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’

Route 11 Potato Chips Chesapeake Crab

Both my parents and my partner have long crusaded to bring an end to my sinful non-seafood-eating ways, and their latest plot was to send me crab-flavored chips, reasoning that even if I could resist eating seafood chips, I couldn’t resist eating something my mom had sent over the Atlantic.  Well, they reasoned rightly, and I could only dutifully proceed with the loathsome consumption entailed therein.

I spent a year growing up in Maryland when I was young and four more years of my life in DC (which is basically split between Maryland and Virginia), and over all that time I’ve conspicuously avoided a uniquely local contribution to snack food: Crab-flavored chips.  Marylanders are crazy about crabs, and love nothing more than indulging in a barbarous orgy of crab-dismemberment, preferably in a group involving family and friends- ripping off limbs, literally hammering the shell away with little mallets, tearing out the grotesque yellow glow-in-the-dark viscera, and sucking up the succulent white crab-meat amidst the broken bits of sea-dwelling arthropod exoskeleton. 

All before the eyes of innocent children, who are even encouraged to participate.

Think Lil Kim cutting bitches in woman's prison.
It's as if the aliens in Starship Troopers
were being sliced up by berserk marines as
opposed  to the other way around.

            Yes, you may have gathered I am not a great fan of this custom, (nor seafood eating in general, as I have previously alluded), but to a Marylander, nothing quite approaches the pure bliss of crab eating short of making love on a summer beach, with or without crabs.  I do not disparage Marylanders in making this observation, as my French father became a convert to their ways, and to this day fondly sports a giant photograph of Maryland crab with a beer can crushed between its pincers in his university office.

I wasn't kidding about the seasoning being 'caked'.  Plus:
the yellow crab viscera.  "The horror..." as Colonel Kurtz
(aka Marlon Brando) would whisper... Illustrative photos
courtesy of Insatiably Healthy.

           Cue the surprise revelation: ‘crab’ chips are actually ‘crab seasoning’ chips.  No, I was not entirely taken by surprise by this, but my anxiety about the degree of sea-foodishness of the flavoring has been settled for now- these chips are meant to simulate the red seasoning powder that is liberally caked on the crabs (and I use the word caked with little exaggeration.)  Now, for all my negative childhood associations with the seasoning, ‘Old Bay spice’ (as in Chesapeake Bay), is actually rather similar to Cajun spices in my experience, and is an intriguing pretty red color.  The spice has been sufficiently popularized around Maryland state that they pretty much apply it to everything, which is why you get the ‘Crab Chips’.

The Old Bay seasoning- rumor has it
it they mix in real Old Bay sand from
the sea floor for that authentic maritime
flavor.

The overwhelming flavor of Bay spice?  Celery salt!  Now, I am also not a big fan of celery salt (as an upcoming review of Monoprix’s ‘Tomato’ flavored Tortillas Enroulee will discuss), but here it is tastefully applied and blended with enough other spices, most obviously red and black pepper, paprika, cloves, and allspice, that I felt myself genuinely compelled to enjoy them.  Note that the traditional ‘Old Bay’ spice incorporates all of those flavors, in addition to cardamom, nutmeg, mace, mustard seed, bayleaf, and ginger, so there’s likely even more seasonings going on under the hood.  (The ingredients list rather curtly lists ‘spices’ and ‘paprika’, which is a curious distinction…)  You may have intiuited that the chips are spicy based on the ingredients, and they do in fact ignite a definite back-of-the-throat burn, but nothing too intense- just the right level to please without going over into runny-nose territory.

The crisps themselves are small (between 1 ½ and 2 inches in diameter) but very high quality- thick and crunchy (the French word ‘craquant’, cracking comes to mind), baked dark brown onthe edges, colored a natural orange color by the seasonings, and sprinkled with large flecks of dried green herbs (celery I assume?).  While I usually prefer larger crisps, the quality level of the texture and baking (which was apparently done using peanut oil) interested me in trying other Route 11 crisps.  The chips themselves are also wheat- and gluten-free, and contain no trans fats, though the calorie count is par for the course when it comes to chips.

After the VMI cadets repelled
a Union attack at New Market
in the Shenandoah Valley, the
Union Army retaliated by burning
down the school, thereby realizing
the arson-laden dreams of my
childhood.

