REVIEW: De-lish-us – Sour Cream and Onion Potato Chips

Rating: ©©©©-1/2 chips (lip-smacking)

Comments:

It was probably some time, around this time last year, that we told you that if you ever find yourself traveling through southern Wisconsin, you should do yourself a huge favor, and pick up the biggest bag of De-lish-us’ Original Cheese Flavored Potato Chips that you can find; and while you’re at it, one for us too!! To say that we were impressed with these salty, minimalist chips, would be a grave understatement. In fact, they were even tasty enough to rank themselves squarely among the Top 10 chips we tasted in all of 2012!

Well, it just so happens that we found ourselves once again in the great land of cheese known as Wisconsin, and we of course followed our own great advice and picked ourselves up a bag of the Original Cheese flavored potato chips from De-lish-us, but we also grabbed a bag of their Sour Cream and Onion Potato Chips.

Luckily for us, we once again found ourselves in the presence of some great tasting potato chips from De-lish-us!! We stand firm by our declaration that De-lish-us has the best tasting (non-kettle cooked) potato chips we’ve encountered, outside of Old Dutch’s traditional line of potato chips that is. The wonderfully earthy potato flavor is in every crunch of every De-lish-us chip. Rather than even trying to cover up any of the chip’s natural flavors with buckets of seasoning, De-lish-us simply embraces the natural potato-ness, by leaving the skins on, slicing the chips just the right, and only coating them with a minimal dusting of sour cream and onion.

Not only do the De-lish-us potato chips remind us of the Old Dutch potato chips, but the sour cream and onion seasoning blend really does too. Granted they are a little less tangy and creamy, a little less onion-y, a little less salty, and just a little less PERIOD That being said, anytime we are comparing your chip to the best sour cream & onion chips, it should always be considered a compliment.

De-lish-us potato chips bring us back to our childhood, to a simpler time. Their clean and earthy flavors seem old school and familiar, while even their packaging is plain and retro. Despite not growing up with them, each bag of De-lish-us Potato Chips that we have tried so far (and we really hope to try more), has truly seemed like a DE-LIC-IOUS reunion with a long lost friend!

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

Chip Ratings Scale:

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©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

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REVIEW: Hardbite – Wild Onion & Yogurt Handcrafted Potato Chips

Rating: ©©©-3/4 chips  (notable)

Comments:

Hardbite’s Handcrafted Potato Chips arrive to our front steps all of the way from our chilly neighbors to the North.  According to the back of the bag, Hardbite Potato Chips are: “The Official Chip of Cascadia,” which apparently, “is the area of land from the great Pacific Ocean to our towering coastal mountains, running wild and free from the border of the Golden Bear State to the northern tip of British Columbia…..Cascadia is a movement, an idea, an ethos.  It’s like-minded individuals driven by a unifying vision.”  Apparently, Casacadia encompasses a lot, but can Hardbite’s Potato Chips do the same?!?!

First thing we immediately recognized about Hardbite’s chips were……?  Believe it or not, their ‘hard bite’.  We would consider their potato chips on the medium to heavy thickness level, and despite having such a hard bite, the chips are actually not very crispy.  The chips exhibit a dense chewy and toothsome quality, that seems to be the result of being cut so thick, and absorbing so much oil.  Luckily, the chips do not seem “oily” at all, they are just a work out for our mouths.

Hardbite’s Handcrafted Potato Chips exude a lot of pure and tasty potato flavor.  They remind us of eating fried potatoes (why this is a surprise, we don’t know, because they ARE fried potatoes).  The seasoning level is just right, and lets the potato flavor shine through.  However, it is very apparent right away that these chips do not encompass the normal level of creaminess that yogurt (sour cream), and onion chips traditionally do.  While there is plenty of upfront and quite powerful, sweet onion-y flavor, it is not overbearing at all.  But, we just can’t get past the lack of any tangy yogurt flavor present.  What is very peculiar about that is that the list of ingredients includes yogurt, sour cream, and milk powders.  Yet, in a blind taste test, we are quite certain that we would describe these as hearty, handcrafted onion flavored potato 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 Hardbite Potato Chips for review

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RATING: Poore Brothers – Sweet Maui Onion Kettle Cooked Potato Chips

Rating: ©©©-1/2 chips  (notable)

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REVIEW: Food Should Taste Good – Ancho Chile Kettle Cooked Sweet Potato Chips

Rating: ©©©-3/4 chips  (notable)

Comments:

What do you call a pepper that is not yours?  “An-cho Chile” (yes, you’re right, we won’t be quitting our day jobs).

