food, popcorn, chef tony

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Other

I just had popcorn for dinner...

Ok, so it's not the healthiest dinner I should be having but I wanted to indulge my sweet tooth this once. Besides, it was a pretty good experience.

The popcorn party was held at my friend's house. With my daughter in tow, I headed there knowing fully well that this might well be dinner. I was right.

How could it not be dinner when there were 7 courses in the menu courtsey of Chef Tony? We started with the Original flavor of Caramel. It was a basic sweet popcorn, basically the usual poppers dribbled with sweetness. Then it was Cinnamon, Pesto, White Chocolate Walnut, Light, Parmesan and then Mochachino Almonds.

When it comes to reviewing delectable delights, I always use my daughter as a gauge, as far as sweet teeth are concerned. My tastebuds has gone through a gamut of tastes over the years and I know my preference for salty and sweet stuff. Hers is only 8 years old and still exploring gastronomic adventures.

Her verdict? It's a toss up between the butter and the cheese. At least that's how she says it. Af far as she's concerned Parmesan is cheese, and Light is butter. She has always liked those two flavors in whatever form.

And I agree, though I have a close third in the White Chocolate Walnut.

Thing is, this Chef Tony seems to know how to blend his ingredients in the popcorn well. The cheese wasn't messy. The butter wasn't oily. The walnuts were soft-yet-crunchy (feel your teeth sink into each one). The almonds were not too hard. The aromas wafting out of the tubs as we opened them were enough as appetizers. And the sweetness was just enough for the most part.

I do have some comments on the flavors though. The Pesto was surprisingly good for an off-flavor. It's a pasta taste, definitely, but on the really sweet side. Maybe if it were more salty as most people would expect. Popcorn can be salty too, you know.

Speaking of salty, I kinda missed that over dinner. The traditional popcorn at home is salty buttery. MY daughter and I love it like that. With our respective sweet teeth, Chef Tony's sweet popcorn are good, but will there be saltier flavors too?

There is much to be done about the packaging though. The tubs threatened to spill out the popcorn as we opened them since you'd have to use considerable effort opening each one. And the labels are a bit confusing for the newbie. Yeah, it's color-coordinated but no one but the connoiseurs and the staff know what each color meant. Plus the printing on the lables didn't really take advantage of contrasts. It's a little hard to read what the label says unless you're up close.

On the whole, I enjoyed my popcorn dinner party. So did my daughter. It's not something we really should be doing regularly but the indulgence was worth this one time. We'll keep the popcorn for snacks and movies and thons though.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5