REVIEW: Tic Tac Snack Original (Indonesia)

Rating: ©©-3/4 chips  (tolerable)

Hello all!  It’s time to introduce chip-snack-thing #2 from our gift box full of goodies that we recently received from our new friends at MunchPak.

We first mentioned this fantastic goodie box a couple of weeks ago in our review of Japanese Consomme flavored Pringles; which we thought were decently tasty.

MunchPak’s goodie box included chips from all over the globe.  From Germany and Korea, to Ireland and Japan.  Today’s reviewed snack apparently hails from Indonesia!  Exactly which one of Indonesia’s 13,000 islands these came from, we have no clue.

Our initial thoughts of Tic Tac’s Gobstopper-size snack balls were actually of Newton’s balls; which you may technically know better as Newton’s cradle.  And if that still doesn’t ring a bell for ya, we’re talking about that thing – CLICK-CLACK – that sits on top of those nice corner office desks – CLICK-CLACK – with the metal balls hanging by strings….the ones that never, ever stop CLICK-CLACKING once they start going.  We’re guessing that it has something to do with Physics…  Either way, Tic Tac’s little white snack balls made us think of Newton’s balls, probably because of their name more than anything.

Second thoughts…..these are not THOSE Tic Tacs!  These snack balls WILL NOT improve your breath in any way, shape, or form!

Tic Tac’s texture really reminded us of Kix cereal.  And that was because, well, it had exactly the same texture as Kix cereal.  Light and crunchy, and sort of melt-able like the best cheese puffs.  However, we’re guessing that Tic Tac’s may or may not be kid tested, and we’re certainly hoping that they are not mother approved…..

Let us put it this way, Tic Tacs do not taste bad necessarily, they sort of have this savory-sweet-salty thing going on.  They are made up of tapioca powder (safe enough), palm oil (high saturated fat), and flavored with garlic, MSG, and…. Aspartame!  Oh yeah, the old A.M.G. flavor combo!!  In other words, Tic Tacs are probably the farthest thing away from being all natural that we have come across in a long time.  Honestly, it was sort of hard eating these after we knew that they basically consisted of two artificial flavor enhancers that may do amazing things for flavoring food, but that have also been known to be unhealthy for our bodies.

There you have it, another foreign pack of munchies from our MunchPak box of goodies.

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

Tic Tacs provided to Chip Review by MunchPak for review

Dua Kelinci Official Website

MunchPak Official Website

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list

BIJOU-REVIEW: Fresh Thyme Farmers Market – Jalapeño Kettle Cooked Potato Chips

Rating: ©©-1/4 chips  (tolerable)

Do not let it deceive you, Fresh Thyme Farmers Market is not in fact a farmers market that specializes in fresh thyme….  It’s really just another grocery store hopping onto the farmer, fresh, healthy, etc., etc., grocery store bandwagon.

And, like any good grocery store worth a damn, Fresh Thyme of course has an aisle, or maybe it was only a portion of an aisle, dedicated to the greatest snacking food in the world – chips!

Within that aisle were these jalapeño flavored kettle cooked potato chips, branded with the Fresh Thyme Farmers Market name.

Unfortunately, Fresh Thyme’s chips are really not that good.

The kettle cooked chips themselves may in fact have been THE THINNEST, kettle cooked, potato chips that we have ever encountered.  Very thin.

This thinness resulted in an extremely light crunch, and an invariably greasy chip, with no distinguishable potato flavor.

The jalapeño seasoning was potent enough to cover up any grease flavor, but it was also more of a spicy seasoned salt blend, than it was jalapeño in any way.

In the end, just really salty, salty, salty.  Dash of onion here, a splash of garlic there, and maybe a sprinkle of jalapeño at the end.

These are our thoughts, agree or disagree, make sure to let us know!

Chips discovered at Fresh Thyme Farmers Market; Downers Grove, Illinois

Fresh Thyme Farmers Market Official Website

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list

BIJOU-REVIEW: Deep River Snacks Honchos – Ranch Tortilla Chips

Rating: ©©-1/4 chips  (tolerable)

We have been huge fans of Deep River Snacks for quite some time.  We respect the company’s decision to provide us with a more nutritious snack option, and we quite simply love a lot of their chips.

Unfortunately, these Ranch flavored Honchos are not among that long list of the Deep River chips that we do love.

We were going to simply chock these chips up to being tortilla chips, and that Deep River Snacks perhaps had not yet perfected their new Honchos line, but then we remembered that a couple of years ago we reviewed, and loved, their lip-smacking Peach Habanero Tortilla Chips.  Today these chips are apart of the Honchos line, but back when we reviewed them they were just tortilla chips with In Your Face Flavor!

But, enough about those great chips, today we are dealing with these only tolerable chips.

At first we thought that we were going to really like these chips.  All the usual ranch flavor notes were present and accounted for, but then somewhere in the background was a weird, sorta tangy and very salty intruder…..

And there it was, smack-dab in the middle of the ingredients list – cheddar cheese?!?  Huh?  Sorry, cheddar cheese is not meant to be used in ranch dressing.

Unfortunately, that is not our only issue with these chips.  We are also not very huge fans of the tortilla chips themselves.  Maybe we let the chips slip too close to their expiration date, or maybe they had already taken a wrong turn down the too hard and crunchy chip highway.

No light and crispy chips here.  Simply too dense, too hard and rigid tortilla chips for lthe likes of our palettes.

