COMING SOON

can you handle these potato chip varietals??

• lay's "sweet southern heat bbq" - this name barely fits on the package
• utz natural gourmet medley or something - can't remember the exact name but i think there are PURPLE CHIPS in this bag!! i see it a lot in big size but only today found it at a turkey hill in snack size. also saw grandma utz in snack size and grandma utz bbq! i want to try these real bad but they have LARD AS THE SECOND INGREDIENT. so that makes me not want to try them, but i love the marketing scheme of grandma utz. alas.

hopefully i will eat these bags tomorrow

NACHO CHEESE BUGLES

I HAVE BEEN SEEKING THESE EVER SINCE THE ONE ILL-FATED DAY WHICH I CHOSE TROLLI BRIGHT CRAWLERS OVER THESE IN A NYS THRUWAY REST STOP.

A-PLUS SUNOCO CONVENIENCE STORE ON A ROAD THAT IS WESTBOUND FROM KING OF PRUSSIA, PA, I THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME THE OPPORTUNITY TO ENJOY THESE CHIP VARIETALS AGAIN.

I WOULD RATE THESE A 5/5. MUCH BETTER THAN CLASSIC BUGLES IMHO, WITH A LIGHT DUSTING OF CHEESE POWDER (CHEDDAR, BLUE CHEESE, MSG, TOMATO) THAT I THOUGHT HAD A NICE TOUCH. FLAVOR WAS STRONG ENOUGH, AND WELL PAIRED WITH THE STRONG CORNYNESS OF THE BUGLE, BUT WAS NOT HEAVY LIKE A DORITO GETS AFTER YOU'VE EATEN HALF A BAG. COULD HAVE DEFINITELY EATEN A SNACK BAG BY MYSELF BUT HAD TO SHARE W CAMDEN.

ALSO I WOULD LIKE TO INFORM EVERYONE THAT MODERN DAY BUGLES DO NOT FIT ON ADULT FINGERS WITH EASE. I HAD TO PICK THROUGH THE BAG TO FIND WIDELY SPACED ONES.

PLEASE ENJOY THESE IF YOU FIND THEM ANYWHERE. YOU WILL ENJOY THE CRUNCH, THE SHAPE, THE FLAVOR, AND HOW NONE OF THEM BREAK IN THE BAG EVEN WHEN YOU DROP IT ON THE CAR FLOOR AND EAT THE SPILLED ONES OFF THE DIRTY MAT BECAUSE THEY ARE THAT GOOD. YEP.

~~fancy fridays~~ avocado oil BBQ CHIPS

yes, friends, you read that right. my favorite chilean lime bbq chips, which i have had again since my last fancy friday, i recently purchased in barbecue flavor. these can be purchased at the fu wah at 47th and baltimore for $2.99 as of monday.

as you can see, my original plan was to eat them with a boylan's lemon seltzer and a tofu hoagie (no jalapenos) but i did end up saving them. then camden & i brought these suckers to the mann on wednesday night, because we got free tickets to the philadelphia orchestra. love a picnic + love some chips out on the grass. honestly is that not a dream life?

i dont know how to rotate this on blogspot but i did figure out how to add a caption!

anyway, to the chips.
camden thought they were very good, but he has obviously not ingested as many chip varietals as i have. i would say that the bbq flavor was well crafted, a nice combo of smoky and a tiny bit of sweet, but not strong enough. more like bbq smoked than bbq powder coated, which i am used to. so take that as it is, and try to appreciate these on their own terms.
i am very curious to try the classic avocado oil variety, because i wonder if the avocado oil is too subtle to really shine through in these flavored varieties. as with the chilean lime, the texture of the chip is great. they are a good size, with excellent crunch, no injuring the oral mucosa, and a nice tooth. i really do like that a lot about these chips.

i am gonna go with a solid 3.5/5, the chip itself is good but i don't need to seek out the bbq flavor. i love the chip structurally, but i am a little confused about the minimal bbqness, but maybe it just takes some warming up to.

new bag technology

hi there, i wanted to write a post about a new snack food bag technology that really appeals to me -- the "grip n pour" bag.

it is narrower than a typical snack sized bag.

i came across this bag in a tigermart at a NYS Thruway rest stop, and it was from the rocky mountain popcorn company. good thing! because i have really been craving and thus eating a lot of white cheddar popcorn lately. so i quickly picked up a bag of this white cheddar popcorn, even though it was nearly half the weight of the smartfood and the same price.

