Kellogg's Special K Oats & Honey Cereal

ספיישל קיי דבש ושיבולת שועל

There's a new Kellogg's Special K product, in the ever expanding cereal aisle, here in Israel. Granted we still have less cereal options than your average supermarket in the U.S. but it seems to me that recently we've been closing the gap faster and faster. I guess there's a market for it so they keep importing or locally manufacturing more and more different options.

After not really being impressed with Telma's newest creation "Thin/Finer Cornflakes" I was actually glad to see this new "Special K with Oats & Honey" on the shelf and wanted to try it.

This new cereal has oats and honey added to the classic and very successful Special K cereal by Kellogg's.

Special K Oats & Honey has less than 3% fat per serving. They have added 9 vitamins and minerals, including iron and folic acid as well as many B vitamins, to the mix.

Special K Oats & Honey is made with whole wheat and white flours but has whole oats and puffed whole rice in it as well.

When I tasted Special K Oats & Honey, dry, without milk I found it crispy and "honey sweet". I didn’t mind the rolled oats mixed in but I didn’t think they added all that much. I did however, enjoy the taste and texture of the puffed rice. I thought it was a nice and somewhat unique addition.

As I mentioned in my review of Nestle Crunch Duo Cereal as well as other cereal reviews I've done, I tend to prefer cereals dry, without milk. Surprisingly this time I much preferred the Special K Oats & Honey with milk.

The rolled oats and rice kind of "puffed up" in the milk and were a wonderful addition to the honey covered Special K wheat-flakes. The cereal was sweet but not overly so. I was pleasantly surprised that the wheat-flakes stayed fairly crispy and crunchy until the last spoonful. All in all it was a winning combination and an enjoyable bowl of cereal.

Bottom Line: I liked the Special K Oats & Honey cereal. I thought it had a nice mix of flavors and textures. It's one of the only cereals I prefer with milk, for breakfast, as opposed to a dry snack. I just wish it wasn't so relatively expensive, compared to other cereals sold here.

425 gram box -27.99 NIS

Kosher Dairy Chef Rabbinate Israel

אבקת חלב נוכרי

Disclaimer: All items were purchased by me. No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own.

Osem's Pizza Ketchup

קטשופ אסם מתובל לפיצה

Osem has a new Ketchup on the market. This new Ketchup is a "Pizza Ketchup"; it's Osem's ketchup with added pizza-sauce spices, so you easily prepare your own "pizza" at home

The new Osem Ketchup is in a squeeze bottle, just like their regular ketchup, they actually look almost identical, you can tell them apart by the photo. On this new ketchup there is a picture of a pizza pie

I'm not a huge fan of Osem's Ketchup; truth is I don’t use ketchup that often to start with. I was really disappointed when I realized that Heinz Ketchup was not Kosher for Passover, here in Israel. Considering how many french-fries we eat on Passover I really wanted decent ketchup but I had no choice other than Osem's Ketchup. I really didn’t enjoy their ketchup and ended up eating most of my fries without any ketchup at all

When I saw this new "Pizza Ketchup" I wanted to give it a try and see if it's an improvement over their regular product. When I tried the "Pizza Ketchup" as a dip for french-fries I did not enjoy it. It tasted too much like the original Osem Ketchup that I don't like and, in my opinion, the added spices were not the right flavor for french-fries. That should not have surprised me, it's not intended to be a dip for french-fries 

So I used it for its intended purpose and made pizza. I found the squeeze bottle to be very convenient when I was preparing my "pita pizza", as per the directions on the back of the bottle. I liked that I had more control over how much sauce I was adding and it was much neater than the other bottled pizza sauces I've tried in the past 

I found that the consistency of this "pizza ketchup" was too thick for my liking, actually much thicker than other store bought pizza sauces. I added some shredded mozzarella cheese and put it in the oven

