Town House FlipSides Original Pretzel Crackers

This is a very salty pretzel. But on the flipside, it's a cracker. Hehe. I love a gimmick. It's like those 2-color Oreos but for savory snackers. They're definitely more cracker than pretzel (which is the tastier option). Something disappointing about these, though, is that the picture on the box made me think they'd be big, like a Pepperidge Farm cracker, but they are actually very small, probably half the size of the box pic. They're also pretty thin, so I really doubt they'd hold up to dipping. But they taste good all on their own: very salty pretzel side, very buttery cracker side. A serving is 5, which is like... hm... but I guess that's for the dippers. Would be good for school snackin'. 

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10 

Pop Tarts Star-Spangled Blueberry

A punishment for us all is to gaze upon these pop-tarts. The box picture doesn't even do them justice: they look absolutely radioactive in real life. Like play-doh but somehow less appetizing than that. I'm pretty sure these are just the same as the regular blueberry flavor (which I've already reviewed), but the USA-ified appearance really takes the customer to a new level of horror. The filling is blueberry, grape, and apple, which is not bad as poptartfilling goes. The color is Red 40 and Blues 1-100 (approximately), which is extremely bad as everything goes. I can imagine some self-described radicals at the Pop-Tart factory thinking "maybe if we make these it'll be the tipping point that leads to a revolution!!", but instead it is only leading to a minor reduction in self-respect and/or lifespan. Olé, olé, olé.

Overall
Cost: 6/10 [2.79$]
Taste: 6/10 
Unnaturality: 10/10

Kellogg's Crispix Cereal

Wow! I thought I knew what Crispix was (off-brand Chex), but I didn't! It's hexagonal, for one thing. And it is corn on one side, rice on the other. A mash-up. A rice/corn love story. It's beautiful. The colors are slightly different too (thanks to turmeric, ha). It tastes like those two chexes... together. I do prefer the rice side, but it's all the better because it's in contrast to the corn side. Genius! Crispix for life! 
n.b. it's not very crispy, but I surely don't care about that. 

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10 (a certain ceiling for the chex-types)

Kellogg's Cocoa Loops

Who wanted this!? Then again, I bought it, so joke's on me. I can't resist a cartoon bird mascot with a rainbow beak. I guess I was expecting/fearing some Froot taste, but luckily there isn't any, these are a totally different thing. Aesthetically I approve; the box is a nice dark purple and the loops are much darker in color than I would have guessed. True cocoa in these loops. Taste-wise they're a miss. Not horrifying, but like a denser cocoa puff with a strange, hard-to-place aftertaste. Paper? I dunno. It does make the milk chocolatey, and they do have a crunchy Froot Loop texture, so I guess I see why these are getting decent reviews. But maybe I don't miss chocolate all that much because I hardly yearn for more (of these). 

Overall
Cost: 4/10 [5.59$]
Taste: 6/10 

Kellogg's Frosted Krispies

Yooo, I assumed these were just regular krispies, but they're frosted with sugar! I.e, like a non-clumped version of rice krispie treats cereal (the greatest cereal of all time). Very delicious. Just sugar, rice, and malt. Probably good for baking, but who cares, just eat them. Happy holidays to me!

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10 

Kellogg's Frosted Mini Wheats - Pumpkin Pie Spice

First week of September and I am officially burned out on pumpkin spice flavor. Why is this the thing that gets so many products, and not sweet sweet winter peppermint? Ah well. These are pretty much your standard mini wheats, except with some (not too overpowering) pumpkin space flavor. It is very similar to the pumpkin spice cookie, coffee, etc etc flavor. Allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg. The frosting is a bright orange color, which is disconcerting. (Not red 40 though.) These are very filling as cereals go, which is good. I still like the eager little mini wheat character. He existed pre-AI but I worry that in the future I'll be scared to like any cute little food mascots because I'm not a great (visual) AI-detector :( 

