Lay’s Strong Chili & Lime

      When I saw in a grocery store in Budapest that Lay’s had released Chili & Lime chips, I recognized the brilliance of the concept immediately.  Who doesn’t adore a nice wedge of lime with their Corona?  (Or less respectably, those lime-flavored beers- I’ll own up to it, someone has to come out and admit it!)  This is a flavoring concept that just needs to have its voice heard by the masses, though for now the masses with the opportunity appear to be exclusively speakers of the Slavic or Magyar tongue.

Limes help fight scurvy!  But not
as well as lemons.  On the other
hand Wikipedia claims that limes
are more sour than lemons, but
science says it's wrong.

       As I’ve previously noted, flavorists have recently begun to appreciate the possibilities of making truly tangy chips, and that zest with which they applied themselves here is commendable.  No, they haven’t made anything even the least bit tongue-curdling or acidic, (nor would I have condemned such a product if they had)- the packaging proclaims these to be LIME flavored, the sweeter, greener, and mild-mannered cousin of the lemon.  Yes, they don’t even have their own name in French (citron vert = ‘green lemon’), but the difference is real.  If you’ve ever squirted a wedge of lime onto some salty tortilla chips or into your beer, you’ll recognize the sensation immediately- sweet and tangy cool, without in any way revisiting the Sour Patch Kids experience.

        Now, these are supposed to be Chili and Lime chips, but the Chili isn’t so dramatic- basically there’s a pleasantly spicy afterburn as you munch on these that contributes to the picante-Tex Mex vibe, but the heat factor is pretty unthreatening and the actual flavor is really all about the hand-grenade fruit.  The crisps themselves are ruffled and about 2 inches in diameter, vaguely orange in color with a decent sprinkling of black pepper.  They are thick and fun to sink your teeth into with a crunch not unlike a cave collapsing, and the bag I acquired in Hungary managed to stay fresh and crispy for a surprisingly long time.  The package proclaims they are ‘best with cold drinks’, and while this might seem like a cocky bit of macho self-promotion, eating them does indeed create a desire for accompanying beer or soda, and the two do complement each other well.

Though Lay's Chili Lime chips are hard to find,
Des at LifesAmbrosia.com has an awesome
recipe to help you convert plain potato chips
to jalapeno-lime godhood.

        In short, I loved these chips and they helped me nostalgically revisit all sorts of tasty Latin/Tex-Mex cooking that is sadly unavailable in Paris.  The additionally tragic/ironic aspect to these chips is that they are apparently being sold all throughout Eastern Europe (the packaging is translated in Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Czech, and Slovak!), but I have seen no hint of these delicacies in France, nor am I certain this variety is available in the United States.  (I am aware of several Chile and Lime chips by Lay’s available in the United States, but none of them appears to be ruffled.  Let me know if I am wrong in the comments!)

Stars: 3½/4 Stars

Spiciness Rating: Moderate

Pros:

- Absolutely nails that tangy-but-mellow sweet-lime on chips flavor

- A pleasant, spicy afterburn

- Wonderfully crunchialicious ruffled crisps

Cons:

- Not especially Chilli flavored

- The spice level is only moderate in intensity

Pringles Xtreme Screamin’ Dill Pickle



There seems to be a remarkable
number of haters out there.
People be like 'I hate pickles
and these chips taste like goddamn
pickles!" and I be pitying the fools...

I’ve always been a fan of vinegar impregnated pygmy cucumbers, aka pickles.  However, in my youth I principally ate French cornichons- gherkins averaging only 3 inches in length and soaked in tarragon to produce an extra-crunchy hyper-vinegary experience.  The larger American standard, the dill pickle, uses medium sized cucumbers rather than gherkins, resulting in a ‘creamier’ inner texture.  Initially, I felt the American pickles were a little weaksauce in comparison to their miniaturized French cousins, but over time I’ve grown quite fond of them as a traditional accompaniment to deli sandwichs, and I’ve discovered not a few varieties that pack their own uniquely garlicky punch.