The end result was tasty enough, granted it was nothing even close to real pizza. It was a glorified grilled cheese on a fresh, crispy toasted pita with delicious, shredded mozzarella cheese and bad pizza spiced ketchup

Osem's Pizza Ketchup is made of all natural ingredients; it has no preservatives or food coloring

Bottom Line: This new Pizza Ketchup is exactly what it claims to be, it's Osem's Ketchup with added pizza spices. Considering I don't like the taste of Osem's Ketchup It wasn't surprising that I didn’t like the taste of this new Pizza Ketchup either. I know there are many kids that love Osem's Ketchup and I think they are likely to enjoy this new version on pita with melted cheese but it's far from anything I consider pizza sauce

750gram bottle -11.99 NIS 

 Kosher Parve Badatz

Disclaimer: All items were purchased by me. No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own

Nestlé Crunch Roll Ice-Cream Pops

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the same Nestlé Crunch that makes both the Nestlé Crunch Dou Cereal and the Nestlé Crunch Rolls Kosher for Passover Cereal, which I reviewed, also has a line of ice-creams. They now have 2 new ice-creams bar in their Crunch Rolls line of products.

The new bars are vanilla ice-cream coated with either White Crunch Chocolate or Crunch Milk-Chocolate. The chocolate coating has rice-crispy cereal mixed in, just like you would find in a classic Nestlé Crunch Chocolate Bar. Under the layer of vanilla ice-cream these bars are filled with a big chunk of nougat.

To me these Nestlé Crunch Roll Ice-Cream bars seemed to be much more chocolate than ice-cream. I actually think that's a good thing, seeing as I didn’t really enjoy the ice-cream part all that much. After carefully reading the label I learned that the ice-cream is made with milk powder and not with real milk or real cream. That could be why it didn’t seem as rich, smooth and creamy as I was hoping it would be.

The chocolate and nougat filling, on the other hand, were very enjoyable. Granted it's not the best quality chocolate I've tasted but it didn’t seem too grainy to me.

The wooden stick in the center of the ice cream bar was a dowel like rounded stick and added to the overall "roll" feel and shape of this ice cream pop.

גלידת נסטלה קראנץ' רולס

These Nestlé Crunch Roll Ice-Cream pops seemed to be on the smaller side, they are by no means a mini bar, but being 72 grams, they are smaller than other ice-cream bars in the store freezer.

Nestlé Crunch Roll Ice-Cream pops have no artificial food coloring in them.

Bottom Line: I enjoyed the chocolate and nougat parts of the Nestlé Crunch Roll Ice-Cream bars and I thought it was a fun shape and nice size, but I was not impressed with the quality of the ice cream itself.   

   

72 gram ice cream pop – 8.00 NIS

Kosher Dairy Badatz

Disclaimer: All items were purchased by me. No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own.

Elite's "Doritos Dip" Chips & Salsa

When I first saw these "Doritos Dip" Chips & Salsa on display I wasn't sure if they were a new product or maybe just new packaging. Something about them seemed and looked somewhat familiar to me. The bag is kind of similar to the "Doritos Hot & Spicy" chips so maybe that’s why they looked familiar, but I knew that wasn't why they seemed familiar. 

I thought I remembered that we had a similar product here a few years ago, but then I read an on-line press release claiming that these "Doritos Dip" Chips and Salsa are new to the Israeli market. I know by now that companies often write a press release saying something is new when it's not necessarily the case.

2003 Doritos Dip

A quick Google search and I found the old product, from 2003, that I was thinking of. I remember being disappointed when those Doritos were no longer available here. So I was hoping these were in fact those same chips I was thinking of. Seeing as they may be somewhat different to the chip and dip from a few years ago, and because I really like Tortilla chips 'n salsa, I decided to taste them and review them.

When I opened the bag they looked somewhat different to the Doritos I was remembering. Surprisingly, they looked very much like the regular "Natural flavored Doritos chip" sold here in a yellow bag.

