Zapps Limited Edition Voodoo Gumbo

I have already heard such great things about Zapp’s, but this is one of my first chances to actually sit down and have a taste.  These chips have a very unique taste to them.  I taste a mix of sweet onion and BBQ with every crunchy bite, and something else that I can’t just place.  According to the bag itself, “Voodoo Gumbo flavor is a result of an accident.  An employee was moving a pallet of spices off the top shelf and dropped it.  While cleaning up, someone stuck their finger into the mixtureo f about 5 flavors and announced it great.”  I couldn’t agree more.  These chips have a mild, sweet BBQ flavor that I just can’t get enough of.   Although there is slightly more grease than I care for in the bag, most of that grease doesn’t carry over to the chips themselves.  And the amount of crunch that they have is what you would expect from a kettle cooked chip, or in the case of Zapps, Cajun Kettle Cooked.  Overall, here’s hoping they are able to put these into a more permanate rotation in their stock, or at least start introducing more limited edition chips of this caliber.  And give the guy who had the accident a promotion!  Anybody that can have an accident that tastes this good could do wonders if he was trying!

Kettle Brand Death Valley Chipolte

I believe this is first of the Kettle Brand chips that we have had the chance to review, which is a slight shame as kettle cooked chips are some of my favorite chips due to their extra crunch and flavor they provide.

I wasn’t sure what to expect with a name like Death Valley Chipolte, but was ready for whatever they brought to me.  The first thing that hit my taste buds was the taste of black pepper, followed immediately by the sweet and smoky chipolte taste.  I wasn’t sure after the first chip, so I went back and tried again.  Yup.  Black pepper is the first taste and what seems to be generating the “heat” of the chip.  While not an all together bad taste, it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting when I bit into the chips.

While I do prefer kettle cooked chips, and not a bad flavor to these, I can’t help but rate these as just an average chip overall.

Doritos Toro Habanero

Wow.  Let me just start with, Wow. I wasn’t sure what to expect with these, especially after the Doritos Diablo Enchilado that I picked up with these at the 7-Eleven.  Would they be hot? What they have flavor? Would they disappoint?

At first bite, there is a distinct habanero flavor.  Subtle, but there, along with a slight bit of nacho cheese.  The heat however, is milder than what I expected.  And thats where it gets you.  Eating one, isn’t bad.  Eating a couple in a row, is ok.  It’s when you continue throwing them in your mouth that it catches up on you and really drops the heat bomb on you.  Not an unbearable heat, but enough where not only could I taste it, but I could feel it.  It is a kick in the throat and I could ALMOST feel myself start to sweat a little bit while I was eating these. But I can’t stop eating them, they are that good.

The crunchiness is the standard Dorito fair, along with the greasiness.

Overall, these are a very good hot chip, that not only uses habanero to say it is a hot chip, but actually has the TASTE of habanero in it.  If you are a fan of hot chips, and can find these in your area, then by all means, give them a shot.

Jimmy Johns Jimmy Chips Salt & Vinegar

I never even thought of hitting up my local Jimmy John’s sub shop for their chips, until ThrallMind mentioned it the other day.  So of course, the next time I had some Jimmy John’s, I had to grab some chips.  And none better than one of my favorite flavors, but Salt & Vinegar.

My love of salt & vinegar chips comes from when I lived in England as a child. I loved them, but when I came back to the United States, they were nowhere to be found.  Until Lays was kind enough to bring them to the states years later (THANK YOU LAYS!).

The first thing that always hits me when opening a bag of salt & vinegar chips is the smell.  That familar bite in my nose that lets me know that there is vinegar present.  And these chips do not disappoint.  The tell tale smell of vinegar compliments the delicious taste of the vinegar as you bite into the chips.  And the vinegar is perfectly balances by the salt on these chips.  While the balance is there and it tastes very good, there isn’t enough vinegar on the chips for my tastes.  I prefer a little more bite in my salt and vinegar.

One of the things that does stand out about these chips is the grease.  Not only is there a visable residue on your fingers when eating, but the inside of the bag is coated in the shiny substance.   Not an all together bad thing, but it is definatly something to lprepare for.

Overall, a downright plesant tasting chip that I will most likely order the next time I get some Jimmy John’s subs.  If you can, I recommend them to any Salt & Vinegar chip fan.

Doritos Diablo Enchilado

Now this is something I wasn’t expecting during my trip to 7-Eleven for a slurpee.  Two flavors of Doritos that I had never seen before.  These, and Doritos Toro Habanero, which will be reviewed a little later.

First off, the color.  Red.  Flat out, the flavoring is red.  This, with a name like Diablo has me a little worried.  And did I mention it has the face of the devil on the package?

But apon actually tasting them, I really didn’t feel the heat.  But the taste? The first thing that comes to my mind is the taste of lime.  Yes, lime.  Not what was expected, but not all together bad.  The next was a small salsa taste.  This took a little bit to figure out because the lime was just so overpowering for the rest of the chip. The last taste I was

Doritos Diablo Enchilado Devil

able to find was the smallest hint of cheese.  So how do all these flavors come together?  Not too bad actually.  While not a big fan of lime, it wasn’t too bad when teamed with the other flavors in the bag.  Does it taste like an enchilada?  Unfortunately, no, but the flavor is does bring is very enjoyable.  If you happen to see these laying around somewhere, then give them a try as something different.

Also, be prepared to get some red fingers while eating these.  The flavoring comes off very easily, and turns your digits red.

One more small note about these.  While I found there to be no heat, my wife on the other hand, said they were too hot for her.  I am going to rate these as heat, but give them a very small heat rating due to not being able to detect the heat myself.