Route 11 apparently comes from Shenandoah Valley, Virginia which is pretty uambiguously inland from the coast, being between two great mountain ranges- besides being beautifully scenic, the valley was the sight of a number of smaller-scale Civil War battles.  Clearly, though, the coastal influences have forced even 'real Virginians' to cater to the coastal tastes of 'Communist Country', as McCain’s brother once put it,  with sterling results.

So, for a flavoring concept that I was never very comfortable with to begin with, I was rather impressed by the quality of Route 11’s crab chips.  I can’t say they’ve converted me to Crab seasoning or Crab-eating, but they demonstrated their relative virtues- I’ll keep a more open mind about other Bay-spice flavored snacks in the future- impressing me both by their mix of seasoning and the excellent crunchiness and texture of the crisps.

Stars: 2 ½

Spiciness: Moderate

Pros:

- While I’m no expert about crab seasoning, it definitely smells and looks right!

- The seasoning is excellently distributed, and an artful blend of many different flavors

- Crunchiness, visual appeal, and texture of the crisps is superb

Cons:

- The Celery salt-averse may find it less to their taste, as would those who want a 'fishier' flavor

- Crisps are fairly small

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.

Wai Lana Thai Curry and Lime

Like the disturbing surprise ending of a favorite TV show, today’s review marks the point where once pleasantly enjoyable series takes a completely out-of-character turn for the intensely dark.  And who could have seen it coming from so promising and upstanding a product as Wai Lana’s Thai Curry and Lime, made of yucca chips seasoned with coconut powder, shallot leaf, cane sugar, an array of curry seasonings?  Surely I should be handing out accolades and awards!  
 
The faithful emulation of the taste of bile in my mouth, however, is just a little too authentic.  In my many written excesses, I have never before stooped to describing my subjects as tasting like vomit, because by and large crisps rarely taste worse than uninspired and boring- crisps that are actually icky in some manner are few and far between.

No joke here: do yourself a favor and
obtain for your mouth an actual Thai curry.

Certainly, these new Wai Lana crisps enter the mouth with just as much promise as the earlier ones I reviewed, exuding a piquant aroma of curry and other assorted spices that, while unfashionable in their intensity, would seem to be precisely the sort of stronger and more authentic flavorings I have always passionately advocated.  The crisps are soft, crunchy, and mildly sweet making them a good compliment for the concept.  Yes, they are even spicy, burning pleasantly in the back of the throat, though I’m not sure that there’s any Lime flavoring to speak of from what I can taste.

As the seasonings percolate through your mouth, however, you realize at first that they are decidedly odd and off setting, and then suddenly they are odd and off-setting in a familiar way, reminiscent your mouth after that nauseatingly long car drive after the thanksgiving meal which didn’t quite set in your gut.  The burn at the back of your throat starts to seem less like some charming spice and more like the acrid sensation of stomach acids in attack mode, located north of where they should be.

 On the well-established principle that a rich and respected perpetrator should be offered superior consideration to a poor victim, I feel compelled to still award these chips a full star, even though I found myself shuddering at the thought of consuming even one more for the purely scientific purposes of this review.  The reason for my lenience: these do boldly go where no man has gone befor- attempt to deliver certain spicy sensations that are too extreme for my fragile western palette, but just because I can’t stand them doesn’t mean they mightn’t appeal to a person of more radical, or at least, curried tastes.  Those of you who think you can take it, give it a try and report back to me- or try eating durian.

Stars: 1/4

Spiciness: Moderate

Pros:

- Crisps are softly crunchy, offer excellent surface area

- Properly spicy as they well should be

- Authentic tasting seasonings

Cons:

- The seasonings end up tasting odd and off putting

- When combined with spicy sensation, the seasonings start to resemble bile

- No lime flavoring in evidence

Wai Lana Yogi Chips Sweet and Sour

I was rather expecting that there would be a certain consistency in my reviews of the Yogi Chips, and like reviewing Doritos, there would come to be little need to make note of the texture of the chips while all the variation would occur in terms of flavoring.  This illusion was pleasantly dispelled when I opened my bag of Sweet and Sour chips and discovered that they not only featured a different shape and consistency, but were also markedly more flavorful than my previous experience.

Asia's answer to chicken McNuggets.

