REVIEW: Larry The Cable Guy – Tater Salad Potato Chips

Rating: ©©©©-1/4 chips  (lip-smacking)

Comments:

Larry The Cable Guy is back with two new fresh Summer flavors for us to ponder.  Mr. Cable Guy’s initial snack release of four different Tater Chips seemed to have encompassed a bar food theme to them.  With the release of these brand new Tater Salad chips, along with his Pass The Darn Ketchup flavored potato chips, we think he may be going for a bit of a Summer, outdoors, picnic-barbeque theme?!  We wouldn’t be at all surprised, or opposed, if he also releases some hot dog, or bratwurst, or sweet corn flavored chips next!

Our instant, immediate, and initial thoughts…these chips smell exactly like some good mustard-y potato salad, and we start wondering to ourselves, “should we have been keeping this bag refrigerated??”  Luckily, no where on the bag does it say that we must keep these chips refrigerated!

We are going to be completely honest here, this flavor is a bit freaky.  Creative, nonetheless, but in a mind-boggling, potato salad, freaky flavor sort of way.  Right away the fragrant mustard punch hit our tongues, not an extremely potent, or spicy mustard, but simply more of that unmistakeable mustard-y essence and flavor, followed very swiftly by some sharp wafts of vinegar that puckered our nasal cavities.  As quickly as our senses recuperated themselves, a second wave of flavors came rushing in.  This time, a sugary sweetness coated our tongues, and then the garlic crept up on us, and planted its powerful flavor bomb in our mouths.  At the very tail end there was some flavor lingering, and hiding in the background, that we just could not put a finger (tongue) on.  After a quick sneaky glance to the back of the back at the ingredients list, we realized that it was celery powder!?! Celery powder, really?  Yep, and we simply must say “well done, nice touch!!”

These Tater Salad potato chips are definitely some of the most original and flavorful chips we have tasted in a while.  Larry has definitely created a flavor combination that we’re certain we’ve never tried before.  Bravo, for pushing the flavor boundaries!

Need we even mention that this flavor of course works well with potato chips?  This flavor was born for potatoes, and of course works well with all varieties, especially the best kind: sliced and fried ones!

As always, these are our thoughts, we would love to hear what you think.  Agree or disagree, let us know.

Chips provided to Chip Review by Barrel O’ Fun Snacks for review

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list

REVIEW: Larry The Cable Guy – Pass The Darn Ketchup Potato Chips

Rating: ©©©© chips  (lip-smacking)

Comments:

Larry The Cable Guy is back with two new fresh Summer flavors for us to ponder.  Mr. Cable Guy’s initial release of four different Tater Chips seemed to have encompassed a bar food theme to them.  With the release of these Pass the Ketchup flavor, along with his Tater Salad flavored potato chips, we think he may be going for a Summer barbeque theme?!  We wouldn’t be at all surprised if he also releases some watermelon or baked beans flavored chips next!

Well, it appears as though Larry has picked up right where he left off, giving us some more tasty flavored potato chips.  Larry The Cable Guy seems to know his chips.  We like to imagine that he personally taste tests each of his Tater Chip’s recipes until he comes up with the end products that he can be proud of, and that we can appreciate.

At first appearance, without knowing the intended flavor, one may think they were about to consume some “Flamin’ Hot” chips.  The bag is filled with super bright-bright-bright, burn your eyes, glowing red potato chips.  However, one quick whiff from the bag, and all spicy thoughts are out the window, as some very sweet notes of tomato and paprika take over.  We think that it is fair to say that these chips were coated with a lot more seasoning than standard flavored potato chips.  In fact, the chips were nearly barring on an unbearable over-abundance of flavoring.

As most ketchup eaters can tell you, bottled ketchups can definitely vary in flavor, and these potato chips appear to be mimicking, or veering towards, the sweeter end of that flavor spectrum.  In fact, they may be trying to break the sweet scale.  We would call these more sweet than tangy.  They did not exhibit very much of the vinegary twang that other ketchups bring; rather, they seemed to be focusing on buckets and buckets of sweet tomato flavor, with a few accents from paprika.

Larry’s chips are thinner, ‘regular’ style potato chips.   We are certain that (just like with Larry’s other chips) these potato chips would evoke a good amount of that lovely, and subtle potato flavor (however, honestly it is difficult to taste anything beyond this onslaught of seasoning).  The chips have a softer crunch.

Overall, we liked them, they are above average potato chips, but they are quite sweet, and could easily be considered too sweet for many tasters.

As always, these are our thoughts, we would love to hear what you think.  Agree or disagree, let us know.

Chips provided to Chip Review by Barrel O’ Fun Snacks for review

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list

Dill / Pickle Chips – Tell us what you think

Chip Review’s Top 5 Dill / Pickle Flavored Chips:

1. Grippo’s – Hot Dill Pickle Potato Chips

2. Kettle Brand – Dill & Sour Cream Krinkle Cut Potato Chips

3. Art’s & Mary’s – Tangy Dill Home Style Tater Chips

4. Zapp’s – Cajun Dill Gator-Tators Kettle Potato Chips

5. Old Dutch – Dill Pickle Potato Chips

REVIEW: Larry The Cable Guy – Barbeque Rib Tater Chips

Rating: ©©©-1/4 chips  (notable)

Comments:

Larry The Cable Guy’s Barbeque Rib Tater Chips are our least favorite flavor from his line bar food flavored potato chips. That’s not to say they are bad by any means, just not as good as his other flavors.