The French cornichon: about the size
of your pinky, but with twice the amount
of vinegar.

            My first encounter with some of Lay’s pickle-chips a few years earlier left me distinctly underwhelmed, so my expectations were guarded but hopeful when my partner returned from Christmas vacation in the United States with a tube of Pringle’s Xtreme ‘Screamin’ Dill Pickle’ chips.  In general, I think the Pringles Xtreme line has succeeded in creating the sort of strong flavorings I appreciate, though some of their products have proven more inspired than others.

The American Dill pickle, rather girthy
in the good sort of way.  Many of them
are even longer than this too...

            Screamin’ Dill Pickle chips, however, proved to be a vinegary torpedo blast completely deserving their hyperventilating title, and I immediately and irrevocably swooned to their considerable charms.  The super-sour vinegar flavor pervading each chip never failed to impress with its briny power, and it’s all tied together with an unmistakable aroma of dill seed that powerfully evokes the classic American sandwich spear.  I deliver this praise despite having never been a fan of dill seasoning, (spare me the dill havarti!), but here it so perfectly nails the flavor that it leaves me trembling with a thrill of homesick nostalgia.

Koolickles: pickles mixed with Cool-Aid,
apparently all the rage in the American
South, along with pork braised in Coca
Cola and the like.  I've never liked sweet
pickles, but I'd be lying if I didn't say
I was curious... 

             In short, these chips are a delight to eat and an inspired homage to the dill pickle, and I have little trouble recommending them to anybody who appreciates exotic chip flavors, vinegar, or phallic vegetables in a jar.  For now, I shall have to content myself with the slightly more piquant charms of French cornichons, (traditionally eaten with paté), but I have these to remind me of the larger (as usual) American variety.

Stars: 3½/4

Spiciness Rating: None

This French recipe involving cornichons
looks completely awesome!

Pros:

-          Flavor emulation at its best! Remarkably evocative of actual dill pickles.

-          Excellent and powerful sour vinegar flavor

-          Exquisitely subtle dill seasoning

Cons:

-          As for any Pringle, the quality of the crisps reaches a fairly well established ceiling…

Herr’s Baby Back Ribs Chips

        While my childhood was spent happily wolfing down large pork spare ribs in true American style, (something I have waxed enthusiastically about in earlier posts), in my later years I have come to favor “baby back ribs”, also known as Canadian ribs.  Contrary to what you might expect, baby back ribs do not come from actual babies, (no, not even Canadian babies), but are instead selected from the loin end of market weight hogs (as opposed to the usual sows).  Whereas a spare rib measures 6 to 8 inches in length (15 to 20 centimeters), baby back ribs measure from 3 to 6 inches (7.5 to 15cms), with a more favorable proportion of meat to gristle and bone.

Ripping the best bits of meat off spare ribs can
be an exhausting and gruesome task. This wolf
could probably use more sauce while she's at it...

Not only will feminists be happy to see male flesh commodified for a change, but anybody who has sunk their teeth into a spare rib knows it can take a bit of gnawing and worrying to yank off the choice bits; however, baby back ribs take away all the gnashing of teeth and give you pure tender meat that literally falls off the bone to melt in your salivating mouth. 

Baby back ribs, a bandolier of tasty hot meat
ready to shoot off in your mouth. 

Did I mention that baby back ribs make for far more manageable eating portions? Another side benefit is that the barbecue sauce tends to marinate the baby back ribs more thoroughly, as more of the meat and less of the bone is exposed.   Try ordering a half-rack of baby back at a quality rib house such as Rocklands in Glover Park, Washington DC and you may well come to agree that a more saucy and delicious (and messy) all American meal has yet to be invented.

So, I happened to be visiting a friend in Annapolis during my Christmas vacation when I noticed a bag of ‘Herr’s Babyback Rib Potato Chips’ on sale at the local Graul’s market, and immediately knew I had to test this claim.  Would I really be able to distinguish the length of the rib bone simply by sampling the seasoning of the chips?

