Quest Nutrition Bars

Quest Nutrition is another nutrition snack foods company, focusing on high protein items.  They made protein powder, bars, protein pasta, and even, uh, protein chips and peanut butter cups.  

Protein Bars (Original Review, 2016)

I've tried only the bars, as they are an easy grab-n-go item for me when I'm dashing around on weekends.  Quest makes 3 different product lines for bars: "Cereal Protein Bars", in flavors like Waffle and Cinnamon Roll, Hero bars, with gooey fillings and sweet candy-like coatings, and more standard protein bars.

"America's Favorite Protein Bar leads the charge in Quest's mission to end metabolic disease. Every delicious Quest Bar flavor has 20-21 grams of protein and plenty of fiber without a lot of unnecessary ingredients or extra carbs. All Quest Bars are gluten and soy free, and contain no added sugar."

It is the protein bars that I tried, which is also their most extensive product line, with more than 20 varieties, many of which sound rather awesome (e.g. Strawberry Cheesecake, Cinnamon Roll, PB & J, Mint Chocolate Chunk).

The protein bars are high protein, 20+ grams per bar, made from a protein blend of milk protein isolate and whey protein isolate, along with soluble corn fiber, almonds, and, some chemicals.  They are virtual no sugar, using artificial sweetener only.  Sounds promising, nutritionally, in some ways.

I tried several flavors, and, I have to admit, my reaction was a bit unexpected.  The texture is all wrong, but, they don't taste that bad.  I stopped after trying only 3 varieties however because whey protein isolate bothers my stomach, and, these made me feel awful almost immediately.  If you can tolerate whey protein isolate though, I do recommend, for taste and yummy chunks inside!

S'mores Protein Bar.

"Toasty-sweet marshmallow, rich chocolate and crisp graham cracker layered together in this melt-in-your-mouth, campfire classic. "

This one looked ... promising.  I could indeed see large chunks of chocolate.  I could indeed see areas of graham cracker.  It didn't look THAT fake.

And, at first bite, it wasn't awful either.  It was kind of a strange texture, but I loved the big chunk of chocolate.  And then ... the aftertaste hit.  Wow, it was horrible.  I don't know what it was, if it was the "protein blend" or all the artificial sweeteners.  Whatever it was, it was truly awful.  I actually spit it out.  I couldn't handle it, nor could I handle taking a second bite to give it another chance.  Zero stars?

Cookies & Cream.

"With real cookie crumbles and delicious cream, America’s favorite flavor can now be your favorite Quest Bar! "

So, I tried another, the promising sounding Cookies & Cream.

And, like the S'mores, it was actually almost good.  The texture was odd, but it had huge chunks of chocolate cookie and cream in it, both of which were actually good.  This was much better than the S'mores.

Except, well, it had the strange protein blend in it, which immediately made my stomach feel really funny.

I need to stop trying these bars! **.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.

"Our best-selling bar is like sneaking a spoonful of cookie dough straight from the bowl."

I don't listen to my own advice.  Particularly when I discover cookie dough bars.

It was like every other bar.  The texture is strange, the taste is strange, but, the chocolate chunks and slightly cookie dough nature of it are good.  And it makes my stomach feel strange.  **.

Protein Chips (2023 Review)

Quest makes two styles of protein chips, either tortilla chips or "original style".  The tortilla chips look much like regular tortilla chips, triangle shaped, and they come in a bunch of zesty varieties (nacho cheese, chile lime, ranch, spicy sweet chili, loaded taco).  The original style aren't really standard potato chips, but rather, they seem to be baked, hexagon shaped, and look much like Popchips.  They come in more standard potato chip flavors such as sour cream & onion, cheddar & sour cream, or bbq.  All use their protein blend (whey and milk protein isolates), and boast a fairly impressive load of protein (19g per bag or so).

I tried only one kind of tortilla style chips, but I'd gladly try more.  Which, is very odd for me to say.

Loaded Taco.

"Say hola to the Quest Loaded Taco Tortilla Style Protein Chips! Each crunchy chip is seasoned with loaded taco flavor and ready to feed your taco cravings whenever they hit. Keto-friendly."

Things I don't generally like: tortilla chips.  Tacos.  Most Mexican food.  Healthy strange protein items.  And yet ...  I both tried, and liked, these taco flavored protein tortilla chips?  Um, yes.

