Rating: ©©©-1/2 chips (notable)
Chips provided to Chip Review by Nick’s Chips for review
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Month: January 2016
REVIEW: International Popcorn – ‘Jersey Mix’ Taylor Ham & Cheese
Rating: ©©©©-1/2 chips (lip-smacking)
Dear New Jersey,
Hi, the name is Chip Review, and we just wanted to take a second to send you a quick little note to say that we are very impressed by the meat flavored, Jersey represented, popcorn we have been reviewing as of late. Who knew that iconic Jersey meats could possibly be so deliciously captured in popcorn form! N.J. – make sure to do yourself a favor and try some of I.P.’s meaty popcorn – you can thank us later.
Sincerely, Chip Review
Repping the home state once again! Not very long ago International Popcorn amazed us with their Jersey Dog flavored popcorn (in our opinion the best dog flavored crunchy snack that we have ever tried), and now they have knocked our socks off with another meat-centric flavor – Taylor Ham & Cheese!!
If you are like us then you are not from Jersey, and likely asking yourself what the heck is Taylor Ham? Well, you can either do what we did and Google it, or simply click on this link for all the details. We really like the part on the website that mentions:
In North Jersey, residents continue to use the term Taylor Ham, while South Jersey residents generally use the term “pork roll”, with Central Jersey residents using a mix of the two.
In the 1910 lawsuit, it was described as “a food article made of pork, packed in a cylindrical cotton sack or bag in such form that it could be quickly prepared for cooking by slicing without removal from the bag.” Some people compare the modern article’s taste and/or texture to Treet, bologna sausage, mild salami, or US-style Canadian bacon.
Taylor Ham, pork roll, bologna….hmmm, well whatever you want to call it, sounds like an interesting popcorn flavor to us!! And guess what? Pair it with cheese and it’s not only interesting but really, really delicious! You know what else, and we were surprised by this as well, we have never tried any other ham & cheese flavored chips or popcorn. Odd, don’t you think?
Any who, let’s talk about this Taylor Ham & Cheese flavor. First of all, this seasoning does not taste like any ham and cheese we are familiar with; but then again we have never had Taylor Ham, or certainly anything described as a “pork roll”. So, just to be fair we can’t exactly judge the seasoning for accuracy, but what we can do is judge it for overallflavortastiness! And for that we give it a great big “A”. Loads of rich, creamy, salty, bright yellow-orange cheese seasoning amply coat each and every crispy kernel. This is easily the richest and most cheesy seasoning we have tasted from International Popcorn. Nothing too funky just a good rich and tangy cheese blend. As for the Taylor Ham flavor aspect, well we just can’t put our finger on what exactly we are tasting. The seasoning has this savory, funky, slightly salty and smoky background pork-ish flavor. In other words, it is lip-smackingly delicious!
So, there you have it. Just when we thought that I.P. had reached their pinnacle popcorn flavor with Jersey Dog, they somehow top that great encased meat flavor with a rolled meat one! What’s next? A deep fried one?
As always, these are our thoughts. Agree or disagree, make sure to let us know.
Popcorn provided to Chip Review by International Popcorn for review
International Popcorn Official Website
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REVIEW: Doritos Royal – Ahijo (Japan)
Rating: ©©-3/4 chips (tolerable)
Doritos Royal = Rich Taste Tortilla Chips….. Okay, we can definitely buy into that! Plus, we’re pretty sure that these chips are double fried.
As you may or may not know, we are slowly working our way through a variety of unique flavored Japanese Doritos and Cheetos from eBay. So far we have reviewed: Doritos Black Pepper, and Tandoori Chicken flavors. Next up, Doritos Royal Ahijo?!
Not sure what Ahijo is…? Well, neither were we; so we did a little research. Obviously the pic on the front of the bag looks like shrimp and clams, in some sort of soup or stew, and sprinkled with some herbs. According to what we found on the world wide web, Ahijo = Garlic Seafood (not sure if this flavor is supposed to be a misspelled version of the popular Spanish dish Gambas al Ajillo (Garlic Shrimp)? Either way, yes that’s right GARLIC SEAFOOD flavored Doritos!! All together now “Ewwwwwwww!!!”
These are amazing! Wait, that may have come out wrong. These Doritos are amazing-ly spot on, 100%, seafood flavored tortilla chips! We definitely taste shrimp or prawn. There’s a touch of garlic in there. Good splash of sea water, or seaweed. Really wow, we have not tasted very many seafood, fish, shellfish, etc. flavored chips, but we cannot deny that these are spot on! However, due to said accuracy, there in lies the question “do you like garlic seafood flavor sprinkled on your corn tortilla chips?” Well, we here at Chip Review have come to the cohesive conclusion that we certainly do not like garlic seafood flavored tortilla chips!! Maybe this flavor combination is simply too foreign to us, but in the end none of us actually enjoyed eating them. If we were rating these chips solely on our taste preference then they would have received our worst possible rating, however due to their unique flavor accuracy we have bumped that rating up a bit.
Doritos Royal tortilla chips themselves are shaped just like the example on the front of the bag – sort of like a bell. They are a tad thicker than our traditional U.S. Doritos, with a harder crunch. No qualms with the chips themselves until they try to carry seafood seasoning into our mouths!!
Well, there you have it. Anyone else out there tried them yet? Thoughts? As always we would love to hear what you think. Agree or disagree. Let us know.
Chips purchased from market_tokyo on ebay.
Frito Lay – Doritos Japan Official Website
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REVIEW: Trader Joe’s – Sriracha Lattice Cut Kettle Cooked Potato Chips
Rating: ©©©©-1/4 chips (lip-smacking)
As we snatched that bright red, hopefully promising, bag of kettle cooked potato chips from off the store shelf we paused for a second, and realized that it had been quite a long time between Trader Joe’s visits. Which made us sad. Shame on us Chip Review. SHAME ON US! Luckily, TJ’s delicious Sriracha chips turned our frowns upside down, and made us happy!
