Dear Burger King,

I did not make the rules. But you lost in our latest poll of Worst Fast Food Commercials. You were caught like a deer in the headlights, hmm… funny that the screengrab I made above is actually from one of your commercials. Almost too perfect.

And so on, sincerely, Me.

This actually did come as a bit of a surprise. Oh, I have no love for the hoity-toity bank robber bandit masquerading as Burger King’s mascot. But there are worse fast food commercials.

Like Carl’s Jr.

When I think of Carl’s Jr. commercials, an bitter bile of unhappy Happy Star meals from the 80s crawls back up my throat. Ugh. How far they have fallen off my pedestal of Great Childhood Memories. I could go on for a long time about how bad my impression of CJs has become because of the commercials. I find them to be confusing, misogynistic, boring, misleading, racially insulting, idiotic and stupid - pandering only to the absolute lowest common denominator life form on the planet.

[Editor’s Important Aside: Hello. By reading the above statement, i.e. training your eyeballs thusly on the above sentence, you are agreeing that in fact that this website is merely poking fun, or fun-like sharp spears, at certain food companies, and you waive your rights under the Fast Food Constitution to do anything about it, or make use of useless law degrees, or butter your toast with a spoon, or pet any resulting iguanas. You agree that I’ve been declared legally insane, blind, deaf and balding. Thank you, and thanks for having a sense of humor (although, it would be nice if you could put that into your commercials).]

But let’s return (reluctantly) to Burger King. The results came in at BK 37%, McD 29%, CJs 21% and JITB 13% out of 1208 votes. I only really agree with the results of Jack In The Box. Some might think, what difference is there between a guy who puts on a fake king head, and a guy who puts on a fake antenna ball? It seems to me that Jack is sorta cool and Mostly Harmless, while the King is a creepy, mute, mentally challenged, booger, I mean burger, monster.

[Editor’s Important Aside: BK, please refer to the above aside, thank you.]

The Jack in the Box commercials really grew on me. And since I am one of the few people who actually enjoy their meat paste tacos, I don’t feel the need to complain too much. Except that their new logo sorta sucks, especially when I try to say “Jack In the Balpha” and people look at me like, What?

I seriously thought that Burger King would’ve been voted as the 2nd best after JITB. I thought that McDonald’s might’ve been about tied with Burger King, but maybe slightly worse. I didn’t expect that many folks to hate the McD commercials - to me, they seem sort of innocuous. What is it that people don’t like in their commercials - the crappy sappy jingles? Or the creepy clown?

I think I’ve identified the major problem with CJs commercials. I watch a lot of hockey, and for some reason (their target audience, of course) they find it amusing to play the same, stupid commercial after every break. In the course of a game, I might see the same CJs commercial 25 times. It’s super annoying, made more so by the fact that the commercials are so horrible in all respects.

Incidentally, if I see the stupid Panda Express commercial one more time, I’m going to barf. I also hate commercials that have any sort of phone ringing, alarm clock, dog barking, or any loud noise that is expressly meant to make you look up from whatever you’re doing while the commercials are on.

(Incidentally Part 2, why is there no “Volume Jump” on TVs? I don’t want to mute the commercial because then I won’t know when the program is back. I want to lower the volume by an exact amount each and every time a commercial comes on instead of having to hold the volume button down. Oh, it makes me madder than a mad hatter…)

I suspect this is the whole point of commercials. Play them enough times so that they’ll burrow into our grey matter. But have they done enough market testing on this? Do other people NOT get annoyed by seeing the same bad commercial 25 times during one program. I’m not sure marketing budgets for commercials should be focused on making a good commercial. You can get any halfwit to make a good Blair Witch type commercial for you a la YouTube.

I think fast food companies should focus more on not annoying the crap out of TV viewers by playing the same commercial over and over. Even a guy who thinks guacamole is made by putting a whole avocado into a blender is going to get annoyed after awhile. Stop it, stop it, just stop it already.

I rest my case and my typing fingers.

[Editor’s Note: I’ve been guilty of leaving a poll up for months and months to inflate the numbers. But anyway, there is a new poll up at the top of page. I have no idea what it means, but please answer it.]

[Editor’s Note 2: I almost forgot - I somehow made it to FIVE years of posting on this blog. Happy 5 year blogiversary to me.]

