Style: India's Magic Masala
Origin: India
Type: Potato chips
Flavor: Indian sweet and spicy with a kick
Verdict: Approved!
Ah, how I love friends from faraway places. Well, Pittsburgh isn't really all that exotic, but my friend there has a source for zany snacks and just sent me a huge box of them for the holidays! Merry Christmas and Happy Channukah to me!
The first selection I tried from the box was one that came most highly reccommended from my friend: Lay's India's Magic Maslala chips. They taste somewhat like I imagined they would - like Indian food, but they've got a real kick that I wasn't expecting! The flavor is more complex than a lot of American styles. First of all, the potato taste is good, strong, and definitely a better quality than American Lay's. It's emphasized with a thicker, ridged cut, similar to Ruffles.
The spice on it taste very Indian, and I don't have a cultured enough pallette on Indian food to draw comparisons more than that, unfortunately. I eat it often, but I just get whatever the special is at my local lunch cart and don't really pay attention to what any of it is called. I can taste a sweet undertone at first (likely from the 'artificial raisin flavoruring substances' toted on the back of the bag), then the spicy and the salty flavors come in. It has a slow burn, dying down after the initial shock, then sitting at the back of your tongue for a few minutes. My nose is even running a little after having a handful of these.
The bag says that they'll make my heart go, 'DHAK DHAK!', but I wouldn't necessarily go that far. They do make my tongue happy, however, and I'd definitely get these again if I saw them at a market here in town. Approved!