Image courtesy of Junk Food Betty, who agrees
that while they may not actually be meat
flavored they are pretty damn tasty! 
Note the wide channels between the ruffles.

The answer is “No”, to be brutally honest.  These are not ‘meat’ flavored barbecue chips, they are ‘barbecue sauce’ flavored, exhibiting the traditional mélange of sweat, salty, and smoky.  Yet for all that, they were both original in flavor and utterly delicious.

The Baby Back Rib chips actually reminded me of Ballreich’s Smoky Marcelled Sweet Mesquite Barbecue chips- like that product, these are thick-cut ruffled chips with wide channels in between the ruffles and a sweet molasses barbecue flavor that is highly distinct from most other barbecue seasonings out there.  Whereas the Ballreich’s product emphasizes a sort of greasy lard-flavoring, Herr’s product instead offers strong elements of garlic and hot spices, upping the flavor ante for a pleasingly piquant and surprisingly complex flavor.  The seasoning is thickly and evenly applied on all the chips, coloring them a pretty orange color, and the sliced ruffled potato rounds are a delightfully thick cut, with a soft crunch which allow you to slowly sink your teeth in and savor their disintegrating grandeur.

So, score another victory for the Pennsylvanian chip industry; though these chips may not actually be ‘Baby Back” flavored per se, they are ‘amazingly delicious molasses barbecue with garlic and hot pepper” flavored instead, with super awesome ruffled potato slices to boot.  I’ll call that an amazing victory for my mouth any day, and my friends and I continued to savor the spoils of conquest for the 48 hours the full sized bag had chips left to offer, despite their failure to taste specifically like the soft derriere of a male pig.

Stars: 3½/4

Spiciness Rating: Moderate

Pros:

- Marcelled ruffled potato slices with a slow soft crunch that’s hard to surpass

- Unique molasses-barbecue flavoring that brings an original taste to a genre too full of generic imitators

- Wonderful supporting elements of spicy paprika, pepper, garlic, and smoke

Cons:

- Not actually ‘meat flavored’ or discernibly ‘baby back’

Note: Taquitos.net reports in its rather positive reivew that this product has been discontinued, but they were in stock in  mid-December 2011 and the Herr's web site still shows them as being available.

Lay’s Limited Edition Patatje Joppie (Joppie Sauce Chips)

           The Dutch eat their fries with mayonnaise.  This was something I learned in a tiny restaurant called Amsterdam Falafel, located in the hip bar-lined Adams Morgan district of Washington DC.  In addition to having the best variety of falafel toppings and sauces we have so far seen anywhere, (though I would later discover that the many falafel vendors in Paris’s rue des Rosiers still made better falafel balls), they make excellent fries which are accompanied with little cups of ketchup and mayonnaise.  Now, I have never been a fan of mayonnaise, and always request that it be omitted from any burger or sandwiches I plan to eat, yet the mayonnaise that accompanied the fries was a little thinner than the snot-like consistency of a jar of Hellmans, and was infused with an enjoyable lemon aroma.

            When I finally had the opportunity to visit Amsterdam in December of 2012, I learned that the Dutch actually appreciate a whole variety of sauces accompanying their fries, which they buy from sidewalk vendors served in a paper cone with an enormous dollop of thick sauce in the corner and a cute little plastic fork to eat with and mitigate the inevitable sauce drippage.  The fries were large, hot, and delightfully crispy, and I was happy to try out several sauces.

Yes, there are fries underneath the sauce...the
yellowish glob on  the right is the Joppiesause.

The traditional lemony-mayonnaise proved fun as ever, but on the recommendation of one of the vendors, I also tried something called ‘Joppisause.  This thick pale-yellow sauce proved to be a unique local hybrid of mayonnaise, yellow American-style mustard, onions, and curry for a tasty flavor that exceeds the delights of its constituent components.  Developed by a cafeteria owner named Joppie, the sauce has become popularized across Low Country-wide in the early 2000s, and I would definitely put it on any visitor’s culinary checklist.