Now, I’ve always been fond of Sweet andSour sauce (and soup!) in Asian cuisine.  Admittedly, if you order sweet and sour chicken, you will end up with chicken drenched in red sauce with perhaps a mild hint of a citrusy tang- what’s not to like?  The sour element tends to be underplayed, so it’s like eating shredded chicken or pork in a swimming pool of red syrup- so basically, sweet and sour chicken is Asia’s answer to McNuggets in ketchup.

Who doesn't like a steamy tart?

By contrast, when you open the bag with the smiling Polynesian looking woman, the odors sumptuously wafting up from its foil confines will inform you that these crisps bring the sour back into sweet and sour.  The tangy lemony smell is evocative of aforementioned gleaming red chicken puffing hot vapor on a plate before you like a steamy girlfriend, and tantalizes the nostrils of any one who enjoys a little tartness in their cuisine (or romantic partners).

The crisps share the same rice and tapioca base as the Sweet Chili & Lime chips I reviewed earlier, but are notably thicker and crunchier (in a good way) and shaped like small circular pototo crisps rather than the curled-rectangle Frito-forms I had expected from the earlier product.  While there was nothing wrong with the earlier type, the additional firmness does crackle more satisfyingly in the mouth and distinguishes the crisps from the soft textures of breakfast cereal, for good or ill.

Trivia question: Have you ever
spilled the Sweet and Sour sauce
in your Chinese take out, making a gory
mess of your Asian fast food?  If your
answer rhymes with 'mess' you're being
honest.

While there is no sparkly coating of spices like on the Sweet Chili and Lime chips, in its place you get a great deal more flavor!  The crisps taste mildly sweet at first, before blossoming on the tongue into a rising tide of tangy citrus like a tsunami wave of lemon juice.  The sourness is by no means overpowering, but does predominate over the sweeter aspects, to the likely disappointment of the sweet-and-sour-sauce-as-ketchup school, but making them more rewarding for those who appreciate citrus and or vinegar in their crispy snacks.  My wife suggested that they tasted like egg rolls dipped in sweet and sour sauce, which actually makes sense if you consider the commonalities between the crispy egg rolls and crunchy chipswith the tangy-sweet flavoring.

All in all, I rather liked these, though like actual sweet and sour sauce, the flavoring isn’t too subtle and doesn’t include many nuances other than that pleasant mouth-trip from mild-sweet to tangy-sour.  The crisps are robust and compliment the flavoring well, and I should emphasize that for all it leans on its citrusy aspects, it is not overpowering

Stars: 2½/4

Spiciness Rating: None

Pros:

- Tangy citrus aroma is not at all shy in announcing it gloriously tart presence

- Mildly sweet flavoring ushers in the sour and compliments it pleasantly

- Crisps are pleasantly crunchy and well shaped

Cons:

- True to the sauce it imitates, lacking in subtle nuances and spices

- Some might prefer a greater weight on the ‘sweet’ aspects of sweet and sour

Wai Lana Yogi Chips Whole Grain Sweet Chili & Lime

Having just received by Mom-in-person-delivery a foursome of exotic chips, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I eagerly ripped open Wai Lana’s Sweet Chili and Lime Yogi chips.  They were indeed depicted on the packaging in some detail, but I couldn’t tell if they were corn chips or rice crackers from the resolution of the cover image.  When I produced my first crisp from the bag, little did I realize that I was in store for some cinnamon toast crunch flashbacks.

Cinnamon Toast crunch
in all its buttery glory!

Yogi chips- note their
significant girth in comparison
to my thumb, and their similarity
to you-know-what.  No, not
Voldemort.

I say this with fondness rather than any deep set trauma.  Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal flakes are basically dimpled rectangles of wheat and rice, richly lathered with a crystalline coating of sparkling sugar and cinnamon in a genuinely eye pleasing river of sweetness.  They were exactly the kind of unhealthy over-sweetened cereal that my mom would never have permitted within a mile of the kitchen cabinet, so that I had to wait until a study abroad trip in Poland in a host’s pantry to do the dirty, sugar-coated deed.  They were expensive as cereals went in Poland, costing about a $1.60 (5 zloty at the time), but I made sure to acquire more along with the pierogies, golumpki, and zurek.

