Recipe to Riches Recap and Taste Test: episode 5, Mexi Mac ‘n’ Cheese Bites

Both the remaining contestants made some unconventional choices in the product-launch department: Izumi arranged a literal gong show in hopes of pleasing her ball-buster mom, while Cyra forced her waiters to don flamboyantly coloured S&M masks. After some inconclusive survey results, Cyra’s mac ‘n’ cheese balls won, leaving viewers musing over the ages-old Riches question: wouldn’t this whole thing work better as a mail-in recipe contest?

This week’s tasting became a nugget-on-nugget showdown (the competing nugget being last week’s ham-stuffed cheese pop). That said, there was no clear-cut winner: with only a handful of dissenters, the panel agreed that both products were delicious. The Mac ‘n’ Cheese Bites were slightly less dense than last week’s Italian Lollipops, with a noticeably more processed, Cheez Whizzish filling—not that there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, some admired how this week’s nugget made no pretence of class or cultural authenticity. (“This is pretty much exactly what people eat in Mexico, I think,” was one sarcastic observation.) The elbow noodles enclosed within the nugget had a certain flabbiness to them, but most panelists didn’t mind, finding that the pasta added structural integrity to the snack—which, all agreed, would otherwise be indistinguishable from a deep-fried ball of Tostitos Nacho Cheese Dip.

If you’d like to try for yourself, Mexi Mac ‘n’ Cheese Bites will be selling for $6.99 at select Loblaws stores this weekend.