Rebisco Combi cookie crunch review

As I hold the cookie for the first time, the first thing I noticed was how thick it is. It is uncommon to see biscuits these thick, even when Oreo made Double Stuf Oreo the concept of a thick cookie. The next I noticed was how asymmetrical it was. Some cookies don’t look like squares, sometimes they look like rectangles. Some cookies have their wafers sticking out too much and some had uneven cookies. Normally I like randomness in my snacks like in potato chips but this randomness is unwanted.

The cookie design is uninspired too. It looks like a rose in the middle of a pot with its leaves and grass sticking out. The color is like most chocolate biscuits. It’s like some agreement was made by the snack companies around the world to have the same dark chocolate brown color; but even so it looks quite appetizing.

The wafer is not something worth more than a couple of sentences; it is a simple chocolate colored sugar wafer and its taste is not particularly noteworthy. The cream filling is unsurprisingly smaller than the packaging lets go.

Now for the taste, as I bite it the first bite it I noticed how the hard cookie eventually gave way to the softer wafer and cream filling. The wafer did a good job of emulating a moist center by being some soft compared to the cookie. The cookie barely tasted like chocolate at first, while the cream hit my mouth with a very sugary-sweet chocolate flavor. It was more sugar than actual chocolate.

Then as I chew more of the cookie sandwich, the flavor of the cookie is released and is the dominant flavor in the after taste. It is chocolate flavor that is less sweet than cream. It also made my mouth feel dry. It tastes similar to Cream-O’s chocolate cookie and how it makes me thirsty.

I am giving it a commendation for at least trying to be something new but at the same time degrading it for being thing special in the cookie-biscuit world.

Its flavor are all familiar: chocolate, wafer and cookie, have all been done before most notably in other Rebisco cookie sandwiches ,like other Combi sandwiches, and is too sweet with sugar making up for a third of the weight.

Rating: :-| Nothing special but not too terribly bad.
Price: Around Php 5 for a pack of 3 sandwiches at my local supermarket. (10 packs for 49.50 pesos)
PS: Will update with nutritional info.

Goya Max^3 Triple Choc Review

Actual first impression (I recorded myself):

Oh my, the chocolate is weak. The rice crispies aren’t crispy at all. Its kinda soggy.   <takes a bite of one of the crispies>. Oh wait, it is kinda crispy. It’s the wafer! Unlike some other wafers like Rebisco’s wafer and some other brand did the chocolate covered wafer well. This one, the wafer is soggy. <takes bite>.  I think the idea here is basically you have a lot of chocolate-flavored goodies (* the wafer and crispies) so that you can have less quality chocolate coating.

Apparently Goya wanted to remove a letter of 'choco' to save on money, and while sounding hipster at the same time.

Initially, Max^3 looked pretty good. The chocolate coating was nice dark chocolate brown but when I touched it there was something off. It felt a little greasy which hinted to the taste later. When halved the inside look good as well. There were several layers of wafer with chocolate filling. The rice crispies that covered it look good too. They had a hint of brown which is probably the chocolate flavor.

Taking my first bite, the first thing I noticed was the lack of chocolate flavor. Sugar is the main ingredient of Max^3 but it wasn’t sweet. The chocolate barely tasted like chocolate but tasted more like oil, a normal taste for cheaper chocolates. The wafer wasn’t crispy and wasn’t a sugar wafer which I was expecting for a snack like this. In fact it was a little soggy, and ruined the feel of the snack. The crunch came mostly from the rice crispies, which did taste a little like chocolate.

I didn’t enjoy it. I was expecting a competitor to choco mucho, which is a classic Filipino snack. I got the big bar, there was a smaller bar half the weight (20g) and size of this bar.

Rating: :-( 

PRIFOOD Snax Hits Review

Prifoods is relatively unknown snack Food Company started around 1990, and as far as I know have little adverts. I have seen them making affordable snack alternatives to the big brands. Their Corn Chips are price-wise on par or lower than the competition. I found a bag of Hits under its direct competitor Oishi’s Pillows, part of my classic 50 pinoy snacks. For 6 Php I decided to try this out.

Opening, I can find that the snacks are not the same color as the packaging (cookie brown vs dark brown) which betrays my trust in the packaging. Hopefully they would fix that. The smell was the weak smell of sweet cocoa that hints to the flavor of the snack

The rice flour shell offers no flavor own its own. It’s weak and easily gives way when you bite it and melts in your mouth if you don’t. Biting into it, the chocolate filing bursts out inside my mouth. Its not too sweet and not too bitter. However, there is something off. Maybe it’s the texture and the hint of hydrogenated fat that is common in lower-end chocolates like Goya’s 17 php chocolate bars.

It’s a pleasant snack to eat with its not too sweet chocolate filling and a complimenting shell. Its main competitor is Oishi’s Pillows and is on par with it. It’s a great snack without bringing anything new to the table.

       Rating: :-) "Great and would recommend"

Jack n’ Jill Fun Fries Review

Jack n’ Jill Fun Fries is a small bag in the middle of bigger competition when I found it in the supermarket. It was right beside Jack n’ Jill’s classics like Piattos and Oishi’s Potato Fries. I bought it for 5 pesos. It reminded me of the times when other snacks of the same size was available for 5 pesos but now have gotten more expensive.

The fries are uniformly sized, hollow and are of a vibrant orange. Breaking one let off a satisfying crunch. The size is awkwardly between Pik-Nik’s fries and Oishi’s Potato Fries; its size mimics closely the fries of McDonald's. This size made it unique compared to the two but made it hard for me to get just one fry if I blindly grabbed some from the bag.

Taking a bite confirmed the satisfying crunch sound but the cheese flavor was underwhelming. It was just a light dusting of cheese powder, a betrayal of the fries’ vibrant orange color. The texture of the fries wasn’t anything new; it was just like any other dry and crunchy snack. It is only hard at first but quickly dissolved in the mouth making you want eat more. The fries did give a hint of potato just like other potato based snacks (Oishi’s PF, Lala’s Potato chips).

The weak flavor is both a good thing and bad thing. It makes you less likely to get tired of it and doesn’t give you the “cheesy fingers”; on the other hand it made the snack feel cheap, even for its 5 pesos price tag.

I also tried the BBQ flavor and most of my points apply to it.

Overall: Jack n’ Jill didn’t innovate with Fun Fries; it is too similar to its competition. They offered a crunchy snack with weak flavoring but nothing much wrong for its price tag. 
Rating: :-|