Krunchers! Sweet Hawaiian Onion Kettle Cooked Potato Chips

           What on Earth - or should I say, “what in the Pacific Ocean”- is a Sweet Hawaiian Onion?  As it turns out the Krunchers brand isn’t inventing a mythical pineapple-flavored onion, but rather is referring to the ‘Maui Onion’- so called because the best ones are grown off the side of a goddamned volcano in Maui called Mount Haleakala, and how much more awesome could something be than that? 

Despite it's volcano-loving
proclivities, the Maui onion can be
grown in a home garden.

That sinister red volcanic soil produces small onions with unusually low amounts of sulfer and high amounts of water- resulting in a vegetable extra juicy and sweet as a mob mistress.  In fact, these exemplary onions are recommended for raw-eating, which makes me want to one up Johny appleseed by munching away on Maui onions and planting them on every field I can find.  (Ok, to be fair, the Georgia-grown Vidalia onion is also similar in taste and consistency.)

According to Hawaian folklore, the demigod Maui's
grandma lives in the crater on Mt. Haleakala, and
one spring day she might yet pour a tide of liquid
hot magma death instead of onions down the
 slopes of her awesomely named home.

 So, has Kruncher’s really made specifically ‘Maui onion’ chips?  Well, unfortunately, I can’t tell for sure.  To their credit, ‘onion powder’ is nearly at the top of the ingredient list, but no details as to whether it’s Hawaiian onion powder (maybe it is, but I certainly can’t tell!), and the rest of the list is all chemicals of one variety or another with the exception of a hint of garlic powder.  The seasoning does taste mildly sweet, and mercifully light on salt (unlike many other otherwise tasty onion-flavored products).  Some might find themselves wanting to ramp up the sweetness or saltiness dial, but the principle shortcoming is unfortunately much more serious.

One of the few flavors I don't
want to taste in my food.

        That relatively mild sweet onion flavor is completely overpowered by the oil that crisps have been cooked in.  These otherwise impressive kettle-cooked chips have been thoroughly soaked in a (non-trans fat) corn oil that reeks of the sort of cooking oil usually poured on a skillet.  While some may feel that the rough oil brings an authentic touch, it may simply be that it is too authentic, and overpowers the flavoring by far.

An excellent image of Krunchers chips
courtesy of realfitmama.  Note that
they don't have visible seasoning.

This is truly tragic, because in most other regards the texture and potato crisps are really first class kick-ass.  The blonde potato rounds are extra thick (up to 2 millimeters!) , twisted and rumpled in beautifully complex shapes, and wonderfully crunchy in an organically uneven sort of way.  As you munch away at them, you can even feel the (too-strong) oils seeping coolly out of the saturated crisps onto the tongue.  (I should note that the nutritional information shows these chips to be no more unhealthy than an average bag of Lay’s potato chips- and these are gluten free!)

            Ultimately, the over-saturation of the cooking oil flavor and the comparative weakness of the seasoning leaves me feeling that these chips didn’t quite carry the day- Maui onion flavor is a neat concept, but the seasoning is too subtle and the cooking oil is as a discrete as She-Hulk before the red moon.  The amazing quality of the potato round does leave me intrigued about trying other Kruncher’s products; perhaps if I swiped some actual Maui onions and mixed them together I'd get the complete experience.

She Hulk making a subtle
entrance.

Stars: 2/4

Spiciness Rating: None

Pros:

- Incredibly thick and crunchy kettle cooked potato rounds impress with their class and texture

- Inoffensive and light sweet onion flavoring is pleasant and avoids the excessive saltiness common in the genre

Cons:

- Super-excessive corn-oil flavoring oversaturates the chips and overpowers the seasonin

- Many will find themselves wishing for a sweet and possibly slightly-saltier onion seasoning

- It’s unclear that the seasoning is really very ‘Hawaiian’

Chio Exxtra Chips Tejszines Mediterran Fuszeres

I was only able to translate two words in title of these ruffled chips- Meditteranean and Seasoning- and I'm not sure what ‘Tejszines’ means.  However I can pretty much confirm that these ruffled potato chips are meant to emulate a Meditteranean yogurt/cream and parsley sauce, probably along the lines of Greek tzatziki sauce.  If you have perchance eaten a Gyro, you will recall favorably the white yogurt sauce with flecks of green parsley that is liberallyed soaked upon the hot hybrid lamb-and-beef meat. 

