Chef Tony’s Popcorn-Fest

I love popcorn! Specially the holy kettle corn ones. At some point I was addicted to it. I would usually buy a large pack (P60) from Petron Buendia cor Makati Avenue on my way home. More than usual, I would finish it off and afterwards feeling guilty about not sharing it with my wife.

I first tasted Chef Tony’s popcorn when I passed by Pricesmart before it closed down. So when an invitation from Spanx on Penny‘s Popfest to try out Chef Tony’s popcorn flavors, I immediately raised my hand.

We (me and Yuga) went to Penny’s place in Kamuning and we were late. The event was supposed to start at 4pm but we arrived at 8pm coming from Antipolo. I underestimated the time it would take coming from Sassy’s house-on-a-hill in Antipolo to Kamuning. Also, we had a very interesting conversation with Sassy at Vieux Chalet for the Awesome Blogger series. We’ll tell you more about this in a separate post. So, we were not able to meet the other bloggers but I’m glad that there are still some popcorns left for us to taste.

There were 7 flavors to choose from: Original Caramel; (special flavors): Light, Pesto, Cinnamon; (premium flavors): White Chocolate Walnut, Parmesan, Mochachino with Almonds. It was popcorn heaven for us and thanks to Penny, Spanx and Chef Tony for this blogger’s popfest. The Original sells for P45 for the small plastic tub and P100 for the big plastic tub. While the Special flavors sells for P60/P120, and Premium flavors for P95/ P180, respectively.

What’s the verdict?

1. The popcorn is too sweet for me. The reason I’m addicted to Holy Kettle Corn is that the caramel is unevenly distributed. It is always a thrill every time you get a popcorn with lots of caramel in it. The Chef Tony’s popcorns have flavors that are evenly distributed. It is very good at the start but it would only last for a few minutes and it does not have that addicting quality. It may work for you though.

2. The Parmesan is the best! Everybody agrees with this and it was the sure winner. The parmesan cheese is able to address the issue with #1 and differentiate the flavors from sweet to saltiness to sweet. Unfortunately, this goes under the premium flavor, so just to taste this you would have to pay almost P100– for a popcorn?!

3. I like the way Chef Tony use good tasty ingredients like the almonds and walnuts. The nuts add texture and serve as the neutralizer for the sweetness of the popcorn to prevent “suya” (i just can’t think of the english term for this, it is at the tip of my tongue!).

4. The Pesto flavored popcorn taste like Pesto pasta which is the idea. It just tasted weird for me. Of course, they need to sprinkle pine nuts to complete the Pesto Pasta experience.

5. I was disappointed that all flavors that were served for this popfest were old flavors already. Penny just mentioned that the peppermint flavor and macadamia choco swirl popcorns will be its Christmas limited edition but where was it that we are now trying out his variety of popcorn? I was expecting that they would introduce his new Christmas flavors but I don’t know what happened. I felt like Chef Tony just wanted to get blog buzz and did not pay attention to this. I’ll be more careful next time.

Lastly, I suggested for Chef Tony to come out with a special assorted tub where you can have 3-4 flavors in one big tub. This would be awesome! I’ll be the first one to buy them 🙂 Also, we can’t wait for the Christmas popcorn edition, hope they make it on time!