MARTIN L

Tag: Review

  • Chobani Flip Cinnamon French Toast Review

    Hi all, I wanted to give my thoughts on the Chobani Flip Cinnamon French Toast flavor. I picked this up at my local Wegmans in Williamsville, New York a month ago.

    My Statement on the Wegmans Facial Recognition COntroversy

    I do not support Wegmans’ use of facial recognition in their stores and on their app, Wegmans (available on the Apple App Store or Google Play). I do not support targeted pricing efforts through the use of invasive biometric technologies. In the past, I have downloaded the Wegmans app. However, I no longer have any version of the Wegmans app installed onto my phone. I am a Wegmans Shoppers Club Member and have agreed to their terms and conditions, including the collection of my name, phone number, and shopping history associated with this number.

    Maple flavored Chobani® Greek Yogurt with cinnamon rice crisps, maple flavored cookies, and fudge bark. Made with only natural ingredients.

    Unlike the other new flavor I tried (you can read about Chocolate Haze Craze here), Cinnamon French Toast is surprisingly good! A light mapley yogurt (which they really should just make as a standalone flavor because its SO good) with cinnamony bits is a hoot and a half. If I had one issue with it, it would be that the cinnamon itself is super muted (nonexistent).

    7/10.

    Read my other Chobani Flip Reviews

  • Chobani Flip Chocolate Haze Craze Review

    Hi all, I wanted to give my thoughts on the Chobani Flip Chocolate Haze Craze flavor. I recently picked this up at my local Wegmans in Williamsville, New York.

    Crunchy hazelnuts and milk chocolate chips tumble in chocolate hazelnut Chobani® Greek Yogurt. Crafted for everyone from only natural ingredients.

    This is kind of gross. The chocolate hazelnut Greek yogurt continue to disgust me (see Peanut Butter Cup). It’s like a really mildly flavorless paste of sorts, colored brown in a way that really makes you think about the food you put in your body. The hazelnuts were a bit stale and cold, because I put them in the refrigerator.

    The most offensive part of the hazelnuts however, was the fact that it was flavorless. Just a moist, crunchy texture in your yogurt. The milk chocolate chips were fine, nothing offensive.

    3/10. One point over the Peanut Butter Cup because the yogurt is barely less offensive.

  • series: MBTA – My experience on Commuter Rail

    This is Part 2 of series: MBTA, a collection of ideas on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

    A “T” logo at Porter Station.

    When I visit new cities, I typically make it a point to visit a bunch of different transportation modes. Luckily for me, Boston is home to a plethora of transportation modes – from the famous T, there’s also buses, ferries, and the elusive Commuter Rail.

    For most tourists, there’s very little reason to ride Commuter Rail, especially since it’s evidently catered towards commuters, and not tourists. Nonetheless, I had the opportunity to ride Commuter Rail during my trip, as Apple Maps told me it would be slightly faster than taking the Red Line into Boston.

    My Experience

    Station

    Porter Station Commuter Rail Platform.

    Porter Station is a busy train hub for Porter Square residents, with local shopping and Lesley University nearby. It’s also home to the longest set of escalators on the T, which takes a solid two minutes to ride up to surface level. Although the Red Line station is grandiose in a brutalist-80’s type of way, the commuter rail station is a sad shack in comparison. Located below Massachusetts Avenue, the platform is your typical American commuter rail station, consisting of a couple of benches and a small shelter on the platform. The accessibility area was located right at the station entrance, which I really did like. There was also a direct connection to the Red Line station, which is great for transfers.

    Train Ride

    Digital Signage at MBTA Porter Station

    I took the Fitchburg Line, train #421 from Porter to North Station (1 stop). Mid-day, the train runs hourly from some Boston suburb to North Station, although I’d have to assume frequencies improve during rush hour. The train is scheduled to take 14 minutes to North Station, which is faster than the 30 minutes it would have taken to take the T.

    The fare system in Boston is wack, but in this case, my seven day pass covered the trip. Did you know that you can’t use CharlieCards (the Boston version of OMNY) on commuter rail? Once Charlie (the second-generation system) rolls out this should be possible, but it’s also the year 2025, and you could take regional trains using similar transit cards for the past 30 years now. You can validate your ticket using a CharlieTicket (a paper version of a CharlieCard that somehow has more capabilities despite being disposable) or mTicket.

    Inside the train carriage

    The train ride was pretty monotonous, but when the train pulled up, only the accessible door at the front opened for passengers? It was kinda strange since the trainset was five coaches long, but not a big deal. The northbound train came five minutes earlier, and all the passengers scattered around the platform had to run to the accessibility coach to get on board. I noticed that the doors were a manual set, very strange in 2025, but not unheard of (see Paris Metro).

    I’m not a train foamer, but the coach set used was a super old car, with a 3/2 seating configuration. The third seat looked like it was tacked on. I’m not going to lie, it was a bit strange, but the coach was pretty clean overall, albeit extremely dated. No bugs though, so what can you do. The train took the scheduled amount of time and was pretty monotonous.

