Good, bad, and way overpriced eats

This is junk food writing, sorry, but I'm working on something more substantial, I promise.

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I'm always interested in food that's cheap, good, and easy, so today — one find, one fraud, and then another fraud.

The find is Kroger's Bacon Egg and Cheese Croissant, sold only at stores owned by Kroger (Fred Meyer and QFC in Washington, FoodsCo and Ralph's in California, just plain Kroger in Missouri, Pick 'n Save in Wisconsin, and other fake names in other places — there's one wherever you are).

As promised, it's an egg, some bacon, and a slice of cheese, on a croissant. It's not a full-size croissant, but not a sub-compact either — it's a mid-size croissant. They're not generous but also not stingy on the titular bacon, egg, and cheese, and it's all quite yummy with a delicious buttery aftertaste. Two of these croissants would be a full breakfast for almost anyone, so I usually have four.

It's also available as egg, sausage, and cheese, which is quite good, but science has established that bacon is superior to sausage, so the bacon croissant beats the sausage croissant.

Skip the stupidly over-complicated microwave instructions, and simply unwrap two of these frozen croissants, put 'em on a paper plate, and zap on high for two minutes and 40 seconds. Perfection. 

Even more impressive than the flavor is the price — it's $10.89 for a box of eight, and that's not a special sale price, it's the ordinary price.

That's $1.36 per croissant, and they border on being substantial. At a fast-food place, you'd expect to pay $2.99 per croissant but they'd actually be $4.49, maybe more, so Doug says, buy these at Kroger and get fat like me.

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But do not buy nor attempt to eat Simple Truth™ Omelet Bites. This product is so inedible and overpriced, it's hard to believe it actually exists, but it does.

The box promises an omelet in bite-size bits. It's actually an over-processed, under-flavored, and over-packaged mess. 

Each 'bite' is tiny — it takes two 'bites' to equal (by weight, certainly not flavor) a forkful of an actual omelet. There are only eight mini-bite 'bites' in the entire package, so you're paying $3.69 for about four bites of an alleged omelet. 

The taste? Well, imagine the blandest omelet you've ever eaten. Two flavors sorta seep through — onions, overpowering everything, and a hint of eggs but the eggs taste phony and wrong.

I am not finicky and will devour almost anything, but I bought two boxes of these, in two different flavors which tasted identical, and most of the 'bites' from both boxes went out the window as pigeon chow.

And the packaging for these is a festival of waste. Inside each box are two smaller boxes, made of thick, bleached cardboard that's so heavy, it's about 1/3 of the entire product's weight. Each inner-box is wrapped in plastic. Inside each inner-box are four of these flavorless mini-bites — "one serving," the box hilariously says. Each 'bite' is nestled inside a thick, waxed cupcake wrap, and after microwaving, good luck getting the 'bites' out of the cupcake wrappers.

So you're left with a big box, two little boxes, two plastic wraps, and eight waxed cupcake wraps that tend to blow away if you exhale. And you'll still be hungry for breakfast.

I can't remember feeling more ripped off by a grocery store purchase, ever, and can't imagine who'd be a satisfied customer for this glop.

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One more grouse about cheapskatery:

A while back, I looked into getting burritos delivered from my favorite Mexican place here in Seattle. I've never used a delivery service for restaurant food, and I expected to be charged a delivery fee, and of course, I'd add a generous tip.

What nuked my mind was that the delivery outfit — Postmates or Uber Eats or whatever, I don't remember — had invented their own fake menu for the restaurant.

The burrito I buy for $8.49 at the restaurant was suddenly priced at $11-something, and that's not including the delivery fee and tip. I am willing to pay high prices sometimes, but adding three bucks to the price of a burrito is theft. 

Is there anyone reading this who might recommend a restaurant delivery services that isn't built on theft?

7/9/2023   

 itsdougholland.com
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