well, the popcorn was delicious, and sometimes we need to trust the small time flavor scientists and snack experts to get it right. nice light cheddar flavor. i am very curious to try the "southwest" cheddar flavor of these. hopefully i will find them in my travels someday.

but back on the main subject, from a young age, i have always been an advocate of what my sister calls "drinking" the chips bag when it gets to the end, which is what the "grip n pour" bag logo looks like it is advocating. so obviously i was really into that.

where the idea fell short is that it was not convenient for driving. my partner was driving our car, and his man hands were getting stuck in the narrower bag, so i had to pull the bag off his non-steering-wheel-hand. then, he tried to grab n pour and his visibility was nonexistent. i would not suggest that to readers.

anyway, if you are really committed (i don't recommend this because once i did it with berries n cherries welch's fruit snacks and it really was the worst), you can buy a dozen of these 1.5 oz bags on the website -- OPEN ROAD SNACKS . COM

wish they had a variety pack!

3.5/5 - solid flavor, love the concept, unsure of execution, would definitely give it a second try

//Fancy Fridays// Good Health Natural Foods: Kettle Style Avocado Oil Chips

Today we're starting a new feature on the blog: Fancy Fridays. On Fridays when I remember to post I will feature more ~upscale~ chip varietals. This weeks choice is avocado oil kettle chips in Chilean lime. I have purchased them at the Walgreens on 11th and Locust, as well as the infamous Fu Wah bodega, which has a pretty solid chip collection.

Now, you ask yourself, Emily must really like these chips because she's purchased them twice. Well, you're right. I would give them a 4/5. these are one of the best ~upscale~ chip varietals I've tried. Loyal readers will know how I felt about the ~upscale~ lays kettle chips -- I feel medium. These are delicious. Appropriate crunch, not injurious to the mucous membranes. Nice golden hue and appropriate oil content. Small green flecks.

I have only eaten the chilean lime variety because you know how I love a wild chip flavor. They have a VERY fine powder and a light citrus flavor; it is really quite enjoyable. I shared these with a classmate Nicole 1, who enjoyed them immensely as well. We finished off a medium sized bag retailing for $2.65 in just 20 minutes.

The chips leave an incredibly fine film on the fingers; if Cheetos is 7 out of 10, 10 being the messiest snack you can imagine, these were maybe a 2.75. I paired them with a Vitamin Water XXX and it was a great snack. Go forth chips lovers and enjoy.

REVIEW COMING SOON

saw these at 7-11 today and bought em in the cheese flava

TASTING TMRW --- SEND CHEESY WISHES >>>

/////////////UPDATE////////////////
i do not have a complete review but they were around 3/5. the bag was filled SO LOW, which was pretty frustrating, but the cheesy powder on these was good. the fries were very thick, like a square cut fry almost. very interesting & definitely weird. would definitely put on a chip bucket list but don't know if i would purchase again.

HERR'S TRUCK

SAW ONE HEADING NORTH ON THE NYS THRUWAY.
BE ALERTED!

(though herr's has not been doing well lately with this blog's reviews...)

weird

Ruffles Ultimate in Tangy Honey Mustard - bought these suckers at a gas station at appx 1 am. This explains a lot about them.

I still thought they were weird. This also says a lot about them.

They really do taste like honey mustard, which I just learned is not a flavor I want to combine with chips. I am a fan of the Ruffles Ultimate branch of Ruffles, if just because they seem more party and I like to support the variety lines of chips.

They were very yellow and smelled really weird, but Josephine ate them. I don't think we ate the whole bag.

2.5/3 because flavor was horribly weird but chip itself is a high quality chip. Thank you Ruffles.

lays kettle cooked - applewood smoked bbq

this weekend i was having a discussion with a dear friend and my sister about bbq chips. we prefer a more smoky and subtle bbq flavor, so i thought i would give "applewood smoked bbq" kettle chips from LAY'S a try. they are 40% reduced fat, which i am usually 100% against, so i was hesitant but all of the adjectives about the bbq flavor were really pulling me in.

i mean look at that well designed bag. these are fancy chips.

flavor was well-developed, smoky with a little bit of sweet. if anything, the chips are a little dry.

nice crisp, no damage to mucus membranes (i have mentioned previously the risk of injury to oral mucosa with kettle chip varieties). my friend who enjoyed them with me deemed them "quite good."

ultimately, don't know if i would buy again because they were dry, somewhere between cracker and chip and possibly more on the cracker side. not what i want in a chip, therefore 3/5.

herr's kettle chips - jalapeno flavor

3.5-4/5

these could easily be a 4 and be a part of my regular chips selection, but i still have to spend more time with them to be confident.

these chips have a nice texture and crunch. sometimes i am hesitant on a kettle chip because it can be too crunchy and injure oral mucosa, but these were appropriately crunchy.

nice potato flavor, with a sprinkling of green jalapeno or jalapeno-simulated flakes. not too spicy, a definite flavor of jalapeno instead of the usual vinegar that the doritos and cheetos families like to utilize for "spicy" flavors. low to medium heat with great flavor.

i would definitely recommend these.

