BIJOU-REVIEW: Doritos Royal – Tandoori Chicken (Japan)

Rating: ©©©-1/4 chips  (notable)

Doritos Royal = Rich Taste Tortilla Chips….. Okay, we can buy into that.

A few weeks ago we told you that just for the heck of it we recently ordered a variety of unique flavored Japanese Doritos and Cheetos from eBay.  First review was of Doritos Black Pepper flavor – which were decent enough.  Next up is the classic Indian dish of Tandoori Chicken, getting the Doritos Royal treatment.

Now, this is a unique flavor for Doritos, and one that we’re guessing many U.S. palettes have never laid their lips on.

According to our records these mark our very first tandoori chicken flavored chips of any type.

Tandoori Chicken is a classic Indian dish, that has gained popularity throughout many parts of the world.

Opposed to flavor?  Then stay the heck away from these tortilla chips!!

We’re talking about a combination of garlic, cayenne chili, pepper, ginger, lemon, yogurt, cinnamon, cumin, coriander, and paprika.  Plus, Doritos is probably also trying to represent the chicken flavor, using a handful of other ingredients as well….. although, it is fair to say, we can’t really taste anything beyond the bold tandoori seasoning blend!

So, does the flavor work well with corn tortilla chips?  Nope, not really.  We would much rather prefer eating this comforting Indian dish at a candlelit dinner table, next to a crackling fire, on a balmy winter evening; or at the very least on real chicken, with a knife and fork.

Last little thing to make mention of is the Doritos Royal tortilla chip shape.  The edges have been rounded, which sort of makes the chips resemble a bell??  Round edges?  Are these supposed to be child safety shaped or something?  No more injuries to the tops of peoples’ mouths?  Who knows.

Well, there you have it.  Anyone else out there tried them yet?  Thoughts?  As always we would love to hear what you think.  Agree or disagree.  Let us know.

Chips purchased from market_tokyo on ebay.

Frito Lay – Doritos Japan Official Website

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REVIEW: Doritos – Black Pepper (Japan)

Rating: ©©©-3/4 chips  (notable)

Just for the fun of it we here at Chip Review recently ordered a variety of unique (aka weird) flavored Japanese Doritos and Cheetos from eBay.

First up on the reviewing docket are these Black Pepper flavored Doritos.  And, before you say anything, yes it is fare to say that these “black pepper” were the most unoriginal, or to put it another way the most safe, flavor among the bunch.

Black pepper is not an uncommon potato chip flavor here in the U.S. (we’ve reviewed a handful over the years).  Still, that being said, the flavor is not really widely used to season tortilla chips, plus the flavor is almost always accompanied by its better half – SALT.  Doritos, at least as far as we have read through the translations, has opted to label these chips as strictly ‘black pepper’, and completely forgo the salt portion of the equation.  Which begs the question….what exactly does that mean?  Have Doritos simply made the decision to not include salt in the flavor name because they assume that we know that they will be including everyone’s favorite table condiment atop their tortilla chips?  Or, has Doritos Japan actually excluded the salt from the seasoning altogether (BLASPHEMY!!!)??

Please pause for a moment to recognize the suspense we are trying to build…..

Okay, we are happy to report that Doritos has in fact included salt into the flavor equation – thank goodness!!  Hold on a second, what’s that we taste??  Yep, these chips also include a good sprinkling of sweet sugar.  So, in case black pepper flavored tortilla chips were not quite weird enough for you, we’re hoping that sweet & salty pepper chips will do the trick!  The black pepper is amply coating the chips, and provides a decently aromatic punch, along with a pleasantly spicy bite.  And, believe it or not, but the black pepper mingles quite well with the sweet and salty notes.  Nothing extraordinary, but perfectly crunchable.

The Japanese Doritos themselves are definitely smaller than our U.S. version.  But, other than that, their texture and flavor are pretty much the same.  Stay tuned for reviews of even more unique flavors like Soy Butter Sauce, Tandoori Chicken, and Seafood Stew!!

Well, there you have it.  Anyone else out there tried them yet?  Thoughts?  As always we would love to hear what you think.  Agree or disagree.  Let us know.

Chips purchased from market_tokyo on ebay.

Frito Lay – Doritos Japan Official Website

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REVIEW: Calbee – Hot & Spicy Potato Chips (Japan)

Rating: ©©©-1/4 chips  (notable)

How many of you out there love scouring the chip aisles of World Market as much as we do?  It seems like just about every time we visit the versatile store, some type of new, never before tasted, chip has appeared.  How they continue to find these unique chips from all over the world we have no idea?  Also, do people other than us actually take the risk and drop the cash to try these chips out?  Let us know.

We are always a little suspicious when we a new chip with another language on the bag that we cannot translate.  Risky, right?  What if those symbols / letters say “do not eat this bag” or “chips include shards of glass”? Being the professionals that we are, we bravely brush that risk of danger aside, dive right into that bag, and present you with our review!

At first, these hot & spicy potato chips from Calbee (Japanese based snack brand) seemed sort of muted.  Just a subtle singular note.  But, then our tongues began to adjust to these chips, and actually pick up on their layers of flavor.  So, recant our initial statement.  These are flavorful chips, with lots of depth, and flavors that take a little time to develop before they hit multiple spots of your taste buds.