    North Station

    When we got to North Station, we had to wait for the conductor to manually open the doors (still very strange to me). North Station is your standard terminal, with long platforms to the large waiting hall indoors. I like North Station because it’s connected to the Green and Orange lines, as well as TD Garden (I don’t care too much about hockey), but it’s great for concertgoers. The MBTA has also installed fare gates at North Station, which means commuters need to tag off at the gate. I like this a lot, because it increases fare compliance without the need to install gates at all of the stations.

    Final Thoughts

    Overall, I enjoyed my time on MBTA Commuter Rail, although the rolling stock is pretty bad. I would say it has really good bones, but I’m concerned if the MBTA could ever transition into a true regional-style rail system like the Paris RER. Commuter Rail ridership had the strongest recovery out of all the MBTA modes, so there’s plenty of potential for Greater Boston to rebuild its historic transit network.

    A Charlie reader on a MBTA Green Line train.

    It does have one major problem I hate, which is the fare ticketing system. The Commuter Rail does not support CharlieCard, and will also not support the next generation of fare payment, Charlie+. It baffles me that the networks are not integrated – seems like such a large oversight that doesn’t seem to have any particular reasoning. I understand it was originally supposed to support Charlie+, so I’m hoping that later rollouts will support Charlie+.

    Please watch out for Part 3 of series: MBTA, a collection of ideas on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

  • Three reasons why you need to make Buffalo your next stop on a All-America trip

    This post has no affiliation with the following organizations: The Corporation for Travel Promotion d.b.a Brand USA, New York State Department of Economic Development (ILOVENY), Erie County Economic Development (Visit Buffalo!), City of Buffalo.

    The locals

    Buffalo is the “City of Good Neighbors”. It’s also the “Nickel City”, but I digress. The people in Buffalo are generally very good and welcoming, and there’s a surprisingly amount of diversity in the metro area. It’s a really great city if you want a place that fosters a sense of community.

    A city with a community

    One of the main draws of Buffalo is the fact that it’s still a city, with big city amenities. You still have your apartments, your walkable neighborhoods, your Apple Store. It even has its own subway. What it lacks however, is the big-city traffic you’ll find in most major cities. While it has that hustle and bustle, it doesn’t make you feel like you’re stuck in it.

    Proximity to Nature

    Buffalo is surprisingly a city very close to nature. You have Niagara Falls just 20 minutes away, but also a huge network of state parks in the region. South of Buffalo, you have access to rolling hills and mountains of the Appalachians. Lake Erie hugs the city, and there’s plenty of access points in the area, including the Outer Harbor, a lakefront retreat in the middle of Buffalo’s abandoned industrial past.

  • Biidaasige Park: Highlights FROM Toronto’s latest parkland

    Last Sunday, I had the pleasure of visiting Toronto’s latest waterfront park, Biidaasige Park. Biidaasige, which roughly translates to Sunlight Shining Towards Us in Anishinaabemowin, is the flagship park of the Port Lands Redevelopment program. The program is a decades long project to redevelop the Toronto Port Lands into a livable, mixed-use community, whilst restoring the Don River to a more naturalized form.

    The park is a 60-acre green space lining the Don River’s new river mouth, with a variety of amenities to encourage playful interactions with our natural environment.

    What I loved

    There’s a lot of love about this park. The park is intended to be a centerpiece of a massive trail system in the Port Lands, which connects all corners of the city. I particularly liked the variety of trails, which are segregated between faster modes of transportation (bikes) and hikers / walkers. A variety of road surfaces were used as well, which really helps encourage different activities and speeds throughout each area of the park.

    The children’s areas were also playfully designed, with a great variety of swing structures, and even a whole cable structure for kids to play with! There’s also a outdoor fitness center, which is perfect for adults to take advantage of the open space around us.

    The park also features many connection points to the river, which gives it an innate connection to the water. On my day at the park, I saw a lot of people sitting at the river edge, and surprisingly a lot of paddlers. It’s a park that faces the water instead of retreating from it, which I hope helps people realize the connections we have with the land.

    Overall, the park was well designed, with a lot of natural interaction spaces between different groups of people. Although it lacks the traditional open space you’d see in most city parks, it still promotes open play with the large variety of different hang out spaces. The two addition of open leash areas are also useful for fencing off dog areas, which is important as not everyone is a fan of dogs.

    What I Disliked

    Surprisingly, there’s not a lot of things I dislike about the park, but one important thing to remember is that the park is the centerpiece of a community that doesn’t exist yet. As a result, it is very difficult to get to this park. There’s ample connections on the Martin Goodman Trail, but very limited transit access. On the day that I visited, many visitors chose to drive to the site. Currently, it’s a 15-ish minute walk from the closest residential development, which makes it hard to access. This will eventually improve with the development of the community, but serves as a slight barrier of access to the rest of the city.

    Bike Share access also leaves much to be desired, with only two bike share stations nearby (not even at the park). I wish the Toronto Parking Authority was more coordinated with the launch of the park to build out two Bike Share stations nearby. I saw many people waiting for Bike Share slots to open up since it was crowded and many people chose to use Bike Share to the park.

    What I Learned

    Building a park is hard and people will probably be critical about it, no matter how nice the park is. Also, Bike Share is 100% a victim of it’s own success, and I’d appreciate it if they could be better at bike distribution during large, preplanned events. Thanks!