The only real differences I could find between these "Dip" chips and the "Natural Flavored" ones is their shape. These "new Doritos Dip" chips have a more rounded edge, whereas the ones in the yellow bag, that we have had here all along, have somewhat pointier edges.

I tried both chips side by side and I could not find any other real differences between the supposedly new "Doritos Dip" chip and the "Natural flavored Doritos".

Somehow I remember the 2003 "Dip" chip being thinner, lighter, saltier, less oily and a slightly different color. Not so much bright yellow, as these are, but more toward an off white/pale yellow, like the Herr's 100% White Corn Restaurant Style Tortilla Chips (which are available here in Mini Markets and convenience stores). I think those Doritos Dip Chips from 2003 were much more like the Herr's one in every way. Oddly enough they are somewhat more "natural" tasting than the "natural flavored" Doritos. I actually much prefer the Herr's chips to these Doritos Dip chips.

דוריטוס דיפ

I think that this "New Dip" chip is not the same product I'm remembering but it is in fact the same chip as Doritos sell here in the yellow bag. It's just repackaged and being sold side by side with the re-launched salsa.

Regarding the salsa, I tried the "Mild" one as opposed to the "Spicy" one. It was absolutely mild, not even a touch of spice in it. I usually buy a "medium spicy" salsa but since my choice was either mild or spicy I got the mild one. I was afraid the spicy one would be too spicy. The mild one turned out to be too mild for me. I kind of regretted not trying the spicy one or possibly mixing them together to make a medium spicy salsa.

I thought the salsa was mediocre at best. There are much better salsas sold here. In my opinion it had way too much tomato and not enough peppers in the mix. Also, I didn’t like the taste of the poor quality thick tomato sauce they used. All in all, to me, it was not an impressive salsa.

Bottom Line: I don’t think the Doritos Dip chips are really all that new and they are not the chip I was remembering from 2003, but I like them just as much as I like the "Natural Doritos" chips. Still I much prefer the Herr's version I mentioned. Seeing as the Doritos Dip chips are much cheaper, and sold in many more stores, I'm likely to buy them more often than the Herr's. But I will NOT be buying this mild "Doritos/Elite" salsa again, that I really did not like.

150 gram bag of Doritos Dip Chips -5.00 NIS

Kosher Parve Badatz

Salsa – 11.00 NIS

Kosher Parve OU- USA

Disclaimer: All items were purchased by me. No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own.

 This Weeks Haveil Havalim Blog Carnival is now up on

To Kiss A Mezuzah 

Five's Sugar-Free Watermelon Gum

מסטיק "פייב" 5 אבטיח

As I may have mentioned in my review of Mentos Gum and my review of Must Cubed Gum, I'm not a huge fan of fruit flavored gum. So although the "Five" Gum did win a Product of the Year Award last year, I still was not very interested in tasting the new Five "Cyclone" Watermelon Flavored Sugar-free Gum.

I had read online that the advertising campaign cost close to 3 million Shekel. I think that's simply ridicules and judging from what I've seen so far; I have no clue where all that money went. I don’t think the TV ad is anything that special, but go ahead and judge for yourself.

Standing in the checkout line I noticed that this new Five Watermelon Gum was on sale, I guess its an "introductory sale". The normally 6.00 NIS pack of gum was half price, so I decided to try it. Maybe that's where the 3 million Shekel went?

I kind of like the way Five Gum is packaged. I know there are many other gums that have this "pocket" packaging too, it's not exclusive to Five, so I can't give them all the credit for that, but Five's black packaging is sort of sleek and elegant.

When I first put the stick of gum in my mouth I regretted buying it because the initial burst of artificial watermelon aroma and flavor reminded me why I so dislike fruit flavored gums. Regardless, I decided to give it a fair try and the longer I chewed it the less I hated it.

That first overpowering flavor did wear off quite fast but a tolerable fruity flavor definitely lasted longer than your average sugar-free fruit gum.