I kinda liked them.  Yes, they tasted quite a bit like Doritos, which I generally do not like (although not as heavy in the tomato department).  Mostly zesty, slightly cheesy, tortilla chips.  They had a good crunch and completely normal tortilla chip texture.  Very savory.  They had a slightly odd aftertaste, but, there was so much spicing that it was easy to overlook.  I didn't hate them.  They went remarkably well with salads with tomatoes and/or corn, and great with Mexican style chipotle like creamy dressings.  

I easily finished my bag.  While I wouldn't seek them out again, they really weren't bad, and the protein stats are quite compelling (and, somehow, the protein isolates in this form didn't bother my stomach the way it does in bars).  I'd like to try more flavors.  ***.

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Culture, An American Yogurt Company, NYC

If you have read my blog, or know me at all, you know how much I enjoy ice cream/frozen yogurt/gelato/etc.  I have a scoop of some kind of frozen treat with nearly every dessert after dinner (warm pie a la mode, fruit crisps/crumbles/tarts always "need" a scoop, even a heated up leftover donut requires ice cream in my world ...).  Most week days I have the soft serve at my office after lunch, and weekend lunches *always* conclude with a warm chocolate cake or cookie with ice cream on top.  So ice cream (and its close relatives) are just part of my everyday baseline.  

But when you put me in warm, sunny weather, I turn a bit crazy about frozen desserts.  About soft serve in particular.  I don't just want my afternoon frozen treat as a component in a larger creation, I need it to be THE starring role.  And it needs to be soft serve (hard serve is for eating at home!).  It needs to be consumed outside, in the afternoon sun.  Rainy days need not apply.  If it is ice cream, or frozen yogurt, from a shop that doesn't specialize in toppings, then it needs to be in a cone (cake cone, not sugar, ideally cone shaped but the flat bottom will do), with sprinkles or dip.  If the temperature is over 85*, dip is not considered.  If it is a shop known for toppings, which is generally more true for froyo than ice cream, then, a dish with ALL the toppings is in order.

Now that you have this context, let me further explain that I got to live in New York for the month of August this year.  Let's just say, I certainly made the most of my soft serve "needs".  I dragged coworkers nearly immediately to Soft Swerve, my favorite soft serve ice cream in the city.  I took advantage of birthday freebie scoops to get generic hard serve at Baskin-Robbins and Haagen-datz, and birthday froyo at Pinkberry and 16 Handles.  I indulged in the office soft serve ice cream every single day.  I finally ventured to Mister Dips to get an epic soft serve creation there (review coming soon!).  On so on.

My last week in town, my co-workers wanted to get me cake to celebrate.  Now, NY has excellent cake, don't get me wrong, and I had plenty of it too when I was there (namely, Empire Cake, several times a week, without fail!), but I wanted more of an adventure.  It was going to be 90*+, and, well, I certainly could not stay indoors eating cake.  I had to go get creamy soft serve.

My destination, and thus theirs, was Culture, An American Yogurt Company.

"Here at Culture An American Yogurt Company our goal is to provide a healthy snack alternative to those who crave quality strained yogurt combined with artisanal toppings. We manufacture fresh and frozen yogurt in house. Our yogurt is made from specially selected live probiotic cultures and the freshest local milk, nothing more. Manufacturing all yogurts on premises ensures quality health-conscious treats that are extremely fresh."

I was drawn to it because it sounded like no other froyo around.  The froyo (and their own regular yogurt too) are made fresh every morning.  They use local dairy.  Flavors rotate daily, and are generally quite fascinating.  Toppings are not your run-of-the-mill generic shop options, rather many are housemade, and they are well curated.

Menu Board.

Culture offers both regular (as in, non-frozen) Greek yogurt, and of course, the reason we were there, froyo.

This location has 6 flavors, which change daily.  On the day we visited, the flavors were:

• Original
• Nutella 
• Lychee 
• Pear Ginger 
• Unsweetened Raspberry
• Organic Cherry Vanilla

They seem to always have one organic, one unsweet, and one chocolate-adjacent, along with two others, and the always-available original flavor.  Prices for basic cup/cone are $5 kid's, $6 small, $7 medium $7, and $8.50 large(-$1 for non-frozen yogurt, +$1 for organic flavor).  