These chips have a lot going on.  And when we say a lot, we mean a lot. Check out this list of some of the ingredients included in their flavor recipe: cayenne, nutmeg, paprika, garlic, onion, black pepper, oregano, turmeric, coriander, cumin, mustard, ginger, anise, clove, sugar, salt and soy sauce!!  We could actually taste, and identify a lot of those flavors including the cayenne, garlic, cumin, sugar, soy sauce, paprika and probably some nutmeg.  You would think with all of that going on, these chips would be a flavor mess, but surprisingly they are not.  Rather they are cohesive, and pretty well balanced potato chips.  Still, in the end, the flavor isn’t as exceptional as its ingredients would make you think it should be.  The potato chips themselves had a medium thickness, with a crispy crunch and plenty of folds and bends to them.

So, what’s actually wrong with chips?  Well, have you heard us mention anything about how HOT & SPICY these chips are so far??  NO! You have not.  And NO, they are not!  We just can’t stand it when a brand declares their flavor as hot, or spicy, or scorchin’, and then they don’t bring any real heat to the party!  Why the false advertising?  Calbee, you are not fooling anyone.  We appreciate the layers of flavor, and the use of a multitude of unique ingredients, but in the end we were expecting hot and spicy chips, and you didn’t deliver.  So, no matter how tasty, complex and balanced your seasoning may be, we feel sort of cheated!

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

Chips discovered at World Market; Oak Brook, Illinois

Calbee Official Website

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REVIEW: Pringles – Wasabi Mayo

Rating: ©©©© chips  (lip-smacking)

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Comments:

Here we find ourselves at the crossroads of another peculiar snack from the wonderful array of potato chips that our good friends S&A brought back from, yep, you guessed it, Japan!!  So far we have reviewed Yamayoshi’s Wasabeef , and Chip Star’ Caesar Salad potato chips.

First things first, Pringles from Japan, taste exactly the same as Pringles from the USA.  Go figure!  Same shape, same crunch, same salt and seasoning levels, as well as, same location (only on the underside) of the flavoring.  An even dusting of white creamy powder representing the mayo coated each crisp.  While just the tiniest scattering of green specs signified the wasabi.

The flavoring was spot on, but definitely too delicate and timid for our preferences – especially the wasabi aspect of the combination.  We expect, and prefer, to get a “spicy” nasal wallop when we eat wasabi chips.  Either way, pretty much everyone enjoyed them, and couldn’t stop eating them.

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

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Chip Review of the day…..

Nabisco Chip Star – Caesar Salad (we think…maybe?)

Rating: ©©-1/2 chips  (tolerable)

Comments:

All right, each year we find, (or even more likely, graciously given by wonderful individuals), some uniquely weird chips (and, more often than not, these chips arrive from some far off lands); but then there are some chips that go even BEYOND uniquely weird, to some other far off chip flavor land…..And, such is the case here with Nabisco Chip Star’s “Caesar Salad” flavored potato crisps.

We should tell you straight off that we aren’t even very certain that these potato crisps are really in fact Caesar salad flavored.  Have we mentioned yet that there is no English on the potato crisp can what so ever, except for the recognizable Nabisco trademark logo, and then the chip brand of ‘Chip Star’ (why the brand is in English is beyond us?).  So, all that being said, we must reiterate that with uncertainty that the small cartoonish caricature of what looks like a Caesar salad, may or may not be, a Caesar salad

We hate to be the bearer of bad reviews (get it?), but we are finding it very difficult to review these chips, and that’s about all there is to it.  The potato crisps come in a canister similar to that of Pringles, and their crispy texture is also very, very similar to Pringles (a lot more so than Lay’s Stax should be compared).  As for providing you with any type of flavor description for these crisps, our palettes are really stumped.  We sort of taste some sweet and savory notes, with a creamy, mayo-ish flavor, but that’s all we can say.  The flavor was actually a tad off-putting to a few of us, which was probably more so due to the unfamiliarity with this flavor combination to our mouths, and our minds, then it was because of its flavor combination.

You know that Chip Review has found some really weird chips, when we start referring to the wasabi beef flavored chips as the plain/normal ones that we reviewed from Japan.  In fact, we even scoured the internet to see if anyone out there could give us any info, or description, or insight into these Chip Star crisps, and as far as we can tell, there just isn’t……

On that note, we must sign off, and leave it up to you to chime in.  Do you agree or disagree, make sure to let us know?  Have you tried these?  Can you read Japanese?  We need your help!

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REVIEW: Yamayoshi – Wasabeef Potato Chips

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

Comments:

Yamayoshi Wasabeef happen to be the very first chips that we have tasted from the wonderful array of Japanese potato chips that our good friends S&A brought back from, yep, you guessed it, Japan!!  Now we’ve tried wasabi flavored chips before, and we’ve had beef flavored chips a handful of times, but these are the first chips we can think of that have combined the two wonderful flavors together to create a fantastically new flavor experience for us!!

Immediately, the chips’ scent conjures thoughts of savory beef, and Worcestershire sauce – can someone say “UMAMI-whammy!!  We can already tell that we like where these are headed.  Just as we thought we probably knew what to expect from these chips, they threw us a curve ball and hit our tongues with a surprisingly welcome sweetness!  Nice touch.  The sweetness was gradually followed by a slow spicy nasal burn from the wasabi root, and then everything was rounded out by a great mélange of savory-umami-meaty flavor!  We don’t think it is too far of a stretch to fitting to describe these chips as an enlightened BBQ flavor hybrid – meatiness with a unique burn. Yum!

The potato chips themselves are medium thick, smooth texture, with a soft crunch.  Most of the chips were larger in size, and surprisingly unbroken, despite traveling from the other side of the world.

These Japanese chips are so great and unique that even CNN approves!, and according to their article these chips have been around for more than 25 years!  And for another raving review, make sure to check out Crisp Nation.

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

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