Product Review: TGI Friday's Jalapeño Poppers

I'm generally not a fan of the flavor of jalapeños [1], but one exception is jalapeño poppers. I first had them at IHOP one early morning after staying up all night with some friends. I don't make it to IHOP very often [2], but TGI Friday's has jalapeño poppers available in the frozen section of the grocery store, so I can still eat them on occasion.

TGI Friday's' jalapeño poppers come with one of two different fillings: cheddar cheese (shown on the left) or cream cheese (shown on the right).[3] You can cook them in the microwave or (even better) bake them in the oven, which only takes 10–12 minutes. They have a little bit of heat to them, but not much and it doesn't build.

My verdict: I like them both, but the cream cheese poppers are quite a bit better than the cheddar poppers—they're…creamier. But I can totally eat a whole box of either by myself.

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Notes:

[1] I prefer the flavor of other peppers, like serrano peppers, pequín peppers, or poblano peppers, for example.

[2] Actually, that doesn't matter anymore since IHOP no longer has jalapeño poppers on their menu.

[3] You'll notice that the pictures on the boxes are identical except for the two open poppers. It looks to me like the cheddar poppers are the original picture and the cream cheese poppers are the faked picture. I guess it was easier to pay someone to digitally alter the image instead of just cooking up some of the cream cheese poppers and taking another picture.