Ketchup / Catsup

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

/ duthow / Leave a comment

Rating: ©©©© chips  (lip-smacking)

chipsys 038

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

REVIEW: President’s Choice World of Flavours – Canadian Burger Potato Chips

/ duthow / 2 Comments

Rating: ©©© chips  (notable)

President's Choice - World of Flavours Canadian Burger

Comments:

A little while back we did a chip swap with our friend Dani at The Daily Yum.  We sent her a bag of each of the three ‘Flavor Finalists’ for Lay’s ‘Do Us a Flavor’ contest – you can find her opinion of those right here.  In return, we were sent a lovely trio (Moroccan Spice & Smokin’ Stampede, in addition to these) of uniquely flavored potato chips from a local grocery store called President’s Choice.  Apparently, it wasn’t Dani at The Daily Yum, but Mr. Obama himself, who has chosen these chips for us to review!  How exciting!!!

So, what exactly makes a burger into a Canadian Burger?  A Canadian burger includes a grilled beef burger with white cheddar cheese, back bacon and a touch of ketchup.  In case you are not savvy, and up to par, with your Canadian pork products, according to our Canadian sources (which consists of The Daily Yum….of course), back bacon is Peameal or Cornmeal bacon, or what we call Canadian Bacon here in the States.  So, whatever you call it, this Canadian version of bacon uses the much more lean cut of pork loin, instead of the rich, fatty pork belly we are accustom to in the U.S.  Whether or not this is the reason for why we feel these chips were lacking a bit in their flavor depth, we can’t be sure?

The ingredient combination sounded good enough to us, but after tasting only a few chips it was obvious that these chips were unbalanced, and missing some type of acidity/sour ingredient to cut through all of the sweet and fatty flavors.  We feel that the addition of some mustard, or pickle, or any pretty much any type of fresh acid could have really livened these chips up.  Instead, what we tasted were some extremely rich and sweet potato chips.  Rich cheddar cheese and grilled burger flavors, combined with the very sweet ketchup and some rich, sweet and smoky back bacon, all equaled out to be a bit too sweetly-one-sided for our pallets.  The potato chips themselves were medium thick with wide ripples, and a soft and hearty crunch.

It is obvious that President’s Choice Grocery Stores care about creating and offering their clientele unique versions of everyone’s favorite snack foods (chips).  However, it is also apparent that they have not perfected those flavors in our opinion.  Maybe it will be different for the next two President’s Choice flavors we get to try, but let’s just say that the Canadian Burger potato chips are not the best burger flavored chips we have ever tasted, and they will definitely not be making Chip Review’s Top 5 Meat Flavored Chips list any time soon….

As always we would love to hear what you think.  Agree or disagree.  Let us know.

Chips provided to Chip Review by Dani @ The Daily Yum 

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list

REVIEW: Lay’s – Spicy Ketchup Potato Chips

/ duthow / Leave a comment

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

Comments:

Relatively speaking, these chips haven’t been on the market for very long, and yet it appears that we may be a little behind with our review of these Spicy Ketchup flavored Lay’s Potato Chips.

We always appreciate when a single chip can spur so many different opinions, and with these chips the jury definitely seems to be out…

Some, like Taquitos like the chips….(we can concur, these chips are definitely “sweet and tangy”, and “the “spicy” part of this flavor” does indeed become present after eating a handful).

Others, like the Fat Guys don’t seem to be “big” fans of the Spicy Ketchup….(and Chip Review does agree, that these are the not the best ketchup flavored chips we’ve ever had either.  That title goes to Old Dutch Canada….it’s true those Canadians do know their ketchup).

And finally, others like The Impulsive Buy feel just like we do, that these are some pretty darn fantastic chips!  We too “understand why Lay’s made these spicy.”  The heat “balances the sweet tomato perfectly and is necessary. The pepper contrasts the sweet vinegar and prevents it from getting boring….can imagine eating ketchup chips sans jalapeño would start to get bland to my taste buds”.

Plain and simple, Chip Review thinks this flavor is Spot On.  These chips taste like Spicy Ketchup.

We’ve said it before on this site, and we’ll say it again, we are not the biggest fans of Lay’s potato chips (especially the Original Potato).  However, we do recognize that they don’t seem to be quite as thin and crumbly as they once were….but that doesn’t change the fact that they are still quite a bit thinner than what we prefer, and their potato chips have no earthy potato flavor.  What we do appreciate is Lay’s ability to put out so many new boundary pushing flavors, so often.

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

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list