Savory Saturday: Sopa Azteca and Tacos Vegetales

Hi, all. It's April, and I'm back from my vacation. I ate farrrr too much unhealthy food, most of which was delicious indeed. This is the only review I'll be writing about my vacation food, though. My wife and I have a tradition of eating in the San Angel Inn at Epcot, which has some of the best restaurant ambiance anywhere in the world.

Sidebar: Not that you asked, but the ride which begins alongside this restaurant has gotten a big upgrade in recent years. I last rode it in 2013, and since then the finale video-screen has been replaced by animatronic figures of The Three Caballeros. They're ancient, in audio-animatronic terms -- they've existed in basically the same form for 46 of the 55 years since Disney started producing AAs. But, they give the ride a real sense of climax. My absolute favorite theme-park blogger, Foxxfur, had this to say: 

The initial climax of Gran Fiesta Tour was just another screen in the back of a stage, and I always found the animation on that final screen to be less inspired than the rest of the animation in the attraction, and especially weak compared to Ward Kimball's masterpiece song sequence from the 1946 film. There's now something that neither El Rio nor Gran Fiesta Tour had in that space: a real sense of payoff, that you rode the boat and reached a goal for a darn good reason.

Sometime since my last visit, there's been another change. The restaurant has finally stopped serving my old favorite, the duck tacos. It seemed wrong to eat duck outside the entrance to a ride which contained a dark joke about Donald's cousin being roasted and served to diners, but they were always tasty. I got a vegetable taco plate instead (and, as you can see, Donald seems happy about the change). The vegetables were well-seasoned, and blended well with the cheese and crema on top. 

I also got the tortilla soup, a perennial favorite of mine in any form. Besides the broth and tortilla strips, it also has avocado, peppers, and cheese. (You can read the official descriptions of both from the menu here.) As always, the ambiance was more impressive than the food here. (But how could it not be?) If you're ever in the area, and have both the funds and even a slight appreciation for Mexican food, I recommend this restaurant with all my heart. Why not make a reservation now?

March's Food Model Spotlight

In honor of Saint Patrick's Day, all the food models for March have been green. In order of their appearance:

The Funko Pop Godzilla is a huge, bulky guy. Like most of the Pop figures, he isn't very articulated. In fact, no part of him is movable at all. I was lucky to be able to balance a potato chip on his arm in one review. But, he looks adorable, and is scaled up from most of the Pop characters.

Playability: 2/10.   Displayability: 8/10.

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Next, the Kidrobot Morbo is a fun guy. I loved the series of Kidrobot Futurama blind boxes, and spent way too much trying to get all my favorite characters. (I ended up with three Frys, for example.) Morbo can turn his head, and rotate his arms. It's not a lot of articulation, but even those few points give him some personality. He even comes with a little accessory of Dr. Flimflam's Vein Cream.

Playability: 5/10. Displayability: 7/10.

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On to our loscannic friends. Naveen is just an accessory, really. He comes alongside the Funko Pop Tiana figure. He can't move or pose at all, really, just sit there. He's scaled just right to sit beside Tiana (and her costars Louis and Dr. Facilier). Still, I think the Funko Pop style works well for this tiny frog.

Playability: 2/10. Displayability: 6/10.

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Finally, Kermit and Robin.  I loved the old Palisades Muppet collection (speaking of toylines I spent far too much on), and was excited to see the new Diamond Select versions in person. They're ... different. I liked the option of the bases for the Palisades figures, which made the characters much more poseable. On the other hand, Diamond has made Kermit extremely articulated. By my count, he has 18 joints! (Robin has 5.) Unfortunately, he doesn't stand very well, so I had to lean him against things for all his photos. Even more unfortunately, his eyes aren't right. It's hard for toymakers to mass-produce Kermit and get the thickness of his pupil-slits correct. (That's also my main complaint about the current Pez design.)

Robin, however, is great. The Diamond Robin looks great, and he can pose well. (The old Palisades Robin was fine, but he could only sit.) But perhaps most importantly, you can get Kermit and Robin (and Bean, who will be showing up in this space next month, and a stool and a banjo -- the more expensive comic-shop version also has a log, a ukelele, and another chair) for like $23. The cheapest Palisades basic Kermit on eBay right this second is $25.00. 

Playability: 8/10. Displayability: 6/10.

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Tomorrow is April 1, but I promise there's no trick; just a salty food review. Oh, and another new food-modeling friend. See you then.

A Spoopy Month #22: Keebler Pumpkin Spice Fudge Stripes

Holy cats, I'm waaaay behind. Here's a quick one for today - promise to make it up to you.

As usual, my own pictures didn't look very good, so here's a picture I stole from someone else (sorry, Margaret!):

Wow. These were a lot better than I expected. They have the same consistency of regular Fudge Stripes, with a thin cookie and nearly as much "fudge" on the bottom. I was expected a graham cracker-style cookie, but the cookie is more like a ginger snap. It's not sharp, but there's a huge amount of ginger there, just perfect to balance with the creamy fudge.

There are a LOT of cookies in this pack, and I don't think I want more than two or three in a setting. Unless I have a cold glass of milk.  ... I just realized I should probably buy some milk after work.

A Spoopy Month #16: Charms Candy Corn Super Blow Pop

I tried to take my own picture of this tasty piece of sugar, but it didn't come out well at all. So here's picture I stole from a quick Google Image search:

When you open a Candy Corn Blow Pop, the first thing you get is the smell. This sucker SMELLS like candy corn. If you opened two at once, your whole house would smell like Halloween for an hour.

