Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Young Frankenstein's favorite

Welcome to this week’s edition of Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down.  This is the first edition, and almost certainly won’t be done every week.  But I’m going to pretend like it will be.  Those of you who know me know that I will almost invariably try new things when given the opportunity.   As such I am quite the consumer.  This week I tried two new food items, and will dispense with you the wisdom I gained from doing so.

Thumbs Down: Buffalo Snacker from KFC

I know, I know.  A 99 cent sandwich from KFC.  You’d expect it to be a taste sensation.  But sadly it’s not.  The buffalo sauce is adequate, but tangy in a slightly unpleasant way.  They fall apart too easy and the service isn’t very quick.  But the biggest fault is that they are too small.  You’d be much better off getting a Hot N’ Spicy McChicken or Spicy Chicken Sandwich from Carls Junior, both of which are nearly twice as big and also cost 99 cents.

Thumbs Up: Pudding on the Rice

At the exact time I was purchasing my KFC I saw that Pudding on the Rice was now open.  Having zero concept of what this was, but also having about 10 minutes of spare time, I decided to investigate.  Turns out that this is a new store devoted entirely to rice pudding.  Yes, you heard me right, nothing but rice pudding.  Where else than Provo?  According to their website they’re in New York, Paris, Tokyo and over a 1000 other locations.  I like rice pudding, but I doubt the financial wisdom in opening this store within a mile of 4 ice cream places.  Maybe people will like having an extra option.  And options PotR certainly has.  The salesgirl (who was hot, which was an added benefit) told me that they always had 16 flavors available, indicating that they actually have more than that.  I sampled both the Chocolate Raspberry and Caramel Turtle.  I ended up going with the Turtle, and spread a 3 dollar portion over a couple meals.  I admit, it was delicious.  Probably not much healthier than ice cream with all the chocolate and caramel, but delicious nonetheless.  

The product seems quality and I support them in their novel endeavor.  I do however have a couple minor suggestions.  They serve their rice pudding in Tupperware dishes.  That’s just odd.  You’re going to have a hard enough time selling your pudding folks, you don’t need to have your dishes look like they hold leftovers.  They also rented out a huge store and are only using one wall.  There is seriously a ton of extra space, all plain white, which just looks odd.  Finally I’m not a huge fan of the name.  It’s kind of clever, but I don’t think lots of people will get it.  Need help?  “If you’re blue and you don’t know where to go to why don’t you go where fashion sits . . .” Pudding on the Rice.  Maybe I give the general populace too little credit.  If you’ve got one near you, hit this place up.

Song of the moment: “Blitzkrieg Bop” The Ramones

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know I am not normal, but I would much rather have rice pudding anytime over ice cream. And during the winter, warm rice pudding must seem somewhat appealling even to hard core ice creamers.

Was the tupperware the "to-go" option? That would be expensive.

Maybe they are just squating while they see if it catches on or not.

Anonymous said...

Catherine and I have visited Rice to Riches in NYC. I guess this is the New York location? I think it must be, as there was much rice pudding to be had, and it was served in fun tupperwares. How weird they chose Provo as a location (or really smart). Do they all have different, pun-ny names? I thought the tupperware was cute - plus, they give you so much rice pudding, you really should take some home so you're not sick. I want to go back soon...

Catherine Elizabeth said...

Erin and I have been to the one in NYC. It seems pretty popular. I agree, their serving dishes must be pretty expensive (then again, rice pudding is not, so maybe it evens out), but they are fun to take home. And then when you use them for real leftovers, you think, "I should go to that rice pudding place again..."