Archer Farms Smoky Bacon & Cheddar Baked Crisps

Wow.  Now that’s a name.  First thing to remember is that this is a potato crisp, and not a potato chip.  Now that that is out of the way, the chips, er, I mean crisps.

The smell is the first thing that got me.  These smell of Bacos, which actually makes perfect sense to me.  But then the taste, matches the smell.  Bacos.  Well, not quite.  Bacos covered in processed cheese powder.  But maybe that much is to be expected?  Unfortuantely, Bacos is not exactly bacon.  In fact, it is nowhere close to being bacon.  However, while these chips don’t manage to give you the taste of bacon, they do manage to give you the salt of bacon.  With a processed cheese taste.  So what we really have here is Salty Almost Cheddar Smells Like Bacos Baked Potato Crisps.  For some reason, I don’t think that flavor would sell very well.  In fact, I don’t think it would sell at all.  Which is what these crisp should be.  Not sold.  It is very rare that I find a chip, crisp, or any other item that I don’t like, but in this case, it stands out as an exception.

Yes, there is the standard baked crisp crunch, and lack of grease, both good.  But without a taste, they belong back on Archer Farms.

Archer Farms Parmesan Garlic

Ah, another day, another chip.  Something about these Archer Farms chips makes me feel like I’m eating a higher class chip than I really am.  Maybe it’s the logo.  Maybe it’s the package.  Who knows?  I do love the fact the bags are reclosable like a ziplock bag.

But this isn’t about me, it’s about the chips.  In this case, a Parmesan Garlic chip.  The problem with cheese chips is that they normally come off tasting like some processed cheese product.  And this case is no different.  While the chips have a light cheese taste, I struggle to find the parmesan taste, and even the garlic taste.  In fact, without looking at the bag, it passes as sour cream and onion in a blind test.  A far cry from the advertised parmesan garlic they are supposed to be.  While not an unpleasant taste, it isn’t exactly what was expected.

And while these are kettle cooked chips, they lack the crunch you expect from a good kettle cooked chip.  Still better than your usual chip, but not up to par with the rest of the kettle cooked products I have tasted.

Over all, these chips were a disappointment to me, mainly due to the fact that the taste just doesn’t live up to its expectations.

And remember, if you have tried these chips, leave your own review in the comments, and give them your own overall rating by rating the review.

Blairs Death Rain - Habanero

Guest Review: Emory Dawson

So, my friend here hands me this bag of chips that he’s too afraid to try. Wuss.  The bag says it is rated “hot”, and is Habenero flavored, and sure enough it is one of the ingredients listed.  After opening the bag, they didn’t smell too hot, and were reminiscent of barbecue flavored chips.  My friend hands me a glass of milk, and I eat the first chip.  Pretty good, I say to myself, very flavorful.  Not too hot.  Good crunch.  Upon the ingestion of several more chips, my mouth ignites in a delightful flame of burning, which the milk helps quell.  A couple more chips later, and I had a small coughing fit, as my throat was tickled by the spices..  Due to the compounded intensity of each successive chip, I was unable to finish the bag of chips.  I would recommend this to anyone who loves really hot or spicy food, because the bag does not lie when it says it is rated hot.

*Editor Note*  Emory also added comments to the ratings, so I’ll show those below.

Tastiness: Very tasty, but must be eaten slowly to avoid excessive burning
Crunchiness:  Good crunch.
Heat: Hot.  Advise caution, especially to asthmatics.
Greasiness: Similar to Barbecue chips, these leave spicy residue upon your fingers after eating them.  Due to the nature of these chips, wash your hands before rubbing your eyes.
Overall: Unless you are a lover of spicy foods, these are more of a novelty.  Unless you are a masochist, makes a poor snack food.

Blairs Death Rain - Cheddar

This was the first chip I ever tried of Blair’s line.  It was pretty good.  It’s flavour definitely lives up to its name: Cheddar.  And very cheddar tasting it is.  However, it tastes like a processed cheese flavouring, rather then an actual cheese taste.  This was slightly disappointing considering how amazingly delicious the other chips are.

The heat in these chips are very apparent with the first bite.  Unlike some of the other flavours where the heat creeps up on ya, you will feel it right away with Cheddar.  These chips are just as crispy as the others in Blair’s line.  Kettle crunchy goodness.

It does have an orange packaging, and that happens to be my favourite color, so this chip gets bonus points for that.  Though, I can’t out of good conscience take that into consideration of my overall rating of the chip.

All in all, it’s a fairly solid chip and delivers on what it is marketed as: A spicy cheddar chip.

Doritos - Late Night Tacos At Midnight

One word describes the flavour of these chips.  Amazing.  Doritos put out a line of Late Night chips.  The intention was to emulate the flavours of snacks you would get when you visit a bar or pub after hours.  The  two I have seen are Tacos, and Jalapeno poppers.  I originally found these in my campus bookstore.

I know Doritos chips are usually very spot on with their flavours, but I was not expecting just how closely these would taste to real tacos.  On my first bite, it was exactly like biting into a taco.  You can taste the spicy beef, the lettuce, the cheese, the tomato, and the hard, crunchy taco shell.  I kid you not, with the exception of texture, you would not be able to tell the difference between a real taco (Say, from Taco Bell) and these.  I haven’t done it myself, but I’m sure putting a bunch of these out with some sour cream will give you the full taco experience, without having an actual taco.

I highly recommend these chips to anyone who loves tacos, chips, or both.  Heck, I recommend these chips to everybody.  They sit fairly high on my list of favourites.  I cannot understate just how much deliciousness is packed into each and every single bite of this crispy corn concoction.