Cornball Review

A good friend brought some caramel corn last week. It looked like one of those US made gourment popcorns heaped into a tub. Well, the label says "Chef Tony's Popcorn", a product that is not available in any supermarket from my experience, so it seemed that my friend sourced this somewhere else.

I opened the tub and corn greeted me with its golden sheen of fine uncoagulated caramel. It has to be gourmet. Each kernel was distinct and entirely coated with a thin layer of goodness. Far from the commericalized cousins like Fiddle Faddle, Peacock, Goldilocks and Nuts'n'Pops, Chef Tony's is in a class by itself. I did not see clumps of corn sticking to each other.

I took half a handful and popped several into my mouth. The taste was sweet as one would expect with caramel, but not so sweet that it would make your head spin. Since there was no globs of hardened caramel jutting from the corn, I did not have the usual experience on crunching on sugar, which was a relief I tell you. As my tastebuds got acquainted with the flavors, a blast of saltiness shot from the corn and melded into the caramel producing a very unique experience. The taste was like that of kettle corn but with more body and character. After the coating has disappeared, the kernel practically melted in my tongue leaving a soft buttery taste. My glands went overdrive as the salivary floodgates were opened and gushed into my palate. Pure bliss.

I wasn't able to resist popping another batch into my already anticipating maw. The weird thing was, I was fast becoming addicted to it with my mind saying, "just one more bite won't hurt." After watching my daily dose of MadTV, the bucket was nearly halfway through. I didn't know I had been eating the damn thing non-stop for 30 minutes. Oh, well.

The label did not indicate that this popcorn can be highly addictive! As I looked more closely, there was a phone number for customers who would like bulk orders. It had to be toll free in the US. I thought,"Hey, wait a minute. The number starts with 0917?? Isn't this a Globe number?" It was. And "Chef Tony's" is a local product! Yahoo! After a while, I called the source and they happily provided me with the info on where to buy the stuff, and that means more happy days to come.

You can contact Chef Tony's at 0917-500-CORN.