Food brands that are in a league of their own

yuppies

I believe there are certain food brands that are exceptionally superior to their alternatives.

- Coca cola: the only fizzy drink I have ever seen people addicted to (psychologically, at least). Compared to fanta, 7-up, club lemon etc. it is so much more habit-forming! I know pepsi is sweeter but for some reason I rarely find myself wanting it.

- Dominos pizza: It is shocking, to me at least, how nice dominos is compared to (i) other take-away pizzas and (ii) other take-away food in general. I think it's because it's always freshly made, they don't use too much cheese, the tomato sauce is lovely and the toppings seem fresh enough. Four-star tastes like it's reheated.. pizza hut has too thick of a base, very doughy .. mizonis tastes like it has too much cheese .. and any of those pizzeria/restaurant type places tend to use too much cheese also.
I can also see why people are willing to pay the shockingly marked-up prices demanded by dominoes in comparison to other take-aways like chippers or chinese.. I'm guessing it's because pizza accomplishes the triumvirate of human nutritional desires: lots of carbohydrate, a decent amount of fat and a bit of protein,

- Sour-cream and onion pringles: Most people seem to prefer this flavor to the other ones.. and it's because they are a league ahead when it comes to addictiveness.

Any more!?

INEEDANID

Guinness

Tayto

RedXIV

Dairy Milk Chocolate. Def better than the competition.

yuppies

^ yes, forgot to say, the dairy-milk bars with the 8 squares (in the yellow foil).
They are superior to all other bars on the irish market, in my opinion.

Curry Addict

Nolans wild Alaskan smoked salmon, available in dunnes usually for only 5euro.

rubadub

INEEDANID wrote: »

Guinness

You'd be barred from the beer forum for that talk! its held in pretty low regard by many beer advocates, especially since there are a good few new amazing stouts out there.

One lad did a blind taste, few could tell them apart.

cavedave wrote: »

Did the test last night

Person|Beamish|Guinness|Murphy’s|O’Hara’s|Score
A|Beamish|Guinness|Murphy’s|O’Hara’s|4
B|Guinness|Beamish|Murphy’s|O’Hara’s|2
C|O’Hara’s|Guinness|Beamish|Murphy’s|1
D|Guinness|O’Hara’s|Murphy’s|Beamish|1
E|Beamish|Murphy’s|O’Hara’s|Guinness|1
F|Guinness|Murphy’s|O’Hara’s|Beamish|0
G|Beamish|Guinness|O’Hara’s|Murphy’s|2
H|Guinness|Murphy’s|Beamish|O’Hara’s|1
I|Guinness|Beamish|O’Hara’s|Murphy’s|0

Another lad who has a blog on beer did a similar one and got similar results (unless it he was in that same group above)

RedXIV wrote: »

Dairy Milk Chocolate. Def better than the competition.

What do you class as competition, just bars in the same price range?

yuppies wrote: »

They are superior to all other bars on the irish market

You can get some really good chocolate these days, -but they can be expensive. I don't think dairy milk can even be sold as chocolate in some countries, as I think it doesn't pass minimum levels for cocoa content.

Marks & spencer pressed pineapple juice would be mine, tropicana's one doesn't even come near it. Staffords chocolate swiss roll was good, till they shrank them at the same price.

JohnSmith17

red bull

Blisterman

Heinz Ketchup. Will buy Tesco own brand most things, but never ketchup.

JONJO THE MISER

Hunky Dorys.
Shaws ham.
Helmans Mayo.

Darkginger

Heinz Tomato Soup
Heinz Ketchup
Helman's Mayo
Lea & Perrin's Worcester sauce
Colman's English Mustard
Kikkoman's Soy Sauce

yuppies

Thought of a few more:

Brennans White bread - fair enough, it doesn't really fill you but by god it is delicious! Johnston, mooney and o'brien is a very, very close second but both are miles ahead of the others in my opinion.

Tropicana smooth orange juice (no bits): The best drink when you are hungover, goes down lovely with a sausage sandwich.. nicest hangover cure I can think of!
Tropicana and florida's natural are far, far better than any other brands out there, the latter being difficult to find in this country.

Ben and Jerry's ice-cream: Not a big ice-cream fan myself but even I can recognize that they are a league ahead of the rest.

Jimoslimos

INEEDANID wrote: »

Tayto

Blisterman wrote: »

Heinz Ketchup. Will buy Tesco own brand most things, but never ketchup.

IMO, Chef > Heinz Ketchup
King > Tayto

but regardless whatever preference I wouldn't consider them vastly superior to the alternative.

I guess the OP point is to compare competing brands/products i.e. Cadbury's Vs Nestle rather than Cadbury's Vs Green&Blacks

emeraldstar

yuppies wrote: »

Brennans White bread - fair enough, it doesn't really fill you but by god it is delicious!

Do you mean the sliced pan in the yellow wrapping with red writing? God, I can't stand it.

yuppies wrote: »

Ben and Jerry's ice-cream: Not a big ice-cream fan myself but even I can recognize that they are a league ahead of the rest.

This goes without saying

Uncle_moe

krispy kreme doughnuts

BaZmO*

I think this has more to do with product branding than taste. Unless you've done a blind tasting you really can't say one is better than t'other.

emeraldstar

^ No, not for everything.

Vote 4 Pedro

Tropicana Orange Juice
Heinz Ketchup, Baked Beans
Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream

aidan24326

Blisterman wrote: »

Heinz Ketchup. Will buy Tesco own brand most things, but never ketchup.

Prefer Chef myself, but I tried the tesco ketchup a while back and surprisingly it wasn't too bad at all.

and +1 for Colman's English mustard.

Fromthetrees

O'Flynns gourmet sausage, roughly the same price as Galtee, Dennys ect. but are just so much superior in taste and quality than any other sausage out there, not sure if the brand is nation wide or not but I can get them in town.
Where in gods name did denny get there gold medal from.

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

I do most of my shopping in Aldi but I'll always go to SuperValu to pick up the following;

Heinz Ketchup
Siucra Sugar
Lyons Tea
Nescafe Gold


I don't really get much of a diff in the own brand Mayo or Hellmann's tbh.

FTGFOP

deccurley wrote: »

Siucra Sugar

Why, out of interest?

The aldi mayo in the squeezy bottles is as good as Hellman's. The stuff in the jars isn't very nice but if you compare the nutrition info of the two you'll see the squeezy is ~75% fat (same as Hellman's) whereas the stuff in jars is much lower and tastes a bit pasty.

CJhaughey

Siucra is not even Irish anymore, AFAIK its German sugar packed in Germany, owned by a US company.

Little Alex

I find that many big brands are the equivalent of what Toyota would make :pac: if they were in the food business and I myself don't have a great deal of loyalty to many brands. The exceptions that I can think of being...

Tabasco. I think it tastes sensational. I've tried lots and lots of different hot sauces and for me Tabasco is head and shoulders above the rest.

Along with Frank's RedHot Sauce, which I use only for chicken wings. Again, for me no other wing dressing comes near.

Coca Cola. No other mainstream cola tastes anything near as good to me as Coke. I am, however, very fond of Fentiman's Curiousity Cola, which is a delicious "boutique" cola. Pity it doesn't come in bigger, better value for money bottles!

Maldon Salt, which I only recently discovered after hearing people go on about it on TV so much. It tastes simply outstanding.

Apart from them I can think of nothing else offhand that "has to be".

CJhaughey

I was going to say HP sauce but since they made it low sodium it tastes crap.
The Guinness HP sauce is pretty tasty though.