As you may have intuited, the Yogi chips feature the same light-weight crunchy texture, (in this case made with corn and tapioca of all things!), though larger on average at around 3 centimeters long and 2 wide.  And yes, they are coated with a river of South Asian themed spices which truly entice the eye and promise rapturous orgies of tingling spice and sugar.

Like this, but more full of spice.  Yet, for all the glitter and
glamour, you may find the decadent pleasures taste hollow
on the inside.

Alas, these sweet promises were, quite lierally, not to be realized.  While the crisps are delightful to crunch and surprisingly substantial, the flavoring seems to dance around the edges of the tongues but never delivers a clear statement of sweet or salty on the center (and you do remember the lessons on the functioning of various taste buds from elementary school, right?)  These are not sweet chips with chili, but flavored with ‘sweet chili’- apparently a major difference. 

Like a historical movie epic that boasts excellent production values and a truly exotic setting but fails to deliver much of a main plot, the chips have a lot charming aspects despite their major central shortcoming.  There are delightful side plots, flavorful notes of ginger and the titular sweet pepper, a mild but tantalizing spicy tingle in the back of the throat, a generally tropical atmosphere of ambient lime juice, and an undercurrent of very mild sweetness.

Indian Jones 5: Jaws versus ET.  Which
one will the mega-shark swallow first?

But for all the beautiful trimmings, there is no main story.  They are not sweet chips, nor are they salty chips- they are plain chips with a few spicy accents and notes, but no main theme.  Give me a nicely leit-motif ridden 1980s John Williams over the unrelated discordance of an avant garde movie score!  As such, I can imagine they might appeal to some that dislike strong seasonings, but wouldn’t mind some more subtle spicy accents.  Those who demand a definitive statement of sweetness or saltiness should look elsewhere, though.

The packages boasts that the chips have 40% less fat and made of whole grain, and indeed at 105 calories (of which 1/3 are fat) these are markedly more healthy when compared to regular chips.  The ingredient list is also as distinguished as a supporting British ensemble cast for an action movie: Mung Beans, chili, sea salt, natural lime juice.  The only mystery is how they failed to produce something more exciting with such organic talent at its disposal, but the movie industry does it all the time, eh?

We can only imagine that behind
that inscrutable, emotionless mask
lies a soul seething with inner
turmoil.  Or drugs.

All in all, I rated these somewhat leniently with an average score.  Just as I feel a certain appreciation for the Matrix Revolutions, for all of its many disappointment, these crisps, aside from their major fault in lacking a strong central flavor, are genuinely unique in their cereal-like glory, relatively healthy, and feature some compelling supporting performances even if the dramatic lead blasés Keanu.  Anybody looking for crunchy and plain whole grain crisps with a small side of exotic spices may soon find themselves bending spoons with their mind and dressing up like a latex-fetishist.  Yoga is supposed to give you super powers after all, and nothing can make the world bend to your will like absolute self confidence and the inability to be embarassed.

Stars: 2/4

Spiciness Rating: Mild

Pros:

- Delightfully light but crunchy corn-and-tapioca texture reminiscent of cereal

- Beautiful sparkling coating of salt and spices slathered along the length of fairly large crisps

- Elegant notes of lime, ginger, salt, and spicy chili pepper

Cons:

- No major sweet or salty flavor-despite the supporting spices, the chips are predominantly bland rather than one or the other

Cape Cod Sweet & Spicy Jalapeno

           Jalapeno chips are a growing sub-genre of flavors in this day and age, and Cape Cod’s Sweet & Spicy Jalapeno is a generally solid offering.  Many Kettle-cooked chips deliver excellent texture but end up being very stingy when it comes to providing adequate flavoring- fortunately, Cape Cod’s chips generally deliver enough flavor with each bite, though they do suffer from not necessarily having of each kind of spice on every chip.

Every chip-wright should seek to make
their chips as bubbly and crunchy looking
as a Mon Calamari Star Cruiser.  Only
the space going fishmen can tell you if
it's a trap or not.

