IHAO on ... Pizza Hut Random Pizza!

PIZZA IS WONDERFUL!  Anyone who thinks otherwise is wrong.  And that is the end.  Cheese, dough, tomatos, and all sorts of amazing toppings, in a bunch of incredible combinations, in a bunch of styles, from super thick to super thin to pretzel crusts to sausage and cheese stuff to regular, all of it is glorious.  I mean, some of the toppings I don't like, but even the worst toppings on a pizza are just a small price to pay for the gloriousness that is pizza.  Just throw those mushrooms or black olives or whatever harmful veggie or meat you dislike away, because there is so much to love!

My love of pizza has been longstanding.  Most kids my age loved pizza because of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but I do believe I liked the TMNT because I loved pizza.  Pizza was as close to a religion in my household growing up as a circular food-based entity could be.  Every Tuesday we would jump into my Dad's Dodge Ram and drive to the now defunct and empty Mazzios' pizza, which was the best pizza I ever had, for their buffet dinner.  I learned about great music like Boston, Journey, and Queen there on their jukebox, and was filled with dreams of Samurai Showdown and every changing but always the same pinball games, as well as Puzzle Bobble, which was my favorite game and the only one my parents would let me waste my money one.  Probably why I got so good at puzzle games, to not waste quarters between slices of wonderful pizza.  My father would irritate the waitresses, which he always knew by name, by singing "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie."  He did that for years.  Still does in fact, 20+ years later.  Eventually, Mazzios' closed down, because the world is unfair and everything is awful.

I grew up, I became older, but I continued my deep-down-in-my-stomach romance with pizza pie.  I'd eat it at lunch in middle school and high school as much as possible.  My father moved on to getting Little Caeser's for us about once a week (not quite that often, unfortunately) and we'd watch a movie or wrestling or maybe one of Mom's hour-long dramas on CBS.  Church had pizza dinner for kids all through those years every Wednesday, and with a Dominos right across the street from the church, our youth group had it just as often.  There were a lot of pounds gained during this period of life, and there would be many more.

I went to college, and the pizza just ... wasn't the same.  It wasn't as good, my love wasn't as high, everyone ate Papa John's which I always disliked, and I just couldn't find a pizza I loved.  Until Pizza Inn, which is apparently what Mazzios' was a named franchise of!  I found it, I loved it, I went weekly once again, maybe more.  But life happened, things changed, and I was forced to move back to my hometown.  Now, I have a roommate that makes pizza and every now and again, nowhere near the weekly I'd love, we feast on Pizza Hut pizza.  The online prices are incredible, and I never order from his pizza, because that's rude.  And sometimes, a pizza gets messed up, so free-zza!

My life and pizza are intertwined.  I carry 210ish pounds of proof, maybe more, I don't know how much bones weigh.  So why talk about it all now?  Well, that roommate is a lover of randomness.  He decides everything either through randomness or through routine.  He is an odd duck, but he did come up with a brilliant idea for New Year's Eve: random pizzas.

He put all the crust types in a randomizer, all the toppings in a randomizer, and all the finishers that Pizza Hut just added into a randomizer, then gets a crust, three toppings, and two finishers.  And we had two Random Pizzas.  And they were fabulous!  The first was a meatball, ham, and spinach pizza with a honey barbeque sauce, regular crust, with pretzel finishing and asiago cheese.  Glorious.  The second sounds like a real pizza that could be one menu: green peppers, jalapenos, bacon, all on a medium buffalo sauce, thin sliced (a new amazing thing I never heard of between thin and regular), covered in honey sriarcha sauce and Ginger Boom Boom dusting the crust.  That was my favorite, so spicy and glorious.  I was in heaven.  And it'll be a thing we do more often!

Not only that, you should try it!  Have a party about it!  Tell me in the comments if you do it, I would love to hear it!  Facebook it, tumble it, link me along with it so I can see!  Let's all have fun with a random pizza!  How?  By coming to my roommate's Pizza Hut at Thomas Crossroads in Coweta County, GA.  Or make the random lists yourself using random.org, it's easy!  I want #randompizza to be a thing!  Fill up your instagrams, as well as your bellies!