            You can imagine my delight when I discovered that Lay’s had released Joppiesause flavored potato chips in a unique Dutch special edition, and immediately snatched a bag for analysis.  It was decorated in a black and yellow pattern that immediately brought to mind the “XXX for Dummies” series of books that was so popular during the 90s, but the product inside was well calibrated to the taste of connoisseurs in my estimation.

They have one for everything
these days...(Just read the fine print)

I found that the folks at Lay’s had captured with perfect accuracy what makes Joppiesause so ingenius- the way that the piquant flavors of mustard seed, onion, and curry spices blend with mild mayonnaise resulting to result in a smooth and creamy flavor.  Well after the visit, the chips so perfectly evoked the sauce that I’m now on the look out for a Dutch fry shop where I can obtain more of it!

            The potato slices themselves are large and crunchy, about as good as can be expected of anything that’s not kettle cooked, with wide gently sloping surface largely free of air bubble or visible seasoning.  (Though normally an advocate of complex textures, I was not bothered by the absence of bubbles, and in general I found the chips' broad expanses crunchy and pleasing.)  So, in short, I advise any visitor’s in Holland to first try Joppiesaus, then try the chips.  Whether you want to serve yourself baked with your fries is up to you. 

Stars: 3½/4

Spiciness Rating: Very Mild

Pros:

- Perfectly evokes the unique Dutch sauce’s blend of mayonnaise, mustard, onion, and curry

- Large above-average quality potato rounds

Cons:

- Hard to find outside of Holland

- Nothing to please the spice addicted or texture-fanatics

Bret’s Pavé Grillée (Grilled Steak!)

There’ve been a lot of sophisticated flavor-emulating chips hitting the store shelves in the United States, but I feel fairly fortunate to have picked up this little gem in France, where most of the flavorings are more along the lines of crude artist’s impressions than photo-realistic reproduction for the tongue.  So now, to join the meaty flavors of Dorito’s Tailgate Barbecue or Lay’s Cheeseburger Crisps, we have nothing other than Steak Flavored chips, done in a most convincing fashion, and without (I know you are dye-ing to know…) any red food coloring.

It's as if everything tasty and bad for your
health were brought together in one
convenient place.  But wait, galette are made
with buckwheat, so now they qualify as
health food.

Bret’s, as it turns out, is from Bretagne (Brittany) in France, the north-eastern peninsular region across the English channel, immediately west of Normandy, which Americans should all remember for some sort of minor skirmish fought on a beach.  Brittany is known for its inhabitants fondness for cider and salty buckwheat crepes stuffed with cheese and meat known as galettes.  Apparently, they also like all their beef enough they want to taste it on their fried potato crisps- I would say that’s almost American, but the French possibly like steak even more than Americans.

The first sensation I experienced upon opening the bag was a strong but pleasing scent of vinegar, and although I found that a little strange, I was not at all off put because I love vinegar (as some readers may recall…) and I dug in with an open mind.  The crisps themselves are ruffled and lightly browned, spared any coloration or obvious flavoring except for some scattered flecks of black pepper.

Classic French cooking- though this
pave is drizzled in a cream-and-pepper
sauce whereas the chips are simulating
a wine-based marinade.

Thoughts of vinegar will flow from your mind like wine sauce poured on filet mignon as you bite into these chips and are greeted by the sumptuous flavor of a juicy grilled steak melting in your gnashers.  The evocation of a succulently tender steak is flatly uncanny, in the best X-men sense of the word, with intimations of a rich wine-based marinade vaguely but an unobtrusively in the background and a hint of smokiness to get the grilled grit on your tongue.  The vinegar elements are part and parcel with the sweater aspects of its bouquet, but the salt anchors the meaty body of the flavor.