From there, of course, are the toppings.  The lineup of toppings features fresh fruits, sprinkles, sauces, nuts, seeds, granola, and then the less healthy options like white chocolate shavings, chocolate chip cookie bits, and mochi.  No real candy toppings.  Basic toppings are $1 each, or you can opt for a specialty curated topping creation for $2 each, which includes an option key lime pie (lime custard, crumble, lime syrup) or the classic sundae (cookie cup(!), sauce, whipped cream, cherry on top), along with higher end toppings like their version of wet walnuts (featuring maple syrup instead) or sophisticated balsamic strawberries.

Our group exclusively got frozen yogurt, in a variety of flavors and topping combinations.

I sampled all but the unsweet raspberry flavor, and the one person who tried that puckered up immediately and exclaimed over how very unsweet it was.

Lychee:  This was my favorite of the flavors I tried.  It was not nearly as sweet as I expected, and the lychee flavor was fairly subtle.  Just a lightly sweet, tangy, yogurt.  If I had wanted just fruit toppings, or fruit/granola, or mochi, I would have opted for this flavor.  Another member of my group really liked it.  ***+.

Pear Ginger:  This was by far the most flavorful of the flavors.  We nearly all agreed that it was *too* flavorful.  The ginger was insane.  That said, one co-worker did get it.  **.

Organic Cherry Vanilla:  I expected more from this.  It was lightly fruity, lightly sweet, but I wouldn't have been able to tell you it was cherry, and I didn't taste anything particularly vanilla either.  I wanted it to be creamier, and just more ... something.  It was a touch too boring.  ***.

Nutella: I'm not a huge Nutella fan, but, I wanted to try this as it regularly gets raves.  It was good, sweet, sorta chocolately.  A touch grainy and not as smooth as the others.  I would have been happy enough with this flavor if I had wanted something more chocolately.  ***+.

Overall, I found the flavors (besides the pear ginger) to be a bit muted, but, the quality yogurt was quite clear.  This is frozen yogurt for those who actually like yogurt, and not just flavor syrups).

Small Original Tart ($6) Vermont Maple Specialty Sundae ($2)
w/ Strawberry & White Chocolate Shavings (+$1 extra).

In the end, I went with the simple, classic, "original" flavor, which is a lightly sweet tart flavor, much like Pinkberry's standard original flavor, or Anita Gelato's froyo, just, a bit stronger in the actual yogurt taste.  You can tell you are eating a relatively healthy, actual yogurt base here.  Not a super rich, creamy froyo - you wouldn't accidentally think it was ice cream, but, a refreshing, tart, not too sweet, quality yogurt.  ***+.

I opted for the original flavor because I was really curious about the special "Vermont Maple sundae".  You see, I really do quite like wet walnuts, and this is their play on wet walnuts, just, more sophisticated, using maple syrup, yes, real syrup, rather than standard cloying corn syrup goo.  The Vermont Maple sundae comes with your choice of fruit (banana, strawberry, blueberry), and I opted for strawberry, but also added white chocolate shavings, as I kinda adore white chocolate, and was excited to see them offered, not just little chips.

The toppings were quite generously piled on, and for $1 per topping, this really did feel like a reasonable price.  The berries were fresh and chopped into perfect size pieces, the walnuts had a lovely maple flavor (and syrup to them that coated the froyo), and, I loved the standard sweet white chocolate shavings.  With all my sweet toppings, it certainly didn't eat like a healthy, tart yogurt, but that was fine with me.

Overall, enjoyable, quality product, but I didn't find myself super excited to return.  ***+.

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Eléa, NYC

My last week in New York, I was really, really craving nice grilled octopus.  Yes, random, and specific, but I had really excellent octopus at The Rusty Face in Brooklyn just a few weeks prior, and had been craving more ever since.  My office served it a few times in those weeks in-between, and it was always good, but, not even on par with The Rusty Face version.  I really wanted one more great octopus dish before I left.

I had a handful of restaurants on my short list for octopus, that I had researched meticulously, but, somehow, at last minute, I pivoted to a totally different venue, one that I had only heard about an hour before.  Why?  Simple.  A friend highly recommended it, for the octopus in particular.   Thus, my restaurant of choice was Eléa.

"Meaning “olive” in ancient Greek, Eléa offers guests a menu of soulful and modern Greek dishes that encompass flavors across the region’s many islands and terrains."

So, yes, not only was I getting my last chance octopus from a place I had barely just heard of, I was getting it from a Greek restaurant.  Greek is rarely my style of cuisine.

Eléa has an extensive menu, ranging from raw bar selections, to salads, a slew of spreads, appetizers, seafood dishes, lamb, ribs, filet mignon, etc, etc.  Great sounding dessert lineup.  I was there just for the octpus, but couldn't help myself from ordering a spread too.

