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Welcome to Haute-N-Ready, in which John Locanthi, Willamette Weekâs trencherman of leisure, tastes the hastily made, modestly priced food of the common man.
Jurassic World
®
âHey, weâre also making interesting food nowâ is really the only step left when your exciting new Blizzard flavor, the Jurassic Smash Blizzard, is naught but a combination of two other flavors.
I myself had stopped viewing DQ as anything more than a Blizzard dispensary. So I looked into this oven development.
These new options come in three categories: $4.69 artisanal-style sandwiches, $1.89 tortilla wrapped snack melts, and $3.99 hot desserts a la mode. There are three options within each. (Thatâs nine new options for all you non-mathletes out there.)
The Chicken Mozzarella, with cheese baked onto the top of its ciabatta-style roll, succored me in first. I stated last week that it would be hard to outdo Olive Gardenâs Chicken Parmesan Breadstick Sandwich. Little did I know that Dairy Queen would be the one to blow it out of the consarned water. It isnât hard to make breaded, fried chicken, cheese, and marinara sauce on bread taste good. Dairy Queenâs exemplary chicken fingers are a major step up. The ciabatta-esque bread marked an even greater improvement. And you get more of both here. This is one of the tastiest things Iâve eaten throughout the long and storied run of Haute-N-Ready. Not as wild as some others, to be sure, but sometimes a simple thing done well trumps edible insanity.
Another option, the Chicken Bacon Ranch, was less of a triumph. It is a simple thing done adequately. Do you like chicken? Do you like bacon? Do you like ranch? How about lettuce? Yes? Okay, thisâll do. (I did not try the third, turkey-filled option because why would anyone? Turkey is the puffed rice cake of the meat world.)
Snack melts stick out like a sore thumb on this new, extended menu. There are no phrases like âartisanal-styleâ or âa la modeâ to make them sound fancy-like. A small tortilla wrapped around chicken in a cheese & other sauce blend feels like something that crawled over DQ from a neighboring Taco Bell. (In fact, Taco Bell recently added similar inexpensive chicken snack wraps not too long ago when they snuck chicken nuggets onto the menu.) Cutting the wraps in twain and serving them in a cup holder-sized paper cup makes them feel smaller than they are. My buffalo chicken snack melt tasted fineâa little too cheesy and not buffalo-y for my tastes. Scalding hot grease and sauce alternately oozed and squirted out with each bite. It wasnât particularly filling either. The âsnackâ aspect mostly comes in the price. For large adult snackers like yours truly, the $3.49 Jurassic Snack combo (mini-Blizzard and snack melt) is the play here.
Last, we come to the hot desserts a la mode. Dairy Queen has always had food, but it has always been more of a dessert and cold, saccharine snack place for me. I was all over Blizzards, dipped cones, Peanut Buster Parfaits, Mr Misties, and Dilly Bars like Garfield on lasagna. All delicious, all frozen. Hot desserts represent the greatest departure from the traditional menuâeven if they are served with ice cream. They are also good. Apple tarts require a level of artisanship well above the fast food, even fast casual level, but DQâs isnât bad. Iâd eat it over a grocery store apple tart.
The new DQ Bakes menu is solid enough to merit a reevaluation of the chain as a whole. This is their first appearance in the hallowed pixels of Haute-N-Ready since the âFast Food Thanksgivingâ and âPumpkinsanity!â columns last fall, and with good reason. There are a limited number of topping combinations to make an edible Blizzard, fewer yet to make an interesting Blizzard. Requiring employees to flip every Blizzard in front of customers is an odd business strategy inspired by Uncle Moeâs Family Feedbag, but it isnât particularly interesting either.
I myself had stopped viewing DQ as anything more than a Blizzard dispensary. So I looked into this oven development.
These new options come in three categories: $4.69 artisanal-style sandwiches, $1.89 tortilla wrapped snack melts, and $3.99 hot desserts a la mode. There are three options within each. (Thatâs nine new options for all you non-mathletes out there.)
The Chicken Mozzarella, with cheese baked onto the top of its ciabatta-style roll, succored me in first. I stated last week that it would be hard to outdo Olive Gardenâs Chicken Parmesan Breadstick Sandwich. Little did I know that Dairy Queen would be the one to blow it out of the consarned water. It isnât hard to make breaded, fried chicken, cheese, and marinara sauce on bread taste good. Dairy Queenâs exemplary chicken fingers are a major step up. The ciabatta-esque bread marked an even greater improvement. And you get more of both here. This is one of the tastiest things Iâve eaten throughout the long and storied run of Haute-N-Ready. Not as wild as some others, to be sure, but sometimes a simple thing done well trumps edible insanity.
Another option, the Chicken Bacon Ranch, was less of a triumph. It is a simple thing done adequately. Do you like chicken? Do you like bacon? Do you like ranch? How about lettuce? Yes? Okay, thisâll do. (I did not try the third, turkey-filled option because why would anyone? Turkey is the puffed rice cake of the meat world.)
Snack melts stick out like a sore thumb on this new, extended menu. There are no phrases like âartisanal-styleâ or âa la modeâ to make them sound fancy-like. A small tortilla wrapped around chicken in a cheese & other sauce blend feels like something that crawled over DQ from a neighboring Taco Bell. (In fact, Taco Bell recently added similar inexpensive chicken snack wraps not too long ago when they snuck chicken nuggets onto the menu.) Cutting the wraps in twain and serving them in a cup holder-sized paper cup makes them feel smaller than they are. My buffalo chicken snack melt tasted fineâa little too cheesy and not buffalo-y for my tastes. Scalding hot grease and sauce alternately oozed and squirted out with each bite. It wasnât particularly filling either. The âsnackâ aspect mostly comes in the price. For large adult snackers like yours truly, the $3.49 Jurassic Snack combo (mini-Blizzard and snack melt) is the play here.
Last, we come to the hot desserts a la mode. Dairy Queen has always had food, but it has always been more of a dessert and cold, saccharine snack place for me. I was all over Blizzards, dipped cones, Peanut Buster Parfaits, Mr Misties, and Dilly Bars like Garfield on lasagna. All delicious, all frozen. Hot desserts represent the greatest departure from the traditional menuâeven if they are served with ice cream. They are also good. Apple tarts require a level of artisanship well above the fast food, even fast casual level, but DQâs isnât bad. Iâd eat it over a grocery store apple tart.
The new DQ Bakes menu is solid enough to merit a reevaluation of the chain as a whole. This is their first appearance in the hallowed pixels of Haute-N-Ready since the âFast Food Thanksgivingâ and âPumpkinsanity!â columns last fall, and with good reason. There are a limited number of topping combinations to make an edible Blizzard, fewer yet to make an interesting Blizzard. Requiring employees to flip every Blizzard in front of customers is an odd business strategy inspired by Uncle Moeâs Family Feedbag, but it isnât particularly interesting either.
DQ Bakes takes attention away from the stagnant Blizzard menu. It reminds you that DQ also serves food. And now, good food.
WWeek 2015