Tea with Lena: Mini Brands Fill the Fridge vs. Miniverse Real Brands

This review might feel a little repetitive with the last one (Miniverse Spaces), but maybe we can think of it as a companion piece or something?  I'm including it because while I was looking at the Spaces sets, Lena got interested...and a little irritated that I hadn't included her.  She doesn't fit into the Spaces or Rolife rooms, obviously, but she likes talking about anything food or kitchen-related, so she felt like I was invading her turf.  Fair enough.

By way of an apology, I offered to let Lena talk about another group of food-themed toys that have been on my radar.  In fact, she gets to talk about two different food-themed toys today: Zuru's Mini Brands Fill the Fridge sets and MGA Entertainment's Miniverse Real Brands.  The two are extremely similar--in name and in concept.  Both brands have surprise balls with brand-name food miniatures inside.  Zuru's Fill the Fridge line also has an actual fridge that Lena will be looking at.

Lena's goal here will be to see which group of surprise ball food items is best at actually filling a fridge!  I've said too much already at this point, so I'll turn things over to Lena:

Lena with Mini Brands Fill the Fridge and Miniverse Real Brands items.

Hi everyone!  Sorry it's been so long.

I'm still living with Emily, because my house isn't ready.

Emily says it's been too cold to work on the house, but I think she's just slow.

There's been a tiny bit of progress at this point, though.  Do you want to see?

We had to board up the windows, but I like the bedroom color!

I was sick of all the sparkly Rainbow High decorations.

Also, Ian's been measuring for some new kitchen cabinets.  Say hi to everyone, Ian.

Hi everyone.

As you can see, we're keeping the old Kitchen Littles fridge, because I love it.

But I want to talk about a different fridge today, so let's head back to the studio.

Here's the fridge I want to show you!

It's a little small for me, but I like the color and the style.

It's like a retro, 1950s style SMEG fridge.  They're really popular right now, from what I can tell.  And really expensive.  Here's a picture of a real one:

And here's a close-up picture of the Mini Brands fridge in its packaging:

That's enough, Emily.  I will show them the packaging.

On the side here, it says that the fridge lights up!

And look at the little magnets that come with it. I think they actually stick to the fridge.

Here's the back of the packaging.

There's a symbol for a magnet, and something about UV light?

And look at this bottom part.  I think maybe you can buy a whole Fill the Fridge kitchen?

Maybe that cabinet would fit the new kitchen in my house.  Emily, can you look it up?

Sure, Lena.

Actually, I looked all around on the internet, including on Zuru's site, and didn't find anything.  The other kitchen pieces must be coming in the future?  Sorry, Lena.  You have enough on your plate for today, anyway.

That's true, I guess.  I want to see which surprise balls will fill this fridge the best: Mini Brands Mini Minis, or Miniverse Real Brands.

But I need to get this fridge unwrapped so we can look at it first.

This is a lot of plastic, and it's really tight.  Give me a minute.

Oh no.  There's another layer!  I'm exhausted already.

I think I've almost gotten it all off...

It's a pain to unwrap this thing, while trying to look good in the process.

You're doing great, Lena.

Ta da!  Here's the unwrapped fridge.  It's cute, right?

And look, there's a battery compartment on the back.

This switch over here can be in LED mode or UV mode.  Reminds me of the Miniverse kitchen.

Do you want me to open that compartment up for you, Lena?  So we can add some batteries?

I can open it myself, thank you very much.

Mmph....urg....

Humph.  After all that work, there are already batteries inside.

That's a good thing, Lena!  I don't have any button cell batteries like that lying around.

Okay, well, let's see what's inside this thing.

Ack! That bag fell on my foot!

Be careful when you open one of these fridges, I guess!

Let's see, there are one, two, three...four bags!

And there's this cute collector's sheet, too.

I laid everything out so that you can see it here.

The collector's sheet makes it look like we can fill the fridge really well!  Look at all of that stuff in there.