#PROBLEMATIC

just wanted to report this travesty i saw at wawa today...

LAYS DO US A FLAVOR --- CHEESY GARLIC BREAD

THE MOMENT EVERYONE HAS BEEN WAITING FOR....... my review of #laysdousaflavor.

first of all, what a stupid name for a chip line. not really funny or unfunny, just stupid.

thank you to karen weber-mendham from wisconsin who invented these chips. the flavor is very good. a little reminiscent of sour cream and cheddar ruffles, but slightly less of that smooth sour cream flavor.

when i opened the bag, i have to say i was really worried. they smelled vinegary and chemicaly and the first few i had were unimpressive... but then i could not stop eating them! these have a good cheese flavor, the flavor of the "cheese" is heavy, but it is not heavily powdered on if that makes any sense.

overall, i am not completely wowed by any of the do us a flavor chips i've had so far. they don't seem as well engineered by the food scientists as i would like them to be. like the sour cream and cheddar ruffles seem like they were meant to be a chip -- all of these have been chips with flavoring on them, and i don't think that's how it has to be. doritos feel natural with their flavorings. just some thoughts.

anyway i still have a few left so maybe i will remember to get a pic of the actual chip, but this is what i have so far:

smartfood selects

wow, can't believe it's taken me so long to blog about these guys -- smartfood's selects in parmesan herb.

THEY ARE DELICIOUS!

fresh, lightly cheesy, lightly herby, what a summer snack.

5/5

i have not seen them anywhere, my friend joanna who lives in NJ brought them over to my porch once. wish i could find em again...

herr's cinnamon churros - 2/5

this "crispy sweet twist" is not really a disgrace to herr's, churros, or puffy snacks, but more like a very deep disappointment.

straight out of the bag these suckers felt stale to the tooth.
the sweet flavor tasted like aspartame, which was so disappointing to me. why did herr's need to add sucralose as an ingredient and couldn't just leave it at refined sugar?

i was not expecting them to taste like churros, but maybe i was hoping for a chip cousin to the taco bell interpretation of a churro -- they looked very much like that, but the density was way off. they were way too airy and i think that's what made them feel stale.

just a big disappointment all around. 2/5

if you do want excellent churros, guacamole mex grill on the 4600 block of woodland has AMAZING churros that are still good when you get delivery. they do also make homemade corn chips, but the salsa is pretty spicy so watch out.

herr's cheese curls - 2/5 and 3/5

i was VERY excited to enjoy these herr's cheese curls. as you know from my last post, i am wary of puffed cheese curls, but these came in two excellent flavors so i was very excited to try them.

bacon cheddar

deep dish pizza 

you can see that both curls looked very similar, uniformly orange with "oregano" sprinkles. unfortunately, both flavors of cheese curls disappointed. they were very aftertaste heavy and we didn't want to finish eating the 3.5oz bags of these.

texture of curl: dissolved too fast, could use +1 unit of crunch
flavor - bacon: sometimes tastes really bacony, sometimes tasted not bacony at all. i am thinking they smelled more like bacon than they tasted like bacon. the first bite was very bacony, but all others were just very strongly salty fake cheddar flavor. needed to accompany these curls with >250 mLs of water.
flavor - deep dish pizza: this was a welcome relief after the weird bacon flavor, bursting with a punch of marinara, but then like the bacon, only the first bite was flavorful. this flavor could be very good on a ruffled potato chip, but it is just not cutting it on a cheese curl. ultimately, i am a big pizza fan but i was pretty disappointed.

special notes: i was pleased to learn that the bacon cheddar curls were vegetarian.

ultimate verdict - bacon: weak 2 out of 5
ultimate verdict - deep dish pizza: weak 3 out of 5.

tips on chip taxonomy + revealing my biases

well, i sure ate a lot of chips this week with my friend josephine. despite being a bit of a goth, she is really a good sport, about chips and all other subjects. anyway, this week we ate a lot of herr's cheese curls, which brings me to the subject that i have been dreading: i have a preference in crunchy bagged snacks.

