Herr's Sour Cream and Onion Ripples

Price:   $3.99

Weight:   10.5 oz

Color / Appearance:   Very light.  Golden colored potato chip.  A fairly heavy coating of sour cream and onion flavor powdering.  Rather large ripples here.  I may even refer to these chips as "wavy".

Crunch:  Consistent crunch but not remarkable.  These are not a strong crunching chip.  I could easily crush a chip in between my tongue and the roof of my mouth.

Flavor:   More salty than anything.  Sour cream and onion taste is present.  But it is completely dominated by the saltiness.

Chip Quality:   Lots of broken chips.  Possibly due to the lack of structural strength in these chips.

Overall:  Much too salty here.  I wish that these chips were about fifty percent less salty.  I like to taste the flavors that are advertised on the packaging.  Potatoes and Sour Cream and Onion.  All I taste here is salt.  I will give the benefit of the doubt and say that this level of saltiness appeals to a group of chip eaters.  Maybe that is "Farmer Herr's" (see picture on the back of the bag) target audience here.  But for my tongue.  And my incredibly sophisticated chip tasting powers.  These chips are not very good.

Terrel's Dinosaur Ripple Style Bar-b-cue

Price:   $3.19

Weight:   9oz

Color/Appearance:  Light golden brown ripple potato chip with a very light coating of red/orange barbecue flavor.  Medium size chips.

Crunch:  Great crunch; strong chips.

Flavor:  Tasty.  Very light barbecue flavoring.  I might even go as far as saying "just a hint of barbecue flavoring".  Just the right amount of salt.

Chip Quality:  Excellent.  Not many broken chips.

Overall:  Count me a lover of the lightly flavored chip.  Don't kill me with the flavor.  I want to taste the potato in the chip.  I can here.  The people down at Terrell's have it right with their BBQ.   Now excuse me while I finish off the rest of the bag!  Special thanks to Kari and Scott Cloutier for bringing me the bag.

PopChips Sour Cream and Onion Flavor

Most of my review of the Popchips product can be read here:

http://crunchingman.blogspot.com/2010/09/popchips-original-flavor.html

Overall:   I love eating these chips.  But I dont think that the sour cream and onion flavoring adds a whole lot to your overall snacking experience.  It is a tasty flavoring though and if you are a huge fan of the flavor type.  Then have at it.  I prefer the plain flavor

Popchips Original Flavor

Price:  $4.99


Weight:   11 oz


Appearance:   Golden colored chips.  Circular in shape.  A little bit thicker than your typical fried potato chip.


Crunch:   These chips have a different crunch tan a fried or a baked chip.  I must say though.  It is a very enjoyable texture.  And the crunch is very much there.  Just different than what I am used to.


Flavor:   Great potato flavor.  Tastes just like a normal potato chip.  They got the salt level on these chips just right.


Overall:   Two thumbs up!!!  Go and get a bag right away.  These things are as healthy for you as a baked chip.  But they may be even more pleasurable to eat than a fried chip.  They are popped.  That is how they are cooked.  I have no idea how that is done.  I don't care how that is done.  I just want to eat these chips continuously forever.

Blue Ginger Multi-Grain Brown Rice Chips Black Sesame and Sea Salt

Price:   $5.49

Weight:   14 oz

Appearance:  Round chips.  The majority of these chips is a yellow / brownish color.  There are black specks spaced throughout the chip.

Crunch:   Decent crunch.  Different than your typical snack chip crunch.

Flavor:   Very salty.  A little bit of a rice flavor.  But I am not tasting any sesame here.

Chip Quality:   Good consistency here.  Not many broken chips to speak of.

Overall:   These chips are not a stand alone snack.  They are a dip vessel.  I used hummus.  And they are great for that purpose.  But I would not buy a bag of these to munch on while I watched football.  Wish they were a bit less salty.  If I am going to be doing the whole health food thing.  I would like to keep my blood pressure within some safe parameters.

Sun Chips French Onion Flavor

Price:  $3.79

Weight:   10.5 oz

Appearance:   Golden colored with darker brown specks.  Square shaped chips with rounded waves.  Rather than ridges.

Crunch:   Good crunch.  Similar to a fried tortilla chip.  But a bit different.  Better crunch than a baked chip.

Flavor:   Sort of a multi grain flavor.  But tasty.  A hint of sour cream and onion flavoring.  Not overwhelming.  But really adds to the flavor experience

Chip Quality:   Great quality here.  Very consistent chips with very few broken chips.  Few crumbs at the bottom of the bag.

Overall:   Love them.  Not sure if they are actually any healthier than a fried tortilla chip.  But they have a healthy feel to them.  And I like that!  They are a bit of a unique product.  In that I have never had any snack chip that is really similar.  Must be mentioned that these chips come in a bag that you could put into your compost heap.  And it will break down in a couple of years.  I don't have a compost heap.  So I threw the bag in the garbage.

