REVIEW: North Fork of Long Island – Cheddar Onion Potato Chips

Rating: ©©©© chips  (lip-smacking)

IIf we asked you what the most popular flavor of all-time was, what would be your answer?  Maybe BBQ?  Sour Cream & Onion, perhaps?  To be honest, we don’t have a definitive answer to our own question, but if we had to take a guess, we’d bet on Cheddar Cheese, in one form or another!  “Cheddar makes everything better!”  It’s tough to argue with those words.  Just think for a minute about how many cheddar flavored chips you have eaten in your lifetime?  Cheddar is so versatile, with many different variations.  It can be aged, white, yellow, or smoked. And how many different collaborations has cheddar seen over the years??  Just to name a few: there’s bacon, chipotle, jalapeno, chiles of every sort, barbeque, sour cream, and then of course onion.

Onion and cheddar.  Cheddar and onion.  Some flavor combinations have etched their legacies into the hearts and minds of chip lovers for eternity.  Cheddar and onion is a classic combination from over in the UK.  A staple that every brand must include within their line-up, lest they be shunned for the decision not to.  For one reason or another, the combination of has never really taken off in the United States the way some other combos have.  Fortunately, brands like North Fork have decided to branch out from the usual and include this “foreign” flavor in their line-up!

Any preconceived notions that you may have towards the flavor combo of cheddar and onion should be thrown out the window.  When these two ingredients are combined with one another, somehow the sum is more sophisticated.  The cheddar is not the electric orange, super salty cheddar cheese that most of us know and love.  No, this cheddar cheese is a more ‘mature’ variation.  Cheese with character, and a certain level of  earthy, and savory ‘funk’.  The onion half of the equation is simply present to embrace, and mellow the funky cheese.  Add a little bit of sweetness, and bitter pungency, to the powerful mature cheddar.  We really like the flavor combo.  It seems sophisticated.

As for the potato chips themselves, they are delightfully thin cut, with a light crunch.  An unusually thin cut version of kettle chips.  Not the typical hearty, thick cut that we are used to. The chips are on the smaller side, curved and crinkled in every way and shape, with plenty of rustic potato skin edges.  These are “real” potato chips, complimented by the savory seasoning of cheddar and onion.  Lip-smacking for sure!

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 North Fork of Long Island for review

North Fork Official Website

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

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RATING: 7 Select – Fiery Habanero Kettle Style Potato Chips

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

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list

REVIEW: Uncle Ray’s – Cheese Flavored Puffs

Rating: ©©©© chips  (lip-smacking)

Uncle Ray to the rescue again!  Anytime we have a craving for some crunchy, salty snacks, we just call up good old Uncle Ray, and he’s always got something new we can try!

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again, we can only imagine what it would be like to have an Uncle Ray who made chips for a living!  Seriously, how cool would that be?!  While some kids may have grown up dreaming of having that uncle who played a professional sport for their favorite team, or that cool uncle who hung out with his movie star friends on the weekend, well that was not us!  We always dreamed of having that salty uncle who lets us walk the line of his potato chip (cheese puff) factory, and scoop handful upon handful of warm, fresh, crispy potato chips (cheese puffs) into our chip (puff) loving mouths!

Lip-smackingly suffice!  Textbook cheese puffs.  Uncle Ray’s Cheese Flavored Puffers incorporate all of the necessary curl components – initial crunch, light and airy mouth-feel, and finished up with a tongue melting puddle of cheese.  Plenty of deliciously, salty cheese crystallization has formed on the outer edge, requesting a firm cripsy bite before releasing the softer, cheese melt-y center.

**Funny side-note: on the back of Uncle Ray’s snack bags it appears that Uncle Ray likes to include a story from his past.  We think that he is trying to bestow some of his life lessons on us.  Free advice with good snacks?  Count us in.  Chapter 7 is a doozy regarding Uncle Ray’s Grandfather, and how he helps Ray steer clear of a dangerous habit before it even starts!  Isn’t that what grandpas are for?!?

Discovered at Super America; Lexington, Kentucky

Uncle Ray’s Official Website

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list

RATING: Pringles – Loaded Baked Potato

Rating: ©©© chips  (notable)

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

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RATING: World Market – Jalapeno Kettle Cooked Potato Chips

Rating: ©©©-3/4 chips  (notable)

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

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REVIEW: Crave Canyon – Cane Juice & Sea Salt Kettlecorn

Rating: ©©©-1/4 chips  (notable)

Paaa-lenty of Land, but only a Bit O’ Sea, in our opinion!

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, kettle corn is one of our most favorite snacks of all-time.  The perfect combination of both sweet and salty notes, delivered to our stomachs via some light and crispy clouds, of fried, and popped corn kernels!  Sounds perfect, doesn’t it?  Combine our love and passion for kettle corn with Crave Canyon’s track record with us thus far, and we may have set our hopes up a bit too high for Chef G this time around!

