Orbit Mist Raspberry Lemon Dew

It's been a little while since I've done an Orbit review, but I am still on track for my goal of trying every flavor of Orbit available in the US. Raspberry Lemon is from the somewhat recent Orbit Mist line, which is supposed to be juicier than the regular Orbit gum.

I love the swirly fun inner packaging, but I don't love that all the boxes are the same shade of blue. One of my favorite things about Orbit is the fun, distinctive colors of the packaging. I love seeing a rainbow of colored gum packages in the checkout lane, and Orbit Mist just doesn't stand out as much.


The gum smelled like a fake lemony raspberry, leaning a little towards cleaning solution. The gum seemed crispy as I chewed it, and it was very juicy. The flavor wasn't realistic, but still pretty good. I was reminded of the flavored lemonades sold at American restaurant chains like Applebee's or Red Robin.

This was not a long-lasting flavor gum, and after a few minutes, I had to resist the urge to pop another piece. The flavor was definitely enjoyable, but once it was gone, the remaining flavor was very non-descript and mediocre.

The ladies at Gum Alert adored this gum, so be sure to check out their review.

B+

Orbit website

Tirol Matcha Milk

The current rotating flavor in Tirol variety packs is Matcha Milk, and that's good news for me. Hot Cake was interesting, but trying Matcha Milk is required. The quality of a matcha piece can make or break a line of chocolate products for me.

Tirol's matcha chocolates have been good in the past, but the only ones I've tried have been from the premium line; the quality doesn't always translate to the regular sized products.


From the top, it was a solid green chocolate, but on the bottom, there was a lovely white and green swirl. The piece didn't smell like matcha, just a little like milk, but the flavor was fantastic.

The moderately sweet solid white chocolate had a cool, creamy, and smooth matcha latte taste without any special filling. The matcha level was right in the middle - not too strong or grassy, but not disappointing, either. In short, even for a cheaper price, Tirol does matcha right.

A

Tirol website

Indian Kitchen / Hot Breads

Readers occasionally email me to tell me about their favorite restaurant in an attempt to get me to review it, or just to enlighten me on what I'm missing. Almost all of these favorite restaurants are in some Pennsylvania or New Jersey town I've never heard of, nor will ever travel to.

I do know Exton, PA, and I do travel pretty darn close to it a few times a year. And the discovery (thanks, reader!) of an Indian restaurant that serves chaats, dosas, curries and other Indian classics, as well as Indian pizzas and wraps, Bombay specialties, and Indo-Chinese dishes meant that the next time I zoomed down Highway 30, I'd be taking a detour.

Indian Kitchen is the name of the restaurant, with a sister restaurant, Indian Hut in Bensalem, PA, but people seem to refer to the restaurants as Hot Breads, which is the name of the bakery inside.Yeah, I said bakery. Birthday cakes, tiramisu, and a whole slew of tradition bakery goods, including a few Indian specialties like pastry puffs filled with Indian curry are baked on the premises.

Hot Breads pretty much has you covered on any Indian food craving you might have. Want to cook it at home yourself? Hit up the Indian Corner grocery next door.

With such a large menu, covering so many styles of Indian cuisine, I had a hard time choosing. Ultimately, I decided to check out an Indo-Chinese dish (India's take on Chinese food) , since I've had Indian pizza and Bombay street food elsewhere, and I've never seen Indo-Chinese food at any other place.

After looking over the menu, step up to the counter to place your order. Pay, then have a seat. When your order is up, a person behind the counter will call out the name of the dish (listen closely, because it comes with an accent), and you go gather your goods on a tray to bring back to the table.

When ordering, you'll be asked if you want mild, medium, or spicy — for everything! I've never had any anyone ask my spice preferences at an Indian restaurant for anything other than curries, and even then usually not. Not knowing Hot Bread's definition of spicy, I played it safe with medium, but I'm afraid the lack of heat may have diminished my enjoyment of Hot Bread's food. Next time, it's spicy all the way.Of course, my favorite chaat, dahi puri, was ordered. Puffed puri shells filled with potato and chickpeas, topped with yogurt, tamarind chutney, and sev could have had a little more sweet tamarind chutney for my liking, and I very much missed the sprinkling of chili powder I get on most dahi puris. I'm hoping the lack of chili powder was because I ordered the dish medium.The masala dosa was thin, crisp and not at all greasy, although the potato filling suffered from a little too much grease and lack of spiciness. Again, I think medium got me.When it came to the Indo-Chinese dishes, I waffled between the curries over rice, noodle dishes, and fried rice for quite some time. The Veg Manchurian won. Deep fried vegetable balls the consistency of a chewier kofta balls swim in a mild Manchurian sauce flavored with onion, ginger, garlic, and a healthy amount of cilantro. The dish tasted more Chinese than Indian, but somewhat different than anything you've ever had at a Chinese restaurant. It was like a cilantro-heavy Chinese sauce landed on my Indian vegetable balls and Basmati rice.
The hot cardamom tea (masala tea is also an option) was sweet, spicy, and creamy without being too much of any three of those things. Perfect, really.

