I Eat Snacks: Lay's Passport to Flavor Video Review and Giveaway!!

Brand: Lay's
Style: Passport to Flavor
Origin: United States
Type: Potato Chips
Flavor: Indian Tikka Masala tastes amazing, the rest are good to not very good
Verdict: Approved (except for the Chinese Szechuan Chicken)

OH EM GEE SNACKIES!!!  I am officially launching my video taste tests!!!  This project has been in the works in my snacktastic little brain for literally years, and in reality for several months, so I cannot even express how freaking excited I am right now to be sharing this with you all!  I LOVE snacks so much and all I have ever wanted to do is share my love with the world...so hello world, here I am!  Love me!  Eat snacks with me! <3

To celebrate the launch of my new show and of the new channel I will be featured on, Querd Collective, I'm having a giveaway!  Enter below to win not only a full set of the Lay's Passport to Flavor chips, but another special snackie prize that will be announced in next week's video!  What will it be?!  Who knows?!?!  I do!  But I'm not telling :D

First off, though, the moment you have really been waiting for...my Lay's Passport to Flavor review!  Every summer I get really stoked because Lay's always has some kind of weird flavor promotion going on.  The past few years, it's been the Do Us A Flavor contest where you get to vote on a new flavor, but this year, they are featuring four globally-inspired flavors.  I'm really excited because these were actually better than a lot of the Do Us A Flavor entries.  The flavors were stronger and felt much more inspired.

The worst flavor, by far, was the Chinese Szechuan Chicken.  It smelled like the bathroom after you've eaten too much Chinese food, if you catch my drift, and the taste wasn't much better.  It was minimally spicy, and just had a very heavy, meaty, soy sauce type flavor.  Somehow, it was complex yet boring all at the same time...really difficult to manage that, but they did it, and it was not a good.  Womp-womp.

The best flavor was the Indian Tikka Masala.  It was SO GOOD!  It smelled like the inside of an Indian restaurant in the best way.  The taste is divine.  They are in the running for my favorite chip flavor ever, and if you know me at all, you should know that is a big freaking deal!  There is a dish called Aloo Gobi that I get fairly often at my favorite Indian restaurant that's made of potatoes and cauliflower and these chips taste just like that.  I've never actually eaten tikka masala, so I can't speak for whether it tastes just like that, but it doesn't matter, because these are so, so, so good!

The Brazilian Picanha chips were also pretty tasty, although not quite as much as the masala.  These are supposed to taste like steak and chimichurri, and they didn't quite nail it, but they got pretty darn close.  The steak flavor is pretty incredible - you can definitely taste the smoky meat flavor throughout the whole bite, but the chimichurri is a little less potent.  I would have loved for these to have more of the herbal, sour, and spicy flavors of chimichurri to come through more.

Finally, the Greek Tzatziki chips - these were also pretty good.  Tzatziki is a Greek dip made of yogurt, cucumbers, dill, and garlic, and for these chips, the strongest flavor was by far cucumber.  They tasted like Bath and Body Works cucumber melon spray, but not really in a bad way.  There's a slightly sour undercurrent representing the yogurt, and at the end of the bite, you can taste the spices a little bit.

So basically, if you can get a hold of these before they all fly off the shelves, grab for the Indian ones first!!  And whatever you do, don't get the Chinese ones unless you're just looking to taste all of them.  Or do, if you like soy sauce?  *shrug*

If you would like to see the video version of this review, here it is!

Anyway, on to other important things, like my giveaway!!  All the prizes are being provided by me, this isn't sponsored or anything, it's all out of the goodness of my snacky little heart!  Here it is:

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Thanks for reading and thanks for watching!!

Lay's Kettle Cooked Cream Cheese & Chive

Brand: Lay's
Style: Kettle Cooked Cream Cheese + Chive
Origin: United States
Type: Chips
Flavor: Unsurprisingly similar to sour cream and onion, but slightly better somehow?
Verdict: Approved




Hi snackies!  Sorry for the radio silence.  I was promoted at my job recently, so I have unfortunately had less time to tell you all about the glorious (and less glorious) snacks that I've been eating lately.  I've got some goodies to tell you about though, it will just be a little bit slow going.

To start things off, here's a quick review of some new Lay's I picked up.  These are from the Kettle Cooked line, which I actually hadn't tried yet, believe it or not!  I tend to stray from anything marked "low fat," because why would I want low fat when I can have high fat, right?  However, the flavor called to me, and I couldn't resist picking one of these up!  What can I say, I'm a sucker for anything creamy and herby!

I wasn't expecting much from these.  I figured they would be dry and have the faintest taste of sour cream and onion, but I was wrong!  Sort of.  They are less greasy than the regular Lay's chips, but in a really good way!  Yes - you heard it here first, folks - I am actually praising the benefits of having a lower fat chip!  What is this world coming to?!

Aside from being less greasy, the texture of the chips was also better than regular Lay's.  I get a bit sad eating them sometimes because the regular chips are so thin and sad.  These, being kettle cooked, were nice and thick and crunchy!  Yeah!  Taste-wise, yes, they were nearly identical to sour cream and onion, but I love sour cream and onion, so...no problems there.  Ironically, sour cream was listed higher in the ingredients than cream cheese, and onions were listed higher than chives.  Go figure.

In conclusion, these were like a super awesome leveled-up version of sour cream and onion.  Yeah!  *insert Mario mushroom noise here*  Highly recommended and good(er than the regular kind) for you!