Utz Onion and Garlic Flavored Potato Chips

Price:   $1.59

Weight:  3.5 oz.

Color / Appearance:   A light colored potato chip.  A few dark brown spots on some of the chips.  The flavoring powder is not obviously visible on the surface of the chips.

Crunch:   These chips are cut very thin.  But the crunch is there and adequate.

Flavor:   Great flavor!  I wouldn't say that it was necessarily an accurate onion and garlic flavor.  But I am not sure that I would want that anyway.  The amount of onion and garlic flavoring is in just the right place.  It is in the forefront of your first and last crunch.

Chip Quality:  Not many broken chips in the bag.  Maybe 25% at the most.  Also all of the chips in this bag are a good snacking size.  No giant chips here that wouldn't fit into your mouth.

Overall:   Love these chips!  I seriously polished off this bag in 15 minutes.  These are the type of chips that have you pouring the last of the crumbs into your mouth when the bag is done.  I guess that I would say the only downside to this bag of chips was the size.  I finished too quickly.  But.  No problem there they are available in the "Family Size" as well!

Doritos Blazin' Buffalo and Ranch

Price:   $3.99 for a 12 oz. bag

Color / Appearance:  Triangular cut tortilla chips.  Well coated with an orange flavoring powder.

Flavor:   No actual buffalo flavoring could be detected.  There was a heat that built up on your tongue after a few chips.  A slight aftertaste of ranch was barely there.  Have to note that after eating several chips my mouth developed a sort of paste like feeling at the back of my throat.

Chip Quality:   Excellent.  These chips were very uniform in size and crunch.

Overall:  These are not very good chips.  I feel like Doritos are heavily reliant on the flavoring that they put on their chips.  Their chips do not posses a stand alone quality.  So for them to put out a chip that offers heat and very little else.  Makes for a poor snacking experience.  One of the signs to me of a great chip.  Is how many of them I will eat before rolling up the bag and putting them in the cabinet.  Sometimes I will eat an entire bag.  If the chips are good.  This bag is already back in the cabinet.

Kettle Brand Krinkle Cut Potato Chips Cheddar & Sour Cream

Price:   $3.99

Weight:   9oz

Appearance:  A ridged potato chip cooked to a golden color.  The very outer edges of some chips are a much darker brown.  A very light orange flavoring powder is sprinkled on the chips.  But it blends well with the chip color and is not really coating the chip.

Crunch:   Good consistent crunch from chip to chip.

Flavor:   A light and accurate sour cream and cheddar taste to the first few crunches.  Not overpowering.  The aftertaste is of potato chip and not of flavoring.  A very light saltiness is there but also in the background.

Ingredients: A glance at the ingredients brought me a bit of a surprise. Besides potatos and oil. The ingredients were all names I recognized. No strange dyes. Or preservatives. Basically they used cheddar cheese and sour cream to flavor these chips. No wonder the have an authentic flavor.

Overall:   I was initially unhappy with these chips.  I was wondering.  Why make a flavored chip and go light on the flavoring?  But after crunching a few more chips I realized.  These people must be happy with the way their chips taste when the chips leave the oil.  They don't want to or need to overpower you with the sour cream and cheddar flavoring.  Why?  Because the product is good without it.  They are just attempting to enhance your experience a bit.  Those are your first few crunches.  But then take you back where they wanted you to be in the first place.  Which is tasting a good potato chip.

Check out their website at:  http://www.kettlefoods.com/

Cape Cod Kettle Cooked Potato Chips

So here is my first foray into the world of snack review.  I asked my wife to pick me up a bag of chips at the grocery store for me to review.  She came back with these.

Opening the Bag:  The bag used for containing these chips is just about right in the difficulty in opening department.  Just a good firm pull gets the bag open. 

Appearance:   The color and appearance of these chips is very consistent and appealing.  A perfect golden brown with just a hint of a darker brown on some of the edges.  There doesn't appear to be any burnt chips in the bag.  I should also point out that these are a consistently small potato chip.  The largest chip you will find in the bag will fit easily into your mouth.

Crunch:  These are some crunchy chips.  They definitely fall into the kettle cooked genre of chip.  The crunchiness is very consistent from chip to chip.

Flavor:   We found these chips to be very tasty. They are just the right amount of oil and salt.  The salt is a tad lighter than you will find in most salted potato chips.  But the amount of salt they use allows you to actually taste a hint of potato in the chips.

Chip Quality:   Excellent.  Very few broken chips.  Even the ones left at the bottom of the bag.  Perhaps this is because of the small chip diameter.  And the thick kettle cut style.

Ingredients:   Potatoes, canola oil and salt.

Final thoughts:   Love these chips.  Some of the best unflavored chips on the market today.  I really feel like Cape Cod Potato Chips are to potato chips what Samuel Adams is to beer.  A New England upstart.  That has elbowed its way to a prominent position in the snack food aisle of the grocery store.  Not with advertising money.  But with quality ingredients and a great final product. 

Check out their website at  www.capecodchips.com .