsies, I combined them all, and that changed nothing because the chocolate base still dominated most spoonfuls.

I enjoyed all the flavors, but none of them wowed me, even the Brownie Batter one. With most, because the chocolate base is so bold and there are limited mix-ins, they tasted like I was eating regular chocolate ice cream 65-70 percent of the time. I can’t believe I’m kind of complaining about eating regular chocolate ice cream. What kind of monster have I become? Maybe these would’ve been better as pints, so the ice cream-to-mix-in ratio would’ve been better.

Purchased Price: $4.99 each (on sale)
Size: 1.5 quart containers
Purchased at: Safeway

REVIEW: Dunkin’ Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

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What happens when a store known for donuts tries to make banana bread?

Dunkin’ fudged around and found out with its new Chocolate Chip Banana Bread.

Well, actually, chocolate chips were used, but you catch my drift.

Launched on National Banana Bread Day, Dunkin’ made a bold statement that it was making the classic bakery treat even better by adding chocolate chips. It specifically mentioned that it’s pre-packaged to ensure it doesn’t dry out. I refuse to use the M-word that rhymes with “voiced” the brand used.

Upon hearing about this new item, I couldn’t help but compare it to Starbucks’ offering because that’s where I usually get my banana bread on the go. So, I decided to do a banana bread face-off.

Starbucks’ version has walnuts and pecans, and I’m calling this out because that could be a non-starter for people with a tree nut allergy. If that’s you, Dunkin’s Banana Chocolate Chip bread is not made with walnuts or pecans! But, you’re going to get literally more with Starbucks’ slice. It was thicker and only 50 cents more.

While the Starbucks one smelled slightly more cinnamon-y, the bites were similar. They both delivered on what you expect banana bread to be — banana-forward but not artificial banana tasting like a banana-flavored Runts or taffy. Texture-wise, the crumb on both was tender and not too densely packed. While the nuts added better textural contrast with the Starbucks one, the chocolate chips in the Dunkin’ one made it a bit more indulgent for me. However, I wish chocolate chunks were used to get the indulgence AND texture.

So it ended up being a pretty close matchup, and both were tasty!

While I’m impressed by how well Dunkin’ executed its Chocolate Chip Banana Bread, I’m still left scratching my head about it. If I want a treat or something to go with my coffee, I will get a donut. Munchkins, for the win!

Purchased Price: $3.49
Size: 1 slice (3.45 oz)
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 330 calories, 15 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 55 milligrams of cholesterol, 280 milligrams of sodium, 45 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 27 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Sparkling Ice Starburst Flavors

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Who among us hasn’t been sitting around eating a fistful of Starburst when the thought suddenly occurred — “This candy is great and all, but what I’d really like to be doing is drinking it”? Well, friends, the good people at Sparkling Ice have read your mind (don’t ask why they were there to begin with; you don’t want to know) and are here with a solution: new Starburst-flavored Sparkling Ice.

If you don’t know Sparkling Ice, it is the primary product offering from Washington State’s Talking Rain beverage company, which started in 1987 and had roughly $500 million in retail sales in 2019. (I couldn’t find more recent sales figures; its website DOES have an extensive FAQ section, however, with real think pieces like, “Why did strawberry kiwi turn pink?” “Is the color safe?” “Is Sparkling Ice vegan?” and “Is it normal to have sediment floating in my Sparkling Ice?”)

And if you don’t know Starburst… that’s just weird.

So, does the low-calorie drink accurately capture its chewy sugar cube inspiration? As an avid fan of regular Sparkling Ice products, I was eager to find out.

Orange

This was the first one I had, and it was the worst. The taste was somewhere between “citrus aspirin” and an orange-Flintstone vitamin that’d been dusted with a heaping of artificial sweetener. The very first part of the drink made me go, “Hey, this tastes like an orange Starburst,” but everything after made me want to rinse my mouth out with paint thinner. Here’s the deal with artificial sweetener — I have no issue with it. Regular Sparkling Ice has it, and I’m a staunchly Zero/Diet guy when it comes to soda. But this was SO bad that it reminded me of being young and first trying Diet Coke, back when it just tasted like poison to a palate honed on only the finest real sugar cane (or, you know, high fructose corn syrup). In any case, I had no desire to drink more than two sips of this.

