That Jolly Bee

This isn’t my first Jollibee experience, but it’s my first at a Jollibee in the Philippines, and I think that can be important. My first Jollibee experience was in the Middle East, and it was okay, but not great. There were two problems with that visit that were completely eliminated this time around. The first issue was my own, I didn’t know what to order. It seems like a silly problem, you should be able to order anything on a menu at a fast food restaurant and enjoy it. The reality is that it’s not the case. Fast food restaurants offer different items for different tastes, and some items are more popular than others. The popular (or better) items may not be intuitive to people unfamiliar with the restaurant or the culture where that restaurant originated. In other words, I ordered a burger at Jollibee the first time I went and it wasn’t great.

The second problem when I visited Jollibee in the Middle East is an issue with importation. One of the balancing acts fast food places must do when expanding outside of their original country of origin is authenticity versus adaptation. Authenticity is the attempt to offer customers at their new restaurants the same thing that they had at their original restaurants. Adaptation is the barriers you have in this new country, which could include limited ingredients, staff that may not have experience cooking and serving that food and dinners who may not like all of the aspects of the food you're serving. It can be very complicated and can lead to the experience I had at the Middle Eastern Jollibee.

This time however I was not only prepared (I know the fried chicken is the thing to eat), but being in the Philippines I know I’m getting the real deal. My experience this time was totally better. First of all the chicken is amazing, juicy on the inside and a nice crunchy coating. We had 3 pieces of chicken between the two of us and there wasn’t a bad one.

The spaghetti is the one item I ordered from both the Middle East Jollibee and the one in the Philippines. The difference was pretty significant. I remember the spaghetti in the Middle East being sticky and over cooked. The cheese was also not as plentiful and I could be wrong but I don’t think it was the same kind of cheese. It could be the quality of the cooking, or just my imagination, but the sauce this time didn’t seem as sweet. Don’t get me wrong, Filipino spaghetti sauce is very sweet compared to western spaghetti sauce, but this didn’t feel like I was eating sugar glazed spaghetti.

We also decided to try out the desserts this time, since I heard the pies are amazing. We also got a cookie sundae as well. The sundae was good, but the pie was excellent. While Allison actually preferred the sundae, I thought the sundae was fairly average with the two improvements being the quality of the cookie bits and the fact that they used a hard shell chocolate sauce. The pie on the other hand was perfect. The filling tasted a bit more like peach than mango, but frankly I really enjoyed that. The crust was crunchy and deep fried (seriously why did McDonald's start baking their pies in some countries), delicious!

It was a fine meal, and as of writing this we still have a few days left here in the Philippines and another stop at Jollibee is completely possible. I’m not sure how I feel about attempting another Jollibee outside of the Philippines, because of my previous experience. This did however make me think about a few of the other fast food and restaurant chains I’ve tried outside of their country of origin, particularly the ones that I didn’t really like that much… I’m looking at you Hardee’s.

The Great Question, Pie VS Sundae

 I do realize that I didn't mention McFlurries, but I'm kind of old school like that.

CC

Define The Word Pie

The most I see of the world, the harder it is for me to define the word "pie". When I say the word "pie", your mind probably first pops into a round baked treat filled with things like apples and cherries. It likely has some kind of top crust keeping these fillings piping hot too. But maybe you'll then start to think about cream pies, and instead of a hot filling it's cold, and likely has no top crust. Then you might wander to the kind of pies that you find in stores and gas stations, a single piece of crust folded over and stuffed with fillings (like this week's featured review). Finally, if you're Greek (or if you've visited Greece), you might think of pies as also being any pastry filled with vegetables and cheese. This is only the tip of the iceberg, as I'm sure this post alone might turn up people with other "pies".

Check out my latest pie review because it's filled with chocolate.

CC

It's A Spooky New Review (well, not really) and a Frightful New Episode Of Monday Morning Breakfast Thoughts (not really either) - M&M's "White Pumpkin Pie"

I think the only thing about this review that might be even slightly scary is the fact that it's yet another pumpkin spice/pumpkin pie themed treat. Of all the food trends that I know of this one confuses me a lot. In fact the only trend that confuses me more is the crazy flavours of Starbucks frappuccinos.

Click here to read the review and find out why I'm confused about pumpkin spice stuff.


This week's episode of Chris's Monday Morning Breakfast Thoughts is also not really scary, although I do attempt to make a Halloween/creepy breakfast treat, and I''m wearing a costume. So it's kind of creepy and Halloween themed.