And it tastes fantastic, like candy corn and a little bit of butterscotch. That might seem like a low bar to set, but after the disappointment of the Candy Corn Peeps, I'm really enjoying this sucker. This is a nice big lollipop, and as you can see from the picture up there, it looks good and candy-corn-ish. This is the third blogpost I've written while working on this Blow Pop, and I've just now gotten into the bubblegum center, which is... interesting. It's just standard bubblegum, which you wouldn't expect to work with the candy corn, but it's great for the few minutes the sugar sticks around.

Anyway, this cost me under a buck at a local gas station, and you can probably find them at any number of random places near you. OR, if you wanna go all in, why not buy 48 of them?

Charms Candy Corn Super Blow Pops - 48 Pack

A Spoopy Month #11: More Halloween Peeps

I don't like the other two flavors of Halloween Peeps as much as Caramel Apple, but they're both decent.

The Candy Corn Peeps are... not much. The candy corn flavoring isn't great. (In the past, I've loved other candy corn flavored items, like the original Jones Candy Corn soda, until they switched to cane sugar and ruined the recipe.) In fact, it kind of just tastes like a marshmallow, until you hit that white fudge. It sounds silly to say that anything could be overwhelmed by white fudge, but there it is. I've never been impressed by any other attempts to marry candy corn and white chocolate. (This may be controversial, but I didn't like the Candy Corn M & Ms AT ALL.)

On the other hand, I didn't expect to like the marriage of pumpkin spice and white fudge either, but that's really good. On opening the package, you get a nice whiff of nutmeg and cinnamon and such. Though the spices are a little too subtle for my personal taste, I can easily imagine polishing off this pack in a few minutes (though, as previously mentioned, my bathroom scale wouldn't appreciate that).  I've always passed when I saw actual pumpkin-spice-flavored-fudge, but this has changed my mind and I'm onboard with that concept now.

This Halloween season has been my first exploration of the specially-flavored Peeps, and when Easter rolls back around I'm excited to try some of those new ones. Let's see: orange, probably watermelon, I think I remember cotton candy, was there blue raspberry?

Candy Corn  ---  Pumpkin Spice

A Spoopy Month #10: Doombuggies Spook Show Podcast!

Hey, there's a new episode of the Doombuggies Spook Show! It's been a while (the last episode was several months ago), but this more than makes up for it.

Doombuggies.com is, as you may know, a model fansite and probably the oldest really, really good Disney fansite. Like a lot of people, I came upon the website at a time when I wasn't a big fan of Disney parks. And like a lot of people, I give at least partial credit for my current Disney Park fandom to Chef Mayhem, the owner and proprietor, for continual enthusiasm and excellence in showing what Disney attractions are capable of. (His similar site for Pirates of the Caribbean is also good, but not nearly as deep or wide-ranging.)

If you like the Haunted Mansion, but aren't familiar with this site, you should of course spend a few hours in its winding passageways, but the first thing you should do before that is buy their audio drama, "Nuptial Doom." It's just a buck, and well worth your time.

So the podcast in question is, in particular, about The Haunted Mansion in all its incarnations around the world. (The fifth episode features an interview with Imagineer Rolly Crump, who helped design huge chunks of the attraction, along with several hundred other important Disney things.)  But in general, it's also about horror and Halloween and other scare attractions too. I feel like the new episode is a good representation of the breadth of the podcast, but there's another reason I've chosen to link you directly to it.

Mr. Mayhem had the opportunity to interview several Disney voice actors, including the second-most-famous Ghost Host Pete Renaday, and managed to talk them into reenacting the fantastic old LP The Story And Song From The Haunted Mansion. I'd heard the raw version of this recording on Mr. Mayhem's other podcast Mousetalgia a while ago, but this version is more tightly edited and adds a lot more atmosphere and sound effects.

If you care about The Haunted Mansion or Disneyplaces in general, this podcast is highly recommended. If you're a general horror or Halloween fan, it's also recommended for you. If you don't care about any of those things, I thank you for reading this far, and kinda wonder if you have too much time on your hands.

A Spoopy Month #8: Caramel Apple Halloween Peeps

First, an apology: I know that candy isn't, technically speaking, media. But I'm trying to post every day, and I like these candies a whole lot.

So on the back of the review over at Dinosaur Dracula (and if you can't get enough Halloween, please go over there -- it's like the official internet home of the Halloween season), I picked up the Halloween Peeps and I'm eating one a day. (If you know me in person, I've already mentioned my reduced-sugar diet and consequent tiny weightloss. If you don't know me in person, maybe now is a time to count your blessings.)

Anyway, I really enjoyed the apple. It is, as mentioned in that review, very candylike, but it's just tart enough (my favorite real apples are very tart, and I prefer apple candy that's almost sour), and by no means too sweet. The caramel is more than sweet enough, and the pairing of the two is exactly to my taste.

It's been years since I've eaten an actual caramel apple, but my favorite Halloween candy last year was the caramel-apple Twizzlers (they were sweeter than this, not tart enough). Though I haven't seen them this year, the caramel-apple Oreos were waaaaay too sweet for my taste. So, to sum up, this is the most enjoyable caramel-apple snack food I've found so far, though I'm more than willing to try more as they come across my desk.

The cost to buy these online is silly (I paid a buck less per 3-pack at Target, and the shipping is high) but, as always, I like to give you a buy link:

Buy from the Peeps Online Store.