REVIEW: White Castle Microwaveable Cheeseburgers

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White Castle Microwaveable Cheeseburgers

It seems like there’s been a trend to make things bigger. SUVs are getting larger, 15-pound cheeseburgers are being sold, the breasts of 18-year-old girls are artificially increasing, and Joan Rivers’ mouth seems to get louder and wider with every awards show.

But it’s good to know there are items that buck this trend and keep things small, like cell phones, digital cameras, wages at Walmart, the portions at five-star restaurants, and testicles in cold water.

A company that has also kept it small is White Castle, which is famous for their small, squarish hamburgers and their ability to attract people with a case of the munchies.

Unfortunately, being several thousand miles away from the nearest White Castle restaurant, I haven’t experienced the wonder of White Castle hamburgers. However, the national grocery store chain I shop at just so happens to have in stock frozen White Castle Microwaveable Cheeseburgers.

Of course, I’m sure the frozen burgers can’t compare with fresh White Castle burgers, because if I’ve learned anything about freezing environments, it’s that it makes everything in it miserable and it can shrink testicles.

The frozen White Castle cheeseburgers are almost identical to their fresh counterparts, they both have the patented burger patties with five holes, a whole lot of onions, and a small slice of American cheese, in between a small bun. However, the hard frozen White Castle cheeseburger would probably do more harm in a food fight.

One of the problems I had with these frozen burgers was the microwave heating instructions. Despite following them with great accuracy, I ended up with burgers with slightly cold edges. Sticking them in the microwave for a few more seconds resulted in soggy buns.

Fortunately, Impulsive Buy reader Kimdog let me in on her highly scientific heating instructions, which she spent minutes months honing.

Take the two burgers and nuke them on high for about 20 seconds. Open the microwave and take the tops of the buns off and remove them from the cooking interior. At the same time rotate the burgers by 180 degrees.

Restart the microwave and cook until you see the cheese bubble (usually about another 40 or so seconds). Open the microwave and put the tops of the buns back on the burgers and close the door.

Let them sit in the dark lifeless microwave for about another minute. This will warm and moisten the bun tops with out drying them out.

Kimdog’s heating instructions helped a little bit, but the burgers still weren’t completely heated.

As for the taste of the burgers, how can I put it? Um…it’s like I was eating grease. But something in that greasy taste kind of made them addicting. I don’t know if it’s the onions, the burger patty, or the holes in the burger patty, but something about it made it taste pretty good.

However, at $5.49 per six-count box, it made them slightly less tasty. (How much do fresh White Castle burgers cost?)

If you divide the price by six, each burger comes out to be about 91 cents. Personally, I’d rather grab six McDonald’s one dollar Double Cheeseburgers, which are bigger and just as tasty.

If I really wanted to, I could’ve eaten the entire box because the burgers are so small. However, eating just two of them left a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. I don’t know if this is common with White Castle burgers, but after my recent experiences with Olestra, I didn’t want to take the chance of eating the entire box.

(Editor’s Note: Thanks to Impulsive Buy reader Chuck, who let me know about the 15-pound cheeseburger.)

Item: White Castle Microwaveable Cheeseburgers
Purchase Price: $5.49
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Tasty. Lots of dietary fiber. Kind of addicting. Makes for a great snack.
Cons: Greasy. Pricey. Soggy buns in the microwave. Inconsistent results with heating instructions on the box.

Lean Pockets Three Cheese & Chicken Quesadilla

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Lean Pockets Quesadilla

OH. MY. GOODNESS.

What a battle we had between the Mexican Mercenary and the Italian Stallion!

At first, it seemed like the Italian Stallion would win, thanks to the efforts of the Stallion’s tag team partner, Meatballs & Mozzarella Ultra Lean Pocket, who came in and socked the Mexican Mercenary with a metal folding chair when the referee wasn’t looking.

However, the Bacon, Egg & Cheese Lean Pocket came to the rescue of the Mexican Mercenary and slammed the Meatballs & Mozzarella Ultra Lean Pocket through the announcers table and then hit the cheater right in the meatballs with another metal folding chair.

The Mexican Mercenary eventually pulled away and finished off the Italian Stallion with his signature move, the Jalapeno Popper.

So what did the winner get?

It received the same prize as the loser, a trip to my stomach.

