Karkoa sports bag review

I was recently contacted by the nice people at Karkoa and asked if I would like to review their sports bag.

My first response was 'Karkoa' who are you? Never heard of you and every time I look at your brand name I keep thinking it says Koala and therefore start thinking about Australian marsupials. 

Anyway turns out they are an European sportsbag manufacturer looking to promote their brand on the shores of the United Kingdom.

I checked out their website to see what they were all about and to see if I thought their bag was any good. Checking out their website it looked to me like they are a trendy kind of 'up market' company with a cool type of European style looking to supply busy professional sporty types with a bag that will accommodate all your daily luggage and sport equipment for when your hitting the gym at the start of the day or running after work. 

My first instinct was to opt for the smaller bag in their rucksack range the 25L Smartbag25 purely because one of the bags in this range had an orange trim. A bit superficial as no doubt the larger 40L bag would be far more useful because its bigger and you can fit more in to it which is after all the name of the game, but no my fondness for my favourite colour ruined my judgement. Whoops! 

So how did I get on with the bag?

Slightly mixed reviews if I am honest, it wasn't as spacious as I thought it would be as the website and the marketing promo gave you the impression the bag was going to have magical TARDIS qualities able to amazingly have room to fit everything you could imagine into it. 

Perhaps if I had opted for the larger bag then this would have been more accommodating so please bare that in mind if you are considering your options between the smaller 25L bag or the larger 40L bag.

I also had a concern with the design of the bag, the main design of the back is in the photo below. As I understand it the basic idea seems to be thinking about redesigning the standard concept of a rucksack to give you more internal storage options as well as more ways to access what is in your bag rather than a standard one main way to put things in and get things out.

I felt pretty vulnerable carrying the bag on my back knowing that the front of the bag is basically one big exposed zip running along the bottom of my bag where everything would just fall out onto the street if it was to be opened. 

OK so this never happened but it might be considered a design flaw? Or maybe it's just me just thinking back to being at an all boys secondary school where anybody with this bag would be constantly at the mercy of practical jokers. 

Having all the handy compartments inside is really useful though as its better than having all little things like snacks, deodorant or fruit floating around with everything else in one large compartment. 

Its also really great to have a separate space for used running kit so it doesn't stink out everything else! However my concern is that this compartment bag would itself get rather smelly pretty soon and would need regular washing? I suppose using my current system of a plastic bag is easier but then again using a plastic bag every time I workout is not very environmentally friendly, neither is it very cheap now there is the 5p plastic bag tax. 

My other gripes were that my laptop didn't fit into the bag very easily. By easily I mean I had to rally stretch the bag to squeeze it in and then I didn't have much capacity left for anything else. Again my bag was not the larger 40L bag that Karkoa offer and neither is my laptop the smallest or thinnest laptop going but being able to fit my laptop easily into my bag without engaging in a wrestling match is a mandatory requirement. 

Karkoa were also quick to point out during our correspondence that the bag wasn't really designed for running but more for carrying everything you might need for running or other sport. A big problem because surely as a runner you want a bag for carrying your stuff if you are going running but also you want a bag that can handle a run commute when required? I certainly don't want to have a bag for each. To be honest I didn't try running with the bag as I found it pretty uncomfortable to walk with let alone run with. The bag seems to be designed to sit a bit higher on your back rather than sit down in the small of your back, which is in contrast to bags I am used to, its probably better for posture or something I don't know but I didn't find it very comfortable. 

I have tried to make this post constructive and not too negative but I am not sure it has turned out that way. 

Just because the bag wasn't for me doesn't mean others wouldn't find it a great bag to use. The bag is certainly very well designed and looks super cool especially the orange sunrise design that I went for.  

I have noticed a few other running bloggers have recently reviewed Karkoa bags and got on very well with them. Check out Steve Skinner's review here or The Runners Knees review here both of these guys opted for the 40L though which is perhaps where I went wrong!

In summary Karkoa certainly offer a very stylish and thoroughly well thought out designed bag which will appeal to lot of people I'm sure, it just didn't tick some of my requirement

Disclaimer: Karkoa approached me and provided me with a bag of my choosing free of charge for me to review.

Barburrito Burrito Review

It has been a long time since I had a burrito let alone write up a review, so today looking for a lunch time option and wanting something substantial and filling I headed in search of a tasty burrito.

I headed to Barburrito which opened up a new store a few minutes walk from work a few months ago and I haven't had a chance to check it out mainly due to trying to stick to a healthy diet while marathon training. 

Having never tried Barburrito I was interested to see where they ranked in the burrito pyramid of excellence, near the top with the burrito kings of Daddy Donkey, chipotle and Tortilla or along with the mass ranks of average burrito providers.