You know how we know that it has been a long time since our last TJ’s visit? Well, this visit was our first time seeing the lattice cut sriracha flavored potato chips (and it’s not like we somehow over looked the bold, electric-red bag of sriracha flavored chips). And we know that they have been available for a while now as they were SPOTTED over two months ago on The Impulsive Buy, and very positively reviewed nearly just as long ago by What’s Good at Trader Joe’s?
First of all, can we just point out the ferocious looking creature who appears as though it is about to smash a giant stack of lattice cut potato chips. According to our younger chip reviewers this creature is obviously a dragon cat; and apparently there are plenty of examples of this out there on the internets! Quite frankly, we don’t get it. We don’t understand the correlation between the uber popular Thai hot sauce, and the winged feline?!? Now, if TJ’s would have gone with a cat rooster, or a rooster dragon, now that is something we would associate with sriracha! But what do we know, maybe dragon cats are popular in Thailand?
Trader Joe’s Sriracha Lattice Cut Kettle Cooked Potato Chips are lip-smackingly tasty…..but we feel like we may have already told you that….last year! Okay, while technically we are reviewing them for the very first time, we sort of feel like we reviewed, and praised, these chips last year, only they were called Ghost Pepper Lattice Cut Kettle Cooked Potato Chips… Yes, we know that those were different chips (at least we are supposed to think they were), but hear us out here!
Touch of sweet, good dash of salt, lots of vegetal and fruity chili pepper notes, and we love-love-loved the splash of tangy vinegar and citric acid. Of course there is some onion and garlic are in there (mandatory in every seasoning it seems)….That’s right, we said it, there is a touch of heat that alludes to the threat of tongue burning heat but never really gets anywhere near it. In fact, the heat doesn’t even really build after many repeat visits to the delicious chip bag! That is not to say that there is no heat whatsoever because there is a bit of tongue tickle, just nothing to the extent that we would have expected from the ghost pepper!
The above italics were taken straight from our Ghost Pepper review, however for the the most part, a large portion of these descriptions could be used to describe Trader Joe’s Sriracha chips. We would be willing to bet A LOT of $$$ that TJ’s did not start from scratch with their sriracha recipe, and much of the inspiration for derived from the ghost pepper recipe! Is this a bad thing? Certainly not, especially when the ghost pepper chips were so lip-smacking!!
Overall, we liked these sriracha chips quite a bit. If you like sriracha hot sauce, and you like crispy potato chips, then you would certainly like these. Sriracha may not yet be as popular of a flavor as say nacho cheese, or barbeque, but it is sure making a run for it, and as far as the dozen or so sriracha flavored chips we have tried thus far, these are definitely somewhere in the top 5!
These are our thoughts, agree or disagree, make sure to let us know!
Chips discovered at Trader Joes; La Grange, Illinois
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BIJOU-REVIEW: GimMe Chips – Wasabi Seaweed Rice Chips
Rating: ©©-3/4 chips (tolerable)
If you are looking for a more detailed description of who and what GimMe Chips are, then please see our original review of their Teriyaki flavored chips located right over here.
However, if you are simply looking for the quick and simple low down on these wasabi flavored seaweed rice chips, please continue reading.
Wasabi + seaweed + rice = winning flavor combination for a very long time.
However (you knew there was going to be a however), GimMe Chips wasabi flavored seaweed rice chips somehow in our opinion do not knock this one out of the park.
Plain and simple, the seaweed flavor is too prominent for our paletes, and dominates the usually powerful wasabi flavor.
It’s not that we don’t taste any wasabi, because we do; and it tastes like the same old burning nasal punch as it always does. However, despite wasabi’s undeniably powerful presence, somehow the seaweed still steals the show (and like we’ve said before, we don’t love licking the bottom of the ocean!).
The chips themselves had a strong, hearty crunch, with a grainy mouth texture.
So, if you are a big fan of that seaweed ocean flavor, and you also like getting your sushi maki on, then you may very well like these chips and we suggest you give them a try for yourselves.
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 from Gimme Chips for review.
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RATING: Wausome Wafers Cheese Crisps – Hug & Kiss Colby / Swiss
Rating: ©©©© chips (lip-smacking)
Crisps provided to Chip Review by Wausome Wafers for review
Wausome Foods Official Website
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BIJOU-REVIEW: Uncle Ray’s – Smokey Chipotle & Jack Cheese Potato Chips
Rating: ©©-1/4 chips (almost not tolerable)
Chipotle & Jack Cheese…..hmmm, pretty sure that is a new flavor combination for us.
We’ve tried chipotle paired with a lot of different flavors, everything from ranch, to lime, to crema (ewww!), but never with Jack Cheese.
Well, it appears as though Uncle Ray may have a bit of a heavy hand with the salt when it comes to these chips. And by “may have”, we mean that we are fairly certain, that these are the saltiest chips we have tried in the last year, or two!
Salty, salty, S-A-L-T-Y!!!
We actually, almost, sort of like them, but fear for our lips becoming chapped, or our bodies becoming completely dehydrated, if we eat more than a few. No joke, we are stopping.
The chips flavor does include some smoke, some salty cheese, a little chile heat, and of course salt.
The potato chips are semi-crunchy, wide rippled, and practically devoid of any recognizable potato flavor from beyond the salty seasoning.
As always, these are our thoughts, we would love to hear what you think. Agree or disagree, let us know.
Discovered at Shell Gas Station; Burr Ridge, Illinois
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