Potato sticks but like...from somewhere else

Product: Chillz potato sticks
Origin: Pakistan

First looks

Nick:
Well, I like potato sticks, so I'm hoping these will be good. I'm a little curious if these are going to be spicy or what; the ingredients suggest they are, but if there's any spice in the smell, it's quite subtle. The only way these could be bad is if they're too spicy, and I don't think that's too likely; I put my nose right on them and took a sniff and it just smells like mild curry, so I think these will be fine.

Katie:
I'm very hopeful for these potato sticks. The container is the perfect size for a snack so if I like these, maybe I'll get more for work. The smell is, like Nick said, a little bit of spice but nothing else. I'm looking for these to be potato sticks with a little spice to them and not an all-hands fire alarm in my mouth.

Post-bite thoughts

Nick:
Oh, god. They're too spicy. This is like eating a tomato that's on fire. Way too much for me by themselves. This might be nice if you had Smartfood or a nice smoky cheese to cut the spice with, but just eating them right out of the bag, I'm done after three little pinches. Ow.

Katie:
Now this is weird, normally Nick can handle more spice than me. I have a half dozen pinches before my mouth went aflame. If you are used to spice, these would be right up your alley.  If your tolerance is somewhere between baby and "maybe just one jalapeno", you might want to eat these slowly with some cheese or your spice-reduction food of choice.

Maybe some day, we'll have the spicy tolerance to handle these but it's not today. Still good though!

BOGO

Katie's Review
Product: Alpinella Czekolada Kokosawa
Origin: Poland

First looks

Since Nick doesn't like coconut and I don't like nuts, we're each reviewing something separate this time.

I'm reviewing some coconut chocolate from Poland. The chocolate is segmented into squares, a familiar sight for Americans as Hershey's is similarly segmented into rectangles. A sniff reveals an entirely chocolate smell with none of coconut's usual tones present. There is no "goop" inside so no worries about taking a bite and suddenly needing a napkin when goo oozes out. I need to prepare for goo. No surprise goo for me.

I think Poland has been pretty solid so far so this should be good.

Post-bite thoughts

I'd say this is a decent chocolate. The coconut is not overly sweet, but then again I'm used to having it on cake. There are pieces of coconut mixed into the chocolate so there will be some texture to your bite. If that's not your thing, you'll want to skip this. However, if you like chocolate and you like coconut, this just might be the Polish chocolate for you!  I would warn you to have a little plate or something to keep it on while you're eating...it's very melty! I actually had little chocolate flecks on my arm (somehow).

Nick's Review
Product: Sante Garlic Almonds
Origin: California

First looks

Well, putting garlic powder and salt on almonds seems pretty idiot-proof, but all the other almond product we've had on here has been weird or bad; these aren't Vegan, or still with the inedible shell on, so a pretty basic level of competency should suffice to make this the best almond product I've ever tasted. On the other hand, they smell kinda musty, and the last ingredient is tapioca syrup, which has been in some real, real bad stuff. Oh, and good news, everyone - these almonds with salt on them are gluten and peanut free! Finally!

(Katie breaking in here: these are the loudest nuts ever. Don't eat them during movies or all the dialog will be "Ah-ha so the killer was *giant intrusive nut crunching noises*)

Post-bite thoughts

The garlic is strong with these! I wasn't prepared for how garlic these are; I'm used to, like, almonds that have been dipped in soy sauce where there's a very thin outer layer of flavor and then tasteless almond underneath; these have a thick coating which stays in your mouth the whole time you're eating the almond (which is good), and taste extremely powerfully of garlic (also good, I think?). I actually think the only way I'd eat these is keeping a bag for if I get a garlic flavoring; the garlic taste is very powerful, and I can't see myself just plopping down on the couch and destroying my mouth with these that often. If you do get a craving, though, this is the easiest way to ingest garlic - no need to cook up a real clove (and don't get me started on peeling!!!!!!), but man oh man, a little dab will do you with these.

Mango juice?

Product: Mango Nectar
Origin: Israel

First looks

Nick:
Well, I thought this was going to be soda, but there's no carbonation; is this just, like, mango juice in a can? I'm not complaining - it smells like really nice mango juice - I guess I wasn't expecting just straight up, uh, "Mango Nectar" in here. Maybe that's not a bad thing; carbonated mango juice sounds a little weird now that I'm thinking about it.