What dark arts did the folks at Bret’s practice to produce these alchemical master pieces?  Sadly, the ingredients list is as vague a defense attorney under cross-examination.  But I was so convinced of the superiority of the flavor emulation that I instituted a series of tests to see if my housemates could correctly identify the flavor of the chips without seeing the bag they came from first.  Well, I must humble myself by being honest here: everybody got that it was meat, but nobody was able to identify it as steak (chicken was the popular answer) before I showed them the bag.

So, I am embarrassed to admit that the results of my experiment undermine the claims I am putting forth in the review.  You’ll just have to take my word that these bring the sweet and the salty of the steak eating experience, (and by that, I mean a well-seasoned steak, not a the flavorless hunks of meat that require half a bottle of steak sauce to even tickle your tongue), mixed in with some subtle but highly satisfying overtones of marinade. Flavor mixing at its finest bound to please your mouth as surely as making out with that leggy librarian you were eyeing in High school.  Yeah, you know the guy I'm talking about.

"Oh, you know how it is. I was just about to update the card
catalog and put up some new Dewey decimal system posters
when I thought to myself, 'My, do these stacks get stuffy...'"

Stars: 3½/4

Spiciness Rating: none

Pros:

- Amazingly life-like juicy steak flavor evenly applied on the chips

- Vinegar and marinade aromas mixed in with subtle skill that should offend no one and please many

- Ruffled crisps are nice and crunchy

Cons:

- Not the highest-quality of potato crisps, though still quite good

- A little more pepper to counterpoint the sweet and salty would have made it just perfect

Wai Lana Lime Chili

We now come to the final chapter of what has been my epic odyssey exploring Wai Lana’s line of mysterious Yogi concocted health chips.  The penultimatechapter in this chip-reviewing epic was dark indeed, leaving me in doubt whether the last bag could possibly prevail in the face of the stomach-disturbing past.  But I should call this last review the Return of the Yogi, because this final episode establishes the crisps are back in awesome light-saber slashing form, and finally deliver as many colors of flavor as there were spaceships in the Battle of Endor.  In short, these are the Thai-flavored crisps I was waiting for.

There were alot of ships.  So many
the rebels ran out of colors to name
their squadrons after.

As creepy as it will appear if you are in a public space, I recommend smelling the inside of the bag upon opening.  You may sound like Darth Vader on a bad-breathmask day, but you won’t care because you will be inhaling the heady aromas of curried Thai cooking direct, and without a heat source.  Do remember to exhale, however.

Also, Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet...

As soon as you have been revived by your friends, you may observe that we are once again returning to the by now classic yucca chips made with tapioca flower, softly crunchy, reasonably large, and pleasantly dimpled for maximum saliva pooling pleasure.  The crispy semi-translucent wafers are covered with a gorgeous layer of red and green seasoning flanks, but unlike the Sweet Chili & Lime chips I tried earlier, you can actually taste it all as well.

Praxis- what happens when you exploit
the shit out of your planet.  Historical
note: Star Trek VI was the first movie
to use the 'blast ring' effect that has since
gone into general use and been needlessly
inserted into the Star Wars special edition.

By all petty gods of Lankhmar I swear that these chips are packed full of flavoring, hitting all the buttons at once in a flavor-xplosion the like of which has not been seen since the Klingon moon of Praxis exploded, forcing the Empire to make peace with the Federation.  Seriously, everything found in Thai cuisine has been thrown in here in a bag full of mind-blasting awesomeness: there are large sea-salt grains that deliver a savory shock as startling as pepper, there are rich brown morsels of cane sugar that offer an almost lyrical sweetness, there are multiple stinging spices (pepper among them) that enflame the tongue and sack the back of your throat as thoroughly as the staff responsible for the credits in Monty Python's the Holy Grail, and through it all, lime oil has been used with brilliant effectiveness to grant these chips the tangy aura of a dish full of Thai noodles covered in freshly squeezed lime juice.  A considerable number of supporting spices beyond those I just mentioned are also involved, including shallots and sesame seeds for certain, and what I guess to be curry.

