On the twenty-second day of Chips to Christmas our true love gave to us……
#4
Fritos – Chorizo & Chipotle (Mexico)
If you are a fan of the funk, then you are very likely going to love these Fritos from Mexico. We stumbled upon them at a local gas station oasis, and it is probably fair to say, that we then stumbled back upon them at least another dozen times after that as well!
Rating: ©©©©-1/4 chips (lip-smacking)
These are really quite tasty chips.
After eating quite a few handfuls of these chips the heat of the chipotle chilies did begin to build.
Smoked Chipotle…? Hmmm, that’s sort of redundant isn’t it? A chipotle by nature is a smoked jalapeño. So, it is sort of like calling salt, salty, or a grilled cheese, as grilled-grilled cheese.
Overall, we have a tough time calling these CHIPOTLE flavored chips. They are certainly delicious, but we don’t think that chipotle is an accurate description of their flavor – especially the emphasis on the SMOKED.
In fact, these are some of the least smokey chipotle chips we have ever tried.
Let’s just call them some deliciously spicy BBQ potato chips.
And as usual, Herr’s fantastic kettle cooked potato chips do not fail.
Just the right amount of hearty crunch, and potato flavor.
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 Herr’s Foods for review
Chip Ratings Scale:
(1/4 increments)
© – return to sender
©© – tolerable
©©© – notable
©©©© – lip-smacking
©©©©© – “A” list
Rating: ©©©©-1/4 chips (lip-smacking)
Buck Wild just continues going buck wild with their new Buck Wild chips!
Buck Wild’s Chipotle Cheddar Popcorn was the first snack of theirs we ever tasted and reviewed. And now, Buck Wild has done what every smart snack company does, and utilized this same flavoring onto another one of their snacks!
Buck Wild’s corn tortilla chips are really very good.
Light, airy and crispy, along with delivering a hearty body to them.
The chips include a decent scattering of flax and chia seeds throughout.
Chipotle and cheese has become a fairly typical flavor combination in the crunchy snack industry.
Buck Wild’s Chipotle Cheddar is quite tasty, but much more reminiscent of a nacho cheese seasoning than anything resembling chipotle flavored.
A very salty seasoning combination packed full of bright orange cheese dust, as well as, a good melange of other zesty, complimentary ingredients.
If you are a chipotle connoisseur than you may not be impressed by these, but if you are a fan of lip-smacking cheese dusted tortilla chips, than we’re sure you are going to enjoy these!
Buck Wild’s new tortilla chips are available (we believe exclusively) at Walmarts nationwide now, or at least very soon.
As always, these are our thoughts, we would love to hear what you think. Agree or disagree, let us know.
Buck Wild chips provided to Chip Review by Buck Wild for review
Chip Ratings Scale:
(1/4 increments)
© – return to sender
©© – tolerable
©©© – notable
©©©© – lip-smacking
©©©©© – “A” list
Rating: ©©©© chips (lip-smacking)
And yet another pretty great Frito Lay Mexico find from our favorite Illinois Tollway Oasis!
We had to dig deep into the archives to make sure that these Pake-Taxo were not just another reboot Sabrita Mix of sorts, but as much as they may be similar to Sabritas Fiesta Mix, they are also slightly different.
In fact, if we were being really picky, these Pake-Taxo are just another Frito Lay’s / Sabritas snack mix reboot that simply combines preexisting snacks. Similar to the likes of Cheetos Mix-Ups, Frito Lay’s Munchies, and Doritos Mixes.
And just like with all of those other mixes, the sum of those parts are not quite as delicious as the individual items themselves.
Sabritas Pake-Taxo Mezcladito are a fun mix consisting of a sort of weird combination of three different flavors of Fritos (chile y limón, sal y limon, chorizo chipotle), some Rancheritos (aka Sabritas “Doritos” Ranchero flavor), and Cheetos Spicy/Chili-Cheese Bolitas (aka cheese balls!). Many of these different items we have tasted and reviewed individually.
For the most part the overall flavor theme sprinkled throughout this mixed bag is most definitely chile and lime, aka chile y limón.