Katie:
Aside from some slight differences in the pop-top shape, this looks just like a can of soda. The mango smell is really pleasant, making me look forward to trying some. The ingredients are translated into three language so if you ever need a can-shaped Rosetta stone for the 21st century, this might be it.

that sounded cooler in my head.

Post-sip thoughts

Nick:
WOW, that is strong tasting. This is indeed mango juice, and it's very powerful. Might be a little too mango for me, and I like mango quite a bit. I think I would get this again - pretty sure I'd eventually get used to the mega-mango taste - but having just half a can, it's bit much for me. Katie, you got the can over there, how mango is this in the ingredients? Is the ingredient list just "MANGO!!!!"? Ah, it's "Water" (exotic!), then "Mango puree 25%" from concentrate. I'd hate to see what this is like at 100%. What does the scouter say about its mango level?!

Katie:
It's over 9000! (atoms of mango). This was delicious! I thought the mango level was fine, but YMMV. I highly recommend this.  The juice consistency was spot on--not too thin but not too thick either. If you like mango at all, you'll really like this. Definitely try it if you see some!

Passive-Aggressive Packaging

Product: Bon chance bread crisps
Origin: Lithuania

First looks

Nick:
I hope there's a bon chance these are good! If you're wondering about the title, this is our first ever pagaminta lletuvjoe product, which I think it means product of Lithuania, and it has one of those stickers on the back that has to be slapped on when it's imported into America, and it says "Best before:       look at the package". Like, fuck you, that's how you want to start our relationship, passive-aggressively telling me to just look at the package, man? The front also suggest you eat these with salad, soup, and drinks, but honestly if I'm eating all that I can probably take or leave sour cream and onion bread, uh, crisps.

Katie:
I scared my cat just now with my high-pitched laughing (on an unrelated matter, not that Nick isn't funny! He's funny a lot...even sometimes on purpose ha ha!). Anyway, Greggy was scared by my laughing and tried to leave but then I stopped laughing and he stayed here. Cool story, right bro?
Okay so bread crisps. Crisps are English potato chips? Or are they french fries? One of the two. Basically, even though they invented the language, the English use all the wrong words for things and use way too many Us. You do win at having accents. Every accent on that whole island is awesome and cool. Everything sounds much smarter when a British says it.
Wow, that's a powerful onion smell. I think I'm going to like these.

Post-bite thoughts

Nick:
I think Katie forgot about Cockney accents; not everyone sounds like the classy people on Dowtown Abbey. Also, the British lost the Revolutionary war because Americans would march into battle holding giant U's that the British wasted on words that don't need a U like "Armor", and when the British shot their guns the Americans would catch them in one end of the U and it would do a U-turn and come out the other side and hit the British soldier, so they lost the war even though they possessed bullet-proof toffee technology that they could have made into invincible if very sticky body armor. You wankers.
As for this snack, it's pretty good! I'm not sure it really gains much from being a bread chip, which mostly just makes it very, very slightly more chewy; it's still nice and tasty like a potato chip. The flavoring is quite good, too - I'm not sure I really get much sour cream, but there's a very nice ranchy oniony flavor. Nice job, Lithuania! Send us another nice snack, maybe the review for that one won't end up being about British accents and toffee body armor and scared cats. I mean, no promises.

Katie:
Oh yeah, those guys. They might not sound like they drink books for breakfast and eat Critique of Pure Reason for tea, but they do sound like they have a tough, well-earned street wisdom.
I'm glad you brought up the U defense. I think its origins lay in the U bows used by the English in the Battle of Agincourt.  Of course, when they founded the colonies, many the Us from that time were shipped over to be used as doorways but it wasn't until the mid-18th century that the colonists rediscovered their more martial purpose. If England hadn't been so wasteful with her remaining U supply by stuffing them into words, the history of the United States would be a lot different!

This cola killed the cat

Product: Fentiman's Curiosity Cola

Origin: Canada

First looks

Katie:
Oh geez. Why are we trying more stuff from these people?
I have to say, I do like the old timey label on the bottle. I can picture this on a shelf right alongside various hair, youth, and vitality tonics from the Flim Flam brothers (the most reputable ponies in all of Equestria).

What's not to trust?

I try to be optimistic as possible but I'm not feeling very positive tonight. What do you think, Nick?

Nick:
Oh gosh. I don't have a good feeling about this. The first ingredient is carbonated water, which, OK, fair start; the second ingredient is fermented ginger root extract and that's where I'm like no, stop, no, no, stop. I like a nice ginger ale, but ginger cola sounds kind of disgusting. I mean, maybe it'll be good. Katie, you drink this first. I'm scared.