IHAO on ... Halloween Candy

Ahh, yum!  Halloween brings out the food lover in me.  Ok, being fat brings out the food lover in me.  24/7.  All the time.  BUT.  Halloween has special candies and special treats to talk about, and I got a handful over the course of the past week or so, and I'm excited to break up all this horror movie talk and talk about CANDY!  And not "shaped like a pumpkin" or has witches drawn on the package candy.  Actually different flavors.  Stuff for parties, not for trick or treat.  Ok, here we go!

Candy Corn Cotton Candy

There are too many C's.  Just ... too much.  And I'm just not too sure how this is going to work.  Oh, how this is going to work!  I should explain it.  I'm going to give pre-thoughts, then eat it, then in the next paragraph you'll get my actual thoughts and a grade!  And yes, this is just a huge excuse for me to have bought a bunch of candy and eat it while watching my wife watch Stupidnatural season 9.  All right, Candy Corn Cotton Candy, let's go.

Huh.  So, firstly, the consistency is ... off.  It dissolves quick, like normal cotton candy, but it dissolves a little too quick.  The actual flavor is very light, but it kinda does taste like candy corn.  I'm a BIG fan of candy corn by itself, so these candy corn flavors are always going to be stuff I like, but also stuff I'll scrutinize.  But you know, I really do like it.  I can see myself snacking on it, and the lingering flavor is very much candy corn, and it is real nice.  Grade: B+

Pumpkin Spice Oreo

Weird oreo flavors are always a crapshoot for me.  Sometimes, they are really nice.  And sometimes they are spit them out of your mouth bad.  And even worse, these ones are the non-chocolate cookie ones, but the regular old yellow cookie ones.  Which are generally gross.  I'm ... I'm afraid.  Let's give it a go.

The smell is super duper strong.  Smells like a candle, like a really really strong one.  But you know what, it is super good.  I think calling it "pumpkin spice" is a disservice.  Yeah, it is a buzzword flavor nowadays, which sucks, because it keeps these from being rated as exactly what they are: pumpkin pie cookies.  It has that great crunch of the crust, the wonderful soft filling flavor, it really is superb.  Possibly my favorite Oreo ever.  Grade:A++

M&Ms Pumpkin Spice and Candy Corn flavors

I had these before last year, and remembered I enjoyed ... one of them.  I just didn't remember which.  So Halloween rolls around again, time for me to just get them both, but this time I get to actually review them!

The Candy Corn was sublime!  White chocolate, smooth, and just wonderful tasting.  It didn't taste like candy corn, though.  Which is odd.  And ... I guess a failure?  I mean, the candy tastes GREAT, but it isn't candy corn flavor.  I like it though.  Grade: B+

The Pumpkin Spice ones are in normal chocolate ... and are stupid gross.  I mean, I know some other folks like them, and that's fantastic.  And sure, it is hard to get chocolate and pumpkin spice wrong.  But it just does not mix well for me.  It is still high quality, but I sure don't want it in my mouth.  Grade: B--

Hersey's Candy Corn Creme Bars

Mmmm, more white chocolate.  And more candy corn, though this time as weird flecks inside the white chocolate.  I'm eating and trying all these with my wife, and she is very uncertain, because of her hatred of white chocolate.  I dunno how this is gonna go, but I hope it'll go down smooth.

Well, they were UN-pleasant.  It actually tasted more like candy corn cotton candy than the Candy Corn Cotton Candy did.  I liked it.  She hated it.  It isn't wonderful or anything.  It is pleasant as long as you like white chocolate.  Otherwise, eh.  Grade: C+

Starburst Candy Corn

Mmm, starbursts.  You see, I like chocolate fine.  I like white chocolate a little bit more.  Standard sugar I'm generally not a fan of, preferring salty stuff.  But berry-flavor and fruit-flavor stuff is the BOMB.  I love that stuff!  And Starburst Red is just the best of the best!  And the rest of Starburst is basically forgettable and nothing I want to eat.  How is it going to go with Candy Corn?  Well, there is cherry, orange, strawberry, and lemon.  So I guess I'll just have to try all four.

