Showing posts with label Easton Town Center. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Easton Town Center. Show all posts

Friday, September 11, 2015

Day 254 - Baked Cheese Crunchies (Cheese Flavored Corn Snack)

I have recused myself from reviewing this product.  I like regular style Cheetos, but not the crunchy ones, and these just look too much like Crunchy Cheetos for me.  I fear my dislike of Crunchy Cheetos would negatively and unfairly color my review, so I am allowing a CHEETO EXPERT, David, to review these alone. 

David munching on Baked Cheese Crunchies while on a road trip ON HIS BIRTHDAY!
We picked up this snack in the Columbus (Easton) Ohio Trader Joe’s.  We saw this AWESOME sign there, which reminded me of another reason why I love TJ’s:

As if their good quality food, great prices, friendly employees, and clean stores weren't enough reasons to HEART Trader Joe's - here is yet another - THEY GIVE BACK TO THE COMMUNITIES they are in!!  Thanks TJ's!
Ok, on to the review of the product!

David:  (While snacking on these Baked Cheese Crunchies in the car on our drive home from Cincinnati) These are good…  They have less CHEESE and SALT taste than Cheetos.  But the bready taste of the actual corn thing-y inside is quite pleasant and flavorable.

Here is what the bag looks like
Susan:  Do you prefer THESE or the Crunchy Cheetos?

David:  CRUNCHY CHEETOS!  Cuz I like the salt. 

Susan:  Do these taste HEALTHIER than a Crunchy Cheeto?

David:  Yeah, I think they do…

Susan:  They come in a smaller bag.

David:  Yeah.  And it feels like I’m not eating as much powdered, flavored stuff.

Susan:  So what rating do you give ‘em?

David:  a 3.75

Susan:  Are they a good road trip snack??

David:  They are a good road trip snack.  IF you can’t get your hands on Cheetos…

Susan:  Have you ever eaten so many Cheetos that you threw up??

David:  Why, yes I have…

Susan:  (giggling) Last question – would you like a taste of this COCONUT WATER that I just opened to wash the Crunchies down with??  (giggle)  (Note - to read the super bad review Coconut Water got recently, look here:  http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/09/day-251-coconut-water.html

David:  …  I am good, thanks…

As you can see, he was not sure he would like them while we were at the store, but all turned out okay
Price - $1.99
Rating – 3.75

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Day 251 - Coconut Water

We hit up yet ANTOHER Trader Joe’s!!  This one was in Columbus, Ohio in an area called Easton Town Center.   And man sakes ALIVE is it in a fancy outdoor mall!  There was just about every store there you could imagine – J. Crew, West Elm, PF Chang’s, heck, there was even a VITAMIN WORLD and a WORLD OF BEER!  Talk about a good combination of stores, eh?  J 

Look - our 18th Trader Joe't to visit in the last 251 days!  This time in Columbus, Ohio
The Trader Joe’s was nice.  There was a wine tasting (wheeee!) and little bits of cheese.  One of the wines being sampled was the Grand Reserve Meritage that I reviewed on day 13 of this blog.  It has the distinction of being one of the few (perhaps the only??) product to get only half of a star! 

But I won’t hold the fact that they were sampling what I consider to be a really crappy wine.  The store was nice.  The employees were friendly.  The shelves were stocked.  (Well, they were out of the infamous Emma Pearl Pinot Noir that I reviewed a couple of days ago that we have fallen in love with…  They are the second store we visited that was o-u-t of Emma Pearl…)

Anyway, we were not there for wine.  We were there to find products we had never tried before!  And that we did. 

For a few months I have been curious to try COCONUT WATER.  I have seen it in stores (including Trader Joe’s I think) in strangely shaped cardboard-ish containers…  But the containers have always been LARGE or sold in packs of 4 or 6.  And, being a commitment phobic, I did not want to COMMIT to that much coconut water.  I just wanted to taste it.  So when I noticed a bottle of it in the refrigerated section of the Columbus Trader Joe’s I decided that was my chance.  I would risk it!

Here you have it - 355 mL of 100% pure COCONUT WATER
Though I am a fan of coconut, for some reason I was not a true believer that this product would be delicious.  I like coconut, as you will see if you do a search on the word “coconut” on this blog.  But I was LEERY of coconut water.

See - even before cracking the lid open I was leery...
And now that I have tasted it, I can say without a doubt that I was right to be cautious.

Bleck.

Basically, to me, this is the poopiest part of the coconut squeezed into a bottle and slapped with an expensive price tag.  I know by reading the label that there are one and a half coconuts in this one bottle, so I understand the high cost.  But the water is not “thirst quenching” even though I thought that was one of the claims to fame for coconut water. 

I don't begrudge them the price.  The TASTE, however, is another matter.
I drank it really COLD – right out of the refrigerated section at the store.  I think it would be even worse if it were room temperature.  In fact, I think it would be gaggy if it were room temperature… 

Ok - I am willing to try this...

Taking a sip
Oh yuck...

Ummm, no thank you.
Even though it was David’s birthday, I basically forced him to try the coconut water.  Poor fella.  Here is what he thought:

The birthday boy, willing to give the coconut water a go...

NOT enjoying it.

Ewwww gross.

David wishing I had not forced him to try this one.  Especially on his BIRTHDAY.
David:  “TERRIBLE.  Umm, uhhhh…  Really remarkably UNPLEASANT.  It is like drinking coconut milk but with none of the niceness of that.  I think I can unquestionably give this a ZERO rating.  I would give this a zero rating.  Because I would not take another drink of that even if I were thirsty.”

I disagreed with him on that regard.  If I were super thirsty and say, like on the trashy reality tv show “Naked and Afraid” and someone brought me a bottle of this coconut water from Trader Joe’s, I would drink it.  I give the product a 1.25.

The reason I give it what seems like a “high score” for a product I really disliked is because even though I personally did not like it, I do not really think it is any worse than any OTHER brand of coconut water.   I think it is just coconut water itself that we probably do not like. 

I dumped over half a bottle of this crap, errr, I mean water out when we pulled over on our drive. 

Here is David MUCH happier with a big ice cream sundae for his birthday from a cool place we found in
Zanesville, OH called Tom's Ice Cream Bowl http://www.tomsicecreambowl.com/

Price – $2.99

Rating (average of David’s 0 and my 1.25 rounded up) - .75