A lot of people wonder why I like food so much but still continue to frequent fast food restaurants. People even question my taste in food because of it. The truth is, fast food tastes good. It’s designed and processed that way. If you don’t like fast food, is probably because you’re smart enough to realize that the reason it tastes good is the same reason it’s terrible for you. Then again, I know that good and well but still need to get my fix every once in a while. There’s just a few things that I could never go without. On that list is KFC’s Famous Bowl.
The Famous Bowl isn’t new or relevant to anything, I just love Famous Bowls. I know, to some people, it’s the most disgusting fast food combination ever created, but to me it’s perfection. I’m one of those people that combines their entire Thanksgiving dinner into one pile until it resembles something that they would serve in prison. The mixture of mashed potatoes, turkey, stuffing, gravy,and corn makes my Thanksgiving every year. Apparently someone at KFC used this same mixture method and decided to apply it to their menu. Good man.
It was a basic concept to combine mashed potatoes, gravy, and chicken. Who hasn’t mixed their chicken with their mashed potatoes before? They took this a step further adding corn and just got absolutely ridiculous by topping the entire thing with cheese. Whose idea was it to top this heart attack bowl with cheese? Whoever you are, you don’t owe anyone an explanation. You deserve a medal.
The Famous Bowl tops out with 740 calories, 31 grams of fat and 9 grams of saturated fat, 2110 mg sodium. If you’re on a 2,000 calorie diet the bowl provides you with a third of your calories, 47% of your fat and 45% of your saturated fats, and 87% of your sodium. That’s not irresponsible, that’s a bargain.
So to the people who think it’s ridiculous that I like Famous Bowls while giving my opinion on more “respectable” cuisine, I completely agree with you. There’s just something about this mess of slop that I have to have.
On a completely random note, skip to the .52 second mark on this video for more on prison slop. Or just watch the whole thing for comedic greatness.
I have a system when I go to Taco Bell. Some might call this the J.O.H.N. system, but I can’t come up with any words that make sense to fulfill that acronym so actually no one calls it that except for me. I like to order a few different courses like I’m eating some fancy meal. I usually start from the $.89 menu options, such as pintos and cheese or perhaps the 5 layer nachos. I then progress to the middle of the road items such as 1/2 lb cheesy potato burrito or a cheesy bean and rice burrito. The main course comes after that, usually consisting of a chicken quesadilla or a grilled stuft burrito. I like to keep it fresh with variety, never ordering a burrito for all three courses. That would get real old real fast.
The beautiful part about the J.O.H.N. system is that Taco Bell is aware of my frequent boredom with the same menu items. This is why they frequently come up with new menu items to freshen up my courses. The best is when they debut a new $.89 cent item, because the cheap items don’t switch up too often. Most recently, they came up with the Beefy 5-Layer Burrito, which consists of the Taco Bell hall of famers and nothing more. No fancy Baja or avocado ranch sauce in this burrito. They stick with only the classics. It’s like the Mexican pizza of burritos, except people might order them that aren’t over the age of 40.
Beef, beans, cheese and sour cream, all wrapped in a tortilla that’s covered in another tortilla, but not until they smother the in between area with nacho cheese. How perfect is that? $.89 cents for all of that? In these harsh economic times, this has to be the perfect fast food menu item, as well as a perfect option for my “appetizer” course. This has increased my Taco Bell intake by at least 325% over the last few weeks.
I would like like to reiterate that that actual burrito is wrapped in an additional tortilla that has been smothered in nacho cheese. Seriously, who thought of this? I hope they have been promoted or at least given some sort of medal of honor. Not only does the additional tortilla help hold in the ingredients, BUT IT HAS MORE CHEESE! NOT JUST THAT SHREDDED CHEESE, BUT NACHO CHEESE! I apologize for the caps, but it’s an idea that has me excited about eating. Look at this picture! Amazing!
So to the team that developed this burrito and to Taco Bell in general, Epic Portions salutes you for perfecting an appetizer perfect for the J.O.H.N. system, and creating one of the best Taco Bell menu items of all time. I am excited to be a part of it.
After reading about Dominos’ new pizza recipe in pretty much every food blog on the internet, I thought I would take advantage of my location, and actually try it out. Currently, Ann Arbor, MI is the only Domino’s market serving the recipe. The reason? It all started here! This is until December 27th, when it will be launched nation wide.