Post-sip thoughts

Katie:
The bottle makes this charming cartoony "glug glug" noise when you drink from it for the first sip or two. This is...odd. It's not as horrendous as the other stuff but I'm not sure I like it either. It's...okay. I think if I had an upset stomach this might be good in a pinch though I prefer Gosling's Ginger Beer if I'm going to have a real ginger soda. Try it if you want a completely strange taste in your mouth that's hard to describe. Maybe it would go good with some kind of alcohol drink? Get a mixologist in here.

Nick:
More weird than bad; you guys can print that on the label ("Fentiman's: More Weird than Bad!"). It does indeed have a strong ginger taste, and I think I'm missing the sweetness from Seagram's ginger ale or the Gosling's ginger beer that Katie likes; the kola isn't really sweet enough for me, and it's just too bitter to really enjoy. Unlike the disgusting Fentiman's lemonade, this isn't terrible, it's just not for me; if you love ginger and want ginger-flavored cola, this might be for you, you weird person, you.

Don't zaze me, bro

Product: Zazers chocolate flavored wafer
Origin: Israel

First looks

Nick:
Wow, guys - really spared no expense coming up with a product name here. "Chocolate Flavored Wafer". Astounding. Looks like, uh, a wafer cookie with chocolate in the middle. Hopefully they spent that marketing budget that was supposted to go to coming up with an exciting name on stuffing nice chocolate in here. It certainly smells nice, so I've got high hopes here.

Katie:
The chocolate is looking a little thick for my taste but I'll keep an open mind. As Nick mentioned, it definitely smells nice...a good vanilla cupcake candle scent.

Post-bite thoughts

Nick:
Um.... hmmm. I don't really seem to taste any chocolate. I mean, I can see the chocolate, I can smell the chocolate, but when I take a bite... I'm not getting the chocolate. Where's the chocolate flavor?! This is just wafer! Is this some kind of magic trick? Has my mind been freaked?!? I don't get it. Just tastes like wafer, fam. I guess the chocolate has a very, very, very very subtle taste. Maybe I'm used to eating American chocolate snacks where the chocolate is the star. I'm very confused right now. Katie, did you taste the chocolate? Am I missing something?

Katie:
There was definitely a taste other than wafer. It was like milk chocolate with a heavy emphasis on the milk part and nearly zero on the chocolate. Nick mentioned this could be American chocolate's difference to the recipe used in other places and I think I agree. Perhaps we're both simply just used to the way chocolate tastes here.
The Zazers wasn't bad...it was okay. Bland on taste.

Oh, Chews.

Product: Sour Fruit Ooh! Chews
Origin: Brazil

First looks

Katie:

I'm skeptical of the gummy-potentiality of this so even though I'm going first here...Nick is going to safety test it for me.  He gave me his two least liked flavors--strawberry and green apple. Yay. I hope these are Brazil's answer to Starburst and not more gross gum.

Nick:
Wow, what a name. Ooh! Chews. Two of the flavors look good (Cherry and Blue Raspberry), and two look nasty (Strawberry and Green Apple). Hopefully these will help me whip, help me nae nae, because every time I ask Katie to watch me whip, watch me nae nae she just goes "Okay" and then I don't know how to whip, how to nae nae and end up looking foolish. I wonder if that caffeine from the Wake the Hell Up! coffee kicked in yet.

Post-bite thoughts

Katie:
Oh boy, I see Nick not only hands out green apple flavor but also dank memes. Is it peanut butter jelly time too? (Actually, he's cooler than me and usually knows what the cool ones are first. I don't find out until dabbing was like, so six months ago). 

The candy is very hard at first but softens after a bit. It's not as sweet as Starburst but still good. It reminds me of when Whole Foods tries to make candy except they can't use sugar so they use something stupid like liquid coconut farts and it just winds up tasting like something you get from your one weird friend's house where they only eat organic wheat germ and don't let you put real syrup on pancakes (the pancakes are made out of wheat as if that's going to taste good)...where am I even going with this? They taste a little odd maybe, is what I think I was trying to say.