Oh Hell. I mean, Hell-o.

This is the part of the story where the embattled, sick editor of Cheap Eats begs off posting for another week by uploading an old, overexposed picture of a wagon wheel circle of grilled shrimp on a bed of pasta.

The thing is, things never work that way. For example, if I type or think the word “thing” or “thingy” or “think” multiple times, after awhile things start to look very strange. And I start to over-think things. Simple “leftovers” posts become convoluted things. Things are like that on this blog since we think about cheap eating things quite a bit.

[Editor’s Aside: I must be thinking (or tink’ing) of our earlier “Tings” review]

Regardless, I’ll try. Begin: This is an old, overexposed picture of a wagon wheel circle of grilled shrimp on a bed of pasta. If you ignore the bad quality of the picture, you will start to notice the greatly pleasing symmetry of the shrimp with tails all facing the same way. Neat, even though it reminds me uncomfortably of Las Vegas buffets.

I’m sure you’ve already noted that this is neither leftovers (it was a main dish for dinner) nor is it cheap (well, it’s cheaper than buying a dish like this at Olive Garden, I guess). That fact has been noted and recorded summarily in the Cheap Eats back issue files, so that I won’t make the same mistake again.

But let me get back to the synchronized shrimp. This is actually a great tip for leftovers, even though this dish itself isn’t a leftover. About 76% (more or less) of the time, dressing up your leftovers a bit will make them taste better. I want to say that it’ll ALWAYS make them taste better, but I don’t want to get emails from irate readers dumping gold paint on their leftover tuna casserole.

It’s happened before.

But yes, it’s all about tricking your brain into thinking that you’re eating something more delicious than last night’s beef stroganoff. It really does work.

But now, I think I will head back to bed to rest my head. And dream of synchronized shrimp swimming in vats of garlic butter.

[Editor’s Note: I think that thinking things think about things that think thoughts of thinking things.]

Stop the presses.

Hear ye, hear ye.

Po-tee-weet. And other such flatulent remarks.

You say you want a revolution. Well, you know, we all just want some Bugles.

I keep typing Buggles instead of Bugles. Buggles is an infinitely (as x approaches the snack axis) better name because it doth rhyme with “Fuggles” (and also, “Ruggles“, may they spoof the Beatles in peace who I apparently have confused with the Rutles). But I will let it slide.

I will let it slide because I’m just that type of guy. Actually, “Bugles” seem tangentially related to flatulence as well, so all’s well that ends well. Bugles, as in the cavalry musical instrument, go “toot-toot”. Toot de Sweet. Chitty chitty bang bang we’ve come full circle in less time it takes for Lindsay Lohan to get another arrest warrant.

Ex-squeeze me, I have just wasted 3 minutes of your time. Sorry.

So then, just what is going to be the “meat” of this review? That juicy, carnivorous nugget of off-colour humour that keeps people bellying up to the erratically published Cheap Eats review bar?

Well, I took some pictures of the words on the packaging, and I’m going to make fun of them.

After all, for most products like Bugles, this is just another attempt to re-package the over-surplus of subsidized corn that farmers in Iowa (sorry, Iowans, I actually like your state, especially the Corn Palace but don’t know anything about it) have to deal with. So, the most important thing about Bugles is the packaging. Right?

Actually, that is not exactly true. Bugles and I (Bugles and me?) go back many, many years. We’re fricken bed buddies. Back then, when it wasn’t a heinous sin to put hydrogenated oil and god knows what else into these snacks, I used to really look forward to eating a handful of Bugles. Oh, the shape seems the same today, and the taste is pretty much the same. It’s whatever fat that they used to use in copious amounts that really made me excited about a bag of Bugles.

I used to take a Bugle, stick it on my tongue, and wait for the fat to seep into my taste buds. It was a really interesting experience - you started to feel your tongue get COLD. I suspect you’ll get the same effect by putting a scoop of Crisco on your tongue, but don’t let your cardiologist know I told you about it.

It still works with modern Bugles, but I don’t seem to get as great an effect. Try it. It’s interesting and will keep you entertained while you wait for your cup-o-noodles to jell.

In the mean time, here are my observations in true picturesque form.

Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha. What a pointless pun. I guess they’ve never heard of Doritos before. Actually, Bugles look like dunce caps. Or worse.

Nice. I love the “better if used by” date expirations on certain products. As opposed to “best if used by.” It’s like they’re saying, “Hey, we’re on the same wavelength here, Cheap Eater. These will probably will taste better if you eat them by the date, but we know you’ll probably feel the need to keep them for years and years beyond the date. It’s no skin off our back, we just have to put this on the package because the FDA requires it.”

I don’t know about you, but if I’m a racecar driver, I’m not getting in a Cheerios car. Or a Hamburger Helper car. This is like asking [insert name of famous American football player here because I don’t know any] to wear a pink helmet and a ballerina tutu. You can’t pay me enough to do it.

I seriously still think that this would be 10 times more awesome if they would change the name to “Buggles“. Come on, who’s with me. I want to drive the Buggles car. It’s a sweet ride.

I’ve always wanted to write into companies who DON’T put this disclaimer on the box and complain about being confused about the size of the snacks on the packaging. I would write that I was so excited that I would be getting 12 inch life size bugle-shaped snacks, because I’m a Civil War researcher looking into corn cakes shaped like bugles, and when they turned out to be only 2 inches long, my whole day was shot. I would drip fake tears on the letter and then send it in.

And so on.

Price: $1.00 for 5oz
Found At: Dollar Store
Cheap Eats Score: 7/10

[Editor’s Note: Hi. I’m curious about the reason Bugles make your tongue go cold like that. I never really looked into it, plus I’m not a nutritional anthropologist. Or someone with even half a lazy brain. I know they use coconut oil - does that make a difference? I guess I never really even tried it with other snacks, maybe it works with all chips like this.]

Hey.

If I had one word to describe this Fresh & Easy “Big” Lasagna With Meat Sauce, it would be:

lookspromisingbutsucks

But of course, I have more than one word at my disposal here. Therefore, I will say this:

You might recall that I’m a big Fresh & Easy fanboy. It’s just really convenient, and surprisingly cheap depending on what you get. However, I’ve had oodles of problems with their noodles. I mean their pre-packaged meals, specifically anything that has noodles and tomato sauce.

Earlier, I ragged (ragu-ed?) on their Spaghetti. I think one cause of the problem is that I always try to get these noodle meals at the 1/2 off price. If you can snag them at that price, they’re extremely reasonable. But they only offer them at the price when they’re about to expire, so they’ve been sitting around for awhile. And when you let noodles in sauce like that sit for a long time, bad things happen.

Bad, gluey things.

Their “Big” Lasagna has the same problems as the spaghetti, but in fact it’s worse because of the layered nature of the lasagna. In their defense, I’m not sure how they’d solve this issue. I also haven’t really tried the spaghetti-type meals when they haven’t been sitting around for more than a couple days. Maybe they’re better when they’ve just been made.

In any case, I ain’t expecting high end gourmet lasagna, or even something approaching Marie Callender’s. Just something palatable. This is a large amount of food - almost three pounds. If this was edible, two people would probably make at least 2 meals out of it. As it was, I had to toss it out because it sucked so badly.

The thing is - it actually looked VERY promising after I baked it in the oven. Geez, look at the picture. I figured it would come out better in a conventional oven than a microwave. Don’t bother wasting your gas. It’s just as bad, or worse.

A breakdown: The sauce is just “OK” - I still find it strange they put carrots in it, like their other tomato sauce meals. The melted cheese coverage on top leaves a little to be desired. Like more cheese. But it’s not a deal breaker.

The noodle texture is absolutely, positively horrible. It tastes like extruded wheat clay or playdoh. It has such a pasty texture that I can’t believe it. It also has a strange off-taste to it. I can’t really put my finger on it because it’s not really a “food” taste per se. (Scarier words have never been spoken!) It’s almost like a weird, bitter plastic bread taste.

The ricotta filling was doing anything for me either. I like ricotta cheese, so I thought that perhaps it would be a bright spot in an otherwise terrible meal. It tasted blah, and if anything, made the stickiness of the noodles worse. Major disappointment.

Lastly, for some reason there was a FISHINESS, a sorta seafood and ox-musk melange hovering around the entire meal. I don’t think this was because the food was near the expiration date. Actually, if it was because of that, I wouldn’t be as worried. I was just wondering what the heck that could possibly be.