And it explains that the light can be a normal light, or a UV light for curing resin.

Oh, great. That means that some of the food is going to be resin-based, I guess?  Like MGA's Make it Minis or ZURU's Mini Brands Create.  Not my favorite, but we can deal.

Yeah, look.  We're going to have to make a Jello thing with oranges.

I should probably get started opening up these bags.

I'll rip this one down the middle...

Oh, look!  It's a watermelon magnet, a scoop, and some Olipop!

That's so weird because I literally just discovered Olipop at the grocery store.

The magnet really sticks!

Here's a closer look at the Olipop and the scoop:

I don't like the strawberry vanilla flavor (I'm more of a cream soda girl myself) but the detail is great:

Sorry, Lena, back to you:

Okay, now I'll open this yellow one.

What do we have here?

Oh, goodness!  That's a lot of stuff.

Look at all of this.

Wow!  Two more Olipops, a Mike's Hot Honey, and a Ramuné peach drink:

I like Olipop root beer, but have never heard of Mike's Hot Honey or Ramuné.  The little details look like exact copies of the full-sized products:

The Pizza Hut box is small and made out of plastic:

And it opens to reveal a little pizza with a printed design and a slice missing:

That's cheesy.

Here's the pizza on its own:

I guess it's like an individual pizza?  Ian could eat this in two bites.

All right, I wonder what's in this next bag?

Oh, okay...

It's the resin kit.  Maybe you can make this, Emily?  I don't want to get messy.

Yeah, I can go do that while you open the last bag.

Oof!  This one is heavy.

Hm, I'm not sure what all of this is.  It's not food.

Oh, I get it!  It's the shelves for the fridge.

I got them all set up.

I think it looks really good, don't you?

And here it is with all of the food inside.  It looks a bit sad, honestly.

And there's nothing in the freezer section, except for some nice drawers.

All of those drawers pull out.

I finished the Jello thing and it needs to cure.  Can I try out the UV light in the fridge?

Sure, pop it in.

The design with the light is clever because that little black button at the top turns off the regular light when the door is closed, but it doesn't turn off the UV light.  So I was able to close the fridge door and have the Jello continue to cure.

It took two curing sessions, one for about an hour and then an additional 30 minutes with the Jello flipped over.  But it finally got hard.  What do you think, Lena?

I don't really like jiggly food.

But the plate and lid are elegant.

So that's the fridge!  I really like it, but it's not as big as my other fridge.

Now I want to figure out the best way to fill it with yummy food.

I thought I'd open three surprise balls from each company, and compare the contents.

Actually, maybe Emily will open up the balls and then bring me the food?  I'm tired of opening stuff.

And we can bring in a table from my old kitchen to display everything.

Okay, just a sec.  I'll run and get your table.

This is good.  I'm ready.

Now bring me some food!

Oh--and we should probably start with the Mini Brands balls, since they go with the fridge.

That's a good idea.  Here are the three balls that I bought:

Mini Brands Fill the Fridge Mini Minis surprise balls, $7.99 each.

They have Fill the Fridge lettering on them, but they're also called  Mini Brands Mini Minis.  That's a silly name.  Why not just call them Fill the Fridge Minis?

I opened the first ball and found a lot of bags inside!

There's also a pretzel magnet, which is great:

All in all, the ball contained seven bags and a collector's sheet:

The collector's sheet shows all of the different food options:

They take up both sides of the sheet:

I won't show every single item, but a few things stood out.  There are other tiny pizzas: 

And 19 different magnet options!

I want the ice cream cones!

As is typical for these toys, there's a hierarchy of rareness, identified by little symbols:

The legendary items include things like the Jello dessert that have to be made with resin:

I really want to get the unicorn cake shown in the top row of luxury items.  It looks amazing:

Look and see what thing you want the most, Lena:

Oh, um...

I want the lobster!  I've never had a lobster dinner.

What are you waiting for?  Open those bags and let's see what we got!