I'm not prepared to declare Hot Breads the best Indian restaurant — I've only covered about 3% of their menu — but I will say that Hot Breads quite possibly has the most varied menu I've seen. I'm very envious of the Extonians who have the opportunity to blow through the menu on a quest for their favorite dish.

Oh, and the restaurant is BYOB with free wi-fi! Really, what doesn't Hot Breads offer?

Indian Kitchen /Hot Breads
260 Pottstown Pike, Exton, PA 19341
610-363-9500
Sun-Thurs, 11:30am-9:30pm
Fri-Sat, 11:30am-10:30pm
BYOB

Celeste Meatball Pizza for One

Okay, so there are a few things I like to come out with and admit whilst posting on Foodette. My affinity for all things unhealthy. My more than slightly morbid fascination with the French Revolution. And now, I have another closeted skeleton for your enjoyment and scathing wit.

I think I'm...pie curious.

Don't laugh, I'm serious. I've found myself staring at certain pizzas whenever I go out. I've been eschewing pepperoni, sausage, etc, for something...a little different. Something eccentric. And although I know today's pizza isn't strange, (it's a stand in for the original pizza, one that my mother's manwhore wanted for his own lunch) it sort of leads me to question the world around me. Am I pie curious? Was I born this way, or was it an environment of New Haven pizza, strange toppings, and thin crusts that led me to this important life decision?

Today, I went out and got a Celeste Meatball Pizza for One, trying to curb myself of a lifetime of disappointments, like prosciutto and fennel, and desperately making one last attempt to get back to a normal life with normal, vanilla pizza toppings. Like meatball. A safe route.

The Celeste Pizzas are pretty sad. I mean, there's no way to perk up the phrase "pizza for one" unless you include a shot of gin. Celeste doesn't bullshit you like California Pizza Kitchen and go as far as to recommend a wine to serve with your frozen pizza, but the website is upsettingly sparse and evocative of 90's Geocities pages.After microwaving this pizza, I cut it into slices and ate it with a Foxon Park Iron Brew. The heating is abysmal with these. Biting into the slice, I got a very lukewarm, mushy bite, but when I got to the crust, pleased with the temperature, it was at a rather volcanic temperature and burnt the roof of my mouth. Though the toppings are ample on this, the textures are just terrible. The sauce is delicious, not like the sugary sauce on most pizzas, and has more of a red pepper flavor than tomato. However, with the amount that they blob onto this, it bogs down the crust and makes it soggy and unable to stand up to the sauce and cheese. The cheese is salty and that's about it.As far as the meatballs go, Celeste provokes me with some shit about how this is just like my grandmother's meatballs. Fuck you, Celeste, you don't know me! My grandmother would beat me with a belt if she knew I'd compared these meatballs to hers. Bullshit. Tasting the meatballs is hit or miss as they're spread all over the pizza, so in one bite you could get none or six. The flavor is hearty and laced with oregano, and goes well with the rest of the sauce, with a little breading crunch and a soft texture, but there are like, no meatballs. Searching for them on the crust is like looking for WMD's or talent in a Robin Williams film.

So this ends my foray with regular pizza toppings. From now on, I'm staying with wild. I'm trusting my gastronomical instincts and seeking out the exciting, the different, and the slightly strange in both life and eating. You can have your grandmother's mass-produced meatballs, but as for Keepitcoming and I, you can find us in the truffle oil, burrata, duck egg, and andouille section of the menu. We're pie curious and proud.

Cadbury Bournville

Dark chocolate. When said too many times, it sounds like a bad pornographic film. Daaaaaark chocolate. I feel like there should be a synthesizer playing softly in the background.This hot number in the red suit is the Cadbury Bournville, and as Rebecca tells me, the best dark chocolate. We shall see. Cadbury is positively ace at making milk chocolate, but how do they fare on the dark side? The Bournville, aside from having a fantastically pretentious name, like a microbrew or a fancy hotel, comes off in large chunks that are big enough to stifle a full-grown mother or at least distract her from a lecture on skinny-dipping in thunderstorms and its risks.The flavor is really, really milky, almost like a milk chocolate, and the melt is grainy at first, but smooths out towards the end. It's funny, with all the experience I have with dark chocolate, this just resembles more of a high end milk than a dark. It's only 39% cocoa solids, a little paltry for a dark chocolate. My personal favorite for a dark percentage is around 54%, but this makes it a rather good mixture of tastes and textures from each chocolate. The flavor is caramelly and smooth, and reminded me of hot chocolate powder with its texture and taste.

This was a tasty chocolate bar, much better than a regular US bar, but not quite to the standards of dark chocolate that I generally frequent. If this were, as stated, a porno, it would be in the discount bin, covered with stains and packaged with naked midget wrestling. Its heart is in the right place, but it just don't have the balls.