Branded Bag.

It was not particularly close by, so I ordered delivery (which, took forever!).  The custom Eléa bag gave my delivery order a classy touch.

Selection of Spreads: Taramo Salata & Pita. $10.

"Roe of grey mullet fish, capers, red onion."

To start, Elea offers a selection of spreads (literally, an entire section of the menu called "Selection of Spreads"), for $10 each ($21 for a trio, $29 for five).  The lineup includes the standards of hummus and tzatziki, along wtih more interesting options like melitzanosalata (eggplant based), tyrokafteri (red pepper), skordalia (almond/garlic), fava, and, the one I went for, taramo salata (fish roe).  I was thrilled to see the taramosalata on the menu, as I fell in love with it many years ago when a hotel I was staying at had it nightly in the lounge, and I binged on it for days on end.  I don't know the last time I had it!

When I opened my container, I was a bit surprised.  I expected the spread to have more color to it from the roe, but also, to be topped with capers and red onions as their online photos showed, and description implied.  This looked more like ... very white hummus, or maybe the skordalia dip?  I tasted it, and was even more let down.  It didn't taste like much at all.  Sorta like slightly thick mayo.  Maybe a touch of garlic.  Where was the fishy flavors from the roe?  The brininess from the capers? The acid from the red onion?    It was smooth and creamy, but, that is about all that was positive about it.  The flavor was really, really lacking.  I'm still not entirely sure if this dish was correct (was it another spread?) or if it was accidentally unfinished (should it have had the toppings?), but, it was bland and boring.  * for smoothness, but, hard to give it much more credit.

It came with a substantial portion of pita (perhaps part was for my other dish?), wrapped in foil to keep it warm.  It was highly average pita. Not particularly light and fluffy, and a thin style.  I don't generally like pita all that much (exception being sometimes I really do like the big puffy version from Oren's Hummus), so take my "meh" with a grain of salt, as I'll usually say "meh" about pita.  **.

Overall, a complete let down.  The portion was generous, but, not actually welcome as it was so bland.

Eléa Classics: Htapodi. $27.

"Grilled Spanish octopus, fava puree, pickled pearl onions, confit cherry tomatoes, capers."

The real reason I ordered from Eléa of course was for the well regarded octopus.  The Eléa version came with some things I do enjoy (capers, pearl onions, confit tomatoes even) and one thing I was really not excited for (fava puree), as I don't care for legumes.  But my friend who recommended the dish, and nearly every online review I saw, all raved about that puree with this dish, so, I was at least willing to try it.  I did ask for it to be separate, on the side, in my order instructions, but that note was not honored by the restaurant.

The octopus itself was fine.  It was cooked well - not chewy, not rubbery, not overcooked, properly cleaned, etc.  The pieces were cut into an easy to eat size.  But it was simply just roasted I think, as it had no grill marks nor smoky flavor.  I really like a smoky octopus, charcoal grilled, etc, and this was just plain.  So, execution was fine, for that style, but I wanted it smokier.  ***.

The toppings let me down a fair amount.  I loved the capers, the brininess they added, and there was tons of them.  They went very well with the octopus.  So those were a win.  ****.  

But the pearl onions, which I expected to love as I love onions in general, and pearl in particular, just had an odd taste to them.  I know they were pickled, but these had a flavor that just didn't appeal to me.  Somewhat acidic, yes, but there was more to it.  I ended up discarding these after trying a few and just truly not enjoying.  They were cooked nicely though, soft, not raw, not slimy. **.

Then, the cherry tomatoes, that said they were "confit" but really seemed basically raw.  Slightly softened from being with the warm other ingredients, but definitely not confit.  They were fine, but, average, and just lightly warmed tomatoes.  ***.

And lastly, the fava puree.  I think the fava puree here is the same that you can order as a standalone dip, with Santorini yellow split pea, shallots, dill.  It ... reminded me a lot of hummus, which makes sense.  And I don't like hummus.  I had hoped the fava flavor would somehow be mroe interesting, or perhaps that the shallots and dill would lift it, but ... yeah, not my thing.  It was remarkably smooth though, and a nice thickness.  It also seems odd to lose your delightful octopus in the spread ... even if I liked it.  **.

So, overall, lots of elements that just weren't really my preference, and octopus that was prepared well, but not in the style I wanted, so, overall, a pretty average dish for me, not one I'd get again.  ***.

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