Food and Drink Omnibus

For fans of reviewers who sample different types of edibles, this is a round-up of all the times I've commented some as well. I don't think I've commented on this year's "Do Us a Flavor," but I don't really like any of them, to be honest. Last year's winner was good, although I'd rather just eat a loaf of cheesy garlic bread. It's also the time to start trying pumpkin-flavored stuff, so I've had pumpkin Oikos yogurt (delicious!) and pumpkin almond milk.
I've been trying different kinds of milk besides lactose and soy. I didn't like the unsweetened ones because they tend to be kind of bitter, and vanilla doesn't really do anything to add to the flavor. My favorite so far has to be sweetened almond milk because it tastes like those almond cookies you get from a chinese food place. I thought rice milk would taste more like Rice Krispies but it really doesn't (though I would still try ice cream made from rice milk if I could). I don't like coconuts but I still had to try both coconut water and coconut milk to be thorough and didn't really like either (they're fine, just not for me - I wouldn't make it on Survivor if all I had to drink was coconut water, and I'm not allergic but the milk made my tongue feel funny). However, you can put any type of milk in cereal and it'll still taste just fine; you just have to make sure it's something you want to drink down after the cereal is gone. My second favorite was sweetened chocolate almond milk, though I still prefer chocolate soy milk or soy capuccino (ahhh, I miss my friend who would drink these with me and got me into it in the first place!).
If you haven't found Feast of Fiction on YouTube yet, go watch it. They are amazing at making different recipes found in fiction. I found it by searching a web site I'm on called HubPages, which has some interesting articles on pretty much anything you want.
I've had breakfast at Taco Bell a couple of times now. After seeing Brad's review, I knew I'd go for the waffle taco. However, I didn't know there were two versions of it, one with bacon and one with sausage. If I had to pick one, I think the one with bacon was better, but it's just too bad you can't get one with both. And they are pretty decent if they remember to give you syrup with it. It tastes like one of those Aunt Jemimah frozen breakfasts or the cafeteria food where I went to college. The Cinnabon Delights are a dessert so they are available anytime, and they are like Domino's Cinna-stix rolled into balls and injected with icing. I liked them as a dessert in the four-pack but I don't think I could eat twelve of them for breakfast (and my brother refuses to go with me). I'm just surprised it took Taco Bell this long to capitalize on the concept of the breakfast burrito (only to lose to McDonald's in Brad's eyes, and I'd rather eat a McDonald's breakfast too). The AM Crunchwrap with bacon turned out to be my favorite with just the right amount of spice. I can't handle spicy things typically, so the Doritos overload flavors really tested me (I liked the medium one the best that tasted like mole sauce).
Phelous and Obscurus Lupa recently reviewed a bunch of food products, including the throwback cereals Fruit Brute and Yummy Mummy. They said Yummy Mummy tasted more orange and Fruit Brute tasted more cherry, although both colors were present. Phelous liked Yummy Mummy better until Lupa said Fruit Brute tasted better. I'll have to take their word for it since the closest thing I'm probably going to get to it is when I combined Trix with Lucky Charms this morning. I remember when Trix came in actual fruit shapes and not Crunchberry-like balls. I think I liked that better. They reviewed some Japanese stuff too like Brad and Jillian do. While Brad and Jill recently had Seaweed Pringles and mango soda, Phelan and Allison tried octopus snacks, gummy worms that tasted like cola, and cheesecake flavored Pocky. It wasn't very successful with them. I for one think Disney should not have a monopoly over the sea salt ice cream and market it out to saltwater taffy companies and Pocky manufacturers.
The stores near me stocked up on all the monster cereal last year so I got to try the two I mentioned before, the ones from the 80s that were discontinued. Yummy Mummy was first and I think I'm looking at my new favorite here. You can smell the orange when you open the box and it tastes delicious. Frute Brute, on the other hand, tastes kind of like a clowny carnival (but I tasted the cherry flavor toward the end). That's the only way I can come up with to describe it. It's not bad, but I wasn't satisfied with it like Lupa was. Combining the two together like I'd done with Frankenberry and Boo Berry before, it tasted pretty good, like what I imagined it would taste like if they were both the same thing. I still like Yummy Mummy best though. If you like orange creme, you'll love this. I'm kind of sad the two didn't make a return this year. With the popularity of Guardians of the Galaxy, I asked on Facebook what Fruit Groot cereal would taste like. I guessed apple cinnamon but someone posted green tea, and I think I like that one better.
Friendly's came out with Red Raspberry ice cream, so I finally got to try it. Surprisingly it doesn't taste that much different than black raspberry, which I didn't like when I was a kid because I couldn't understand why raspberries would be black and why that would make the ice cream purple. Now I realize it must be some blackberry/raspberry hybrid and the juice really is purple. It's still good, just not as good as I thought it was going to be.
The two Snapple drinks from the finale of Celebrity Apprentice finally made it to a convenience store in my area. Holly's Compassionberry is good - something I could drink all the time. However, Bret's Trop-a-rocka is really something special, something I would drink sparingly if only to savor it longer. Take from that what you will, but congratulations to Bret anyway for winning.
Mountain Dew White-Out was one of three flavors released for a contest, and it's the flavor that won. It's also the first one I tried when I was starting to get sick last week, and it was pretty good. It's a "smooth citrus" flavor, but it's not too tart or strong like Sunny D (which is why I hate Sunny D). The raspberry with ginseng was all right, but I'd rather have Pepsi Blue. The Code Red Cherry was like drinking a sno-cone, but since I don't like cherry all that much it was my least favorite. Cherry Coke is probably better but I don't really like Cherry Coke either. They're sugary, though, so watch out for that. I still like regular Mountain Dew too. Anyone remember Surge? They brought it back! Now all we need are Ecto-Cooler and Crystal Pepsi!
WINNERS: White-Out and Trop-a-rocka
RUNNERS-UP: Compassionberry and "Voltage" (blue raspberry w/ginseng)
ALSO-RAN: Code Red Cherry (because "loser" is too harsh when my only reasoning is that I don't like cherry to begin with)

After the Celebrity Apprentice Snapple flavors came one for The Amazing Race. They released two papaya mango teas - one regular and one diet - based on their trip to India that season. Both were delicious - I didn't really notice much of a difference between the two. How would I compare them to Holly's and Bret's? About somewhere in between, I suppose, but all are good.
Mountain Dew Pitch Black is actually purple - a grape drink. I liked it very much, but ordinary grape soda would've been just as good. The other I got to try Mountain Dew Supernova, which is a strawberry and melon concoction. I liked that one too, as the melon makes it different from any other strawberry soda I've had (Foxon Park). I'd have to say I liked the grape one better, though, as it actually brought back childhood memories of playing mini golf with my dad. So now it goes White-Out, Black, Supernova, Blue Voltage, and Code Red.