Today I was kind of in the mood for something a bit plainer and probably chicken based but the pulled pork option soon grabbed my attention as I walked in!

My burrito ingredients today were:

Tomato rice
Mild beans
Pulled pork
Roasted onions and peppers
Medium 'ranchero' salsa dressing
Guacamole 
Lettuce
Cheese (I didn't ask for it but still got it!)
Sour Cream

So to review my burrito: 


The actual tortilla wrap: Pretty poor, doughy, quite chewy, no flavour, disappointing. 
Tomato rice: OK, not a great consistency and no real flavour. 
Mild beans: I love my beans and these were pretty good, they gave good consistency and texture and added a good nutty type flavour.
Pulled pork: Nice, not particularly authentic as such but tasty and meaty. But Barburrito are stingy with their meat portions! Might have been a one off but wasn't very impressed with the small little scoop of meat I received!
Roasted onions and peppers: Good and a nice option as not everywhere offers this vegetable option, again added plenty of flavour and a nice bit of crunch to the burrito. 
Medium 'ranchero' salsa dressing: hmmm, not sure, a bit smoky and very tomatoy and was perhaps a little overpowering. 
Guacamole: 75p for some guacamole was decent but I forgot I ordered any as it didn't really taste of anything and again there was not very much of it! 
Lettuce: Nice lettuce, fresh and crunchy but come on you don't have a burrito to have some nice lettuce?!
Cheese (I didn't ask for it but still got it!): No idea, didn't taste it and didn't notice it at all. 
Sour Cream: Another highlight, cool and soft proper sour cream adding coolness. 

Overall rating: Pretty disappointing,  found the burrito to be a bit on the small side and I as I mentioned they were not very generous with their portion sizes. The individual ingredients all seemed to be of decent enough quality but altogether it just didn't work. As I have already said the salsa was a bit overpowering and there were too many poor parts to it especially the tortilla which was very poor. Things could have been different if I had had a more generous meat portion, will have to see next time, if I give them a next time that is. 

Barburrito experience: Mixed reviews on my experience of Barburrito as a chain. I liked the actual restaurant as it had plenty of seating and was a better restaurant set up than many of its rival chains. However the staff weren't great and didn't have any of the South american charisma you usually associate with staff in burrito places irrespective of their actual background. The other big problem was that they got my burrito wrong, on the last stage I asked for sour cream and lettuce but ended up with cheese as well! Big no no! I cant remember ever having an incorrect burrito before as it just doesn't happen so this is a massive disappointment. The other thing I didn't like was the upselling, too many offering of meal deals, drinks and extras, people especially in the city know what they want and don't want to be hassled to this extreme and it did ruin the experience. 

Rating: I have struggled to think of a rating as I never want to score too low, but I cant give it anymore than 3/10, it was however more than edible but it wasn't filling and it wasn't satisfying or tasty. 

Very disappointing, I will have to go for another burrito soon to get a better experience than what I had today so stay tuned for my next review coming soon!

Chilango Burrito review

So moving away from running and on to my love of food and a bit of foodporn to freshen things up.

I love burritos and have been wanting to do some kind of review/rating system of the various different chains. By the way I am more of a 'man v food' type of guy rather than getting all fancy and gourmet.

So Chilango's, I have been a few times and really enjoyed their burritos and as there are a few near work hard not to pop in. 

My burrito ingredients today were:

Plain rice

Black beans

Grilled marinated chicken

Peppers

Medium salsa

Lettuce

I know, I know no guacamole! Well I wanted to give the flavours of the chicken and salsa a chance without being covered in green gu! Don't get me wrong I love guacamole but just fancied a change.

So to review the burrito; 

Tortilla wrap: plain and artificial in texture and taste.

Rice: plain and dull (no options provided), but the plus point being it wasn't overly packed up with rice which is always a way to ruin a burrito.

Chicken: tasty and nicely grilled

Salsa: dark and tasted burnt and not a nice flavour to it.

Peppers: nice, just right amount of crispness.

Black beans: really good black beans, but no option of refried beans! Very disappointing! 

Overall: not great but OK, not a lot of flavour and didn't fall in to either the authentic flavourless camp or the artificial and sickly but still really enjoyable camp that burritos tend to divide themselves between.

Chilango experience: not good, staff were friendly and efficient but major points lost for no rice options, a pretty awful tortilla and a disappointing salsa. Also the little things got to me like no water available, no napkin put in your take away bag (I realised this half way through my burrito sat in the park with mucky hands!), the burrito was reasonably priced and also reasonably filling although time will tell on that front!

My overall experience would have to be a 5/10 as it was disappointing but edible at the same time. It would have got a much lower score but the redeeming features were good quality black beans and chicken and the fact the burrito wasn't overly packed out with rice.

Hopefully I will have some more burrito reviews to follow soon....