Candy In The Media

When you have a water jet to cut jawbreakers, you can make some pretty cool art.

CC

It's A New Episdoe of Junk Fud On The Road!!!

In the latest episode of Junk Fud On The Raod, Allison and Chris talk about their trip to the Canary Islands. It was a remote island with the best bananas ever.

CC

This Week In Candy

It seems I'm at the beginning of a cold.  It doesn't seem like a really bad one, but it's not great either. I could have got the cold because I've been out of the house a lot more lately, or Allison might have given it to me (she was a little sick a while ago). It also could have come from the fact that I've been really busy, but just maybe it came from the toxic shark meat I ate the other day, but really who knows. No matter how I got the cold, I'm always looking for new fun ways to get rid of it, so if you have any ideas, let me know on Facebook or Twitter.

If I did get the cold from working hard, it might have been because of the fact that I've been creating a lot of fun content for candycritic.org.  This includes a new episode of Junk Fud On The Road, that will be coming out later this week.  This episode is all about the time Allison and I went to the Canary Islands. While on this trip we did see a few Canaries, our food choices weren't nearly as fun.

The other project I worked on this weekend has to do with eating shark meat, and it comes in the form of a special episode of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!!  We finished shooting the episode this weekend, but it won't be going online until the beginning of April.  All I can tell you is it's one of the most intense foods we've ever featured on the show.

This week's new candy review comes from one of our Valentine's Day reviews.  I reviewed the special deluxe Hershey's Kiss, and I realized that I've never reviewed the classic Kisses.  So this week we're fixing that problem. Click here to find out why I've waited so long.

CC

Candy In The Media

Sometimes I have problems just getting through a handful of gummy worms, this seems impossible.

CC

Does Suzy Q's Get An "A"?

Over the last few months I've been working on something called the Doughnut Project.  The goal of the Doughnut Project is to sample as many different Tim Horton's doughnuts as possible. Every time I try a new doughnut I post it on our Instagram feed as well as where I bought it on our Candy Map. It's been a fun project, however one of my friends, Adriana, has been frustrated with me.  She's of the mind that Tim Horton's doughnuts are sub-par, and that a man like myself should not eat these second rate doughnuts.

Adriana has been trying her hardest to get me to expand my doughnut eating experiences, and she started with a local place (here in Ottawa) known as Suzy Q's. Suzy Q's is what I would call a trendy bakery. Trendy bakeries are places that generally sell only one or two different items, they're also often sparsely decorated, and only hire young people to work at the front. With trendy bakeries you also often find that excess is the creative inspiration, that or sometimes weird flavour combinations.  More often than not this kind of bakery does not appeal to me, mostly because many of these places focus on the weird or the excess, rather than putting out a good product. It's very rare for a trendy bakery to impress me, but when it does it's often spectacular.

Suzy Q's does fall into the category of trendy bakery, and at times it also falls into the traps of trendy bakeries. They seem to fall into this trap more in the excessive than the strange flavours, however there are a few strange flavours as well.  The good thing is that while they do fall into the traps sometimes, they also offer some pretty tasty doughnuts as well.  I sampled four different doughnuts, the Grasshopper, Dirty Chocolate, Salted Caramel, Bumbleberry.

I picked the Dirty Chocolate because when I checked out their website, I thought it looked the best.  I tried the Salted Caramel because when I went to the store it looked the best.  I picked the Bumbleberry because it looked very pretty. Finally I let the guy at the counter pick the Grasshopper. One of these doughnuts was very disappointing, one was OK, and two were pretty good.

The worst was shockingly the Dirty Chocolate, it was bland and had a weird texture. The OK doughnut was the salted caramel, it tasted fine, but the texture of the caramel was a little weak. I was really happy with both the Bumbleberry and Grasshopper, both had interesting textures, and I really liked the crunchy marshmallows on the Grasshopper. All around it was a fine experience, and I regret nothing, but it's not likely that I'll return to Suzy Qs.

The problem is simple, price.  I paid ten dollars for four doughnuts. I'm not sure if you can just buy one doughnut, but that price is not listed on their sign. So I felt a little forced to buying four doughnuts, and at ten bucks they're not cheap. It's not that I object to the idea of paying two-fifty for a doughnut, but that doughnut better blow my mind away.  These doughnuts were OK, but they didn't change the way I saw doughnuts.  They weren't a creative leap in the field of doughnuts, and the quality of the doughnut itself wasn't anything inspiring.  If someone gave me one to eat, I'd be happy, but I don't know if I could justify paying that much again for something that didn't blow my mind.