At first it was absolutely a "mock" watermelon flavor but as time went on I had to remind myself exactly what fruit flavor it was, it sort of just tasted like a very sweet, sugar-free, fruity gum, with a hint of sour and a tiny bit of a minty undertone mixed in.

Bottom Line: I didn’t despise the Five Watermelon flavored Gum but I didn’t love it either. I think if you’re a fan of fruit flavored gum you are likely to enjoy this longer lasting, somewhat original, flavored gum.

31 grams 12 sticks – 6.00-6.50 NIS

Kosher Badatz KF London

Disclaimer: All items were purchased by me. No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own.

 

Update: I now know where the 3 million Shekel advertising budget really went.

Turns out that on ads, billboards and display stands for Five Watermelon Gum there will be a special QR code that you can take a photo of with your cell phone. If you have a QR code reader app. you will then get a link to a clip about Five Gum and an invitation to a special 3D screening of the Five Gum series of ads.

I guess some people may find this impresses, I'm all for new technology, but I don’t really think this is extremely exciting and worth 3 million NIS. Still I wish Five Gum the best of luck.

If any of you end up going to the screening I would love to hear about it, please let me if it was amazing and worth seeing.    

This post was affected by the issues Bolgger had on Thursday, May 12  and Friday May 13, so it was up and down then up again etc... I am glad that Blogger seems to have finally fixed the problem and hopefully this post will stay put:)  I did loose comments that were left on other posts - I have no idea how to get them back, so I'm sorry if your comment is missing or if you didn't see my reply   



Tirat Tzvi's New Thin Sliced Deli-Meat

Tirat Tzvi has a new product/gimmick on the market that allows them to put a nice big blue sticker on the package screaming

חדשNEW /

!!!In other words BUY ME

טירת צבי הודו דק אישי

Shortly before I began this blog most of the deli-meat companies, here in Israel, started selling an extra thin sliced deli-meat. Each company gave it a slightly different name but in reality they were all basically the same product.

 Soglowek, one of Tirat Tzvis competitors, even received a Product of the Year Award for their version. I actually enjoyed the extra thin sliced deli-meat and thought it was a nice new twist on a popular product.

Now Tirat Tzvi is looking for their next NEW product, after the Toast-Ready Cold-Cut, I reviewed in February.

For this "NEW" Thin-Sliced Deli-Meat, it seems to me, that all they did was move the number on the slicer a notch or 2 up from the extra thin slice setting, putting it somewhere between the regular cut and the extra thin cut and "voilà" they claim to have a new product!!

There are 4 meats to choose from in this line of "new" thin cold-cuts; Grilled Turkey 1% fat, Romanian style Turkey, Paprika flavored Turkey and Italian Smoked Salami

I tried the Paprika flavored Turkey.

It tasted perfectly fine to me, and I enjoyed it, but I think it's somewhat ridiculous to claim it’s a new product. Maybe call it a new cut but not a new product.

This new gimmick is only being sold as "individual" packages. They are 120 grams per package. Exactly the same amount as Tirat Tzvi's extra thin sliced deli-meat, but these are being called "individual" packs.

I don’t think that 120 grams is an individual serving. It seems too much for one sandwich/serving and you don’t have a proper cover to re-close the package for next time.

It also ends up being much more expensive than buying a full size package of the regular sliced Tirat Tzvi deli-meat.

I know other companies also put 120 grams of deli-meat in their "so called" individual serving pack so it's not only Tirat Tzvi that I can fault for this.

Bottom Line: Tirat Tzvi's New Thin Sliced Deli-Meat was enjoyable enough and tasty, but I don’t think it warrants being called a new product. Aside from which, the packaging bothered me too. I am not likely to buy it again.

120 gram package -14.99 NIS

Kosher: Rabbi Werner

Update: Winner of 2012 Product of the Year Award Israel

Disclaimer: All items were purchased by me. No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own.

Happy Independence Day חג עצמאות שמח !!!