Lemon

Though my first thought when I poured this one into the glass was, “Welp, this looks a little like urine,” I had it immediately after Orange, so, you know, there was nowhere to go but up. It managed to taste like its namesake flavor all the way through and had a fraction of the Sucralose taste, which earned it a second-place finish overall.

Cherry

It tasted like a cherry Starburst, but it also managed to fall somewhere in the middle of the prior two in terms of the artificial sweetener taste. I also caught subtle cough syrup notes, which didn’t help my enjoyment. (Come to think of it, the actual cherry Starbursts sort of have that medicinal taste, too. So they really nailed the flavor on this one.)

Strawberry

Everyone knows that the pink Starburst is the best Starburst, case closed. (Out of the original flavors, that is. Tropical and Baja varieties really muck up the overall rankings with their deliciousness.) This, too, was the best Starburst Sparkling Ice. It captured the candy’s essence well but was once again marred by the sweetener. While it didn’t reach Orange levels of intolerability, it was still more noticeable than the Lemon kind.

In the end, I was surprised by how much I disliked these. The heavy application of Sucralose kept them from being anything I’d feel the need to purchase again. I’ll stick with regular Sparkling Ices and pilfer the Starburst two-packs from my daughter’s Halloween candy.

Purchased Price: $1.19 (each)
Size: 17 oz bottles
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 1 out of 10 (Orange), 3 out of 10 (Lemon), 4 out of 10 (Cherry), 5 out of 10 (Strawberry)
Nutrition Facts: (1 bottle) 5 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 0 milligrams of sodium, 0grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 0 grams of total sugars, and 0 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Wendy’s Cinnabon Pull-Apart

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Okay, let’s play a word association game. Ready? When you say Wendy’s, I say… Cinnabon! What, you don’t understand why Cinnabon would be associated with Wendy’s? I don’t really get it either, but nonetheless, these two fast food giants are collaborating on a new treat that can only be found on Wendy’s breakfast menu, the Cinnabon Pull-Apart.

As the “Pull-Apart” in the name suggests, this isn’t one big treat like the rolls Cinnabon is best known for; instead, it’s a monkey bread-esque cluster of smaller dough nuggets clumped together, which you eat by simply breaking off each bite-size component.

Or that’s how it’s supposed to work anyway, but I didn’t find the experience quite so seamless. My piping hot Pull-Apart was actually pretty hard, so liberating the chunks required way more effort than was probably intended. I guess that’s why it’s not called the Cinnabon Gently-Fall-Apart (and I guess that’s also why a fork comes with it), but I do think it’s fair that I expected my fast food breakfast to be a little more convenient to consume.

The huge glob of congealed cream cheese frosting on top didn’t help with that either; the archetypical Cinnabon frosting is way more liquidy, so it doesn’t impede your mouthful, but this solid glob was so ginormous that the only way to even get to the Cinnabon bits seemed to be either eating the whole frosting blob in a couple big bites (no thank you) or expending yet more effort to attempt to distribute it more evenly, a graceless task as its thick consistency wasn’t exactly spreadable.

By this point in the review, my frustration with this dish is surely apparent, but you might still be hoping that it ended up tasting amazing enough to be worth all the hassle. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I’ll have to go ahead and dash that hope.

Apparently, my Pull-Apart’s reluctance to do its first job, pulling apart, was a signal that it would also fail at its second job, tasting good. The first sentiment that came to my mind after managing my first mouthful was “dry” (actually, it was more like “dry, dry, dry, dry, dry”; I didn’t love or even really like the cream cheese frosting and its too-tangy sickly sweetness, but I was at least grateful it made me feel a little less like I was eating sand). The second sentiment that came to my mind was “yeasty.” The very distant third — like, this afterthought didn’t occur to me until maybe a full minute after my first bite — was, “I guess there was a whisper of cinnamon in there too.” There’s, of course, a handy visual cue for which bites of this ‘bon will be more flavorful — the dark cinnamon swirls are slightly softer and sweeter than the rest of the stiff, bland dough — but even they’re lackluster.

Granted, if you’re a diehard Cinna-fan you might find more to enjoy than I did, but if you’re on the fence about whether to try this, trust me that it’s not worth waffling over. In fact, I think a waffle would be a much better way to get your sweet breakfast fix.

Purchased Price: $3.69
Rating: 4 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 550 calories, 26 grams of fat, 11 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 35 milligrams of cholesterol, 440 milligrams of sodium, 70 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 30 grams of sugar, and 8 grams of protein.

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