Some thicker tzatziki sauces include
juicy thin chunks of cucumber.

Bottom line, the sauce is yummy and yogurty-sour; though basically uncomplicated, and often infused with garlic, lemon, and salt for extra punch.  I was charmed by the idea of chips flavored along those lines, and found that Chio’s rendition in the seasoning to be clever and evocative.  You can clearly taste both the mildly sour-creamy aspects of the sauce as well as herbal flashes of parsley and oregano.

The tzatziki seasoning is effectively lathered upon ruffled chips which proved to be thick but not crunchy- they exhibited a more pliable ‘soft-styrofoam’ texture which, though not nearly as bad as it sounds, will disappoint anyone who values voluminous crackle-crunch sounds in their eating experience.  The crisps also proved to be amazingly large- one of the chips we found was so long it can only be described as pornographic.

Not a photoshop.  That was at least
5 inches long- the chip, I mean.

These chips are part of the ‘Exxtra’ product line, but though I liked the seasoning, I did not find that it was boldly applied- they could probably have doubled the quantity and it would have tasted just right.  Starting with a flavoring that’s already going to be intrinsically mild (yogurt sauce with parsley) and I think it’s hard to justify the ‘Exxtra’ title, about as appropriate as a documentary “Badass Xtreme style English Gardening.”

"We put the extreme carnage back into
traditional gardening!"

The mildness aside, however, I enjoyed the unique flavor they were going for and the satisfying size and thickness of the ruffled crisps, and they proved a delightful supplement to an evening picnic in a Budapest park.

Stars: 2½

Spiciness Rating: None

Pros:

- Evocative and unique flavoring

Cons:

- Could use more seasoning; does not merit the ‘Exxtra’ label

- Some may be dismayed by the low crunch-factor

Vico Chips a l’Ancienne saveur Vinaigre à l'Echalote

My experience writing reviews for Vico chips is that they are cursed: the reviews, not the chips.  I stared at the shiny, over-priced bags in stores for a long time before I finally caved in (and found them at a cheaper price), and then wrote two reviews full of praise and love and yearnings for world peace.  Then the computer failed to wake up from sleep (sadly normal) and the Autosave messed up (maddeningly abnormal) and I was left with no evidence of that heady, intense fling.

Yet, along came Vico’s Shallot Vinegar chips to reawaken my passion.  Vico, it must be emphasized, is a special beast- nearly all the other chips I review from French stores are either made by Lay’s or are store brands, but Vico’s appears to be an actual independent French chip company from Picardie with a long and proud tradition of potato based products which do appear to merit their higher prices by virtue of having pretty damn good crunch and texture.

However, it's the flavoring here that shatters frontiers by offering what other chip-makers have lacked the courage and foresight to do: bring vinegar and onion together, at last, like a soap opera coupling you began rooting for five seasons ago.  The vinegar aspect is well done and effectively balanced, each chip evoking a tangy acidity of vinegar without going overboard into Sour Patch kids territory.  More interesting, however, is the echalot (shallot) flavoring, which in its subtlety, wafts breezily onto the tongue like the effervescently glowing presence of an onion-y willow wisp.

"We are truly benevolent energy beings
from a land of light and pure good. Come
closer and- what?  Oh, never mind the
skull.  It just fits in with the decor.
We live in a swamp, y'know?"

Yes, we are talking about shallot, an elongated variety of onion with a sweeter and milder flavor which Wikipedia insists is also “richer andmore complex.”  Think of shallots as the posh and classy diplomats of the onion family (they’re very pleasant when cooked in a wine sauce and eaten whole alongside seared steak), rather than the ‘roll ‘em over and make ‘em cry’ types that we more commonly encounter (and love in our own masochistic way).  Intriguingly, there is also shallot vinegar, which is sweet and mellow, and not nearly as onion-y as you might think it is. As a result, the shallot flavoring on the chips is pleasingly musty and sweet without the acrid overtones we associated with regular onions.

Most of the Vico chips I’ve tried have been baked with an extra thick and crunchy ruffled texture, but these chips proved to be thin, relatively small potato slices.  They demonstrated a slightly greater degree of crunchiness than the average Lay’s chips, but were still cut a little too finely for my taste- an extra quarter of a millimeter can really do wonders.  All in all, though, the slices were still above average and more than adequate at delivering the wonderful flavoring.