Now I don’t know if it’s because I ate this and totally screwed up my taste buds, but I swear the Lean Pockets Three Cheese & Chicken Quesadilla tasted like a BEEF taco.

Not like a Taco Bell/Del Taco/Taco Time (circle one) beef taco, more like those really crappy beef tacos that were served in my elementary school cafeteria or the ones I attempted to make at home after watching one too many Food Network specials about Mexican food.

I’m not too sure why it tasted like a beef taco, but my guess has something to do with the three cheeses stuffed into this Lean Pocket, which are cheddar, mozzarella, and blue cheese. That’s a lot of cheese.

Ooh, dare I say, an orgy of cheese?

You know what? I think they would sell a ton more of these if they renamed it to Lean Pockets Three Cheese Orgy & Chicken Quesadilla.

Anyway, I guess I should’ve expected the weird taste coming from a low-fat product, since that usually is the case when companies try to make healthier versions of food that’s normally bad for you. But you got to give credit to the Lean Pockets, who try so hard to be like their older sister, the original Hot Pockets.

Unfortunately, the Lean Pockets will always be known as the Hot Pockets’ less talented and less beautiful, younger sister, who also has a tendency to lip sync.

Item: Lean Pockets Three Cheese & Chicken Quesadilla
Purchase Price: $2.25 (on sale)
Rating: 3 out of 5
Pros: Low fat. Three frickin’ cheeses! It’s an orgy of cheeses! Excellent source of calcium, protein, and fiber.
Cons: Tasted like beef tacos, which would be a good thing, if there was actually any beef in it. May not be liked by those who don’t approve of orgies. Less talented and not as pretty as original Hot Pockets.

REVIEW: Ore-Ida Extra Crispy Easy Fries

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Ore-Ida Easy Fries

Usually I’m skeptical about things that are easy, because I’m afraid they either aren’t easy or they carry some kind of sexually transmitted disease.

So I was obviously a little cynical about these Ore-Ida Extra Crispy Easy Fries I picked up from the national grocery store chain I shop at, but I figured I could take a risk since they were only a dollar.

Actually I bought two boxes of the Easy Fries because I’ve been known on occasion to mess up microwave foods. For example, I’ve caused many Hot Pockets to erupt like they were high school science fair projects. Also, I’ve burnt more bags of microwave popcorn than I’d like to admit.

When I got home from the store, I decided to make one of the boxes of Easy Fries.

When crisping microwave foods, there’s usually some kind of crisping sleeve made out of some gray material. With the Easy Fries, the entire box they came in was the crisping sleeve. A layer of the gray crisping material was on both sides of the interior of the box.

The instructions for crisping were simple. Just flip the box over, tear out the back cover of the box (which was perforated for easy removal), and take the back cover and lay it directly on top of the frozen fries. Then just stick the box in the microwave for four minutes.

After the four minutes were up, I let the box sit in the microwave for about a minute more to cool down. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve burnt my fingers by accidentally touching the gray crisping material because I was so eager to eat.

When the fries were ready to eat, I found that I had a big problem. I didn’t have ketchup. This was a problem because it’s one of the ways I get vegetables into my diet.

Well I did without the ketchup and began eating the fries naked. (No, I wasn’t naked. I meant the fries.)

The crisping results varied, with the skinnier fries being crispier than the thicker fries. As for the taste, I have to say that they’re the best tasting microwave fries I’ve ever had, but then again they’re the only microwave fries I’ve ever had. However, the taste is definitely not even close to those frozen fries made in a conventional oven.

But in this case, I’ll take speed over quality, since it takes about 25-30 minutes to make fries in a conventional oven.

Since I was slightly disappointed with the crisping results, I thought about sticking the second box I bought into the microwave for longer than the instructed four minutes. However, I didn’t because I was afraid of ruining them in the microwave, or what’s slowly being called among my friends as, “Marvo-tizing the food.”

Item: Ore-Ida Extra Crispy Easy Fries
Purchase Price: $1.00 (on sale)
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Cheap. Get fries in four quick minutes. Best microwave fries I’ve ever had, but then again they’re the only microwave fries I’ve ever had.
Cons: Crisping results vary. No ketchup, need to buy ketchup or steal some from the Burger King down the street.

REVIEW: Barq’s Floatz

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Barq's Floats

Last night was waaay too fun. I learned a lot last night on Election Day.