Sorry Deep River but these are not among our favorites from you.

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 Deep River Snacks for review

Deep River Snacks Official Website

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list

REVIEW: Fritos – Sal y Limón (Mexico)

Rating: ©©-3/4 chips  (tolerable)

Oh no, another case of the the mistaken translation…..

What you aren’t seeing is that prior to taking the picture to the left we removed a large, white, hand-printed label from the front of this bag that was 1) just plain old ugly, and 2) stated that these Fritos were salt and LEMON flavored.

It would seem fairly apparent to us that the green piece of citrus fruit, next to the salt shaker, on the front of the bag is in fact what we call a lime… But, in the translator’s defense limón does accurately translate to both lemon and lime geographically speaking (in fact, this is a very widely discussed topic in Latin America).  However, in this case, we feel like it should be pretty darn apparent that limón is referring to lime.  We’re talking about Fritos from Mexico where they use limes predominantly over lemons, especially when paired with corn.

Once again we found these particular Fritos on a small end cap at a local 7eleven that just so happens to offer a variety of Frito Lay Mexico snacks.  These salt & lime mark the third new Fritos’ flavor that we have found on this end cap, along with being our least favorite of the trio.  Fritos Chorizo y Chipotle are far and away the best from the brand that we have ever tasted, and their Chile y Limón version was simple and así así.  But, these Sal y Limón are just unenthusiastic.  They pretty much taste like plain old original Fritos, except without the usually delicious amount of salt!  In other words, they should really just be called Fritos without salt & lime.  The only reason we didn’t rate them lower was because even unseasoned Fritos corn chips are still pretty great to crunch on.  So full of greasy corn flavor.

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

Discovered at 7-eleven; Hwy. 294, Hinsdale Oasis, Illinois

Fritos Official Website

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list

BIJOU-REVIEW: Good Health – Jalapeño Kettle Style Avocado Oil Potato Chips

Rating: ©©-3/4 chips  (tolerable)

Good Health Natural Foods chips may be good for our health, but not necessarily for our taste buds.

We have tasted other Avocado Oil Kettle Chips from Good Health Natural Foods, and for the most part we have been impressed….

But, these ones just don’t do it for us.

Same great medium cut, avocado oil kettle cooked, extra crispy, potato chips.

Where the chips went completely wrong for us was with their “jalapeño” seasoning.  Or, we actually say, lack there of!

Seriously, we have eaten plain potato chips that tasted more like the green, spicy chile pepper.

Maybe something was wrong with the bag we got, or maybe jalapeños aren’t good for one’s health (so they were left out of the bag)?  Either way, these chips do not deserve to be called jalapeño seasoning.

These are our thoughts, agree or disagree, make sure to let us know!

Chips discovered at Pete’s Fresh Market; Oak Brook Terrace, Illinois

Good Health Official Website

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list

BIJOU-REVIEW: Kitco – Arabic Spice Kettle Cooked Potato Chips

Rating: ©©-3/4 chips  (tolerable)

Intriguing…..

Very…  intriguing…..

And yet, at the same time, we find it a little perplexing that over in the United Emirates there would be Arabic Spiced Potato Chips?  Isn’t that like selling chips here in the U.S. as American flavored?  And who are these chips really targeted at? We’re guessing that it has to be all of the foreigners who are visiting the United Emirates and wanting to try something familiar, and yet a little exotic or foreign…who knows.

All that being said, we unfortunately did not taste any of the unique seasonings pictured on the front of the bag.  No star anise, no cinnamon, or bay leaf.  And is that coriander?  Yep, none of that.  Nutmeg?  Nah-uh.

Instead what we tasted was exactly what the ingredient list on back of the bag said we would – tomato powder, paprika, onion, black pepper….  So, yeah, none of those are screaming exotic, or Arabic to us!  They are screaming seasoning salt!!

The potato chips themselves are okay. They have some body to them, but with a much softer crunch.  Decent potato flavor.

Anyone else out there tried them by chance?  Thoughts?  As always we would love to hear what you think.  Agree or disagree.  Let us know.

Chips provided to Chip Review by S&A, acquired in Dubai, United Emirates

Kitco Official Website

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list

BIJOU-REVIEW: De-lish-us – Baked Cheese Curls

Rating: ©©-1/2 chips  (tolerable)

Prior to stumbling upon these Baked Cheese Curls (along with a couple of their other corn based snacks), we had only known Wisconsin’s De-lish-us Company for their lip-smacking potato chips.

As it turns out, De-lish-us Co. is probably more widely recognized for their corn based products.  In fact, their history page tells us that the company started everything with popcorn nearly 85 years ago.

All that being said, the entire time we were tasting these baked cheese curls we were unfortunately wishing we had stumbled on more delicious potato chips, and not these curls.

Initial bite, each and everyone of us thought that the curls had gone stale, and who knows, maybe they had…..but there was no indication that would make us think that they had.

Very dense, very crunchy, very stale-y.

After the initial, unpleasantly toothsome, bite, the curls did begin to do the usual cheese puff thing and melt on our tongues.  A touch too little, too late.

The curls’ flavoring is pretty cheesy, but also barring on being too salty.  Wait, nope, not barring on being, they are in fact too salty.

All in all, we weren’t very impressed with these De-lish-us Baked Cheese Curls.

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

Discovered at Pick’n Save; Madison, Wisconsin

De-lish-us Official Website

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list