Okay, okay.  Here you go:

Huh.  I don't see a lobster.

You can't always get what you want.

Let's start over on the left here.

There are some broccoli florets that look nice and green.

There's an empty box of Bagel Bites.

And drinks!  There's a boring orange drink, more Ramuné, and more Olipop.

Zuru really likes Olipop, don't they?

What the heck is this, though?

It looks kinda gross.  But it says Oats Jar on top.

I don't think that's a brand or anything, it's just a concept.  You put oatmeal and a bunch of other stuff in a jar and then eat it:

That looks better than what I got.

I'm not going to eat the oats jar.  But I might eat this.

It's takeout food from Panda Express.  But I can't close the carton, so it's going to dry out.

I wouldn't eat that if I were you, Lena.

All right, let's get rid of this stuff and see what the next ball has.

Okay!  I'll open up the next ball:

This one had a donut magnet:

Lena, I have some good news and some bad news about what else was in the ball.

All right.  Let's get the bad news over with first.

Okay, close your eyes...

This is silly, but fine.

Now you can look.

What??

Seriously?  It's like the most boring thing and the grossest thing from the first ball.

Duplicates are super annoying.  But there were some new things, too.  Take a look:

This is better.

I see some nice-looking Black Label bacon.  I know you won't eat it, Emily, but I will.

And these Ore-Ida hash browns look good...if a bit small.

Only 60 calories per serving, too.

It's just polyfil stuffing inside that bag, so I doubt it has 60 calories...

I love whipped cream!  So this Cool Whip is good.

It looks small, though, doesn't it?

Yeah, I think of Cool Whip tubs as being bigger than that.

So what's the good news?

Okay, close your eyes again for the big surprise!

Oh for goodness sake, Emily.

Now you can look!

Oh!  YES!

It's a lobster!  Exactly what I wanted.

It's already cooked, too, which is nice.

I wouldn't want to boil it myself, because it's actually pretty cute.

I don't like cooking lobsters either, Lena.

So we have one more ball to look at, right?  I hope it's good.

Fingers crossed!

This one had a hot dog magnet:

And, well...Lena, there's a bit of bad news.

Do NOT tell me there's another oat jar.

I mean...

Oh for crying out loud!  I don't understand all of these oat jars.

But the extra lobster is good, I guess.  Now Ian can have dinner, too.

I'll set these aside...

I assume you have some really good stuff for me now, right?

It's not bad, I don't think:

I like bottled water, and the Hershey's syrup looks good for ice cream.

I'm not sure about this, though.  It looks like one of your dog treats.

You're not wrong.

Shall we bring the fridge back and see if all of the food we got will fill it up?

Sure.  I'll go grab the fridge and the food.

I like how all of the magnets look!  My favorites are the watermelon and the pretzel.

Now I'll see if I can put everything inside!

Here you go!

The fridge looks sort-of full, I guess.

It's very heavy on the drinks, and there are way too many oat jars.

I agree, Lena.  There's a reasonable assortment of food, but a lot of it is very small, so the fridge has some empty spots.  And there are so many drinks and oat jars!  I noticed you had some trouble putting the drinks away, too.  They tend to tip over--especially those skinny Ramuné bottles.  Not bad overall, though.

Shall we move on to the Miniverse balls?

Yes, definitely.  I'm really curious to see if these are better.

Do you want to open the balls again, Emily?  I thought that went well.

Sure!  I can do that.

These balls are almost the same color as the Fill the Fridge balls, which is confusing.  But they have the Miniverse logo in bright yellow, and some photos of the miniature food decorating the plastic:

Miniverse Real Brands surprise ball, $8.99.

