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The King’s meal

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utz rule

On sodas:

I don’t have a big preference between Coke and Pepsi. I drink them once per week at most. I’ll choose Coke, usually, for the sake of picking one, but I’d pick RC Cola or a craft drink if it were available. Store brand is fine. Vanilla Coke or the ICEE/frozen form of Coke is my favorite. I still miss Cinnamon Coke. [And I don’t go for energy drinks.]

For a couple of years, my grocery store would stock some of the more experimental flavors coming from Coke and Pepsi, so I’d try a can or bottle every couple of weeks. It started with Pepsi Nitro, which was smooth and rich in texture. Then Coke started selling Coke with Coffee (in a few variants) in thin cans. Finally, coffee in a can? Alas, no. Rather than trusting to the deeper, richer notes of cola and coffee, Coke added sucralose, which ruined the experience. Then Coke went on with its fad-based Creations, none of which were good. They kept adding fruit flavors that didn’t meld well with cola, and the naming was incoherent. (Guess what “Marshmello” was flavored. Yep, strawberry and watermellon.) It’s like Coke is incapable of making an interesting soda not based in sweetness and guessing what fruit some celebrity has agreed to add to a drink branded after them.

Even though trying these new drinks didn’t pan out, I enjoyed the novelty until my grocery store stopped carrying them. Once, afterward, in desperation for something new, I tried one of the prebiotic sodas. It didn’t taste right either - like the yogurt of sodas - and the downstream effects were unpleasant. So these days I stick to ginger beer when I want more novelty.

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the ginger people used to make a ginger ale that i’d recommend to you if you like reed’s, but i’m gutted to learn they don’t make it anymore.

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Drat. I do like trying new ones. Reed’s is the best I can regularly get. Besides that, I like Red Rock for a quick bite or Blenheim when I want my mouth to burn.

i occasionally make a ginger ale with:

  • mostly pineapple juice
  • enough carrot juice for a nice color
  • a good amount of ginger syrup
  • a reasonable quantity of yeast

pretty enjoyable. hope you like a vague recipe, lol.

i will say the secret to a good ginger syrup is to make golden syrup and add ginger juice when the syrup is off the heat but still hot. this coverts the gingerol to shogaol which has more bite. if you wanted less bite, adding the juice while the syrup was still cooking would probably do it, converting the gingerol to shogaol and then the shogaol to zingerone, though how early to do it i can’t say because that’s not my thing.

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i’ll have to try that if i find it

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I bought a Lime Cucumber Gatorade at the Circle K this morning, and the self-checkout listed it as “GATORADE LIME CUMB” and now I’m uncomfortable.

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Finally, another person with a positive opinion of Pepsi Nitro! Everyone I know who’s tried it complains that it “tastes flat” and “is a huge pain in the ass to open and sprays everywhere no matter what you do”. That second point is true, I’ll admit, but I kind of admire the bull-headed determination it took to put out a soda that has to tell you how to pour it.

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Oh yeah, there are a few dozen of us. It helped I sometimes drink nitro beer cans (e.g., Guinness) and cold brew, which set the expectation that it’s going to be smooth (which is close to but distinct from flat - if all that feels abstract to someone who has never had nitro, think creamier. Truly flat soda isn’t creamy).

One thought is that Pepsi Nitro would have been more successful if it was sold like nitro cold brew was: poured by someone trained to do so, with clearer framing for what the experience would be. But that sort of space doesn’t really exist for soda the way it does for alcohol (bar) or coffee (cafe). Paradoxically, it feels like Pepsi needed to convince people to not drink Nitro like a soda in order for people to enjoy it as a beverage.

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i miss coca cola blak, i had high hopes for + coffee (especially in foreign climes where they tend to use real sugar) but it’s just terrible.

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this is like the type of food i see in a dream

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crab chips are the backbone of the mid atlantic convenience store experience. i’ve had very mixed success introducing them to west coasters, though.

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The crab chips I recognize. But “Big Turk” is definitely a candy bar that you see your dead uncle eating after you just gave a work presentation at the base of the Eiffel Tower.

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As a former Canadian, current west coaster: crab chips rule

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going full circle to the first post, we have all sorts of insane flavours of Lay’s in Thailand. This one is based off a lao/northern appetizer that’s like a diy lettuce wrap. The chips taste of greens and shrimp umami, not really anything like the actual dish but somehow like the base notes of that dish. A little shallot /chili sweetness and river delta saltiness.

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My granma always has Utz Salt and Pepper chips, so when I see them I think of her. Or even just the Utz brand.

I had turtle chips recently, corn soup flavored and they were delightful. Flaky layers! Sweet, Salty, and savory!

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came across Dr Ugly at a tiny convenience store on an island in a river north of Portland. Sauvie Island if any locals see this.

this image is different than what i bought, mine was a tall boy. couldnt find any images exactly like the can i bought:

this drink is awful. its supposedly 0 sugar bust mostly just tasts like really gross sparkling water. i didnt look at the nutrition facts or anything, assuming it was some bizarre normal soda. enjoyed having it as a prop drink for an hour

time to show my basic. i love korean sun chips. they left h mart for a while and i went through all 5 stages of grief. now theyre back and i cant control myself

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I ended up getting a bag of these the other day. Not at a party store, but at a slightly upscale grocery store. This was my second time eating them, but this time with intention.

Overall, very good and I can kinda see @exodus ‘s fascination with them. They’re very beguiling. The artisanal nature of the chips makes each bite a gamble. You don’t know if it’s gonna be a heavy dose of umami with the soy sauce or more tame. My favorite part about them however was the texture. Even though all corn chips are more or less the same, these felt much more like Doritos than your typical salsa dipping chip. This makes them great to eat just on their own. Last time I got them I was just scooping guacamole, which I think was my mistake.

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I’ve always wanted to see the Nashville Parthenon, but knowing that Googoo Clusters are just a normal thing in Nashville makes that 8 hour ride seem a bit more reasonable.

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