Allow me to restate the vital point: vinegar and onion flavoring are awesome when combined, and it’s a wonder nobody thought of it before.  They earn a million extra fancy points for going for shallots rather than regular onions, making this another example of truly excellent idea that deserves to spread beyond France’s normally underdeveloped potato chip market.

Stars: 3 /4

Spiciness Rating: None

Pros:

- Effectively tangy vinegar flavoring is evenly applied across the chips

- Sweet and tasty shallot aromas emerges from the vinegar base with subtlty and class

- Crisps are well baked

Cons:

- Crisps are thin and a little small, which I feel could be improved upon

Lay’s Sensations Saveur Crème et Epices

I’m usually very principled about only purchasing chips that fall within a certain price to quantity ratio.  Fancy Kettle chips that cost $4 for 6oz?  So long, and thanks for all the fish!  However, I recently gave into temptation to buy something fancier, out of sheer curiosity and a need to have more material for the blog.

It had sat there on the aisle for the last 4 months in a fancy package of shining glossy foil, showcasing carefully mood-lit potato crisps in the foreground, with a trifecta of yellow pepper, paprika, and sour cream hovering in the background like the supporting cast in an 70’s style action movie poster.  Slowly my reservations were chiseled away, and rationalizing with the need to write more reviews, these chips ended up in the shopping cart.

Starring Genghis Khan as the space pirate,
Madonna as the star queen, and
Mister Rogers as the astro avenger.

Now part of the temptation was that I wasn’t quite sure what flavor the chips were meant to represent.  Everyone knows the universally recognized colors for Sour Cream and Onion flavoring is green and white, and the packaging sported both green, white, and a picture of sour cream.  Dead giveaway, right?  Not so fast, in place of an onion, there’s a bell pepper and a bowl of paprika.

It took me a while to figure out after biting into them, but basically these chips were seeking to evoke the flavor of sour cream dip with a sprinkling of paprika on top.  Pretty specific, but you'll find more than a few recipes which features this combination.  As flavorings go, it’s on the subtle side: a mildly sweet sour cream flavor, some garlic, and a pleasing but faint spicy aroma that builds up a little over time, but never so much as to be really threatening.  Very nice and all like a stiff but classy date, and they do capture the whole sour cream and paprika thing, if in an altogether too subtle manner.  Personally, if I had a choice between something that flirts frustratingly beyond my satisfaction and something that hits my tongue like a sledgehammer, I will happily lean towards the latter extreme.

Thought bubble:  I can only hope he's
just as stiff in bed.

Texture wise, the crisps are clearly designed with an eye towards superior quality.  In most respects this goal was achieved, as the crisps are thick, less crumbly, and very evenly sized.  However, they do suffer from lacking the kind of uneven and interestingly textured surfaces we expect from most chips, instead displaying smooth and regular surfaces that are efficient but that do not fire the imagination- thereby completing the portrait of the polished but unexciting aristocratic suitor who tries to make up for his lack of sparks and intensity with money and refinement.

Fair lady, I practically invented being
languid.  Yes, even before the British.

So all in all, while I appreciate the enhanced texture and subtle flavor of these chips, I feel that they fail to deliver a truly stunning experience to justify the (high) price. These chips will appeal to those with delicate, cultured palettes, who eschew the gross crudity of strong flavorings, and appreciate suavely blemlishless potato crisps of high quality and utter regularity.  Those barbaric individuals of cruder, more primitive tastes should probably look elsewhere.  Why settle for Humperdinck when you can have Westley?

Stars: 2/4

Spiciness Rating: Mild

Pros:

- If you wanted Sour Cream and Onion chips without the onion, than these are the chips for you…

- if you don’t mind the Paprika element as well that gives an interesting but unthreatening spicy dimension

- Above-average quality thick and crunchy crisps

Cons:

- Flavoring is too subtle

- Though the crisps are thick, they are also perfectly smooth and lack the kind of bubbles and crumples that make, say, kettle chips so interesting

-Flavoring is too sub- I guess I should learn to know when to let something go?

Leader Price Tuiles Apero Gout Crème Oignon

(Sour Cream and Onion Snack Shingles)

So, in the United States we have Pringles, and in France we have…shingles?  Actually, shingles is a very apt name for them, given how neatly they stack on each other, although it does kind of evoke that rash you get from a virus.  But really, I approve.  And you know what, there are Pringles here, scads of them lining the shelves, and though I have nothing against them, I do have something against the price, which is 2.50 euros, which is way more than I’d pay for them in dollars.

Mmmm, makes me hungry just looking
at them.