Inside the plastic wrapping, I found a clear ball with a yellow lid:

The ball contained two brown paper bags, an information pamphlet that I didn't even read, and a collector's sheet:

The collector's sheet is packed with products on both sides:

Some of the items need to be assembled to some degree.  For example, the jam jars and peanut butter jars are all filled with a pourable substance:

The ice cream and gelato containers also come with something to fill them:

From what I can tell, none of the packages are empty.  There are miniature foods inside all of the boxes:

I was very excited to open up the bags!  Each bag appears to have several items inside: 

In the first bag I found a box of Good Humor chocolate eclair bars, and some Smucker's concord grape jelly:

The lid of the grape jelly jar comes off, and at some point I'll have to squeeze the contents of the bag into the jar:

The box of Good Humor bars looks just like the real thing:

Complete with text and details on the back:

Inside the box, there are two individually wrapped bars:

And the bars themselves are highly detailed!

I feel the same kind of delight that I felt with the Miniverse Spaces food.  The brand names add to the appeal in some ways, but I miss the cute little generic nutrition labels on the standard Miniverse food.

Let's peek into the next bag! 

Inside this one, I found five more items:

I have no idea what this little plastic piece is for:

But the other items look really...

Um, excuse me?  Are you trying to hijack my review, Emily?

Oops!  No!  Sorry, Lena.  Go ahead,  I just got excited.  I'll put the food on your table for you.

Here's everything that came inside the ball.

I know Emily already talked about these Good Humor bars, but they look delicious.

The jelly doesn't look as good.  It's all clumpy and globby.

But let's check out these Rice Krispies Treats.

I see two treats inside!

They're both wrapped up in blue decorated pouches.

And the treats inside look crispy and gooey.

This ground turkey will be great for burger night, so I'm not going to open it right now.

These Hostess donettes are my favorite.  I might steal them.

The package is sealed on the back, for freshness.

Is that a warning to not eat them all at once??

I won't eat all of them at once, but look at them!  They're so tempting!

And there's a whole bag full of them.

Mmm, I might just sample one while Emily opens the next ball...

I think this next ball has a different package design from the first one, with Smucker's jam instead of Breyer's ice cream:

And I'm not going to ruin the surprise of what was inside, because Lena will get mad at me again.  I'll just hand everything over to her.

Lena?

Mmmph...

Oh!  What?  You startled me.

 I was, uh, cleaning up.

Sure you were.

What did you find in the second ball, Emily?

Take a look at all of this:

Wow.  That's a lot of food.

This big package looks like something for you to figure out, Emily.  Can you take it away?

Yes, I'll go figure that out.

Let's see what we have left here.  There's something called Uncrustables.

It looks like a sandwich pie or something?

Let's get one of these out of the box.

Look at this!  It's a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with no crust.

This looks pretty tasty, actually.

No more snacking, Lena!  We've got to keep things moving along.

Okay, fine.  But look!  There are some Klondike sandwiches.

You love Klondike bars, don't you, Emily?

I do, indeed.

I can see why!  These sandwiches are huge!

And they smell so good.

Lena...

Oops, right.  No snacking.

This container of Laughing Cow cheese doesn't look like it opens at all, which is frustrating.

Let me take a closer look.

The side sticker peels off, but is it supposed to?  Oh wait, I see a seam!  Maybe it does open...

Oh my gosh, look!  Tiny little cheeses!

And each one is individually wrapped with a cow sticker on top.

And there's a wedge of cheese inside!

Those are incredible.  I used to eat cheese like that as a kid!

This ball is good so far, right?  I'm having fun.

Me too, Lena.

The last thing is this can of Pringles.

I love Pringles!

Who doesn't love Pringles?  They're like crack.

Look at all of these chips!  They look so crispy.

I have to sample one.  You can show them the ice cream while I snack, Emily.

The ice cream is pretty great.  It looks exactly like a full-sized Breyer's ice cream tub:

And the ice cream substance, which I think is kinetic sand, is fairly realistic, too:

Especially when it's being scooped:

Can you grab me a scoop of that, please?

Oh--and as an aside, while Lena was talking, the jelly substance settled into the bottom of the jar, so now it looks much better:

There's one last ball to open:

Let's see what Lena thinks of the contents:

What do we have here...