We would definitely describe these chips as bbq chips before we would ever come close to describing them as a meat flavored chip.  All of the usual bbq suspects were present – sweet tomato and molasses, the usual supporting cast members of garlic and onion, and even some zip from vinegar and spice.  As is the case with so many bbq chips in our opinion, these became a bit too rich after consuming a few handfuls.  It seems like we can never eat too many bbq chips.

Larry’s normally super flavorful potato chips were a bit too covered up by the heavy dose of sticky sweet bbq seasoning.  We had high hopes for these chips, but in the end, we weren’t the biggest fans.

As always, these are our thoughts, we would love to hear what you think.  Agree or disagree, let us know.

Chips provided to Chip Review by Barrel O’ Fun Snacks for review

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list

REVIEW: Larry The Cable Guy – Buffalo Wing Tater Chips

Rating: ©©©©-1/4 chips  (lip-smacking)

Comments:

As we mentioned earlier, these Buffalo Wing Tater Chips from Larry The Cable Guy have the exact same ‘recipe’ as Beer Chips Buffalo Wing Potato Chips.  And by ‘recipe’ we mean the exact same ingredients listed in the exact same order on the back of the bags.  For those of you unaware of how food manufacturers determine the order in which they list the ingredients on their products:

FDA states that, “Food manufacturers are required to list all ingredients in the food on the label. On a product label, the ingredients are listed in order of predominance, with the ingredients used in the greatest amount first, followed in descending order by those in smaller amounts….”.  (http://www.fda.gov/food/foodingredientspackaging/ucm094211.htm)

So far, from what we’ve tasted of Larry’s Tater Chips, we’ve really liked.  Larry The Cable Guy must know chips.  We like to believe that he personally taste tested each of his Tater Chip’s recipes until he came up with products that he could be proud of to bear his name.

These chips are thinner, ‘regular’ style potato chips.   They evoke a good amount of that lovely, subtle potato flavor.  The chips are not very crunchy, and could almost be mistaken as on the verge of being stale, but we’re pretty sure that this texture is purposeful, and we like it.

The buffalo wing seasoning on these chips is definitely more vinegary, than spicy.  So, the ‘burn’ is much more pronounced in our noses, than on our tongues.  There’s plenty of seasoning coating each one of these bright colored orange chips.  So much so, that they are nearly on the verge of being over-seasoned.  We really like these chips.  These are just good buffalo wing chips.

As always, these are our thoughts, we would love to hear what you think.  Agree or disagree, let us know.

Chips provided to Chip Review by Barrel O’ Fun Snacks for review

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list

Chip Review Fans…..

… we just want to say thank you to everyone for supporting us on this venture thus far!!!  Thanks for all the comments and opinions – keep them coming.  It has been an exciting, busy, great time!  We appreciate each and everyone of you!  Stay tuned for more reviews and ratings.

Also, a special shout out and thank you to all those chip companies who feel our opinions matter enough to send us their products!!!  So far, thanks goes to:

Barrel O’Fun Snacks, www.barrelofunsnacks.com

Better Made, www.bmchips.com

The Billy Goat Chip Company, www.billygoatstl.com

Classic Foods – Poptillas!, www.classicfoods.com

Dakota Style Chips, www.dakotastyle.com

Food Should Taste Good, www.foodshouldtastegood.com

Herr’s Foods Inc., www.herrsstore.com

Kettle Brand, www.kettlebrand.com

Laurel Hill, www.laurelhillfoods.com

Michael Season’s, www.seasonssnacks.com

Pretzel Crisps, www.pretzelcrisps.com

REVIEW: Larry The Cable Guy – Fried Dill Pickle Tater Chips

Rating: ©©©©-1/4 chips  (lip-smacking)

Comments:

Larry The Cable Guy sure did “Get’em Done” with these chips!!  Chip Review is not exactly sure what is up with the ‘Fried’ aspect of the Dill Pickle flavor?  Obviously, we understand that potato chips themselves are indeed fried, but if that was the case wouldn’t Larry refer to all flavors of his potato chips as ‘Fried’?  Rather, we believe that he has created a line of bar themed Tater Chips, and for the Dill Pickle flavor to work with his other flavored Tater Chips, he needed the pickles to be fried (that’s our theory, and we’re sticking to it).

The potato chips themselves have a nice rustic, skin on quality to them.  The chips are medium thickness with a minimal crunch, and the potato flavor is present and not overwhelmed by the seasoning.  To be perfectly honest, we are a little surprised with the quality of these potato chips….we just didn’t know that Larry was such a chip aficionado.  The seasoning is definitely more on the herbal dill weed side than the tart vinegary pickle side – which we really appreciate since so many dill pickle chips out there simply blast you with acid.

As always, these are our thoughts, we would love to hear what you think.  Agree or disagree, let us know.

Chips provided to Chip Review by Barrel O’ Fun Snacks for review

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list