            The individual crisps are well textured rounds between 1-2 inches in diameter and relatively thick, often wrapped into pleasantly complex shapes that would do a Mon Calamari Star Cruiser proud.  They are coated with a pleasant but not over-strong sweet seasoning, with additional notes of onion, garlic, green pepper, and jalapeno.  In terms of spiciness, the chips build up to a moderate burn in the mouth over time, but are generally pretty mild individually.  For all that jalapenos are fondly renowned for their spiciness, chip manufacturers are curiously reluctant to make their jalapeno-flavored products anywhere near as hot as the real thing.  This is probably more in agreement with the average consumer’s palate, though, and the heat with these chips does manage to be adequate.

Note found inside the Matilda tank: Must
resist urge to waltz ahead on a maniacal
rampage, leaving the supporting infantry
in the dust who would otherwise save
me from all the hidden anti-tank guns.

When all of the different flavors come together on a particular chip- the sweet, the spicy, and the onion/garlicky- these chips are excellent.  Those seasonings are team awesome, a force of heroes, an unstoppable ass-kicking machine in spice-form that when working in concert, will conquer your tongue like a master of french kissing.  But therein lies the major flaw in this otherwise commendable product: the different flavors are scattered throughout the bag, and any given chip may only boast one or two of the spices out of the group.  Like a Leroy Jenkins style raiding fiasco, or the British expeditionary force defending France in 1940, the various elements too often fail to work together, instead doing their own thing on each individual chip.  Tellingly, the best chips I had were at the bottom of the bag, where the spices had accumulated and made each of the remaining morsels a complete, satisfying experience compared to the more random offering of many of the chips on the top.

The girls at Hot Chick Eatin' Spicy Chips
wrote a love letter to these crisps, as well
as offering this salacious image of the
crinkly-cut crispy delicacies.

            I still enjoyed this bag, and I do think anyone interested in Jalapeno chips should consider giving them a try, though their relative mildness in terms of spiciness may be a turn off for a dedicated spice maniac.  My eulogy for this deceased, ex-bag of chips: there were a good variety of flavors, and when they did come together, these chips more than satisfied.

Stars: 2½/4

Spiciness Rating: Moderate

Pros:

- Lovely diversity of well-realized and authentic seasonings

- Very thick and crunchy crinkly-cut kettle style chips

Cons:

- Flavorings not applied densely enough to really come together in a consistent fashion

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

Cape Cod Sweet Mesquite Barbeque

           I’ve written about good teases which tantalize with subtle flavors at the tip of the tongue, before finally delivering a glorious flavor load- but sadly, Cape Cod’s Mesquite Barbeque falls in the category of bad teases, which fail to follow up on what seemed to be a promising package.  They also fall in a well-populated genre of high-quality kettle cooked chips which are lacking adequate flavoring.

I must confess to a certain degree of fear in starting out my review relationship with Cape Cod Potato chips on a low note, not only because their mafia extends nation-wide, but because it happens that my significant other is a native of that perfectly charming coastal community.  Given what I know of the salty mooncussers of eastern Massachusetts, I can assure you that were I to offend them, they are not at all likely to curse me out in the wicked colorful local dialect, hoist me up with their massively muscled limbs, and feed me to the fishes.  No, not at all likely.  

Were you to spend a week in the
Chatham Squire, you would probably
have the chance to meet every resident
of Chatham, Cape Cod.

So…I have two theories as to why so many high-quality chips are shipped with weak flavoring: the first is that by using only natural ingredients, they may have limitations to how strong a flavoring they can manufacture compared to mass-market flavorings that are basically alchemical Frankenstein concoctions of great tastiness.  The second reason is that they may be cooked according to an aesthetic emphasizing the taste of the potato over that of the flavoring.  My (highly subjective) feeling on this is that tasting the potato is great, but when I buy barbecue potato chips, I expect them deliver a strong sweet and salty barbecue-taste, not a potato-flavored potato chip with a faint whiff of the grill.

Based on the improbable flavor fusions on mass market
potato chips we can only  presume their flavor R&D
department looks pretty much like this.

            And there is the problem with Cape Cod’s Mesquite barbecue chips- the flavoring is weak and doesn’t build up to a strong statement- like a crappy job, you go to work every day and dig in, only to wish you actually felt rewarded for all the effort.  It’s really too bad, because these are good quality kettle-cooked potato chips, thick and with a nice rough texture, though tending to be on the small side at around 1½ inches in diameter. 

Every wonder why they never show
images of actual mesquite on the bag?
I'll never have it said I don't make
all of your wishes come true...