Those are waxy and disgusting.  Blech!  I tried each flavor, and the only one really tolerable at all was lemon.  All of them have this gross waxy texture and this AWFUL aftertaste that hits you like a bag of wax bricks.  Ugh.  I also decided to do a whole handful.  I had to spit it out.  Disgusting.  Grade: F--

Hersey's Pumpkin Spice Kisses

More Hersey's!  More completely adequate chocolate that isn't great or anything but is perfectly fine.  Yeah, I'm not a Hersey's lover.  I prefer stuff with toffee.  But yeah, these are white chocolate with pumpkin spice, which should make them way better than the M&Ms.  I hope.

Mmmmmmm these are heavenly.  They are so soft and sweet and creamy.  They just melt in your mouth in such a wonderful way.  These are divine.  I really really love these.  Mmmmmmmm.  Grade: A+

Brach's Candy Corn: Pumpkin Spice, Caramel Apple, and S'more flavors

And we finish things up with good ole Brach's, and three very special weirdo flavors.  I'm super duper worried about all three of these being stupid gross.  Let's do this!

Pumpkin Spice: This!  THIS is the texture I love of Candy Corn!  And the pumpkin spice is just not appetizing.  This might be the most candle flavored one.  Not as waxy as the Starbursts, but more candle-y.  Blech.  Grade: D-

Caramel Apple: I love the texture and the apple flavor a whole bunch.  The caramel doesn't come through though.  It almost tastes mint, which is just off-putting.  It really is missing that sweet glorious caramel part.  The apple flavor is really nice, though.  Grade: C

S'More: Wow, it is CRAZY how well this combination works.  There is still a bit of that weird aftertaste that hinders this, and since I'm not much of a s'more person myself, it doesn't do much for me, but my wife really liked these ones.  And they are the best of these novelty flavors.  Man, if only there was a caramel flavor in the Caramel Apple ones.  Grade: C.5


Well, I hope you all enjoyed this little diversion.  I know I ... well, it was a mixed bag.  But maybe now you know what to stock your little jars of candy with and can enjoy your halloween.  Oh, and did I mention, Saw III review tomorrow, suckas!!!

IHAO on ... 7 x 7 Steakburger

I don't know if you know this about me, but I have insomnia.  Oh wait, I mentioned that earlier.  But even on nights that I get normal sleep, I'm a bit of a nightowl.  I tend to stay awake, watching films I review in the dark quiet of the living room, sometimes with my roommates, both of which also tend to be nightowls.  So when the munchies hit, I've been known to go around and enjoy the food of the masses late at night.  And there are of course some specials at some of those restaurants catering to the nightowls, the Who as I called this group of people once in an article that I am currently writing ... uh ...

Anyway.  Let's talk Steak and Shake.  My roommates LOVE Steak and Shake.  We go there ... well, I go there at least once a month.  They go much more often.  I suspect one goes twice a week minimum.  I can see the appeal.  It is like a nice trucker diner, a restaurant that provides consistency along with greasy diarrhea and questionable clientele after midnight.  Ok, a little harsh for the sake of the joke there.  I've never had a BAD experience at Steak and Shake.  I've had some ... iffy ones that definitely changed my health for a few days or weeks.  But hey, I love their chili, and their burgers are almost reasonably priced enough for me to never complain about the cost.

I say all this because we went on a journey for the legendary 7 x 7 Steakburger!  What is that?  Well, it is basically exactly what it sounds like: seven patties of the Steak and Shake classic thing steak patties, with seven pieces of American cheese, all on some basically non-descript buns.  Yeah, you can ask for some specialties to it, like adding some veggies or some condiments, but they are not put on the burger but on the side.  And it is quite difficult to put mustard on a burger 7 patties high, covered in enough grease to fill up a modest two-door sedan's transmission.

Tame this wild beast, stock photo hands.  Tame it!