It is blatantly apparent that the vastly abundant mix ingredient here are the Sabritones. Seriously, easily half of the bag is made up of Sabritones’ puffed wheat based, chicharrones inspired, crunchy snacks.
The rest of the mix consists of a fairly even combination of the remaining components. That being said, it was fairly difficult to distinguish the differences in flavor between the three Fritos.
We really can’t stand it when a mix cannot be enjoyed in a single harmonious handful. And yet, the individual components themselves are still lip-smacking enough on their own that we did not have any problem crunching our way through this Pake-Taxo Mezcladito!
Discovered at 7-eleven; Hwy. 294, Hinsdale Oasis, Illinois
Chip Ratings Scale:
(1/4 increments)
© – return to sender
©© – tolerable
©©© – notable
©©©© – lip-smacking
©©©©© – “A” list
Rating: ©©©-3/4 chips (notable)
Who is ready to get BUCK WILD in here?!
First things first – how eye-catching-ly, crazy, cool, and hilarious are these bags?? Now granted, Buck Wild sent us this popcorn to review, but we can only imagine that if we were walking our way down the best aisle in the grocery store, and spotted this bold black bag with a sunglasses wearing buck, we would feel obliged to take a closer look. Upon said closer look we would notice that this particular buck has the largest, or wildest, rack of antlers we have ever seen! Looks more like tree branches than it does like antlers. After a bit of a staring contest with the wild buck, we begin to feel a bit uncomfortable. What is this guy really thinking? Why exactly is he wearing those shades? Well, either way, the promise of flavored popcorn within would win us over and we would snag a bag to bring home and crunch on.
Chipotle and Cheddar may sound like, at the very least, a relatively original and wild flavor. However, a quick glance back through the records and we learned that we have tried a lot more Chipotle and Cheese flavored snacks than we had assumed. Which begs the question – when does a flavor go from being new, and wild, or unique, to no longer being foreign, and considered a staple in the flavor community? We’re not exactly sure if Chipotle and Cheese is quite there yet, but we would certainly include flavors such as Sriracha and Chile Limon/Lime.
Buck Wild’s Chipotle Cheddar Popcorn is thoroughly seasoned with a savory and zesty cheddar powder. It is certainly SALTY, and yet included a hint of sweetness! There is some heat that creeps in after a few handfuls, and it even lingers for a while. But, we do not taste any resemblance of chipotle chili flavor notes within this seasoning recipe. We enjoyed the flavorful mingling of some sort of spices, but how much, if any, actual chipotle was in there….we’re not sure because we tasted no smokey goodness.
The Buck Wild popcorn kernels we’re irregular with some big, and some little, some uniformly round, while others were oddly shaped. The kernels had a solid good body to them, with a toothsome bite, and yet they still provided a light and crispy freshness.
Although not the most accurately seasoned popcorn, we did find it notably tasty, and and easily eatable!
As always, these are our thoughts, we would love to hear what you think. Agree or disagree, let us know.
Buck Wild Popcorn provided to Chip Review by Buck Wild for review
Chip Ratings Scale:
(1/4 increments)
© – return to sender
©© – tolerable
©©© – notable
©©©© – lip-smacking
©©©©© – “A” list
Rating: ©©©©-3/4 chips (lip-smacking)
These are, far and away, without a shred of a doubt, the best Fritos we have ever, ever-ever-ever, tried! Where have you suckers been all of our life?!?
THANK YOU – Hinsdale Tollway Oasis 7-eleven gas station! If it was not for you and your little rack of Frito Lay Mexico snacks then we may have never found these fantastic corn chips! Which brings us to ask one simple question – why is this flavor not made or produced in the U.S.? Why?!? Here’s a suggestion – make these available everywhere in the U.S. And heck, while you are at it, bring back Frito Bandito – he would pair perfectly with these!
Wow, these have some real Mexican chorizo bite – an unmistakable funk, a tang, a rich & zesty sausage flavor! It’s almost as if these Fritos have been sprinkled with actual Mexican chorizo in seasoning form!