One unique feature is that there is an authentic smoky tang of burnt mesquite lurking amidst the other flavors, which is awesome, but the fact that it’s not coming together with a worthwhile barbecue flavoring prevents it from fulfilling its potential.   The seasoning, or the little you can taste, is standard stuff- tomato, onion, and garlic, apparently all natural, though insufficiently strong and sweet.

            Purists that prefer a strong earthy potato flavor in their chips with only lightly applied additional flavors may enjoy these chips, especially with their mesquite-smoke tang, but anybody looking for a strong sweet barbecue flavor will do much better looking elsewhere, despite the other qualities of these chips.

Stars:  1½/4

Spiciness Rating: Very Mild

Pros:

- Nice, quality kettle cooked potato crisps

- Pleasing mesquite tang

Cons:

- Flavoring is too weak and ineffectual

- Crisps are fairly small

Cheetos Mighty Zingers Ragin’ Cajun & Tangy Ranch

            I had been eyeing this double-offering for while with mixed feelings of desire and wise hesitation, like that handsome girl (or guy) you know is totally into you, but which the wisdom-based portion of your brain is telling you will likely bring nothing but trouble.  The desire is there because I like Cheetos and I like getting two flavors in one bag, the prudent hesitation, in this case, being a sister product (Cheetos Sharp Cheddar and Spicy Picante) that proved gravely disappointing if not a total loss.   However, having succumbed to my baser desires (or curiosity, at least, if that doesn’t count as one), and brought these giblet-sized corn puffs on a date with my mouth, I feel like I can assure you that while this gal may have few issues just like her sister, she is way cooler and fun to hang out with.

"It's the economy STUPID," says
an angry French speaker from
Louisiana.  Not pictured: a ranch
drenched in lemon juice.

            Let’s be upfront about the issues though: we are once again talking about Coco pebble-sized Cheetos rather than stick-shaped Cheetos.  While this is designed to enable you biting two of the flavors at once with each bite, the problem is that the smaller Cheeto bits are not as satisfying to eat individually and a pain to have to collect in between your clawed fingers.  My feeling is that a better compromise would have been bits about half the mass of your average Cheeto, which would have made them better for eating individually but still feasible to eat in multiples.  To be fair, some of the Cheeto bits actually are cut at that happy medium, but not enough.

An informative look at what's inside
courtesy of the review by Hot Chicks
Eatin' Spicy Chips, who rather liked
them but note that the Tabasco-sauce
flavoring is rather more evocative of
Buffalo Wings than Cajun cuisine.  So
not a bad thing, but not what you may
be expecting.

            Overall, though, I did not find this deficiency to be as annoying this time around because the actual flavorings involved were much more satisfying.  The light-gold colored Tangy Ranch bits and the reddish-orange colored Ragin’ Cajun pieces are both basically derivative, but still have their subtle differences and work well together.  The Tangy Ranch is basically just like the ranch flavoring on a Dorito, though a bit more sour in taste, and works well on Cheetos even if it’s not original.  The Ragin’ Cajun bits are basically flavored like spicy Tabasco sauce, and pack a respectable kick.  Any one who's had the red Spicy Cheetos knows roughly what to expect, but these are actually tangy-er and combine pretty well with the ranch flavored ones, even though the spiciness-level is somewhat diluted.

I don't know how I feel about you after
meeting your evil twin who was in favor
of planetary genocide as a means for
furthering the domination of the Empire,
but now that I've had both flavors of
Mighty Zingers I realize that villainy
isn't a genetic trait!  Logically.

            So all in all, it was fun chowing these down and I’m glad I gave into my unwise temptation, because sometimes it isn’t fair to make assumption about a guy or a girl based on that troublesome relative of theirs you already know.  Anyone who likes the idea of Tabasco and ranch flavored Cheetos should give these a try.

Star: 3/4

Spiciness Level: Moderate

Pros:

- Ranch-flavored Cheeto-bits are an interesting remix

- The ‘Cajun’ Cheetos come off as a tangier variant of Spicy Cheetos, who’s awesomeness we should all acknowledge

- The flavors complement each other in a pleasing faction

Cons:

- The small size of the corn puffs can make for annoyingly complicated eating experience as you try to pinch multiples of them between your fingers.

- Some might wish for something spicier over all