And that’s where the Shingles come riding to the rescue, because, goddamn it, they are less than half the price.  Now despite my tough reviews, I’m still cool with the Pringles- yes, identical chips stacked like a rack full of battle droids invading Naboo are never going to rise to the same heights as thick and bubbly potato chips, but they are still enjoyable to eat, have interesting flavorings, and come in are neat little tubes.  But you can imagine I was wondering what I was putting myself in for by purchasing such a ridiculously price efficient product.

They're packed so tightly in those
carriers it's nearly pornographic.

Now the first thing I noticed when trying to open this was that the tub apparently had no plastic lid…until I realized the lid was made of the same cardboard as the rest of the tube.  Now that might sound like I’m complaining about its cheapness, but actually I find it amazingly nifty.  The lid perfectly seals the tube, and I can imagine I am being somehow ecologically friendly as I secure it snugly on the open mouth of the chip dispenser with a reassuring pop.  So, to recap for anyone taking notes, cardboard lids are awesome, and I want them on cereal boxes now.

Now the very nice discovery I’ve made concerning the contents, however, is that I prefer them to actual Pringles.  What heresy is this you ask?  Yes, these are basically a Pringles knock off, but I find them better in a number of small but significant ways that add up. 

First, the shape is slightly different­-Pringles are more circular, and these are more rectangular, resulting in a larger chip with a wider and more accessible surface area for tongue probing.

Second the crisps are a little thicker, and thereby provide a slightly greater degree of crunchy happiness as they disintegrate in your mouth with a buttery aftertaste.

You are more likely to have your
cream and onions in a sauce with
pork than as chip dip in the land of
 the Hexagon.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, the flavoring is applied much more consistently, and a little more thickly.  Pringles frequently suffer from inconsistent and inadequately thick seasoning on the crisps as if they had poorly trained attention-deficit squirrels with spray-boots in charge of applying the spices, so that by comparison the tuiles deliver a more flavorful experience.  The seasoning was heavier on the Onion than the cream, which is odd considering the French fondness for both in just about any type of cooking (a predilection I assure you I’m happy to share.)

Now perhaps I’m overstating it, because every one of these improvements is subtle, but they add up to make something which left me more satisfied than I usually am with Pringles.  Combined with the fact they’re radically cheaper, and I’m quite pleased with this product.

Stars: 3

Spiciness Rating: None

Pros:

- Larger, thicker crisps are subtly superior to the regular Pringles experience

- Flavoring is thickly and evenly coated

- Robust onion flavor

Cons:

- Like all Pringles, lacks the sort of diversity in texture one enjoys in regular potato chips

- A little light on the sour cream aspect

Utz Sour Cream and Cheddar

           Does anyone actually eat sour cream and cheddar in real life?  The flavoring mash up is definitely out there and there are dozens of sour-cream-and-cheddar potato chips, but where did this idea come from?  Are we supposed to imagine there are plenty of people out there who cut themselves slices of Wisconsin’s finest and dip them in a tub of sour cream, not-so-fresh from the udders of those self-same cows? 

There are certainly plenty of American culinary traditions I remain unaware of, but while searching for images for this review, it struck me that cheddar and sour cream are regularly combined in the fine American custom of stuffed baked potatoes.  Obvious one, Sea-bass! you’re thinking, I mean it’s like the potato chips are really the potatoes!  In my defense, I must note there have been baked potato flavored chips in which a studious attempt was made to realize the taste of the bacon bits and the baked potato itself, while this sub-genre exhibits no such ambitions.  So I’m still unconvinced that this wasn’t simply a mix up using two flavors that happen to go well together, and let’s leave it at that.

The origins of Sour Cream & Cheddar
group think revealed?  Not so fast...

Utz’s Sour Cream and Cheddar potato chips are basically a companion in design to their Onion & Garlic chips I reviewed earlier.  The flavoring may be different, but they share in common a smooth soft texture that dissolves easily in the mouth but lacks any sort of crunch, air bubbles, or interesting topography.  The texture does make it easy on the teeth and the tongue and facilitates the enjoyment of the orange colored flavoring, but I’m beginning to feel it’s a bit of a cop out compared to even average potato chips let alone kettle-cooked, and it also seems to lack some of the buttery oiliness of conventionally cooked chips.

