REVIEW: Trader Joe’s – Somewhat Spicy Dill flavored Kettle Cooked Potato Chips

Rating: ©©©©-1/2 chips  (lip-smacking)

We really appreciate how Trader Joe’s just loves keeping their packaging light, and a little quirky!  With these latest chips we get an orange haired young chap, who is apparently dressed for his St. Patty’s Day party or something, and is reflecting to himself – “Everything changed the day I discovered…”
We have to assume that this reflection is in regards to the day he discovered these chips.

Well, we’re not going to go so far as to say that everything changed the day that we discovered….. these Somewhat Spicy Dill flavored Kettle Cooked Potato Chips.  But, we can guess that things would certainly change for us if we wore an outfit such as the one this guys is wearing!

The Spicy Dill variety is not necessarily a new combo in the chip flavor game, but it is one that has not really picked up steam with the “big” brand companies.  Most of the chip companies willing to venture into this tangy flavor realm seem to be a bit more of the independent sort.

Most certainly our all-time favorites from this flavor combo variety are Grippo’s Hot Dill Pickle Potato Chips.  It is very likely that these are no longer available, but our memories of these herbal-y-spicy thin cut potato chips were forever live on!  We are also huge fans of Zapp’s, and Deep River’s potato chip versions.  We are happy to report that Trader Joe’s Somewhat Spicy rendition can be added to that list of favorite versions!

TJ’s medium-thin cut kettle cooked potato chips are fantastic!  Perfectly crispy, with just the right amount of mouth pleasing body.  We couldn’t really taste any potato flavor underneath the powerful seasoning blend, but that was just fine since that seasoning was a delicious recipe.

Joe’s seasoning recipe reminded us a lot of McClure’s Bloody Mary chips.  First, comes the tongue tingling spicy acidic-chile burn.  The acidic burn attacks the throat and the nasal cavity sort of harshly, but then quickly subdues to the moderate chile burn that resides in the mouth!  The one-two spicy punch.  The fragrant dill herbal notes flutter there in the background, bringing thoughts of pickles to the mind.  Garlic is also very present.

The flavor combo works deliciously well!  If you are a fan of spicy chips, or pickle flavored chips, then we’re fairly confident that you would be fans of these as well.  Make sure to let us know your comments below regarding these chips, or the day everything changed when you discovered…..what?”

For another take check out What’s Good at Trader Joe’s review.

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

Discovered at Trader Joe’s (of course); La Grange, Illinois

Trader Joe’s Official Website

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list

REVIEW: Nathan’s Famous – Classic Hot Dog Potato Chips

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

If you really want to know what these new Nathan’s Classic Hot Dog Flavor Potato Chips taste like just run on down to your local dog joint and ask for a dog with the classic Nathan’s condiment combo of ketchup, mustard, and relish.  And from what we taste, maybe heavy on the mustard.  If you are fans of hot dogs with ketchup, mustard, and relish, then you are going to love these chips!  Well, that is as long as you are also fans of fried, sliced potatoes, better known as – CHIPS!!

If you are like us, then maybe you first became acquainted with Nathan’s and their famous hot dogs through a decades old eating contest that became a worldwide phenomenon when a certain small, Japanese, professional food eater completely obliterated the competition in, and along with it, everything we thought we knew about competitive food eating!!  In 2001, Takeru Kobayashi consumed 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes!  This doubled what anyone previously had ever consumed in a Nathan’s contest.  People became fascinated by this small Japanese guy who could eat more dogs than anyone else.  And as they say, the rest was history.

Getting back to Nathan’s Hot Dog flavored potato chips…. First of all, they are instantly recognizable as Hot Dog flavored chips.  There is no doubt about what the seasoning tastes like.  A little salty-smoky, a good helping of pungent yellow mustard, a touch of sweet ketchup, and some background notes of tangy relish.  That being said, we of course knew what these chips were prior to eating them.  If we would have blind taste tested them would we have gotten the same results?  We can’t be sure, but we think that we may just have.

Do we actually taste meat?  No, not necessarily.  But do you ever really taste hot dog meat flavor when you put any condiments onto it?  For the most part the dog is there for texture and substance.  FYI – we did not get any real hot dog texture with these chips – THANKS GOODNESS!!!!

The potato chips themselves were quite tasty as well.  Light and crispy, thinner cut, slightly greasy, in a good way, potato chips.

Our only real gripe with Nathan’s Classic Hot Dog Flavor Potato Chips is that they do not remind us of the dogs we are used to in the Chicago area.  The Chicago Depression dogs or char dogs that we love!  They are missing a few of our favorite key components (ie. pickles, raw onions,  sport peppers & celery salt).  Once you’ve tried one of these, there is no going back to just ketchup, mustard and relish!

Those are our thoughts.  Let us know what you think below.