Make sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to keep up with all the traveling we'll be doing in the future.

And don't forget to follow us on Instagram to keep up with some Snack Facts and our special tea of the day project.

CC

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

This is not only a double episode (two snacks), but both parts were filmed on the road (Singapore and Thailand). In this episode we try two very unique McDonald's pies, both on the savory side. Savory McDonald's pies are rare in North America, but all around the world they have some pretty unique savory pies, and some of them are actually pretty good.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to find out what we're eating next.

Also make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with everything we put out.

CC

It's Time For An Apple Candy Review... To Keep The Doctor Away?

Seeing as I'm presently in a place that's really warm, I don't really feel like summer is over. This means that I didn't really feel the fall.  That was until today. Today I was online looking at pictures of friends, and children of friends going out trick-or-treating, and I saw all of the amazing fall colours all around them. This made me nostalgic for fall, and instantly made me think of apples. That's why this review is perfect... except for the fact that it kind of sucked. I guess I'll have to look around for more fall themed candy to review, at least before Christmas starts up.

Click here to read the disappointing fall candy review.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook, and let us know what your favourite fall treat is.

We're also going to be posting some great new facts on our Instagram feed called Snack Facts.

CC

Candy Critic Dessert Club – Our First Experiment - Apple Pie Pizza

Today represents our first ever experimental dessert. I have a few references for this creation (namely I've looked up a few apple pie filling recipes), but for the most part I'm winging this. The prep for this recipe is probably the most time consuming, and it should be done well ahead of time.

Ingredients

3 Apples (peeled and sliced into small pieces)
2 tables spoons lemon juice
2 cups of water
1 cup of brown sugar
1/8 cups of corn starch
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of grated cheddar cheese
Pizza dough (make your own or buy it, it's up to you)

For prep you have to make pie filling, and to make the apple pie filling you first have to prep your apples.  Peel your apples, take out the core, and quarter them.  Then slice your quarters into fairly thin slices.  As you cut your apples put them in a bowl with the lemon juice and mix them around.  This will keep your apples from going too brown. You can skip the lemon if you like, but it makes the apples more presentable.

When the apples are done, put your two cups of water on the stove and turn on the stove to start the boil.  Immediately (before the water boils), ad the brown sugar, corn starch, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, and salt.  Stir this mixture together constantly over the heat.  It should boil fairly quickly and then immediately it should start to thicken up.  When it's just starting to thicken up, take it off the heat and ad the apples.  Put the pot back on the heat and stir it around until it warms up again. Then turn down the heat and let it simmer for about 5 minutes (or until the apples are just getting a little soft).

If you want you can cook these apples until they're completely soft, but for the pizza it's nice to have a little apple crunch.  Once the apple are done, remove them from the heat and pour them into a bowl. Let the apples cool a bit, and either store them for later, or use once cool.  While you're waiting for the apples to cool, you can grate your cheddar cheese, how much cheese you use depends on your taste.  Some people don't really like the idea of cheddar cheese on an apple pie, so you might even want to skip this step entirely.  If you love cheddar cheese on your apple pie, go for the whole cup, if not just lightly sprinkle it on.

Once your toppings are ready, you just have to choose how you want to bake it.  I suggest baking the crust slightly before putting on the ingredients.  In this case it was decided to bake the pizza on the BBQ (a great way to bake pizza I might ad).  Roll out the dough if need be, then put it in the oven or on the barbecue until it's fairly cooked.  Once after it's cooked, put on the apple pie filling, and sprinkle on the cheese. Return the pizza to the oven/BBQ until it's warmed up and the cheese has melted.  Since all the ingredients are cooked already, there's no need to worry about cooking anything you just have to warm things up.  Once the cheese is melted, remove from the over, cut and serve warm.

This recipe worked out fairly well.  I did however have to drain some of the juice from the pie filling before adding it to the pizza.  What I suggest, is put the filling on the pizza dough with a slotted spoon, then if the pizza seems dry, just poor on the extra liquid from the topping as needed.  The cheese was a pleasant surprise, I didn't know if it would work, but it did.  The cheese added just a nice amount of savory to the sweet pie filling. I went with a little less cheese, mostly because I was sharing this pizza with friends and some weren't adventurous foodies. The filling made enough for at least two pizzas, since it stores well, I froze the second half.  Dessert pizzas aren't a hit with everybody, but the group that ate this one seemed pretty pleased.