Special K Pink Lemonade Protein Water Mix

The best way I can tell you about Special K Pink Lemonade Protein Water Mix is to tell you a little more about Keepitcoming Love. I swear, it'll all connect. Just sit back and let the magic happen.

Keepitcoming is a fascinating sort of girl. When I met her, she was sweet and adorable. She's still sweet and adorable. But, I soon realized, underneath her veneer of innocence is all business and a desire for satisfaction.

Case in point. I like to watch her sleep. In an entirely adorable, summer blockbuster, non-creepy way. Surpassing that love is my love to sleep, myself. I'm rarely able to watch her sleep, though, because the time I wake up from my hibernation, she's up, dressed, looking like a Bottega Veneta model, and pinching me awake at some ungodly, single-digit hour in the AM.

It's all for a good reason, though, because after the initial shock of waking up before sundown, I come to realize that there's a lot of time in the day to do the things we love the most, like sitting in our bathrobes on the chaise and doing nothing, or sitting in our bathrobes on the porch doing nothing, or getting dressed and going to the park to do nothing. In that way, she reminded me of this drink mix. Truly, I express my amorous sentiments like nobody else.Pictured above, not cocaine.

I made this mix with water from the potentially dangerous tap at my work. And just like Keepitcoming, it will either blow my mind or leave me crippled from the neck down. Of course, I'm kidding, but this was a pretty fantastic flavor. Most protein drinks you'll get and dump into water will be slightly thick and chalky, as though you've gone and confused your Crystal Light with your Chanel eyeshadow, but this one was smooth and pretty similar to drinking lemonade from a neighbor's lemonade stand, if your neighbors were Kellogg's.Pictured above, not hepatitis.

The flavor was a little watery, but definitely had all the good qualities of a pink lemonade- starting out sweet, it developed into a nicely acidic citrus taste, one that didn't have the soapy characteristics of other drink mixes. It might have mixed more thoroughly with cold water, but the tap only had lukewarm and third degree burn. I think the best part was the satisfaction and sustenance I felt after drinking it. It did say it was a protein water, so I was curious to see how long it could sustain me before needing a snack. I drank this at work, mixed it at two, and when I got out at nine, I wasn't feeling the urge to eat cheese balls for dinner. Miraculous indeed.Overall, I'd try this again, because not only did it taste sweet and pack a powerful punch, it was also good for me. Three more things that it shares with Keepitcoming, and I wouldn't trade her for all the lemonade-flavored protein water in the world.

Milk Coffee Kit Kat

In every relationship, there's always a hierarchy between partners, an age-old fact that presents itself with the dawn of each day. This has recently come up in my own partnership, and has led me to question all that I know in my day-to-day happenings.

And still, the fact of the matter remains- Keepitcoming Love makes the best morning coffee. I make delicious eggs. Case closed.

It's just how it's always gone. We'll both do breakfast or I'll slip down and whip something up, and she makes the coffee. But sometimes, we'll be sitting in our robes on the chaise lounge, listening to The Zombies on Pandora, and I'll come bounding up like a puppy saying, "Surprise! I made coffee!", and we'll both take a sip and simultaneously wince.

"Did you use the coffee spoon?"
"Yeah."
"Did you use the right ratio?"
"Oh, totally."
"Really?"
"I might have done a little improvising here and there, but it's okay, right?"

She'll take a few sips. I'll shrug and say something about how nice the weather is and inconspicuously try to mix sriracha into the coffee. It fixes everything, right? And halfway to a terrible, watery grave, we'll look at each other and say, "This coffee is pretty bad." She'll stroke my head and tell me I'll learn- someday. I'll sigh. And she'll pad back to make another pot of coffee. And that's one of many reasons why I love her.

It's how it's always gone. As much as I'd like to wake up earlier than she does and bring her coffee in bed, it's just not a skill I've cultivated yet. Until now. Now, I can bring her this new finding, the milk coffee Kit Kat bar from the Asian grocery, and essentially emulate the idea of coffee in a single serving of a candy bar.Originally, I was convinced this was a tea-flavored Kit Kat, because the package had photographs of cherry blossoms and a cup of something tea colored, so I naturally assumed it was. Not so. When I bit into this bar, I got an intense, dark rush of coffee, like eating a chocolate covered coffee bean. If it weren't for the white chocolate around it, I'd have been turned off to the flavor, as without the extra sugar, it is quite bitter. I'm not sure if the white chocolate is supposed to imitate the milk addition to a cup of coffee, but it certainly sweetens it up and cuts the bitterness.I was surprised at how much I liked this bar, because I'm more inclined towards chocolates with caramel and peanut butter flavors in it, so this was an entirely foreign experience. The size of the bar, a miniature Kit Kat, was perfect. Any larger would have been overkill. The wafers in this were crisp and airy, and gave a nice textural depth to the candy. All in all, it provided an accurate coffee experience that I'd be glad to serve Keepitcoming in lieu of my strange brew.