The flavoring on these chips succeeds at its job; it genuinely evokes the taste of sour cream with cheddar (like I know, because I, like, totally dip my cheddar all the time)  without going too salty or too sour (the latter being an all too common tendency in cheese-oriented flavorings).  The chips at the top of the bag were a little light on the seasoning, but by the middle of the bag the amount of flavoring on each chip became consistent and in fact, highly satisfying and surprisingly addictive.  So while these chips are lacking in more robust texture and have some consistency issues, the overall quality of the flavoring helps raise this product back up to an average grade.  Or in other words, your car might look like a hand-me-down jalopy that came the worse for ware after an encounter with a misanthropic moose, and your sketchy boyfriend may still have all those awkwardly placed tattoos boasting of his membership in a totally ‘leet shop-lifting ring, but both can still put the moves on when it counts, which makes them worth the time of day if not necessarily much more than that.

"She may not look like much, but she's got
it where it counts, kid. I've made a lot of
special modifications myself.  She can make
the grocery run in .5 parsecs."

Stars: 2/4

Spiciness Rating: none

Pros:

- Nicely balanced cheddar and sour cream flavoring

- Surprisingly addictive

Cons:

- Smooth, flat chips are sub-par in texture and likely not to impress, unless you like that kind of thing along with your taste for slick rogues

Leader Price FineLigne Crackers gout crème oignon

Image coutesy of July Wattitude,
who reviews light foods and was rather
fond of these.

So I’m pretty much stretching the definition of chips right now by reviewing what are undeniably crackers, but this product is definitely consumed just like chips and even has sour cream and onion flavoring, and the main ingredient is still potatoes, so all in all I feel justified.

This is another example of some guys coming over to party at our house and leaving tasty things behind which I subsequently snatched for the purposes of my review.  I feel it’s a fair compensation for the paranoia these parties have inflicted upon our neighbors, one of whom accused us of sacrificing pigeons and dripping their blood on her balcony.  (No, I’m not making this stuff up.)  It does make me wonder if I’m somehow missing the more interesting parts of these parties, but what can you do?

So, this product is basically made up of water crackers, which are a very plain white flour-based crackers of extremely limited flavor and absorption that beg to have cheese or dip spread on them.  Apparently these were formulated in 1801 as a means to feed sailors on long voyages at sea, then soldiers during the U.S. Civil War, but somehow these have gotten classed up as being the perfect accompaniment for the wine-and-cheese course at your fancy soiree- how’s that for rags to riches? 

The FineLigne crackers are cut in a sort of oval clam shape pretty close to a chip, separated by empty air bubbles in the middle which can make them a just little awkward to crunch, but not unreasonably.  They are covered with a white and green flecked sour cream and onion powder which is sweet and gentle to the taste, just about as you’d expect it, and counterpoints very well with the bland floury base of the water crackers.

These are specifically advertised as being light, and at 104 calories for a 25 gram serving, they aren’t really that bad.  I didn’t feel like their flavor suffered for being healthier, except in the sense that the airy emptiness on the insides of these chips was not entirely satisfying.  I also am inclined to whine in favor of thicker and stronger flavoring, but really what’s there is adequate and reasonably nice, and it was interesting to have a floury water cracker base, even though ‘potato powder’ is listed as the primary ingredient, it looks like these are potato chips after all!

Stars: 2/4

Spiciness Rating: none

Pros:

- Flavored water cracker snack food makes for an interesting change of pace

- Soft and sweet sour cream and onion flavoring is quite pleasant

- Reasonably light on the calories without obvious shortcoming in flavor

Cons:

- Water crackers are too airy on the inside to be very satisfying to crunch on

- Might leave you yearning for additional flavoring

Utz Onion and Garlic Potato Chips

            As promised, I’ve come full circle back to everybody's favorite proverbially cheap-as-chips brand, Utz, and I’ve got to hand it to them, you go in expecting some bog-standard variation, and you end up with something unusual and weird.  Garlic flavored chips, after all, are not as common as all that, so I was happy enough to acquire some for my personal delectation. 

Speaking of the weird, just to throw something out there, it occurs to me that Utz may have felt garlic flavored snacks may have some additional utility beyond mere pleasures of the tongue, perhaps in the realm of self-defense.  One ‘reviewer’ has already cautioned against garlic chips because of the unfortunate effects it may produce on subsequent amorous encounters, but I would propose the following solution: chicks before chips.  Incidentally, those suggesting that I bought these following my ill-fated escapade with the undead handmaidens of the Lahmian Court of the Silver Peak should put a stake in it.  Besides, knowing what I know about those ladies, they favor a liquid diet, and wouldn’t be caught alive eating chips anyway.