As far as we know, Food Should Taste Good is the only brand that continues to use kettle cooked sweet potatoes as their vehicle of choice for trying out new flavors (maybe Terra could be comparable, except that they tend to stay more traditional with the sweet potato chips).  We can really appreciate Food Should Taste Good’s unique approach to chips, but we’re going to be completely honest, and tell you right now that we believe that sweet potatoes are definitely not as clean and perfect of chip canvas as other more traditional potatoes, nor corn tortillas.  That being said, sweet potatoes can and do work very well with certain seasoning flavors.

With these Ancho Chile flavored sweet potato chips, similar to their Barbeque flavored ones, Food Should Taste good has given us another flavor that both jives with the natural sweetness of these chips, but at the same time is also barring on being too overly sweet.  The flavors tread the sweetness line a little too closely for us to fully embrace them.  Unlike their two other sweet potato chip flavors – Salt & Pepper and Salt & Vinegar – which each juxtaposed, and countered the potatoes natural sweetness, and balanced the overall flavor profiles very well!

Ancho chile flavored chips are a new one to us.  In fact, we are pretty sure that these are the first ancho chile flavored chips that we can ever remember seeing.  Apparently, an ancho chile is……drum roll please………a smoked poblano?  That’s right, similar to the chipotle chile, which is a dried smokey jalapeno, an ancho chile in the dark red, dried version of the mild green chile pepper.  The ancho chile seasoning is very smokey, with a very mild heat and a heavy does of salt.  We’re not quite certain as to what really gives off the additional sweetness to these chips, but there is something there we know it.

In the end, these chips really just remind us of Food Should Taste Good’s barbeque version, just very, very, very smokey!

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

Chip Ratings Scale:

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©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

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Chip Rating…..

Lay’s Air Pops – Sour Cream & Onion

Rating: ©©-1/2 chips  (tolerable)

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Chip Rating…..

Kettle Brand – Yogurt & Green Onion Potato Chips

Rating: ©©©© chips  (lip-smacking)

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REVIEW: Aggie’s – Garlic & Onion Broken Pretzels

Rating: ©©©© chips  (lip-smacking)

Comments:

Like we told you in our first review of Aggie’s Broken Pretzels, we love to chime in for the little guys.  Those companies that get started in the basement, or garage, or mother’s house, or it appears, the basketball court.  Those family owned companies that exude their heart, soul, blood and tears in their creations, often times, regardless of actual product execution.  Aggie’s Broken Pretzels, is one of those little companies, started by two guys named Bob, located in the Chicago area.

It would be nearly impossible to review Aggie’s without comparing them to the big boys in the pretzel game – Snyder’s of Hanover.  Similar to Snyder’s of Hanover’s Pretzel Pieces line of snacks, Aggie’s pretzel are even more rustic, broken, misshaped, pieces of pretzels.  By breaking the salty, hard pretzels into pop-able bite size pieces the pretzels’ porous, bread-y, interior is opened up, allowing for optimal flavor soaking pretzel square inch-age.

Aggie’s Garlic & Onion Broken Pretzels are coated with loads of garlic, onion and salt – we like it!  The flavor combination melds very well with the dense, super crunchy pretzel pieces.  The garlic & onion combination is flavorful, but not too overpowering to completely annihilate all of the great pretzel flavor.  Aggie’s pretzel pieces are definitely hefty, and we love how there is no uniform consistency to their shapes, some of the pieces are tiny and some are nearly too large to fit into our mouths.

If we had one complaint with these Broken Pretzels it would be that they are a little dry.  We would have liked a bit more fatty richness (oil) soaked up into those porous pretzel bits, rounding off the entire flavor profile and experience.  However, those of you who appreciate a little bit healthier snacks over the more fatty-tasty ones, may like the fact that in the end these pretzels aren’t dripping with fatty oil, and are more healthy for it (we however, will always want that extra fat added; FAT = flavor!).

So, if you live in the Chicago area do yourself a favor, and support some local Chicago area entrepreneurs, and try out Aggie’s Broken Pretzels, they could just be that snack you have always been searching for!!

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

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