It's been a while since I've done an Ice Box of Horrors review. Gotta tell you, I don't really miss it. Horrible, greasy, overly-salted but still bland microwaved offal. I've pretty much given it up now. I feel better, I don't cry uncontrollably when I walk past my freezer. I'm saving money, I've lost weight, and I even got a raise! Life couldn't be any better.
So I get a call from Evan. You know him. During the Great Crush Tasting he ended up ascending to deification, becoming the God of Soda. He gave up his mantle and became mortal once more. Now, Evan was coming to visit me and see how I was doing. With McDonald's. In the morning!
Fuck yeah! I can only really tolerate McDonald's food at breakfast. Those bagel sandwiches they do are orgasmic, and now Evan was bringing me one. Oh happy days! Oh joy! Oh rapture!
So, it turns out that this whole thing is a ruse to get me while my guard was down. Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in! So, I guess now I'm stuck, and I'm going to just have to continue doing these fucking things until I die. So, Evan, what do we have today?
Oh, but what's this? There are two sandwiches? Oh, that's bad news for Evan. Because he had to bring back the nightmare that is frozen-dinner reviewing back to me, I'm going to return the favor and make him review this one with me.
So, there you have it. A new first for the Ice Box of Horrors. Dual reviews on the same product, and this time, the product is Aunt Jemima's Griddle Cake Sandwiches.
These sandwiches supposedly contain egg, cheese and sausage contained between two syrup-infused pancakes. So, these aren't unlike the McGriddle sandwiches that McDonald's offers during their breakfast. I don't get to have one of those, but we might as well do our best with what we have.
Evan's not really familiar with the rules, so once again, here they are. To make sure that we're both reviewing on a level playing-field, Evan has agreed to be bound to these as well (the stupid bastard).
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Rule #1:
I must follow cooking procedures exactly as they're shown on the container. I will not deviate from those instructions in any way, and I must prepare food in the fastest manner presented to me. -
Rule #2:
I must consume everything that comes with the meal. No hiding of disgusting parts will be tolerated. (In the unlikely event of bones or other inedibles, allowances will be made). -
Rule #3:
To make sure my palate is completely free of obstructions, I may only be allowed either water or alcohol. Alcohol does not include fancy-pants fruity girly drinks. -
Rule #4:
All food will be graded by smell, taste and mouthfeel, with less offensive qualities receiving higher marks. At the end, each part is receives an average score. The full meal is graded by the average score of each component. Appearance of the food is not graded because, let's face it, they all look pretty bad.
I had to go and compare these sandwiches with the original. I was floored that these were healthier. How much healthier? Well, here's my comparison between this sandwich and the McDonald's Sausage, Egg and Cheese McGriddle1 (a pretty close comparison):
| Aunt Jemima | McDonald's | |
| Calories | 330 | 560 |
| Total Fat | 29% | 49% |
| Saturated Fat | 35% | 60% |
| Sodium | 36% | 57% |
| Carbohydrate | 10% | 16% |
| Fibre | 2% | 8% |
| Calcium | 20% | 5% |
Wow...this is fucked up. These frozen dinners (or breakfasts in this case) are usually the worst of the worst. I'm actually really impressed that the McDonald's sandwich is worse than the Aunt Jemima one in each one of those fields, with the exception of fibre (I'll avoid the obvious joke there).
Taking the food out of the box, I've gotta say, Evan and I are unimpressed. The whole thing looks more or less like real food, but I've done enough of these to know that looks can be deceiving. Worse, the instructions are telling us to cook the things in the plastic. HOLY LIVING SHIT-CHRIST! Are they serious? Microwave it in the plastic? Well, ok!
Smells of maple syrup, pretty pleasing that way. Up close it's not as nice.
The eggs look kinda like the monster lab plastic material. Flip this while waiting or you get a slimy bottom pancake. The cheese seems like actual cheese, we will see though. There are obvious chunks of maple syrup that pummel your face with a mostly good flavor.
The overall taste of the thing is good, though as stated, the sheer amount of fake maple syrup dulls most of the other flavors (except for the maple syrup flavored sausage which strangely sticks out) and leaves...how to put this...a biting aftertaste.
Texture-wise, it is as you would expect of microwaved food, eggs (though tasty if you can taste them through the maple syrup assault) were plastic, sausage was crumbly (though still maintained moisture, which is nice), pancakes felt as though they had been microwaved.
Smell: 6/10
Taste: 7/10
Mouthfeel: 6/10
Total Score: 
(6.3/10)
The pancakes have track-marks in them from, what I'm assuming was syrup injection (although it could be heroin, I'm not sure if Aunt Jemima drug-tests her pancakes). Smells good from afar - up close, it smells like wet yeast. This is pretty surprising since pancakes don't contain any yeast.
Condensation is a big problem with these things. After a minute of cooking-instruction mandated resting, the bottom pancake looked like Edward James Olmos' face. The cheese looks like real processed cheese and the egg looks like a rubber Frisbee.
The sausage is a bit crumbly, the pancakes are gummy and the egg has a plastic feel to it, but that's not a deal breaker. Everything tastes ok, but there's just way too much artificial maple syrup flavoring. Even the sausage has been mapled up.
Damn you Jemima!
There's a distinct skunky aftertaste to this thing, and that really detracts from the whole sandwich.
Smell: 4/10
Taste: 7/10
Mouthfeel: 7/10
Total Score: (6.0/10)
Smell: 5/10
Taste: 7/10
Mouthfeel: 6.5/10
Total Score: (6.2/10)
Overall, it probably isn't a sandwich that I'll have again. I'll likely just go to McDonalds for the real thing.
Bottom line is this: Compared to the rest of the slop that I usually review, this wasn't all that bad. Innovation is good.
As I wave goodbye to Evan and start plotting his inevitable murder for subjecting me to another Ice Box of Horrors, I look to the future, to the next review! Next time, I review another Hungry-Man Sports Grill. It's Jumbo Popcorn Chicken and Pizza Sticks!