photo courtesy of my friends at the nytimes

let's talk about the varieties:

• chips
• potato chip
• seasoning
• plain / salted / classic
• specialty potato
• specialty preparation (this includes "kettle" varieties
• corn chip
• seasoning
• plain corn / salted
• extruded & puffy varieties
• straight up puffy
• corn - think jax or herr's puffed cheese curls
• potato - i don't know what this is but i am sure it is out there
• other flours (dry powdered apple? yes i can review my favorite product made with apple flour some time)
• puffy yet crunchy
• corn - this is where i would put classic cheetos

potato chips:

i have a strong preference for traditional chips, over puffy crisps/snacks. i think my absolute favorite is a potato chip. i really do like classic salted potato chips for an everyday scenario, and my favorite brands are lays's classic and utz salted classic. in flavored or seasoned potato chips, i really liked those cheddar and sour cream ruffles i had a few weeks ago. i keep thinking of them. i also do like a few chips made with specialty potatoes. cape cod potato chips used to have excellent russet potato chips (just salted), and now they have wonderful yukon gold potato chips.

corn chips:

in the corn chip category, i like seasoned and nonseasoned chips equally. if i am just snacking (as opposed to making nachos or utilizing chips for dipping), i really do prefer doritos spicy nacho. the doritos tacos locos were very delicious, so that might be my runner up. if i am going beyond a simple bowl of corn chips, i like using doritos in nachos, but for plain corn chips, i really like bearitos corn chips in blue corn and tostitos corn chips in restaurant style though they have been registering a bit lip-chappy on my salt scale lately. 

extruded snacks:

puffed bagged snacks are not usually my first choice, but if i am eating them i like classic cheetos, which are puffy yet crunchy. the only straight up puffy variety i like is jax, i find that other varieties tend to be digested by salivary amylase a few seconds too soon for me, and i don't really like that. jax seem to have a good crunch factor despite their puffiness. sometimes i get apple sticks from trader joe's and i like those a lot because i love chips but i am getting maybe 1/8 of a serving of an apple.

photo courtesy of my friends at trader joe's

tacos locos doritos & the search for do us a flavor lays

last week i was on the hunt for the new flavors of lays -- i polled everyone on philadelphia yelp to see where i can get my hands on those chips. the flavors are chicken and waffles, sriracha, and cheesy garlic bread. i walked twenty blocks in a downpour to check out a superfresh and a walgreens that reportedly had the chips. they did not.
eventually i was complaining to my sister about it, and she bought me some in upstate NY at hannaford's, but i am still on the hunt in philadelphia. alison says the sriracha ones are good, my mom says the cheesy garlic bread chips were a good flavor but kind of weird/alarming on a chip. she is not as adventurous in her chip consumption, so take that with a grain of salt if you are a chip connoisseur.

when i went to wawa to look for these chips, i came across a pleasant surprise, the super meta branded doritos tacos locos CHIPS. obviously i have enjoyed the doritos tacos locos TACOS at taco bell -- i am a big taco bell lover and a big doritos lover, so i have enjoyed the doritos taco shells on a number of occasions. i find them a bit powdery and not that flavorful, but i am looking fwd to trying the cooler ranch ones.

anyway, because of all that i didn't have super high expectations for these chips, though they were in a two-flavors-one-bag, which is a marketing trick i enjoy.

the chips ended up being excellent! i enjoyed them with a wawa chai tea for lunch in the sunny plaza at school. i think the combo of nacho cheese (typically too cheesy/not spicy enough for me, my default is spicy nacho doritos) and taco chips was an excellent balance, and these chips really impressed me.

4.5-5/5

ruffles cheddar & sour cream

wow! sorry for the long delay in posting. i just recently got a phone that takes pictures, so i wanted to wait and be able to share images of the chips themselves & their packaging with my readers.
i am currently eating these delicious ruffles chips in cheddar & sour cream flavor. they were recommended to me by a customer in line at the 10th/walnut wawa, and he was right on target.

these chips are delicious. not the best value, it is $1.09 for a smallish 1 7/8 oz bag at walgreens, and utz makes a much bigger bag of cheddar & sour cream chips for 99 cents, but i really think the ruffling makes a difference.

chips themselves are classic ruffles w orange dusting. ruffles are one of my favorite wavy chips varietals, i definitely like the smaller tighter ridge on them and it is working with these. flavor is smooth but interesting enough, i could really do some damage on a big bag of these.

perfect for a mid morning chip snack. 5/5