Right from the get go you can tell that these dark Fritos are bringing another level to their corn chip game. Besides the spicy aroma that permeates from the bag, grab a handful of these corn chips and they are heavy, and almost wet, or sort of greasy….kind of like chorizo.
Fritos hearty corn chips go very, very, very well with this chorizo and chipotle seasoning blend! And, come to think of it, why wouldn’t they? Corn is a major staple in Mexican cuisine, and of course it pairs perfectly with other staples like chorizo sausage and chipotle chilies!
Speaking of that other flavor component – chipotle, we don’t really taste any of this chili’s usual smokey notes. Sure there is plenty of zesty heat present, but we can neither confirm, nor deny, that it is coming from the addition of chipotles. What we can confirm is that we DO NOT CARE, because whatever this seasoning is made up of is delicious just the way it is!
Come’on Fritos! Do us a solid and put these on our U.S. shelves everywhere regular Fritos already are. And to you Fritos lovers out there, if you cross paths with these delicious chips, do not hesitate to buy every bag you see on the shelf!!
Junk Food Guy reviewed these about three years ago, and his opinion is quite different than our own. Our best guess is that his taste buds were off from too many delicious vacation margaritas!
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
Chip Ratings Scale:
(1/4 increments)
© – return to sender
©© – tolerable
©©© – notable
©©©© – lip-smacking
©©©©© – “A” list
Rating: ©©©©-1/4 chips (lip-smacking)
Hey dudes! Brew Foods!!
Probably needless to say, it is fairly easy to identify who the target audience for these chips are right? Beer drinkers… in other words, just about everyone everywhere!
According to the back of the brewski colored bag, these tortilla chip are “best paired with hoppy, fruity Pale Ales or malty, crisp Pilsners.” Now, you must remember that our field of self proclaimed expertise is chips, not brews (although we have, and do, consume our fair share of beer, we do not claim to know very much about it). So, we took a look at what we had in the old Chip Review ice box and pulled out a bottle of Ballast Point’s Pineapple Sculpin (described as an India Pale Ale with natural pineapple flavor). Sort of sounds like it falls perfectly into the “hoppy, fruity Pale Ale” category right?
We’ve said it before but we will mention it again, within the past decade or so, Chipotle has become a fairly common household name, and ingredient, among the majority of us here in the United States. Many of you may automatically conjure up visions of a football sized burrito, but the chipotles we are talking about vine ripened jalapeño chiles, that have been smoked and dried. In other words they deliver a decent amount of heat, along with a deep smoky flavor. And, for one reason or another, there are still many people out there pronouncing these chilis as ch-pull-tee! Come’on people! Say it with us now Chee-pote-ley!!
Let’s get back to the chips themselves. Well, these corn tortilla chips are pretty darn delightfully flavorful, especially for being brand-newcomers on the market. We devoured this entire bag in no time flat. We may have even had to crack open another Sculpin to quench our chip induced thirst. The seasoning blend starts out by teasing you into believing that you are tasting some good old sweeter, tomato-ful bbq chips, but then……wowsers, layers of smoky, spicy chipotle chili peppers join the party! Seriously, we don’t usually taste this much spicy heat from chipotle flavored chips, but these most certainly do bring some substantially impressive heat.
The crunchy corn tortilla chips are thinner cut, small batch, with loads of corn flavor. The chips are light, and yet deliver a substantial toothsome chew. Think more like fried tortillas, than tortilla chips with lots of air pockets. Any which way we describe them, just think tasty.
In the end we can confirm that the pairing of these two delicacies (chips and beer) was a fine choice. And, we certainly can agree that the “select savory and sweet ingredients….compliment the hop….flavors in the beer” very well! Well done Brew Foods!!
*Disclaimer: We can also concur that the chips do not go very well with red boxed wine…..but really, how could any food compete with boxed wine….we kid.
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 Brew Foods for review
Chip Ratings Scale:
(1/4 increments)
©© – tolerable
©©© – notable
©©©© – lip-smacking
©©©©© – “A” list
Chip Review 