Doritos

REVIEW: Doritos – Black Pepper (Japan)

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Rating: ©©©-3/4 chips  (notable)

Doritos - Black PepperJust for the fun of it we here at Chip Review recently ordered a variety of unique (aka weird) flavored Japanese Doritos and Cheetos from eBay.

First up on the reviewing docket are these Black Pepper flavored Doritos.  And, before you say anything, yes it is fare to say that these “black pepper” were the most unoriginal, or to put it another way the most safe, flavor among the bunch.

Black pepper is not an uncommon potato chip flavor here in the U.S. (we’ve reviewed a handful over the years).  Still, that being said, the flavor is not really widely used to season tortilla chips, plus the flavor is almost always accompanied by its better half – SALT.  Doritos, at least as far as we have read through the translations, has opted to label these chips as strictly ‘black pepper’, and completely forgo the salt portion of the equation.  Which begs the question….what exactly does that mean?  Have Doritos simply made the decision to not include salt in the flavor name because they assume that we know that they will be including everyone’s favorite table condiment atop their tortilla chips?  Or, has Doritos Japan actually excluded the salt from the seasoning altogether (BLASPHEMY!!!)??

Please pause for a moment to recognize the suspense we are trying to build…..

Okay, we are happy to report that Doritos has in fact included salt into the flavor equation – thank goodness!!  Hold on a second, what’s that we taste??  Yep, these chips also include a good sprinkling of sweet sugar.  So, in case black pepper flavored tortilla chips were not quite weird enough for you, we’re hoping that sweet & salty pepper chips will do the trick!  The black pepper is amply coating the chips, and provides a decently aromatic punch, along with a pleasantly spicy bite.  And, believe it or not, but the black pepper mingles quite well with the sweet and salty notes.  Nothing extraordinary, but perfectly crunchable.

The Japanese Doritos themselves are definitely smaller than our U.S. version.  But, other than that, their texture and flavor are pretty much the same.  Stay tuned for reviews of even more unique flavors like Soy Butter Sauce, Tandoori Chicken, and Seafood Stew!!

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

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list

25 Chips to Christmas….

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#4

Doritos Dinamita – Mojo Criollo

Doritos Dinamita - Mojo Criollo

Original Review Here

Mark your calendars because 2015 is the year that Chip Review finally fell in love with the rolled corn tortilla chip!  And, we should probably just go ahead and mention that it was not only with the delicious Doritos above; although these Mojo Criollo Dinamita could certainly have converted us all on their own!  The ultra tangy lime, lemon and garlic combination  pair practically flawlessly with the crunchy corn chips.  We just hope that Doritos does the right thing and brings these back (at least every once in a while)!

25 Chips to Christmas….

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#25

Doritos JACKED 3D – Jalapeño Pepper Jack

Doritos Jacked 3D - Jalapeno Pepper Jack

Original Review Here

These aren’t your grandparents Doritos 3D’s (heck, these aren’t even the 3D’s of our youth)!!  Doritos really took 3D to another dimension with their JACKED version this year!  Despite all of the jokes regarding these ancient Triforce shaped chips, we have to admit that their corn-ful flavor, and extra crunchy texture is really great.

REVIEW: Doritos JACKED 3D – Bacon Cheddar Ranch

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Rating: ©©©-1/4 chips  (notable)

Doritos Jacked 3D - Bacon Cheddar RanchDear Doritos,

We know that we have been consistently complaining about your JACKED line of chips for…well…since their beginning.  But, the fact of the matter is that when we look back through our reviews of your JACKED chips we actually find an awful lot of good, and even great, chips distributed throughout the JACKED roster!  Which is why we offer you the following confession:

We here at Chip Review have told ourselves that we are not the hugest fans of the JACKED line from Doritos.  However, despite the fact that we may not agree with the decision to change Doritos’ classic, light and crispy, tortilla chip to a BIGGER & THICKER version, we do recognize the reasoning behind it.  We simply feel like the chips are too big, and their texture is so thick that they no longer encompass the same light and crispy Doritos we have all loved for so many years.  That being said, the JACKED chip texture is slowly growing on us (especially the new 3D version), and when combined with your delicious BOLDER seasoning, the results more often than not we must admit, are some pretty great tasting chips!

How many of you out there remember Doritos original 3D chips??  If you do not, then you are younger than us, and you make us feel old!  Stop that right now!!  3Ds were a great snack from the 90’s, that most of us here at Chip Review enjoyed many a time.  The originals were light as air, soft crisp, with a very thin shell, and hollow in the middle.  The 3Ds were much too easy to pop one by one, over and over, until the bottom of that bag appeared.  They were unlike any other chip available on the market, and it appears as though Doritos is going for the gold medal in chip creativity once again!