I’ve never been much of a fan of Domino’s pizza. In fact, I’m not much of a fan of any pizza chains. None of them have anything that comes close to any local pizza joint. Domino’s seems to be among the worst, serving bland pizzas that lack flavored crust or variety. Thankfully, Pizza Hut will always be around to claim the title of “Worst Pizza of all Time.” Recently though, Domino’s has attempted to add new items to their menu such as the American Legends menu, baked subs, and pasta bowls, but their regular pizza remains as bland as ever. I guess this is the reason they decided to revamp their recipe.
According to Domino’s, the recipe wasn’t just altered, it was completely re-done:
“2010 will be our 50th year in the business, and we are kicking it off with the most aggressive promotion in the history of our company,” said Domino’s Chairman and CEO David A. Brandon. “This is the biggest product introduction we’ve done since…well, pizza.”
The primary changes include:
Crust – A garlic seasoned crust with parsley baked to a golden brown.
Sauce – Sweeter, bolder tomato sauce with a medley of herbs and a red pepper kick.
Cheese – Shredded cheese made with 100% real mozzarella and flavored with just a hint of provolone.
I figured this was a pretty big deal in the test market, but decided to call and ask just to make sure I wasn’t wasting my hard earned money on an old Domino’s pizza. The guy who answered the phone had no idea what I was talking about, and had to ask a manager about “some new recipe”. After receiving confirmation, he advised me that they were just using a brushed on garlic sauce for the crust, a new red sauce, and a different cheese blend. So basically they just caught up to the concept of actually applying flavor to crust, added a couple new seasonings to their sauce, removed the “fake mozzarella”, and added a hint of provolone? This wasn’t sounding good.
Upon my first glance, I couldn’t find much that was different. It looked like the same Domino’s pizza I’ve been eating for the last 25 years. The only difference I could see was that the cheese looked a little thicker. Pretty sure that was from the pizza guy just using too much, though.
The crust looked exactly the same, except for a few green flakes and what looks like a combination of butter and Parmesan cheese. I expected to see clear evidence of parsley and garlic, but I couldn’t even tell from appearance that this crust was any different than before.
The garlic and parsley flavor was actually pretty good, despite being nearly invisible. The crust resembles garlic bread, and is little better than the old crust. Of course, if you go to Hungry Howie’s this is a pretty standard thing. Even DiGiorno’s has a garlic bread pizza. Nice improvement, but not too impressive.
The “100% real mozzarella” cheese blend tastes exactly like the old cheese blend. I did notice a little difference in texture, but that might have just been from the amount of cheese. I couldn’t tell where this “hint of provolone” was. Didn’t taste anything but mozzarella. The whole time I was just trying to figure out what wasn’t 100% real about the mozzarella being used before.
The sauce was actually a pretty nice improvement. I was a little worried about the advertised sweetness of the new sauce, because I hate sweet pizza sauce. To my surprise, sauce tasted less sweet than before. I’m not sure if it was because of the addition of the red pepper, but the sauce was nicely balanced between sweet and spicy. This was the most impressive change of the new recipe, which is good because their old sauce wasn’t much to talk about.
Bottom line, Domino’s decided to switch up their pizza a little bit to get rid of the odd taste of cardboard and made a couple nice improvements. It’s not much of a change, and I think it’s more of a marketing ploy to get people eating their pizzas for a couple weeks. I wouldn’t reccomend running out to try it, but next time you try the pizza you might notice a couple changes.
A few months ago, I gave a less than favorable review to Potbelly’s BIG sandwiches. I always wanted to like Potbelly, but their sandwiches were way too small for a big eater like myself. When I heard they were making larger versions of their normal sandwiches, I decided to put the name to the test. What I got was a whole bunch of bread and what seemed like the normal amount of meat. I decided to take matters into my own hands and create a sandwich that actually lived up to the name. If you’re going to advertise a big sandwich put the name in all caps, you need to deliver me one hell of a sandwich.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you what a BIG sandwich should look like. A BIG Wreck with double meat(salami, roast beef, turkey, ham, and Swiss cheese), mayo, oil, and seasoning. A delicious sandwich that I guarantee will provide your recommended daily calorie intake in one meal. The lady went a little crazy on the mayo, but I wasn’t complaining. This sandwich was delicious. I might go back once per month just to ensure that I’m not malnourished.
I should also point out that this sandwich is cut in half, and the following pictures are only one of the halves.
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