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10 

pop tarts - frosted pumpkin pie

Speaking of pumpkin spice! Weirdly, these are less pumpkin spicy than those chai milanos. I'm all in on fall mode now since there's a real chance today will be the last 90+degree day of 2025 (and therefore last 100+degree day in my house) 🙏🙏🙏

Appearance-wise, these are not very appealing, and not very typical pop tart. The frosting only covers a small part of the top (not like the picture) and the sprinkles are mostly shades of black, brown, and a few orange/red/white?. The black ones look like little bugs (or charitably, burnt spots). The texture is good though; it didn't break apart. And the taste? This is gonna shock you, but these are the first pop tarts that didn't taste TOO SWEET. They're still sweet, don't get me wrong, but not in a way where my main flavor note is "too much sugar". Good work, pop tart team. These actually have pumpkin in, which is rare for pumpkin flavored things, and probably helps lower the sweetness. There's also cinnamon and clove (and nutmeg), so it's a traditional pumpkin pie vibe, but it's pretty subtle. No potpourri smell. Happily, it doesn't taste artificial like their red cinnamon stuff does. But what we're left with is like, some kinda sweet, kinda pumpkiny unrisen crusty dough. Not very delicious, but it is a filling, convenient, seasonal snack. Maybe it needs more butter. (Ha. I'm in baking mode I guess.)

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 6/10 

Cookies & Creme Milkshake Frosted Flakes

They release a new flavor of these every year, and that means I try a new flavor of these every year. This was a strange choice for a flavor, because the "cookies" look like bugs. Maybe Kellogg's read my tweet about adding black pepper to everything as exposure therapy against food-bug fear. Disturbing appearance aside, the box I bought also had the inner bag glued to the outside of the box! Weird vibes. But it was sealed. The flavor is honestly fine; very similar to the chocolate chip pop tarts (also made by Kellogg's; coincidence? I think not). I don't get much "creme" or "milkshake", which is probably good because I'm kind of milked out. But it's very different than the other maltmaxxed milkshake flavors, and the leftover milk is just regular sweet milk. The bug flakes don't transfer to the milk, at least, which means they're totally not bugs, guys! I wonder if they'll have a 2026 flavor too. Orange cream milkshake? Vanilla milkshake? Bleh. But I'll try anything once! Also, this already seems to be out of stock and/or on sale everywhere; maybe the bug specks were a failure. 

Overall
Cost: 6/10 [2$]
Taste: 6/10 

Hidden Valley Ranch Cheez-Its

From a non-horrible pickle flavor to a non-horrible ranch flavor! What a world, eh? Maybe I'm just relieved they aren't a weird smokey flavor for once in my cheez-it life. These don't really scream "ranch", to be fair, more like "regular cheez it with some chicken-in-a-biscuit (umami) vibes". Not a super strong flavor, either, which is good since I'm on the fence about it. An appropriate snack for those "I really needed to mow today but it started raining before I got to it so now I'm inside eating cheez-its" evenings. Put that on your Spotify playlist. Alas and/or hooray. 

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 6/10 

Kellogg's Frosted Mini Wheats - Cococa

Aww, look at the little mini wheat. He just wants his family to be eaten!! These were on sale for 2 dollars, so I am happy to oblige. I am pretty sure mini wheats used to be like 2.5x as big, which isn't mini at all, so it was probably a good change. These have the classic mini-wheat texture, but unfortunately the cocoa mush inside looks like straight dirt, and that's being charitable. I understand why this flavor exists, since cocoa and cereal go together like holidays and my neighbors setting off fireworks in full daylight, but it isn't very good. Honestly, it's not bad because it's not a strong flavor, and not very sweet either, or even artificial, but kind of like hot cocoa powder (bitter, dry) which isn't my favorite. And I just realised that they probably mean cocoa cocoa and not chocolate cocoa, so it's actually pretty accurate. But that's not what I want to eat. The milk residue is nothing special either, but I've never been into milk, so your mileage may vary. 