Chips provided to Chip Review by Nathan’s Famous for review

Nathan’s Famous Official Website

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list

BIJOU-REVIEW: De-lish-us – Cheese flavored Crunchy Curls

Rating: ©©-3/4 chips  (tolerable)

Prior to stumbling upon these Cheese flavored Crunchy Curls, as well as, these Baked Cheese Curls, we had only known Wisconsin’s De-lish-us Company for their lip-smacking potato chips.

De-lish-us’ Crunchy Curls delivered that same dense, sort of stale, crunchy bite that their Baked Cheese Curls.  Only this time it seemed more warranted with a crunchy curl, then a puff.

Good mouth coating of rich and creamy cheese powder, but the cheese lacked seasoning, aka salt.  Which is surprising based on their Baked Cheese Curls being overly salty.

All in all, we weren’t very impressed with these De-lish-us Cheese flavored Crunchy Curls.  We really wish we had gone with some of their delicious potato chips instead!

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

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

BIJOU-REVIEW: Chef’s Shoppe – Salsa Cheese Popcorn

Rating: ©©©-1/2 chips  (notable)

Anytime Chip Review’s all too generous friends bring them back the latest new popcorn creation from Chef’s Shoppe Gourmet Kitchen Store our mouths begin to water.

Unfortunately, this is not one of Chef’s Shoppe’s best offerings by a long shot….but then again it’s not fair to think that every new flavor we try from them will be as fantastically delicious as their Sriracha, or Beer, or Bacon Cheddar popcorn offerings.

Chef’s Shoppe’s Salsa Cheese flavored popcorn suffers from the same faults as a very few of their other flavors also do.

A touch too salty.  And we love salt.

Too cheesy.  Too cheesy?  Yep, that’s right, in this case the cheese powder completely overwhelms any sense of salsa flavors there may be.

Nacho Cheese in disguise.  The only other flavor that we could actually distinguish was some essence of chile pepper.  Maybe jalapeño.  Combine this with the loads of cheese, and all our minds could think was NACHO CHEESE (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just not what we were hoping for).

Of course Chef’s Shoppe’s popcorn itself was top notch as usual.  Crispy, and fresh, and expertly coated in seasoning.  But, all we were thinking the whole time we were eating this flavor was why we hadn’t just gotten bigger bags of those other great flavors mentioned above?!

Popcorn provided to Chip Review by J & V for review

Chef’s Shoppe Official Website

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list

BIJOU-REVIEW: Miss Vickie’s – Lime & Black Pepper Kettle Cooked Potato Chips

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

Aren’t Miss Vickie’s available here in the U.S.?  Yeah, we’re positive they are, but apparently Miss Vickie’s is actually a Canadian chip company that just so happened to be acquired by Frito Lay a few years back.  In other words, Frito Lay does offer a certain few of Miss Vickie’s kettle cooked potato chips throughout the U.S., but for the most part Miss Vickie’s offers their large flavor line-up in Canada.

We have tried a number of Miss Vickie’s chips over the years, but it is safe to say that these are certainly our most favorite of the bunch!

All at once salty, creamy, sour and even a touch spicy, the combination of lime and black pepper is not a flavor combo we see very often.

The black pepper is very fragrant, and permeates the nostrils; actually delivering a spicy tickle to the mouth that we don’t normally get from just black pepper.

The lime aspect doesn’t necessarily taste anything like the real green citrus fruit but more like that fake, overly acidic, tongue punch we’ve come to expect from salt and vinegar chips….and don’t get us wrong, that is not a bad thing, we often crave that flavor.

Miss Vickie’s medium-thin kettle cooked potato chips are delightfully crispy, with just a touch of greasy.

In case you were interested in a little backstory on The Real Miss Vickie.

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 JK – acquired in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Miss Vickie’s Official Website

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list

BIJOU-REVIEW: Popchips Potato Ridges – Chili Cheese

Rating: ©©©© chips  (lip-smacking)

Ever since we tasted Popchips lip-smacking Potato Ridges earlier this year we have been excited to try another flavor from this same “new” style of Ridges Popchips.  Well, finally that time has come, and the newest flavor offering is Chili Cheese.

First of all, the chili cheese flavor is not as tasty as Popchips’ cheddar & sour cream flavor.

Second of all, they are still very crunchable.

There may not be anything extraordinary about them – they don’t taste like some extra funky or tangy cheese, and they don’t use some especially unique chip flavor chili seasoning like Ancho, or Aleppo – but, overall, they are exactly what you would think, or in the end hope, they would taste like…..

Delivering an ever so slightly spicy chili flavor, with a good dashing of salty cheese powder.

Certainly savory.

And maybe a touch heavy handed with the chili powder…but then again, Popchips is making sure that there is no denying what we are tasting.

The seasoning mingles pretty well with Popchips greatest chip creation – their ridged style of potato chips.

You know what, maybe this seasoning would pair even better with some ridged corn tortilla version of PopChips that have not yet been created – but they should be!

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

Chips discovered at Jewel Osco; Clarendon Hills, Illinois

Popchips Official Website

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list