CC

Cypriot Snacks

I love traveling... wait a minute, I don't love traveling all the time, I actually hate "traveling" particularly when it's airplane travel.  But I love to go to new places, and I particularly love trying new snacks.  It's just that whole airport, airplane, and even the taxi ride to the airport really is no fun at all.  I do however try and make the best of it, and before any trip I like to check out all of the crazy, and overpriced treats available in the airport.

The folks at Mars never let me down with the huge assortment of M&Ms related products.  If you've never been to an airport then you've probably only seen about 2% of the stuff Mars makes to support M&Ms.

I also love to check out the "local" products available in airports.  These are here as last minute purchases and are always over priced.  I particularly got a kick out of this jar of olives I found in the Athens airport, although I'm not sure I qualify to eat them.

The other thing one always finds at every airport is vending machines.  Much like the stores they're very expensive.  I'm assuming that this kind of thing is geared towards the business traveler that has a per diem that accounts for spending 5 euros for a cup of coffee out of a machine.

I also noticed something strange about this particular machine, it had a wire hanging out the side.  I'm not sure what one plugs into a coffee machine, but I think it would be really cool if it was a charging station for gadgets.  That way both you and your cell phone could get a charge in the morning.

Finally on the plane (after an hour or so delay), I noticed something strange on my box of food.  What language is the first one on this box.  I only ask because I've never heard anybody say "Bon appetite" in my life.  Most English speaking people I know use the French "Bon appetit", and if we did translate it we would probably say "Good appetite".  I always thought it was just a French expression that English speakers use.

Finally in Cyprus, I was sure to check out as much as I could on the snacking front.  In Nicosia I made a beeline across the border to see what kind of Turkish delight they had on offer.  I discovered a new version that I'd never seen before, it was a marshmallow based Turkish delight, and I hope to have a review up very soon.

I love venturing to the shops in Northern Cyprus, I particularly like the name of this place.

On the south side of the city I visited the local Tiger shop (really it's one of the best new chain stores in Europe), and I found these pretzels.  While the pretzels themselves were nothing impressive, I think they have one of the greatest names ever given to a salty snack.  They're called "These Pretzels are Making me Thirsty", a great homage to Seinfeld.

On this trip I learned about a love the Cypriot people have with carob.  Most people think of carob as being something to make fake chocolate out of, but here in Cyprus they love the stuff.  They make a carob syrup that they put on everything, and I picked up a bottle to sample later on.  I'm sure I'll post something about it in the future.

I'd also heard stories of a place called Platres Chocolate Workshop, in the Troodos mountains.  It is said to be the best place in the whole country to get chocolate, and to be a very uniquely Cypriot chocolate shop.  One doesn't normally associate Cyprus with chocolate, but really the island has so many flavours in their desserts that work so well with chocolate.

Platres Chocolate Workshop not only has a great selection of fine chocolates, but it has John, the chocolatier.  If you ever plan on visiting Platres Chocolate Workshop, make sure to book some time in your schedule.  John is a talker, and he describes his chocolate shop not as a place to buy chocolates, but a place to learn about chocolate.  The fact that you walk out of the shop with a box full of chocolates is an added bonus.  John will explain each and every chocolate he has in his case with a great amount of detail.  He explains where he's been to show off his skills, and what he's learned in his years making chocolate.  As you might expect, he even teaches classes on the subject of chocolate.  If you're in Cyprus and you love snacks and sweet treats, a visit to Platres Chocolate Workshop is an experience you must have.  As far as the chocolates go, well that's a review I'm writing right now.

My final night in Cyprus I felt it was important to sample a treat that I had on my last visit.  Strangely enough it comes from McDonald's, but I assure you it's very unique.

I've only ever seen them in Cypriot McDonald's, but the strawberry custard pie is one of the greatest desserts any fast food chain has ever produced.  The custard balances the sweet strawberry perfectly, and the crunchy deep fried crust adds the perfect texture.  If you re-shaped these and served them on a fine plate, even the finest gourmet would love them.  The perfect way to end my fun Cypriot adventure.

CC

Candy News

Tiny art painted on snack food makes me appreciate the fine art, and it also makes me hungry.

Stupid or genius, covering yourself in a Mentos and jumping into a pool of Coca-Cola, you decide.

Indonesia is the third largest producer of cocoa, and finally they're starting to eat the stuff.

Some people make beautiful art out of food, others make beautiful art that look like food.

Someone invented a machine to automatically feed you Doritos, and it goes horribly wrong.

According to a new study, there's a connection between eating candy and stress.