This Pop-Tarts box is all crushed at the top.

But the tarts are protected in foil bags, so that's good.

I prefer the ones with frosting, but this doesn't look bad...

Focus, Lena!

Right, right.  I can eat later.

There are some Hostess Twinkies over here.

These come in clear plastic bags with "Hostess" printed on them.

The Twinkie itself isn't very appetizing, though.  It reminds me of paste.

I like Cheez-Its better.  Or anything salty, for that matter.

There's a whole bag of them!  And they even have holes in the middle and bumps on the edges!  They look so good...

The tub of cookies and cream ice cream also looks good...there's so much I want to eat!

But mostly I want to eat this can of salty Planters cocktail peanuts.

They're a little pale, but I don't care!

I'll just grab a little handful to test them out.

Wow, the detail on those peanuts is incredible.  Mind blown.

So this is all of the food from the three Miniverse balls!

Let's bring the fridge back again and see what we can fit inside.

I'm going to leave the food that came with the fridge in there, just to be fair.

And now we have to fit all of this.

Most of these things don't even need to be refrigerated.

Let's just pretend they do for now, to get the full effect.

So I couldn't fit everything in, but here's how it looks.

Some of those things look too big for the fridge, but it's definitely full!  The freezer is even packed with stuff.  Impressive.

Yeah, so now that I've looked at all of the food, I have notes.

The Fill the Fridge food is cute, and it's in scale with the refrigerator.  But the items are a bit boring, and the fridge isn't full, even with three balls worth of stuff.

The Miniverse food is so much more delicious and detailed!  And even though the scale is too big for the refrigerator in some cases, I like the look of a nice, full fridge.

Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to finish off these Pringles.

Once you pop, you can't stop.

Bottom line:  Lena pretty much said it all.  Zuru's Fill the Fridge refrigerator is great.  The retro style is trendy and fun, and I love the working light.  The UV curing light isn't as useful to me, but it does what it says it will do...if a bit slowly.  All of the shelves and drawers look good and can hold a wide variety of items.  For $19.99, I think this is a great toy, and a nice centerpiece for a doll kitchen.  Too bad Lena already has a fridge that she loves.

The Fill the Fridge surprise balls are not as impressive as the fridge itself.  We got several duplicates in our three balls, and many of the items are disappointing.  I don't really like the plastic pizza box, and the empty containers, like the Bagel Bites box, feel cheap.  The Olipop cans are cute, but we got so many of them!  At least there were some different flavors.  The up side to this food is that it fits into the fridge nicely.  It's in scale with the shelves and drawers.  I'm guessing it'd take three or four more balls to adequately fill the fridge and freezer, which, at $7.99 per ball, starts to be an expensive venture.

The Miniverse Real Brands surprise balls are much more fun.  They're incredible, actually.  I don't think there was a single disappointment (or repeat!) in the mix.  At $8.99, they don't cost much more than the Fill the Fridge balls, either.  I can't think of any miniatures that I didn't like, but because the food is mimicking real brands, when there's a brand I'm not familiar with or don't enjoy, it inevitably detracts from my appreciation of the mini.  The standouts for me were the Pringles (individual chips!), the Klondike sandwiches (yum), the Cheez-Its (with all of that detail!), and the ice cream tubs.  Lena's favorites are the Pringles and the Hostess donuts.  I find two of the minis truly mind-blowing, and those are the Laughing Cow cheese and the Planters nuts.  Absolutely amazing.  To me, both of those are worth $8.99 on their own.  As Lena said, the downside to these minis is that some items are a little big for 1:6 scale and especially for the Fill the Fridge refrigerator.

While I might not be a big fan of the make-your-own resin food fad that's sweeping the toy aisles, I'm thrilled by the fact that there are so many realistic, detailed, and affordable 1:6 food minis on the market these days.  Lena and Ian will certainly never go hungry.

Yum.