Overall
Cost: 8/10 [2$]
Taste: 6/10 

Cheez-It Smoked Gouda

Unlike families, each unhappy Smoked Cheez-It flavor is pretty darn alike. I don't think I could pick this out of a smoked lineup, even though the reviews for it are weirdly positive. Sure, gouda seems much classier than cheddar, and it looks like it might taste different, but the overwhelming note is still Smoke Flavor, which I hate. (I got these at the same time as the other ones, if you are wondering "why then do you have these.) I guess they are marginally less intense, which is a slight point in their favor, but it is marginal. If it weren't for the smoke flavor, I think they'd be tasty, since I do perceive a pleasant cheese cracker in there somewhere. If you eat a bunch at once, the smoke flavor is kinda backgrounded, and so they do get better. But each new session is an agony. Alas. 

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 5/10

Cheez-It Smoked Cheddar

I dunno why I got these, since I never liked Cheez-Its much to begin with, and I absolutely hate "smoked" flavor on anything (especially Chee(z)e). It's like I see a "new flavor" label on something I'm not allergic to and I fully dissociate until I'm home eating them. Very cool behavior. Anyway, these taste about like you'd expect. Baseline Cheez-it with smokey fake flavoring on top. Somewhat addictive once you get going. They do have MSG, which is either a migraine trigger or simply racism (or both). I didn't finish the last gross smoked Cheez-It box I bought, but it's about to be summer, so maybe I'll be so bored I'll finish these. It won't be a pleasure, though!

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 5/10

Special K Strawberries & Crème Cereal

Not to k-hole on main, but it always weirded me out as a kid that there's a drug-named cereal marketed as a health cereal. Of course, I later found out the the cereal came first and the drug name was a play off of it. Kellogg's won the long game by keeping the name, since I don't think anyone really even calls ketamine Special K anymore. Anyway, I wish this were drugs and not cereal. But I'm on that full cereal, no drugs life (for all the good it does me!!). 

Much like frozen brocco, there's way too many similar varieties of Special K on offer. This particular one is not even on Kellogg's's website, or any website, but I have it in my hands so I know that it's real. It's actually much tastier than the 'Strawberry Cheesecake' flavor, since it's less artificial. Here we have flakes (classic), weird yogurt clumps (made me nervous and look kinda gross, but taste like a trail mix yogurt clump), and little bits of oat cluster (good). There is also an essence of dried strawberry, but no real strawberry pieces, and that's quite alright since I'd prefer no essence of dried strawberry at all. Pretty sweet and fatty for a health cereal -- in fact, maybe this isn't even intended to be health cereal and I just assumed it was because it sounded gross to me as a kid. The milk becomes very pink and I like that. It's also pretty filling. Special (bric)K. 

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10 (but like, 6.5/10 though)

Kellogg's Original Squishmallows Ceral

I'm probably not the target audience for this, but when has that ever stopped me? I aspire to consume every new food I'm not allergic to, especially if it's stupid. 

The immediate smell of this is weird, like Halloween candy or something. The taste is at first remarkably like Rice Krispie treats cereal (my beloved) - marshmallowy (and this is the cereal bits mind you) and metallic, which is a rare combo. But then it quickly morphs into something much less pleasant -- the stale, artificially colored corn that it is, I guess. Pleasant Apple Jack-y texture. Nice vanilla-y leftover milk. Very few marshmallows per grain-'O', unless they all sunk to the bottom. I don't know if anyone will especially like this, but it is better than the average stupid new cereal, if only marginally.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Cinnamon French Toast Frosted Flakes

Huh. I had pretty low expectations for these, because syrup flavored things are horrible usually. And these really do remind me of a French Toast taste! But they're not at all like the weird glazed donut frosted flakes that I said tasted like French Toast Crunch. Perhaps French Toast Crunch doesn't taste like French Toast either!? This is cinnamony, buttery, and yes, syruppy, but not in that artificial maple way. In a good way. The smell is appealing rather than gross. Pretty impressive! The rare non-gross on-sale novelty cereal!