Nick:
I'm kinda split on these; like Katie said they're extremely hard to start, which is a little bit of a surprise but not too bad. The taste of the cherry ones is really good, fake, sweet "cherry" and I enjoyed it quite a bit. The blue raspberry... not sweet enough, my dudes. A real blue raspberry has to be super sweet and taste like no creation God could have ever imagined; this is a bit bitter for me. Of course I got 5 blue raspberries and only two cherries. Not terrible, but I don't think I'd get it again; maybe if they had a bag of just cherry.

Hope I can sleep tonight

Product: Wake the Hell Up! coffee
Origin: Utica, NY

First looks

Nick:
(yawn) All right, I'll Wake the Hell Up! coffee. I think this might just be a local product, from the wind-blasted snowscape of Utica, NY. The box says the company "adhere(s) to business principles that embrace the culture, history and vibe of our region". Well sir, I went to college in Utica, NY, and here's the two things I remember. One, it has the National Long Distance Running Hall of Fame. Two, one time it was snowing and the wind was howling (aka, I was in Utica) and I looked out the window and the wind was blowing so hard that the snow was going up. So I'm eager to see how the coffee is going to adhere to business principles that embrace the culture, history and vibe of this region, possibly by setting off a huge howling snow bomb in my mouth while I fall asleep at the national long distance running hall of fame. Can't wait!

Katie:
I had the opposite experience in Utica. I was still back in [local hometown] so driving up to Utica on a Friday to collect Nick for a weekend adventure was fun for me. We'd stock up his provisions at the local Price Chopper, which was testing out the self-checkouts (new at the time) and my mind was blown. It's very woodsy up there and one time we got lost...we found a)a prison and b)a lock which I made Nick stay at until we saw a boat go through and I giggled with glee. When I'd stay overnight, I'd "make" Nick skip class so we could eat spaghetti-Os and play GTA3. No one calculate when that came out to find out how old we are...it's better if we stay ageless, perfect, and beautiful in your minds like the elves of Rivendell.
Oh and the coffee smells really good.

Post-sip thoughts

I forgot to take a picture of the coffee
so here's a Bellsprout I caught at
work just before a meeting

Nick:
Mmm... I'm not sure I'm really getting a strong taste from this; I mostly just taste the creamer and sugar, which is OK because the creamer and sugar is delicious. I guess to be fair the box doesn't talk about what the coffee actually tastes like, just how it's going to make you Wake the Hell Up! coffee. It's fine. I don't know that I'd get it again over coffee that, uh, tastes like something. It remains to be see if I Wake the Hell Up!, I suppose. If I'm staring at the ceiling at 3 am unable to fall asleep I guess this stuff worked.

Katie:
Delicious! This is the kind of non-flavored coffee I like. The coffee has that great coffee flavor (duh) and mixes well with the cream and sugar to create a lovely taste. It's like Haagen-Dazs coffee ice cream except it's actual coffee. Nick probably gets all the credit for making it delicious though. He is a coffee master, bravely making me coffee every morning and heroically dealing with me on Sundays when I don't have enough coffee before we got shopping early in the morning because I want to get it over with then wind up mumbling and tottering around the grocery store saying stupid stuff like "the beard took over his head from his hair".

Surprisingly these turned out not to be gummy

Product: Mammos RASPBERRY CANDY
Origin: Korea

First looks

Katie:
I have nothing! There's no smell really and they look like a normal hard candy. Um. I wasn't going to try them because we thought they'd be gummy then it turned out they weren't and here we are. Nick, take it away!

Nick:
Oh boy. Uh, like Katie said, there's not really much to get from looking at or smelling these; they don't smell like anything and they look like little raspberry circles. I do like how the bag says "Friend" with a picture of raspberries in the upper right hand corner. These raspberries are my friends. Very relaxing. I'm also going to pretend that the raspberries are happy being turned into this candy, otherwise it's kind of depressing.

Post-bite thoughts

Katie:

"Nick, come to my house.
We'll do Nintendos."

Raspberries are your friends. Look, here's one now. She's calling you on her grape phone to come hang out and totally not eat her.

Okay, okay. I thought I was going to really dislike these but I'm quite enjoying it! The raspberry (why don't we say 'rasp-berry'? Everyone I know says 'Razz-berry'. Comment on which one you say because I'm curious) taste is very pleasant. Some hard candy is too sour or too sweet...too much of whatever the flavor is but this is in that sweet middle spot. Grab these if you see them!