That taste scared me a bit, so I stopped eating it after a couple of bites. Oops, $4 down the drain. Man, I haven’t had a pre-packaged lasagna that bad in awhile. For a better (and bigger) lasagna, I would think about getting the CostCo one, even at the much higher price. That one is light years better. I think you would also do much better with budget frozen lasagna meals if you’re concerned about cost.

I’m still wondering why F&E is so noodle challenged. I think it has a lot to do with me buying it from the bargain bin on the day it’s about to expire. At a MSRP of $8, I would rather go outside and graze on my lawn. At the cut rate of $4, it’s still not worth getting - although it did bump up the score to 2/10 just for sheer cheapness. I think I’ll stick to their other prepared foods for now.

Price: $4.00 for 2 lb 12oz. (MSRP $8)
Found At: Fresh and Easy
Cheap Eats Score: 2/10

For many years now, I’ve had this fantasy about writing an in-depth account of how one should go about eating Nattō. I was planning on putting forth a Fight Club - like listing of The Rules Of Eating Natto and then having a spirited discourse about its odorific dangers and surprising health benefits.

But for some reason, every time I tried to write it, I’d put it off. The psychological effect of describing fermented soybean consumption in gory detail was just too much to tackle.

So a few rules are as far as I got up till now.

And yes, there SHOULD be rules for eating natto. No, they’re not official and some may say they go against the true spirit of Natto consumption. Rule 1 is probably the most controversial. However, I swear by them. They lead to a more pleasant and efficient natto experience. I also have a few corollaries to the rules.

Here you are then, and so on…

The Rules of Eating Natto

1. You don’t mix your natto.
2. You don’t mix your natto.
3. When someone says stop, or goes limp, even if he’s just faking it, the natto eating is over.
4. Only two people per package.
5. One package of natto at a time.
6. They eat natto WITH shirts and napkins.
7. They only eat natto as long as they have to.
8. If this is your first time here, you have to eat the natto.

Natto Corollaries

0. Don’t smell the natto.
1. Don’t get it on your hands or clothes.
2. Before putting in mouth, they hold the natto still, letting the “strings” subside.
3. Natto crystals are tasty good.
4. Smaller beans are often more tender.
5. While eating natto, you don’t think of boogers, spit or Aliens (the movie)

Yes, Natto is some serious stuff. Because it doesn’t have a really bizarre look like Durian or a cool name like Lutefisk, it sort of lurks under the radar for weird Japanese foods. But oh, it’s weird all right.

To my knowledge, neither Anthony Bourdain nor Andrew Zimmern has not tried it yet. (Oops, I was informed that Bourdain has tried it, as described in his book. However, he did not write up Fight Club rules like I did.) Actually, the Zimmern camp told me that he hadn’t, but they weren’t sure. I heartily suggest they include these beans on their next trip to Japan.

OK, here is a confession. I grew up eating this stuff. It’s a tiny part of my Japanese heritage that still shines feebly through an Americanized life. Whenever people ask why I hate wasabi with a passion and avoid sashimi like the plague, I can just say - well, I eat Natto, so how about you give me a break. That said, I’m no expert in Natto. We just eat it at home occasionally.

To be truthful, there is probably a large segment of the Japanese population that HATES the stuff. I’m not going to speculate, but among the JAs here that I’ve asked, only about 1/3 will eat Natto. As far as Hakujin folks (white Americans) go, I think I know exactly two people who have tried it before. If you frequent sushi restaurants, you may have noticed a “Natto Roll” buried in the menu. I’ve never gotten it, so I’m curious what it looks like. I’ve only eaten it on top of rice. I’m told they also eat it on toast occasionally, like Vegemite.

Natto is Rotten, Smelly, Slimy Soybeans. You can call them “fermented” if you like. It still comes down to smelly beans at the end of the day.

It’s delicious.

They’re usually sold in small styrofoam boxes, three to a package due to the fear of the number four (ask me one of these days about the many ways my relatives’ fear of that number has inconvenienced my life). They usually, but not always come with two small condiment packets inside. One is a soy sauce type mixture and the other is yellow spicy mustard. They have different sizes of beans - we usually like to get the smaller ones because they seem more tender. The price seems to vary greatly - anywhere from 75 cents for 3 boxes to a couple bucks. But it’s usually cheap enough.