Country Chips 2fer Special! Kettle Thick+Bold Carolina BBQ and Lay's Southern Biscuits and Gravy

Brand: Lay's
Style: Southern Biscuits and Gravy
Origin: United States
Type: Chips
Flavor: Legit biscuits and gravy!  The new and improved flavor is great!
Verdict: Approved!

Brand: Kettle
Style: Thick + Bold Carolina BBQ
Origin: United States
Type: Chips
Flavor: Beanie weenie.
Verdict: Unsure...they kind of grow on you, but so does a fungus...



My partner and I recently went on a road trip and of course, road trip = snack time!!  No good vacation is complete without some fun new snacks!  We made a pit stop at our usual halfway point between Portland and Seattle (Centralia, WA), and found a couple of country-flavored chips.  My partner was extremely happy to find that their favorite chips from last summer's Lay's flavor contest had made the cut: Southern Biscuits and Gravy - and to boot, they were now being sold in a small bag!  That was a no-brainer for their road snack.  

I had a bit more difficulty finding something to snack on, but I finally settled on the new Kettle Thick + Bold Carolina BBQ chips.  I don't get BBQ too often because I'm kind of picky and it feels a bit, you know...pedestrian for my refined palette, but what the hey, I was on vacation!  I should have listened to my gut and gone with something more adventurous, pun somewhat intended, but that's neither here nor there.

First - you might recall that I didn't care too much for the Lay's Do Us A Flavor options this past summer.  I felt that the flavors I would have liked were wimpy and sad and the others were just not good.  The Biscuits and Gravy, in particular, was a let down because it had a lot of potential and fell very, very flat.  But you may now dry your tears, snackfriends, because Lay's has kicked it up several notches in the new batch!  Just opening the bag smells like fresh biscuits, and each bite offers a peppery punch that makes you feel like you're back at Bob Evans, tossing down a big ol' plate of sausage gravy smothered biscuits.  Thank you, Lay's!

Unfortunately, the Kettle Carolina BBQ didn't fare so well.  At first, well, let's just say "bold" is not the first word that came to my mind.  "Bland," "uninspired," and "odd-in-a-bad-way," perhaps, but definitely not "bold."  

Snackies, do you ever get that feeling where you just know you have a sensory memory tucked waaaay back in one of your brain files, but you just can't quite reach it?  That taste or smell is so, so familiar, but it's from so far back that you just can't quite place it?  That's exactly what I was feeling as I was munching on these in the car.  Finally, I shouted out, "BEANIE WEENIE!" as my partner was in mid-sentence talking about something totally not food-related, which was really rude of me, but that is exactly what these chips taste like!  (For those of you who are not from the midwest or the south where beanie weenie is a thing, it's a kids' camp type food where you slice up hot dogs and mix them with canned baked beans.)  

Perspective is a big thing, so had these chips been marketed as being beanie weenie flavored, I would have been like, "Dang!!! Kettle knows their stuff!!  These taste perfect!"  However, expecting a mature Carolina BBQ and getting cheap camp food left me sad and disappointed in these.  Womp womp.

Purchased at AM/PM in Centralia, WA

Lay's Smoked Gouda and Chives

Brand: Lay's
Style: Smoked Gouda and Chives
Origin: United States
Type: Potato Chips
Flavor: Like Cheddar and Sour Cream and Sour Cream and Onion had a baby
Verdict: Approved, I guess




These chips are actually what finally inspired me to start this blog back up again!  Currently, Lay's is running a contest where they pit new and old chip flavors against each other.  People taste the new and the old, then vote on the website for the one they like better.  There are four different flavors - 2 spicy ones (not gonna touch these), 2 BBQ (Honey BBQ vs. Korean BBQ), 2 Kettle Cooked (Sea Salt & Cracked Pepper vs. Olive Oil & Herbs), and 2 cheese flavors (Cheddar & Sour Cream vs. Smoked Gouda and Chives).  I thought it would be great to do one of these Lay's challenges to jump back in the snack game!  I tried some of the summer contest flavors back in August (Biscuits and Gravy, Reuben, and Gyros) and was somewhat underwhelmed, but I picked up this bag of Smoked Gouda & Chives, hoping that these guys would live up to the really, really delicious sounding name.  The ones I *actually* wanted to try were the Korean BBQ, but sadly, they seem to be sold out everywhere in my area.

Anyhoodles...on to the chips!  They're...ok.  Pretty underwhelming, really.  It's not that they taste *bad*, per se.  It's just that there's nothing exceptional or different about them.  They taste about 30% Cheddar and Sour Cream (which they are positioned to replace, if they win the contest) and 70% Sour Cream and Onion.  If the contest were to vote on these vs. Sour Cream and Onion, I would definitely say these are the superior chip, but I think Cheddar and Sour Cream is actually a better option than these.  Also, despite the fact that these are supposedly smoked gouda, there is very little smoky taste to them, and they aren't particularly gouda-y either.  They just taste like any other generic cheese-flavored snack, except with an onion finish.

All in all, these are a pretty big WOMP-WOMP if you are expecting some bold new flavor.  Lay's, step up your game!  Stop making such weenie, boring chips!  To be honest, after how bored I've been with all of these new flavors, I think I might stop buying Lay's chips altogether.  There are so many other, more exciting brands to choose from.  What are y'all's favorites?
Purchased at Fred Meyer in Portland, OR 

Lay's India's Magic Masala Chips

Brand: Frito Lay
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!

Purchased in Pittsburgh, PA