You can practically taste the lime
juice on those noodles, making them
as slippery, sour, and slurpy as sex.

What is most commendable about the flavoring is the way the salt, sugar, and spices hit you in discrete clumps instead of a single homogenous flavor.  While sometimes I find such a distribution a cause for complaint, here it adds piquancy to the experience as you alternate between bites of sweetness, saltiness, and spiciness; the flavors are intense enough to stand on their own and last long enough in the mouth to overlap into the next bite.  The sour lime taste, by contrast, is consistent throughout the chips, and truly lovely (though a likely turn off for the sour-averse.)

These crisps feel like an epic conclusion and fitting reward for my previous exploration of the Wai Lana chips, and by far offer the best flavor-synthesis of those I have tried and the greatest diversity in seasonings I’ve had in a considerable time.  For anyone with a fondness for Thai cooking, or for any combination of intense and flavorful food, Irecommend this specific variety (so similarily labeled to the other flavors I’ve tried!) which shares clear parallels with Kettle Chips’ own opus in Thai-inspired Chips.  The Yogi finally took out the can of whoop-ass and showed what they were made of- spicy, sweet, and sour!

Stars: 3½

Spiciness Rating: Moderate-to-Spicy

Pros:

- Crisps are beautiful and agreeable to munch on, and you can actually taste the pretty seasonings on the crisps this time!

- A multitude of flavors and spices as diverse as the alien gangsters in Jabba's Palace

- Genuinenly spicy at times

- Lovely lime-oil flavor the beautiful constent in the curried cavalcade of spices and flavorings

Cons:

- If you don't appreciate sour or spicy, these are not for you.

Lay’s Chips à l’Ancienne Saveur Chevre

On the morning of my birthday, a charming young couple of my acquaintance (a fashion designer and an expert on alternative energy, how much more French can you get than that?) bequeathed upon me a nicely wrapped maroon pastry box proclaiming itself to be a present.  Being a member of the not-unwrapping-presents-til-the-appointed-time school of thought, it was not until that evening that I discovered I had just been gifted with a twin set of chili-spiced Nacho chips and of course Goat cheese potato chips, those two knowing my very American affection for junk food. 

I have gushed before about my fondness for all things goat cheese in my review of Belin’s Goat Cheese Croustilles, and right away, the package sports a picture of goat cheese coated in grey ashes, which may seem gross, but the ashy outside is in fact quite as edible as the crust on a brie (not the least bit crunchy or carbonized, I assure you) and intended to keep the interior soft and creamy, giving you a sort of cheese version of the Reece’s Pieces experience, except with more goat.

Goat cheese coated with ashes is the ugly
ducking that when opened up reveals the
sexy swan that gives all the once-popular
girls mid-life crisises.

The chips inside are not actually coated with ash, but this is no shortcoming for what may in fact be the awesomest cheese flavored chips I have yet had.  They convey the experience of cool sweet-and-creamy goat cheese fresh out of the cellar with a fidelity that would please even the most risk-averse tongue.  The seasoning spares the more acrid aspects of the goat cheese experience, making it accessible to the goat-partial or goat-inexperienced, but fortunately without compromising the experience for the goat-savvy (or at least for me.)

Did I mention they are delicious- again, allow me to note this is a far subtler and better balanced blending of salty and sweet than you will find on nearly any kind of cheese flavoring (likely cheddar), and while the refreshingly refrigerated-cool taste as they hit the tongue is likely the product of truly dark alchemy that would do Snape proud (being on the way-subtle side of minty), it’s still a neat enhancement to an already delightful flavor and does not in any way steal its glory.

Lay's informal employment of Dark
Wizards in their flavoring department
is yet another episode of corporate
malfeasance that remains shamefully
under-investigated.