All right, I realize that using the term "journey" was definitely an overstatement.  We got done with a game of Magic that went about 30 minutes longer than necessary, say it was 12:30, and we had all been wanting to try the mythical 7 x 7.  So we hop into a car and get there.  Not much of a journey.  But the anticipation made it seem so much greater.  How good was it going to be?  Or potentially how absolutely dreadfully horrible will it make us feel in the few minutes after we engorged ourselves with more steak-patties than a table of 7 would order on average.

We got there.  We ordered it.  They got my order wrong ... again.  I do not really understand how it can be so difficult to understand the concept of "no fries, yes chili" but whatever.  We get the mammoth burger.  And the first thing I notice ... it isn't that big.  I was expecting with 7 patties something hugely enormous.  Some monolith of meat, a skyscraper-esque burger that could feed the put upon laborers of whatever flowery language world I'm apparently using as my metaphor land today.  But yeah, no, it wasn't very big at all.  Sure, it was bigger than you could get your mouth around easily, but by the first few bites I didn't have a problem taking regular bites, didn't have to divvy the burger up into smaller portions, none of that.  Second observation: TOO MUCH GREASE.  I could squeeze mine and it was like a wet sponge filled with just the most vile tobacco spittle.

But I was there to eat the thing.  I was there to conquer this not so difficult to conquer challenge.  The joke price was excellent, by the way: $7.77.  Perfect.

Flavor for me ... I don't think that Steak and Shake burgers are much to write home about.  And this was ... just more of that.  It was heartier, there was more of it, but ultimately kind of bland.  Not bad by any means, but bland.  I don't regret the food, and I didn't get nearly as ill feeling the next day as the others with me did.  But ... I do not think I would recommend someone devour what we did.  But it was curious, and I'm happy to have finally done it.

/\// tOrtUrE-jEssEl-A-thOn \\/\

June 3rd through June 9th

From June 3rd to the 8th, I want to have TORTURE-JESSEL-A-THON!  I am going to put myself through the worst films and most hated films that all you guys can think of.  I'm going to collect them all over the next week, and debut the schedule on Monday, the 2nd.  Then for a whole week, you will get to see me go through pain for all your pleasure, ending with a very special, very controversial IHAO that was supposed to be filmed years ago but I never had the guts to actually shoot, featuring a movie that makes me fuming at the mouth angry, and might be my most hated film.

So, send comments, shares, etc. Thanks again!

IHAO on ... Papa John's Double Cheeseburger Pizza - READER REQUEST

I hate pickles.  I hate vinegar.  I hate ketchup.  I was very afraid of this pizza.  Very afraid.  Like, afraid I might throw up on the pizza.  And that is pretty terrible thing to do, considering that it wasn't my pizza but a slice given to me as we went on the journey of the Double Cheeseburger Pizza.

This pizza is normally $17.  As my roommate and I went on our journey to the other side of town to there, we listened to some wonderful Japanese pop music and talked about how thrilling our town is (fact: it is not very thrilling, that was the joke).  We made it to our destination, and surprise number one, the cashier was awesome.  Telling us how honored he was to be giving us pizza.  He was the nicest dude.  He also knocked 7 bucks off the pizza, and gave us a discount so I could drink me a Sunkist as my roomie downed his Dr. Pepper.

Pictured: I dunno, but it came up when I searched "Dr. Pepper"

The car ride back was filled with terror and laughter, as the smell of pickles and ketchup filled the air.  We were both dead certain the pizza sauce had been completely replaced with ketchup.  But we make it home, take a picture, and I pull a nice big slice, making sure to not avoid pickles.

This pizza's super good.  I really really liked it.  I have only two complaints: 1) for something called DOUBLE CHEESEBURGER, there is very little meat; and 2) if we hadn't gotten such a great deal, this pizza would have way to damned expensive.  With those out of the way, the pizza itself.

The toppings are wonderful pieces of roma tomato, good quality meat, and of course, pickles.  The cheese is standard pizza cheese, maybe a little extra cheddar.  But the real big deal is the secret sauce.  The sauce is amazing.  A+ by itself.  It tastes like a combination of alfredo, thousand island, and hints of ketchup and mustard.  It was glorious.  That sauce ... my god.  Perfection.  Other than my two complaints above (with the money being a BIG deal) this was a great buy, and I would be willing to go out of my way and buy this pretty often.