Nick:
I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be rasp-berry (I remember reading in my
book about Jamaica how one white settler guy was like 'I would love a rasp-berry ice', and I was like, tough shit, because he owned a bunch of slaves so I didn't feel bad for him) but over time the P sound has kind of gone away and now I pronounce it without it, like ra's-berry. Anyway, I'm glad you brought that up because I really don't have much to say about this; it tastes nice, it's not too sweet and not too bitter, and I'm sure we'll work our way through this bag in a few months (each one is individually wrapped, which I like since it helps keep them good longer and they don't just fuse into one un-eatable megacandy gestalt in the bag when it gets hot in the summer). Nice job, Korea!

DELICIOUS FOOD

Product: Pumpkin roll
Origin: Taiwan

First looks

Nick:
The only English on the package is "PUMPKIN ROLL" and "DELICIOUS FOOD", so I'm expecting a pumpkin roll that's a delicious food. Quick quesiton: Why does a pumpkin roll have pictures of peas, beans, nuts, and a watermelon on the sleeve? I don't know about this, fam. Smells like... old nuts and coffee? I'm having a hard time identifying the smells here. Katie, what do you make of this delicious food?

Katie:
Yeah, it totally smells like coffee. Maybe it's just that PSLs are huge here and we associate this type of pumpkin with coffee but that's all I'm getting from it. I'm hoping this will be good and thanks to our good friend for confirming the origin of this product for us! Very curious about how this mysterious tube of pumpkin coffee (potential) goodness will taste. Nick, you've been to the other side, how was it?

Post-bite thought

Dr. Greg makes a return guest appearance
he's sulking because he can't have any

Nick:
A little weird. The outside is harder than the filling, which is a kind of pumpkin butter. You know, I'm not sure I really get much flavor from this, honestly. There's a kind of vaguely pumpkiny nutty taste that's not bad, but that's about all. I ate my whole half, but I think this is just a little bit boring to get again, solving the mystery of what this is was more entertaining than eating the actual snack. It's fine. Fine, it's fine.

Katie:
I wasn't a huge fan of the outside when I first took a timid nibble. It reminded me of those horrendously bland health cereals parents always try to get kids to eat because they're "good for you". For my next bite, I took a huge nom and the outer shell really mixed with the pumpkiny inside. Second bite was much better. I think this would be a great little desk nom for when you're really hungry but your lunch break is an awkward amount of time away. You know the kind...where it's close enough that you don't want to ruin your appetite but far enough away that you can't quite wait that long without having something or you're just not going to get any work done then you'll be sitting at your desk staring dumbly at your email when someone important comes to ask you a question and you turn around all bleary and dorped from being too hungry to work so you have to make them repeat their question because you weren't brained-on enough to catch it the first time.

Strawberry cookies with a special guest appearance from Dr. Greg the One-Eyed Cat Who Loves Cuddles

Product: Parle Hide & Seek Fab!--strawberry flavor
Origin: India

First looks

Katie:
The strawberry smell is strong with these. The cookies seem to be chocolate chip but I'm honestly not sure if that's what the little chips are. The strawberry filling is escaping the side of mine but not all in the package are like that. I'm really not sure what to expect here. If they are chocolate chips, I'm thinking it'll be a hard cookie filled with stiff filling but we've been wrong before in predicting a cookie and filling's consistency.

Nick:
Oh, boy. I'm not so sure about these; strawberry is occasionally okay, but these smell really fake sweet strawberry. A close inspection of the sleeve suggests these are indeed chocolate chips; it also yells "INSIST ON EXPORT PACK ONLY" but I think I'm going to insist on taking the smallest possible bite of these before rendering judgement.

Post-bite thoughts

Katie:
I think I actually quite like these. The strawberry is, as Nick predicted, very fake and very sweet but it works well with the chocolate cookie for me. I don't know if I'll be able to eat the whole package by myself if Nick doesn't like them but I happily ate two for my taste test. Okay, I can't wait anymore. I have to see what Nick thought.

Nick:
Wow, I don't hate these! Katie originally accidentally wrote that the strawberry "works against the chocolate cookie" and I had like a whole witty paragraph about how I disagreed and liked this that was very amusing, trust me, that I had to delete when Katie realized she made an oops and went back and fixed it. Just assume it would have been really hilarious. As it is, these aren't for me - I think if it was, like, raspberry and dark chocolate I'd have liked it more - but they're surprisingly good! Bring these in to work. If you're reading this at work, go get some, uh, three weeks ago when we wrote this because if we don't write ahead we can't keep our posting schedule up to date and our entries would be like "this needed to get posted six days ago!!! FOOD GOOD" or something.