The most important thing I learned: Watching the presidential election coverage on cable would make a great drinking game.

Take a sip if:
Anyone says “Florida”
Anyone says “Ohio”

Do a shot if:
Anyone says “too close to call”
Anyone mentions Gore in the 2000 election

Beer bong if:
A candidate announces victory, before the opponent concedes
Fox News projects Bush to win before all the other networks

Down a keg if:
Nader wins any electoral votes
Kerry or Bush asks for a recount

During the pre-election run to the convenience store, I picked up a few things to snack on during the night. One of the coolest things I picked up was the new Barq’s Floatz. It’s a frozen treat with the taste of a root beer float. FOR ONLY 75 CENTS!!!

They were so cheap that I bought two.

The Barq’s Floatz is exactly like those frozen fruit push-pops I used to get with my school lunch. You basically have to push out the goodness, like you would if you were trying to milk toothpaste out of the tube.

It tasted just like a root beer float, except without the spoon, two straws, and the beautiful girl to share it with.

Yeah, I’m talking to you, baby doll. Would you like to be the beautiful girl to share it with me? I got your straw right here, baby. Uh huh. Yeah, I know what you like”¦

W-w-what?

Oh sorry, been kind of lonely recently.

The only thing I was disappointed with was the size of the three-ounce Barq’s Floatz, because it takes only a minute to eat the whole thing.

Now some of you might be saying, “Well what do you expect for only 75 cents?”

Well in certain establishments, 25 cents will get me 5 minutes of pleasure in a small room with a window and a sticky floor.

So for 75 cents, I expect a whole lot more.

Item: Barq’s Floatz
Purchase Price: $0.75
Rating: 4 out of 5
Pros: 75 cents. Tastes like an actual root beer float.
Cons: Only 3 ounces of pleasure.

REVIEW: DiGiorno Microwave Rising Crust Pizza

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DiGiorno Microwave Rising Crust Pizza

Phew. Thank goodness it’s over.

We decided to lift the self-imposed ban on food reviews here at the Impulsive Buy, because we would like to get rid of all these empty boxes and bottles of food products that we couldn’t review because of the stupid ban.

So that means food reviews up the wazoo for the next few weeks.

Also, sorry about yesterday’s “review.” We know it really wasn’t a “review.” We just wanted to be political like many other blogs, so we pretended to be interested in politics, like Ben Affleck does.

We know. We know. If all the other blogs jumped into a volcano, would we jump into the volcano too?

No we wouldn’t.

So we’re back to real reviews and the subject of today’s review was requested by Impulsive Buy groupie worshipper follower, Alisa.

She asked if we, in her own words, “review geniuses” could review the new DiGiorno Microwave Rising Crust Pizza. After consulting with each other to determine if she did an adequate amount of sucking up, we decided to go though with the review and picked up the Three Meat Pizza version.

Just to let you know, microwave foods aren’t our best friends. From the exploding TV dinners to burnt microwave popcorn, we haven’t been successful whenever using the microwave. Oh, and let’s not forget the microwave pork grinds. Man, that smell lingered for days.

Although, we have to admit we’ve had some recent successes, like this one, but 99 percent of the time we screw up somehow.

Included with the DiGiorno Microwave Rising Crust Pizza was a…Um…Crisping contraption, which we think is a black paint job and a few spikes away from being a S&M collar, but that might only be us.

After putting the pizza in the crisping contraption, we put all of that into the microwave and baked it for the recommended six minutes on HIGH. We wanted to watch it to see if the crust would rise, but we remembered what our moms said growing up, “If you stare into the microwave, your palms will grow hair.”

Or was that something else.

Anyway, we let the pizza sit for the few minutes after it was done baking. After tasting it, we have to say that this is the best microwave pizza we ever had that we didn’t screw up. It was like we baked it in a conventional oven and didn’t screw up.

The only major problem we had with it was the price. Spending $4.29 for a seven-inch pizza (don’t ask how we measured it) seemed a bit expensive. If they were on sale or cheaper, we would definitely buy them more often.

We wonder if Alisa will reimburse us.

Item: DiGiorno Microwave Rising Crust Pizza: Three Meat Pizza
Purchase Price: $4.29
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Crisping contraption worked well. Oven baked taste. No, really, it had an oven baked taste. We didn’t cause it to burn, melt, or explode.
Cons: Outer crust was kind of hard. Expensive.

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