Grade: B+

IHAO on ... Taco Bell's Chili Cheese Burrito and Sangrita Blast

Doing something a little different today.  Because this past week I've been eating a LOT of Taco Bell!  I know, I know, it is bad for me, I'm fat, blah blah blah, good, we have all that out of the way.  There are two new things at Taco Bell I want to talk about, grade, and share my opinions on.  So I'm gonna.  Let's do this!

CHILI CHEESE BURRITOS

As a small child, I loved Chili Cheese Burritos.  They were my favorite.  So much so it took me a longer time than I'd like to admit to even try a taco.  It took chalupas, with their formerly wonderful bread, to break me out of my tube-shaped obsession.  I guess I was too afraid of Taco Neck Syndrome.

How did Shaq avoid it and have such a healthy career?!

My father would tempt me with them, or reward me, or just be lazy when my mother was off doing patriotic somethingorothers so we'd go to Taco Bell and I'd get my love.  They were my second favorite food, right below pizza on the charts.

CCBs were just sooooooooooo good!  Warm, soft, cheesy, chili-y!  They were a thing of legend for me.  Wherever I went, if there was a Taco Bell, I knew what I was getting!  I was set.  Two of those and a large drink, and I was good to go.  Losing weight, I would just get water.  Gaining weight, I'd get four CCBs.  It was glorious.

When I went to college I had my first huge culture shock at a Taco Bell (for the purposes of this editorial) ... the South Carolina ones didn't sell CCBs!  It was unthinkable, but Chili-Cheese Burritos were seasonal, and at this point they had left the South Carolina market behind.  Sure, I had found a love of Cheesy Gordita Crunches and still had a soft spot for the soft warm bread of Chalupas, but there was a hole inside my stomach.  Shaped like a CCB.  My parents helped by bringing a cooler filled with them whenever they visited, 6 or 8 or 10 CCBs, all hanging out in a cold cooler making the not-too-terribly-long drive up.  But soon, my hometown's Taco Bell got remodeled ... and the CCBs were no more.

I don't know when my letter writing campaign I was always planning on starting but you know stuff happens get off my back ... ahem ... I don't know how it happened, but it did.  CCBs are back.  And they are just as good as I remember for the most part!  Every restaurant is different, and going at different times leaves different levels of quality in the CCBs.  But if you get them fresh, they are perfect.  Perfect tubes of perfection, filled with cheesy-heaven.  Get them.  Around 11:30am is good, or if you can go late enough so they have to special make you some.  A good way to make sure they are fresh is to change the order just slightly, like ask for extra spicy or add sour cream.  Then you are guaranteed the greatest food Taco Bell ever made.

Grade: B++

MOUNTAIN DEW SANGRITA BLAST

As a soda drinker, I used to love Surge and Mountain Dew and all that stuff.  But I've calmed it down, only going out of my way for two Dew flavors: Livewire, the orange flavor that has been discontinued for awhile I think, or at least I never see them anywhere any longer; and Baja Blast, exclusive to Taco Bell.  Now there is a new flavor, Sangrita Blast.  How does it stack up?

It is a black cherry flavor, and is incredibly, incredibly tart.  Almost too tart for me.  And almost too sweet.  And almost too carbonated.  In fact, I think it is actually all those things.  I still like it quite a bit.  Dark cherry sodas are great for the most part, especially non-cola flavored ones.  But a pure dark cherry flavor, full of all that wonderful tart is finally here, and it is actually just too tart for me.  And probably most others.  I have a pretty strong stomach for crazy terrible foods, but it hit my tongue like a bag of tacs.  Sharp, but still pleasant.  But it is a sipping drink, not a drink for a gulping man.  Or woman.  I think it is worth a drink, and it could become your favorite.  But I found all its qualities a little too strong for me, so it ends up just being a middle of the road soda, all things balanced out.

Grade: C

There we go.  Food reviews.  You like this?  Think it is a waste of time?  Want more?  Less?  Lemme know.  I Have an Opinion is still evolving, and I love you readers' input.