You can freeze natto packages, and they will usually come back fine after defrosting in the refrigerator for a day or two. The bean texture may not be as good, but it’s edible. We usually buy two 3-packs and put one in the freezer.

Now, as to the eating of Natto. Let’s go over some of the Rules from before. I’m pretty controverial (according to my mom and most articles about natto), but I never, ever stir the package up. Apparently, the more frothy and slimy that you can get the beans, the more rapturous of an experience you’ll have.

NOT.

Most people like to stir it up, but I like to disturb the beans as little as possible en route to my mouth. Let me back up a bit. Before eating a package of natto, you need to prepare your area. The problem with natto is not only the smell itself, but it’s stringy and slimy texture which tends to get all over the place ESPECIALLY if you’ve stirred the stuff up. So, I like to put a paper towel underneath the package and covering my placemat. I keep another two napkins handy. You might not want to wear your best clothes when eating the stuff as well. Or at least, plan to wash your shirt if you get natto goop on it.

Ok, so put your rice in a bowl, on the napkin as well. I prefer a larger soup style bowl instead of a smaller one because it decreases the mess. Open the natto package and bend the connected styrofoam lid back so it stays put. I chuck the yellow mustard, but you might like it (especially if you’re a Stirrer). The soy sauce flavoring packet usually improves things considerably. The top of the natto is “protected” from the lid by a thin sheet of plastic. Grasp a corner of that and pull it off slowly onto the styrofoam lid. See the slimy strings? Imagine that multiplied by 10 if you had stirred that up.

For me, controlled speed is the essence of good natto eating. You want to consume it carefully, but without dilly-dallying. The idea is to scoop up some natto carefully with chopsticks (or a fork, spoon, or spork). Before bringing it to the rice, let the strings subside. It’s pretty amazing how long they last. Place it on the rice, then use the chopsticks to scoop the undisturbed natto and some rice into your mouth. Don’t sit back and eat it - get your face over the bowl, for the love of god. Open your mouth as wide as possible, like you’re at the dentist. (You may want to listen to soft Top 40 music as well, it may help.) Sometimes, I skip the combination of rice and natto and just eat some natto first by itself, and then go for the rice. People who stir it up often like to dump the whole mess on top of rice. If you do that, you’re on your own.

I would seriously suggest you avoid sharing your natto package with others. This increases the tendency for smelly slime to get everywhere. This isn’t the type of thing you want to pass around the table for everyone to sample. But, if you must, two people can share one box. Just make sure you put napkins underneath the area.

Oh, so I guess one of the more important corollaries is NOT to smell the natto. I mean, just don’t go out of your way and put your nose right up to it. That Zimmern guy is cool, but he has the unfortunate habit of sticking his nose into whatever weird food he’s eating and taking a long whiff. I understand he wants the “full experience”, but think he’d be a lot less grossed out by some of the food if he just ate it instead of inhaling it. Anyhow, trust me, just eating natto is enough of an experience. I’ll save you the trouble of smelling it - it smells like ammonia mixed with stinky cheese and toejams. Yum!

I’ve heard that some people are more disturbed by the “slimy” texture of natto than the smell. It’s hard to describe without saying the texture is like loogies. The closest common food item I can think of is the inside of an okra pod. That slime is almost the exact same texture. Now imagine a slimy, smelly okra pod. Again, if you don’t stir the natto up, you’ll have less of that slimy texture.

One of the weird things about natto are the tiny crystal formations that sometimes appear. Yes, crystals. Not every package of natto has them, but I actually find them pleasant, adding a bit of crunch. I’m not sure if this is mold, bacteria action, or what, but it’s interesting (and I hope, not bad for you). Again, if you stir it up, you’re not going to notice the crystals that much. The taste of natto by itself is difficult to describe, since it’s colored by the soy sauce package or mustard. It has a slight bitter tinge to the bean taste.

You might be wondering why some people eat this if it’s such a smelly, slimy proposition. There are supposed to be a whole host of health benefits, which I won’t get into. I just like the art of Eating of Natto as an experience. It really feels like you’re going into battle. With chopsticks a-ready. I don’t expect you’ll like it, but you should at least give it a try one of these days.