Just look at that glowing Triforce shaped medallion chip above!  Have you ever seen, or eaten, anything quite like that before?!  Well, we have not, and we’re guessing that you have not either.  We have heard the 3Ds described as an Illuminati Symbol, or Egyptian Hieroglyphic, or our personal favorite, as ancient currency, used to buy things from a Mayan vending machine…  Plain and simple, these are some uniquely weird shaped chips no matter how you describe them!  Doritos you have wowed us again!

While technically speaking every Dorito that we have ever tasted has been of the three dimensional shape, these 3Ds do provide even more dimensional depth than any other Doritos, JACKED or otherwise, chips that came before!  For a second here let’s focus on what the heck these structures are…  This is 2015, and apparently, no longer will a thin-shelled, puffed, three dimensional Dorito from the past do the necessary snack trick.  Instead, Doritos top engineers have obliterated whatever drawing board they may have ever used, and veered towards ingenious structural JACKED creativity!!  These chips are cool!  These chips are originals!!  These chips are, not really even chips any longer!!!  The 3Ds are much more like Fritos corn chips in both flavor (corn-ful), and texture (dense crunch).  Albeit, corn chips that have been stacked and fused together to form a crunchy corn triangular pendant.  Do we love the shape?  Not really, but our mouths apparently do!  Because no matter how hard we tried, we could not stop ourselves from devouring them, one after one, until there were no more!

As for the scrumptuously sounding Bacon Cheddar Ranch seasoning… Well, these were not a hit.  A let down in fact.  We were certainly not as impressed with the BCRs as we were with the first JACKED 3D flavor – Jalapeño Pepper Jack.  Plain and simple, this is just a super mild Doritos flavor.  And mild and Doritos are two words that just don’t work together.    A little salty cheddar sprinkling here, a touch of fake smoke bacon there, and an unrecognizable (Cool) ranch do not work well together; especially when paired with the hearty, corn-ful 3D chips!  We wanted or expected more.  NO! We needed more!

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 discovered at Walmart; Countryside, Illinois

Doritos Official Website

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list

REVIEW: Doritos – Limited Time Only! Roulette

/ duthow / 4 Comments

Rating: ©©©© chips  (lip-smacking)

Doritos - RouletteWhat a clever gimmick!  Seriously, who is the brilliant marketing individual who came up with this one??  They should pat themselves on the back!  Honestly, tell us the truth, as soon as you saw the bag to your left you were intrigued right?  Roulette?  You ponder to yourself…  What do we have here?  The words Limited Time Only and ATTENTION Some chips are very hot catch your eye, and you simply must grab a bag and play the game! According to fritolay.com:

Doritos Roulette chips offer fans the ultimate game-of-chance-style snacking experience. Each bag contains mostly Doritos Nacho Cheese flavored chips with an ultra-spicy, hot chip in every handful. With all of the chips looking the same, it’s anyone’s guess whether that next chip will be spicy-hot or not.

Count us in!!!  Lets spin that wheel of chips!  Chip number one – just a regular old Nacho Cheese Dorito.  A tasty classic, that has ruled the tortilla chip game forever, but not the reason we showed up for this game!  Chip number two – same thing.  Number three – more cheese.  Number four – hmmm, is that a spicy….whoa now!  Heeey-Yo!  We have lift off!!  There’s no doubt, the “ultra-spicy, hot” Doritos are in deed spicy, possibly spicier than we have ever encountered from Doritos; except for maybe their 3rd Degree Burn Scorchin’ Habanero, or possibly their Fiery Habanero chips.  The weird thing is, somehow Doritos have spice-ified their typical Nacho Cheese tortilla chip, without adding any additional flavor?!  Not sure what they used to give the chips their surprising heat, maybe just straight-up chile capsaicin?

We ended up finding roughly 6-8 spicy chips among the entire $.99 bag.  Which probably did in fact average out to one spicy chip per handful.  Good tip, try to take a break from eating any chips after landing one of the spicy chips, or at least neutralize your mouth with some milk or something prior to proceeding, otherwise the next few chips will taste spicy and you won’t really be able to distinguish between a spicy and non-spicy chip.  Overall, these were a fun gimmick, that we enjoyed giving a shot once.  Are we going to buy consecutive bags to actually snack on?  No.  We would simply buy a  regular bag of Nacho Cheese if that is what we were in the mood for, or some spicy chip if we were looking for some heat.  We might buy a few more bags to offer up to other people, or to set out at the office and see if anyone bites, without reading the instructions.  If you spot them, give them a try!

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 discovered at 7-eleven; Willowbrook, Illinois

Doritos Official Website

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list