Vinegar

REVIEW: Hardbite – Sea Salt & Vinegar Handcrafted Potato Chips

/ duthow / 3 Comments

Rating: ©©©© chips  (lip-smacking)

Hardbite - Sea Salt & Vinegar

Comments:

Hardbite’s Handcrafted Potato Chips arrived 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.”  In other words, Cascadia is a mouthful!!!

First and foremost, Hardbite is all about their, thick cut, handcrafted potato chips.  We would consider their potato chips on the medium to heavy thickness level, and despite having such a truthfully, self proclaimed, hard bite, the chips are actually not very crispy.  The chips instead exhibit a dense chewy and toothsome quality, that seems to be the result of being cut so thick, and absorbing a tad too much oil.  Luckily, the chips do not seem drastically over “oily”, they are just a slight work out for our mouths.

The potato chips exude a lot of pure and tasty potato flavor.  They remind us of eating slightly raw, fried potatoes (why this is a surprise, we don’t know, because they ARE fried potatoes).  The seasoning level is just right to let the potato flavor shine through.  With most salt and vinegar chips, the seasoning completely overpowers the potato chip balance, however, not in this case.  Hardbite’s decision to utilize a more subtle, deep, rich vinegar flavor, that doesn’t encompass too much of the sharp, tangy, slightly acidic bursts, works very well with their chips.

Hearty, tasty, Cascadian hand crafted potato chips!  We like your style!

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

Chip Ratings Scale:

(1/4 increments)

© – return to sender

©© – tolerable

©©© – notable

©©©© – lip-smacking

©©©©© – “A” list

REVIEW: Kettle Brand – Sea Salt & Vinegar Krinkle Cut Potato Chips

/ duthow / Leave a comment

Rating: ©©©–3/4 chips  (notable)

Kettle Brand - Sea Salt & Vinegar Krinkle Cut Potato Chips

Comments:

How can chips using two distinctly simple ingredients conjure so many different recipe variations??  We’re not sure, but it definitely bodes well for us!  Take for instance the Krunchers! Waves Sea Salt & Vinegar Potato Chips we recently reviewed.  On the surface they appear virtually identical to these Kettle Brand Krinkle Cut Sea Salt & Vinegar Chips.  However, truth be told, the two chips are on opposite ends of the S&V spectrum.

We have tasted quite a few bags of salt & vinegar chips over the years, and there are countless variations of the classic combo. Some use cider vinegar, while others use malt vinegar.  Some blast you away with acid, while others just kiss the chips with some sour.  In our opinion there is no one right way of doing it, as long as it is done well, and everything is in balance.

Kettle Brand’s Krinkle Cut Reduced Fat Sea Salt & Vinegar chips are another very good rendition of the classic flavor combo.  What really set these chips apart from so many other variations was the great potato flavor presence.  All too often the powerful vinegar notes completely overwhelms the potato chip essence, but not with these chips.  These potato chips taste like fried potatoes that have a liberal yet flavorfully subtle sea salt & vinegar dusting, that really lets the potato shine first and foremost.

The Krinkle Cut chips were very crunchy, and their texture seemed a touch more dense then normal.  Was the overly hard crunch a result of  reduced fat process, we’re not sure?  Either way, in our opinion they were a bit more hard than we typically like from our kettle cooked potato chips.

Although these Kettle Brand potato chips may be above average for a salt & vinegar chip, sadly they don’t rank nearly as highly among Kettle Brand’s elite potato chip line-up.

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

©©©©© – “A” list