Few things are as dangerous as garlic
breath combined with your girlfriend,
in bed.

            These potato chips are small rounds, around 1.5-2 inches in diameter on average, and have a peculiar soft texture which is low on crunch, but that allows them to easily melt in the mouth.  They are basically very low-density in consistency, and biting into them is like crunching through a thin layer of styrofoam, which isn’t as bad as it sounds because they don’t taste like styrofoam.  All in all, the texture is definitely not superior in quality, but it is strange and different enough that I’m inclined to be a little lenient.  Any thick-potato chip purists will hate them, and the thin textures seems to absorb moisture relatively quickly outside of the mouth as well as in (ie., go stale in the cabinet), but otherwise they’re all right.

            The texture aside, the flavoring on the Utz chips is very strong, with a lot more emphasis on the garlic over the onion, (a consensus among all but one review I’ve seen for these).  The crisps were fairly salty, but not excessively so; unless you surge the sodium by eating a lot of them at once, your mouth will be pleasantly garlicked and not suffer any cascading denial of service attacks.  Just as Sookie Stackhouse’s perky daring more than compensates for her lack of class, the garlic flavorings lack of sophistication did not prevent me from appreciating its boldness.  While Utz’s Onion and Garlic chips are far from being nuanced or perfected in either form or flavor, I do appreciate the unique approach they bring to the table and the tongue and recommend them for garlic lovers, or anybody afraid of receiving the blood kiss from Neferata, Queen of the Damned.

This guy actually did
a minute long video review
of the Onion & Garlic chips,
which sounds ridiculous
until you consider how long
I spent writing this one.

Stars: 2/4
Spiciness Rating: Very Mild

Pros:

- A nicely bold garlic flavor that is not so common on chips
- Protection from bloodsucking vixens
- The weirdly thin crisps do melt in the mouth easily

Cons:

- The weirdly thin crisps are very far from being any sort of quality, crunchy potato crisp
- Those seeking more onion will likely be disappointed

Utz Sour Cream and Onion Potato Chips

While the shelves abound with exciting experiments in potato-chip futures, hi-tech flavor emulation, and thick-crunchy authenticitude (that’s authenticity with attitude), every now and then I feel a certain responsibility to report on the less glamorous workhorses of daily chip consumption.  These provide certain familiar, if unspectacular, pleasures for the mouth, and while relatively mundane in design, still exhibit certain variations that are worth examining.  After all, what good are the revolutionary vanguard without the common proletariat waiting in the wings?  Yes, sometimes one must forsake the glamour of all the organic-home-cut kettle chips made from potatos that were sung to daily by a Wisconsin children’s choir, or the lightly-braised-steak-in-onion-sauce-with-capers flavored chemical prodigies produced by the mad scientists in one of Lay’s subterranean lairs, and do some muckracking a-la Upton Sinclair, and see what we can discover wallowing in the common.

Utz’s Sour Cream and Onion chips are one of those things we will discover...and dissect!  (*Mad cackle*)

Ask yourself which you've eaten more
of: sour cream and onion dip or
sour cream and onion chips?  Then
the sad truth will dawn on you...

            Utz’s offering is conventional in most respects when compared to other Sour-Cream-and-Onion chips, including the little green specks that are supposed to remind one of green onions, although they are sparser on the Utz chips than the Lay’s variety.  The interesting difference is that they are also thinly covered with a white dandruff-like flavoring which tastes mildly sweet, like a sour cream dip.  The additional flavor layer is subtle but appreciable, making these sweeter than other chips in the sour-cream-and-onion genre, although sadly a bolder statement of the sour cream flavor would have made these chips more unique.

            Other than that, the chips are typical for Utz potoato chips: slightly smaller than Lays, cooked in a buttery oil, a little on the damp side but not dramatically.  As I said, garden variety chips, with their own slight little variation compared to others in their class.  That accomplished, allow me to note I am nowhere near done slumming with Utz chips, and down the line (though not immediately I promise you- we can only have so much Oliver Twist before we switch back to the Pride and Prejudice) I have plenty more Utz reviews to come!

Stars: 2/4

Spiciness Rating: None

Pros:

- Interesting powdery white sour cream coating adds a different element from most sour cream and onion chips

- Adequate in all other respects

Cons:

- Also unexceptional in most other respects

- There are better textured sour cream and onion chips out there