Now, who the heck is Chef G you ask?!?  First of all, he is the genius behind the uniquely delicious kettle corn combinations known as, the sophisticated Cane Juice & Sea Salt Kissed With Anise, along with, the fiery Wasabi Ginger.  And, according to Crave Canyon’s website he is also:

“THE MYTH, THE LEGEND, THE MAN BEHIND THE FLAVOR

We don’t think Chef G. is an elusive man by nature, it’s that he’s just too busy to be in one place for very long. But because of this, we at Crave Canyon don’t know that much about him.

From what we can gather, he’s had a culinary passion since a young age and as an adult started to travel the world to broaden his palate. He has been moving on to the next flavor adventure ever since.

We started our partnership with Chef G. when he approached us one day, eager to try his hand at creating unique popcorn flavors. Of course we readily agreed, his reputation preceding him. What resulted were the wonderful flavors we offer today. Who knows how many more he will come up with; like the man, it still remains a mystery.”

Well, we can tell you one thing for sure about Chef G, and that is that he has a particular gift for tweaking sweet and salty kettle corn with unique flavor combinations, and creating lip-smacking snacks!  However, his execution for the simple, classic kettle corn recipe could still use some work.

“Chef G – kettle corn is both sweet and salty, not sweet and sorta salty.  Your kettle corn is decent.  The small, fresh, crispy popcorn kernels could benefit from a heavy helping of salt to offset the overly sweet popcorn.”  OK, there, we got that off of our chest, enough said.

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

Kettle corn provided to Chip Review by Crave Canyon for review

Crave Canyon Official Website

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list

REVIEW: 2 Explosive Snacks 1 Bag – Cheetos Flamin’ Hot & Doritos Dinamita Chile Limon

Rating: ©-1/2 chips  (tolerable)

So, what do we get when Frito Lay decides to lazily combine one of their greatest creations ever, with one of our least favorites ever?!?  Well, that would undoubtedly depend upon whether you are a half full, or half empty bag, sort of person…  In other words, there are two distinct ways of looking that this collaboration: One being that the addition of Doritos practically intolerable Dinamitas to Cheetos impeccably perfect Flamin’ Hots is an outrage, and injustice to the snack world!!  The second, being that the addition of the oh-so-delicious Flamin’ Hot Cheetos to Doritos Chile Limon rolled tortilla snack, was actually a brilliant idea, and helps tasters distract from negative thoughts they may have towards Rolled Corn Snacks (aka taquitos, flaquitos, takis, you name it…) as a whole!!

We hate to be the pessimists here, but unfortunately the negatives of these “2 Explosive Snacks in 1 Bag!” out weigh the positives!  Apparently, good does not always defeat evil, and even Cheetos are susceptible to peer pressure!!  In fact, these are even worse than just eating the Doritos Dinamitas on their own!  The textural differences between the two confused our mouths so much that it caused us to bite our tongues on multiple occasions!  And visually, we almost practically could not tell the two apart; both being enveloped with a deep red blanket of spicy powder.

So, the question we really want Frito Lay to answer for these ones is why?  Why do it?!  Why take a great snack and combine it with a mediocre one?  Why make us waste the time and effort to review this “NEW” snack?

We believe that the answer to these questions is similar to the reasons behind Snyder’s of Hanover’s decision to utilize two of their preexisting flavors in their “new snack” Flavor Doubles, along with, Doritos Locos Tacos relatively recent stint on the store shelves.  It all boils down to money and lack of creativity!  We are less than happy to say that we seem to see an unwelcome trend forming in this chip industry, where brands are either getting lazy, or think that they can combine two of their preexisting products, re-package them with some clever title, and make us believe that we will be tasting something revolutionary, or at the very least that we should buy them and try them.  When, in the end, the simple fact is that the sum of the two chips, is not greater than the individual chips themselves – ESPECIALLY – when you combine an A-list one like Cheetos Flamin’ Hot, with an only slightly tolerable one like Doritos Dinamitas Chile Limon!

Other than that, we don’t have too much more to say or report about these.  By now, you have all tried Cheetos Flamin’ Hot right?  If not you are crazy, and we seriously question why you are reading a review about chips?!?  If for some reason you have not tried any of the onslaught of rolled tortilla snacks on the market these days, well then, good for you!  Stick to it, you are not really missing anything.  And, as for the combination of the two, well, we would suggest never trying these.  If you really need a snack fix, and these are the only thing in site, then go ahead and buy them.  But, may we suggest you dump out the entire bag and sift through them, separating the two snacks into two piles.  Try your best to enjoy the Cheetos after all of the hard work of separating the two, and dump the Dinamitas straight into the garbage!

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

Discovered at 7-Eleven; Burr Ridge, Illinois

Frito Lay Official Website

Chip Ratings Scale:

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list