The Cherpumple sounds like a really lame cartoon character villain, but it's actually one of the best dessert ideas ever.

If you want to keep up with all of the daily candy news that we come across as it happens, follow us on Twitter.

CC

Stuff I Want To Try

Pumpkin Pie Pop-Tarts - Kellogg's - While I'm picky about Pumpkin pie, I do really like PopTarts. - Click here to learn more about this treat.

CC

It's National Potato Chip Day and Pi Day!!!

Today is a two for one holiday... sort of.  The most popular holiday event happening today is something called Pi Day.  I'm sure many would argue that today is not about slicing off a warm piece of apple pie, but instead a holiday celebrating a number with no known ending.  Fact is, pies are round, and pies are tasty, so many people celebrate Pi Day with a pie.  It's only logical.

Today is also National Potato Chip Day, and this day is far less confusing.  Potato chips have become one of the staple snacks all over the world.  It's pretty amazing to think that the potato chip was said to be invented only 160 years ago.

CC

It's National Pie Day!!!

I'm not really sure what defines a pie.  Does it have to be round, does it have to be sweet, does it have to have a crust on the top?  I'm pretty sure that all pies need a filling, and some kind of crust, but after that I'm just not sure.  McDonald's pipes are not round, they don't really have a top, and in Japan they offer a savory one, yet I would not argue that it is not a pie.  Does that mean that a quiche is a pie, or a flan?  Any advice on the topic is greatly appreciated.

CC

It's National Boston Cream Pie Day!!!

I have to say that my biggest regret when I visited Boston was not trying a slice of Boston Cream pie.  In fact I can't say that I've ever tasted Boston Cream pie in my entire life.  I've eaten many a Boston Cream donut, but I've never had this cream in a pie.

CC

Friday's Candy Links

How well do you know your cake history?  I apparently knew very little.

I think the new Dunkin' Donuts homestyle apple pie looks more like a strudel and nothing like a pie at all.

Speaking of pies, here's a great collection of the nerdiest pies ever baked.

CC

Classic/Creative Candy Advertising - Banana Cream Pie

The only thing less appetizing than the pie depicted in this ad, is the creepy soldier smiling in the top corner.  I'm not sure why marketing banana cream pies to soldiers is important, but I'm no marketing genius either.

I found this ad on Boing Boing.

CC

It's Pecan Pie Day!!!

It's not my favorite pie, but it's Allison's, so I eat it often.

CC

Pie Flavoured Gum

There are few foods that attempt to imitate others foods the way candy does.  In fact the only one I can think that even comes close is vegetarian food, with their version of vegetarian meats.  Candy on the other hand doesn't try to copy the food exactly, but instead they attempt to simulate it with a twist.  This gum is a prime example, and it makes me wonder.  Has anybody ever tried to make bubble gum flavoured pie before?

Click here to read the latest review.

CC

Thursday's Candy Links

The price of cocoa keeps going up, strikes hit, and then this expensive cocoa goes to waste siting in ports, I hate economics.

If you find yourself in Abilene Texas, why not check out Vletas Candy.

Storing candy?  This article about how leftovers go bad might give you some insight as to why you're old candy goes bad too.

Check out these awesome thanksgiving themed cupcakes.

Boing Boing found the greatest Thanksgiving dessert ever.

CC

Twinkie Flavours

Apparently there was a poll done recently on the Twinkie's website.  The poll asked people to vote on a new flavour of Twinkie that they'd like to try.  The winner, Lemon Meringue, so in 2012 look out for it.

Click here to read more.

CC

Pie Filling On Ice Cream

Well, Allison is out of town, and I thought I would pick myself a nice little ice cream treat to cheer myself up.  I decided that I would check out the various ice cream accoutrement available at my local store as well.  I saw all the chocolate, butterscotch and caramel sauces, but nothing stood out to me at all.  Then on the shelf I noticed that the cans of strawberry pie filling seemed to be implying that it was also good on ice cream.

I rarely pass up the opportunity to try a new treat idea, particularly one that is gelatinous and in a can.  So how was it on ice cream?

I have to say that it wasn't as successful as I'd hoped.  First of all the filling is a little thick to be poured on ice cream.  I was expecting a more syrup type application of strawberries with a few whole canned strawberries inside.  Instead it was more like pouring a Jello like jam substance on my ice cream, and as you can see it kept sliding off my ice cream into the bottom of the bowl.  The flavour was also super sweet, and mixed with a sweet ice cream it didn't work at all.  It needs the savory crust to balance it out a little.

CC