What of the crisps, you ask?  When you identify your product as being ‘old fashioned’ chips, that tends to suggest that they are kettle-cooked and thick, and that they were made by old men wearing aprons as the packaging helpfully illustrates.  Well, on the plus side these chips had a decent crunch, fairly large in size, and were nicely curved and rumpled in all sorts of amusing shapes.  Unfortunately, they were decidedly not thick and were a translucent light-yellow in color, where as I tend to prefer my chips more on the russet brown side of things.  On the health front, these apparently sport 25% less salt than most chips in this product line and are made without palm oil, so that’s nice.  Can’t be sure if they were really made by an elderly apron-wearers, though.

            My slight disappointment with the thickness of the crisps aside, these are pretty much some of the most well executed and innovative chips I’ve had since coming to Europe (along with the Brett’s Steak Flavored chips), and any non-Frenchie’s hitting up the Hexagon for a vacation would be well-advised to pick these, up if you are of a sort dubious enough to buy junk food on your vacation.  When in France, go the way of the goat!

Stars: 3½/4

Spiciness Rating: none

Pros:

- Amazingly realistic goat flavor that perfectly balances sweet and salty

- Clever icy-cool flavor element inserted to make them taste cellar-fresh

- Crisps are decently crunchy and nicely folded and rumpled

- Lower on sodium than other chips in this line

Cons:

- Crisps are very thinly cut

Lays Tangy Carolina BBQ

            Having first tasted Utz’s South Carolina BBQ chips and greatly enjoyed them, I had fairly positive expectations going when I bought Lay’s own ‘Tangy Carolina BBQ’ offering.  It was a pleasant surprise to discover that Lay’s had not merely emulated Utz’s formula in a technically superior package (or potato chip, to be precise) but taken the flavor in a slightly different, thoroughly pleasing direction.

            Lay’s chips succeed admirably at emulating the flavor of South Carolina barbecue sauce, which is basically a thinner, more vinegary variety compared to the thicker, sweeter Midwestern barbecue sauces typified by KC Masterpiece that you usually find in stores and restaurants.  Even though I still more in the Midwestern camp, the South Carolina style offers some very welcome variety to the field.

What this means in practice is, just like the Utz’s rendition of the Caroline barbecue, you have a sort of combination of barbecue sauce and vinegar flavors.  However, Lay’s chips also incorporate the peppery flavor of the spice rub that would go straight on the meat of an actual barbecue, and is more rewardingly complex for it.  There is also a pleasing mild spiciness which builds to a gentle warmth on the tongue during prolonged munching, without actually moving onto the ‘flaming hot’ territory. 



You can practically taste the prickle
of the spice rub on your tongue and
hear the sizzle of the meat.  The next
version they produce will have
glistening drops of oily grease too.



Altogether, the chips do a terrific job of evoking the flavor of actual barbecued meat, rather than just barbecue sauce.  Who says there hasn’t been progress in the chip world?  This is only one of several chips products I have had in the last year that went from ‘merely’ attempting to simulate the flavor of the sauce to trying to evoke the flavor of the meat and the spices rubbed on it!  (I will eventually put up a review for the Doritos Tailgate Barbecue, which takes this premise to an entirely new level.)

            Furthermore, the chips are superbly sized and almost perfect in texture- satisfyingly crunchy, without being too hard or too soft, and complex in shape.  These were clearly manufactured to a higher standard than run of the mill Lay's chips.  This also happens to leave0 them a definite cut above the tasty but otherwise ordinary Utz South Carolina chips, and highly recommended overall.

Stars: 3½

Spiciness Level: Moderate

Pros:

- Tangy South Carolina barbecue sauce flavor is delightful as always for anyone who enjoys a vinegary-sweet sauce

- Nice and innovative attempt to evoke the flavor of spices rubbed onto barbecue meet

- Excellent texture, with thick and crunchy crisps

-Nice moderate spicy flavor that delights without being likely to offend

Cons:

- May not be wholly satisfactory for those looking for a more traditional Midwestern sweet-and-thick barbecue sauce