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 7/10

Blueberry Bran Crunch

A fun new cereal!, I thought. Wrong. It is not fun. But it is a new cereal, so here we are. It also has 'bran' in the name, which maybe should have tipped me off as to its unfunness. But I like Raisin Bran and I mildly enjoy both the frosted & complete brans (although they aren't really fun). Blueberry is a good fruit and crunch is a fine noise to make. So then, what happened here? It's just boring. The blueberry is flavoring only, and not bits like raisin bran has raisin bits (aka raisins). And the flavoring is kinda artificial, like a cheapo blueberry muffin. It's still an OK flavor, but it isn't good. The bran is soggy and typical of kelloggs. As far as I could perceive, there were no crunches. Ho hum. At least there's fiber! 

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Frosted Flakes Glazed Donut Holes

Yooo this is a weird little cereal. Its tan orbs have seemingly nothing in common with frosted flakes or glazed donut holes (minus the shape: orb). They smell like a French Toast Crunch kinda deal and taste like a dense, mild version of same. It is not unpleasant, but it is very confusing given the branding. I guess these are more cake donut than yeast donut, right down to the little brown speckles. I'm pretty sure [edit: yep] that these are corn based, which is all the weirder since neither frosted flakes nor donut holes (nor glaze) are corn based, other than like, corn syrup. Maybe it is a societal commentary. Maybe "crunchy syrup balls" didn't test well in their focus group. People probably do like to be vexed. Why, I feel a little pleasure in it just now, myself.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

ICEE Cereal

Well now. This seems like a bouquet of chemicals that are sure to cause cancer. But since I'm not drinking, it seems like fair game. (I just saw Vivek's latest post about alcohol causing cancer, and instead of making me happy that I'm not drinking alc, it made me sad, because I guess I still see myself as a temporarily embarrassed millionaire 😔)

Like the other cooling cereals I've tried, this does have a creepy cooling effect. It also does smell like ICEEs. My main complaint is that the cereal orbs are red (cherry), blue (blue ras) and.... purple? (ostensibly a combo????). Is there a purple ICEE that we forgot to advertise on the box? The predominant flavor is really just "ICEE", not cherry or blue raspberry, but I think that's kind of how ICEEs themselves are, right? It's been a minute since I dipped my toe into that particular lake. Maybe it leans more cherry, but then again, I think I have only had Cherry ICEEs. Anyway, this is a fun novelty, but the taste isn't anything special, and the branding does nothing for me (it's not like it's Dunkin' Refresher branded), so I wouldn't get it again. Nice box size though (small). 

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Kellogg's Frosted Flakes - Pumpkin Spice

Another entry in the pumpkindex! This excites me as all seasoning offerings do, but pumpkin spice is really not a top-tier flavor (unlike, say, peppermint). Therefore these are not a top-tier frosted flake. Not that a peppermint frosted flake would be very good, but then again...maybe? These do have a weird orange color, pumpkin spice odor, and typical flake texture. The taste is fine. It is along the lines of what you'd expect -- a bready, seasoned, vaguely pumpkiny potpourri that is more noticeable in the offmilk than in the cereal itself. It is not something I'd want to eat a lot of, and it's not even something I desire to eat a little of, but it is an acceptable thing to eat and the box is a dainty size so I'm not despairing my future 3-4 bowls.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Frosted Flakes with vanilla flavored marshmallows

You might think this is something I wanted, but really I wanted regular frosted flakes and this was less than half the price of regular ones. Similar story with the marshmallowed froot loops -- maybe Dr. Marsh's kid just got hired at Kellogg's. Anyway, these taste like regular frosted flakes (good, no forbidden ingredos) with somewhat bad chewy marshmallows mixed in. They certainly don't add anything, even though I'm not a marshmallow hater. I used to always wheedle my parents into getting Marshmallow Alpha-Bits as a kiddo and that was one of my earliest "omg they discontinued my beloved" experiences! These, on the other hand, are ripe for discontinuation. But it's not bad as a cereal, it's just we made a tasty cereal somewhat worse, which is unfortunate. The price of innovation!

Overall
Cost: 7/10 [2$]
Taste: 6/10