Do you know a doughnut place that I should try, let me know on Facebook or Twitter. Also, how do you spell the name of these ring shaped pastries, doughnut or donut?

CC

This Week In Candy

The picture above terrifies me. I'm not going to get into detail about this other than to tell you that it's the subject of a future episode of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!!, and I'm very afraid. This particular food is legendary, and I'm very nervous.  Allison (who bought this for me) is, I believe, looking forward to my torture.  I'm not going to say what it is right now, but I'm very certain that I'm not going to like this at all.

On a better note, last week I checked out a new doughnut shop here in Ottawa, and later this week I'm posting a review. It was a pretty interesting experience, and you can read all about it right here on Wednesday. This week we're also starting to organize the Easter content for candycritic.org.  We're going to post a few facts later this month on our Instagram feed Snack Facts, and we're trying to pick out the perfect candy review. I might even work on a few Easter candy inventions as well. Make sure to follow us on Twitter or Facebook to keep up with day to day goings on here.

This week's new review should have been a great gummy experience, but it failed.  It didn't fail as much as it really disappointed, and that might be worse than failing. Click here to read the review, and find out why I hate being disappointed.

CC

Candy In The Media

I haven't had gum stuck in my hair for such a long time, however it could happen again.

CC

This Week In Candy

St Patrick's Day is coming, and I have to be honest, I've got nothing. This really isn't a holiday that's associated with any kind of candy or junk food, unless you count beer as a junk food.  The closest I could come up with is any kind of green candy, but that just seems disrespectful. It's not that there aren't any great Irish candies either, I just don't have any I can review right now.  That and many Irish candies are also popular in England, Scotland and Wales. I have a hard time splitting them up, and I wouldn't want to make any assumptions.  So don't take the lack of celebrating St Patrick's Day on candycritic.org as a sign of disrespect, I just don't think it's really appropriate.

I really do feel bad about not celebrating St Patrick's Day this week on candycritic.org, so to make it up we're having a review-a-thon of sorts. I thought the only way to celebrate the Irish is to celebrate the potato. I know that associating the potato with the Irish is a little offensive, however I know there's some historical merit when it comes to the potato famine. So all this week we're going to post a new potato chip review every day. Make sure to follow us on Twitter or Facebook to keep up with all our fun (and festive?) potato chip reviews this week.

The first review this week is not really celebrating the Irish, unless you count the potato thing which we've already decided might be slightly offensive.  Today's potato chip review is all about Canada, it's a special flavour of potato chip dedicated to two very Canadian flavours, poutine and bacon.  While the idea was there, the execution didn't go as well. Click here to find out why.

CC

Candy In The Media

See how wedding cakes have evolved.

CC

It's A New Episode Of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!!

Some people tell me that I'm full of beans, well on this episode of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!! I am.  I never knew that there was such a variety of flavours of baked beans, I also never knew how good some of them might be.

CC

This Week In Candy

Yesterday was my birthday, and for the most part I managed to hold off on the extreme eating portion of this celebration. That was until the night of my birthday.  A group of friends invited me out to an Indian buffet restaurant. I did not know that it was a buffet before we left, but I was pleasantly surprised when we got there.  Then I learned that this Indian restaurant had a pretty decent dessert section at this buffet.  After a big plate of food I figured it was safe to indulge with a few desserts. I made sure I was filled right up, after all it's my birthday.  Then the cake came out, yup, my awesome friends got me a classic birthday cake,it was yummy, the entire quarter of this cake that I ate.  I made it through the whole day without overindulging on my birthday, then my great friends had to ruin it for me. As soon as I finish writing this, I'm going to go lie down for a while.

As for what to expect here at candycritic.org this week, I can tell you that you shouldn't expect much more today, my stomach hurts too much and I just want to go to sleep.  Later this week however you can expect a new episode of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!! Just in case my stomach wasn't sore enough already.  I'm also working on a special article in my head about sugar taxes.  I was inspired by a study done in Berkley on the subject.  You can check back here to see all this stuff, and keep up with our day to day activities on our Facebook and Twitter feeds.

This week's new review is a really unique candy.  I'm not sure if these gummies are something new, but they are new to me. Crunchy Gummies caught my attention, but the candy itself delivered. You can read our latest review right here.

CC

Candy in The Media

Deconstructed Burger Behind The Scenes from Steve Giralt on Vimeo.

See how the magic of food styling can make any food yummy.

CC