[Editor’s Note: I hope that y’all know my natto paranoia is in jest. Well, sort of. One other tip: after eating natto, you may want to switch out your bowl for a new one. Natto tends to “contaminate” other foods with it’s taste, smell and slime. Also, I usually wash my mouth right afterwards. Wipe down the table and placemats. And don’t go kissing each other right after eating it…]

I’m actually in the midst of getting ready for a camping trip, so here’s a Leftovers For Lunch post. The other day I was trying to figure out what to do with some zucchini that was just on the verge of getting too soft. In the past, we’d made soup out of it, but I decided to try out some stuffed zucchini since I’d never done that. We lightly boiled the zucchini, scooped out the innards, mixed that with ground turkey for the filling and bread crumbs for the filling, and just baked them in the oven.

It turned out all right, but they were a little bit on the dense and heavy side. I was curious if anyone makes stuffed zucchinis regularly. I know that most recipes call for sausage and probably lots of cheese. We can’t use a whole lot of cheese due to lactose issues in the house. I did use some egg as binder, but I felt that the filling tended to fall out when bitten because of the lack of cheese to help stick everything together.

And now for something completely different.

I’ve been noticing that the ratio of post length to reward factor (i.e. comments) for Cheap Eats is seriously whacked. The more time I spend going on and on about absolutely nothing important, the less fun comments and hate mail constructive criticism wrapped in internet anonymity I receive.

I never set out to be the squeaky mousewheel that gets the gets the grease.

But after this long and winding road which has run five years, you’ll find I like to complain every so often.

I consider complaining my “just rewards”. An inalienable right that tends to alienate readers. Compensation for providing dense thickets of stream of consciousness sentences surrounding a few blurbs about a company’s products, or a 3 Dollar or Less Recipe.

My complaint this time around is that it gets tiring to review Cheap Food all the time. Sometimes I want to review caviar or, god forbid, foie gras. Just to switch it up a bit. It’s difficult to get companies to send this kind of stuff, however, to a website called “Cheap Eats”.

Not that I would ever accept such products for review since that would be an ethical conflict of interest. (*Ahem*, speaking loudly into the mic provided by FBI)

It’s actually quite amazing how much flame broiled email constructive criticism wrapped in internet anonymity I’ve gotten for writing about even normally priced foods. My idea was that I could review expensive or medium-priced products, because of course I’d take the cost into account in the overall score.

It hasn’t really turned out that way. I’ve sort of gotten pushed into the corner of cheap food, 24-7. Instant Ramen and Cheese Wiz beating me up in the ring, and it’s round 13. I suppose some of that is my fault, since I’ve said since the beginning that the blog will be about Cheap Food, minus all considerations of health, taste and general hygiene. So that’s what people expect.

I thought perhaps I’d try and branch out to other cheap products with the Cheaplander website, to make things more interesting. That hasn’t really panned out - mostly because I just don’t have the time and energy that others have to really pour into another site. But it’s also because the number of blogs vying for attention these days makes it hard to get an audience. (Incidentally, I’m seriously weighing whether to keep Cheaplander going. It’s that “work to reward” factor again.)

And I constantly find myself driven back to Cheap Eats, my little haven of nonsensical food reviews and recipes. Even trapped in the Cheap corner, I really do enjoy writing up a wacky “product review”, even if only a few people read it.

But enough about me, you came here for a review. Here it is:

These Snack Worx “Original” Corn Chips look like Fritos™.

They taste like Fritos™.

They taste, in fact, less oily and fatty tasting than normal Fritos™.

This is, in general, a good thing.

However, they taste just as salty as normal Fritos™.

That is, in general a bad thing.

The kicker is that 12 ounces for $1 is pretty darn cheap.

That is, in general, the best thing.

Therefore, I recommend this product if you are seeking a Fritos™ type of experience but do not have much cash on hand.

I am done, stick a farking fork or chopstick in me.

Price: $1.00 for 12 oz.
Found At: Fresh & Easy
Cheap Eats Score: 7/10

[Editor’s Note: Normal people may read this blog and wonder how it is possible that I do not currently inhabit an insane asylum. Let me tell you, chief - hospital rooms have really great WiFi connection these days…]