Winner, winner, chicken dinner. Two new flavours surfaced and they both resemble home-roast style with classic seasoning. The first is Roast Chicken and the second is Sea Salt and Pepper. Almost reminds me of the cooked food section at the back of every Costco where they churn out freshly-roasted meat and potato wedges.
Roast Chicken
Imitation: 8/10. Smells like Chinese salt-baked chicken with a hint of rosemary.
Desirability: 6/10. Very nice, but too salty for your own good, it makes your lips pucker.
Crunch: 7/10. It’s not objectively crunchier, but the saltiness makes it feel crunchier than it actually is.
Texture: 7/10. Plenty of powder.
Appearance: 4/10. A little too much pepper and not enough burnt bits.
Total: 32/50. Interesting, but not a vegetarian substitute for the real thing.
Sea Salt and Pepper
Imitation: 9/10. Hard to get wrong but they added too much garlic and onion powder to make it taste more like spiced salt than sea salt.
Desirability: 5/10. Bland.
Crunch: 6/10. Alright, but lacks bubbles and folds that could bump up the score.
Texture: 4/10. Flat, not much in the way of thickness or powder.
Appearance: 9/10. Black specks on potato slices, easy identification of what it is.
Total: 33/50. If you expected spiced salt, this is the flavour for you. But if you expected pure salt and pepper, you’d be disappointed.
Oven Baked Bar-B-Q
Imitation: 6/10. Don’t expect oven-baked ribs basted in sauce, expect an oven baked crisp lightly soaked in Diana sauce.
Desirability: 8/10. It’s easy to see why oven-baked varieties are a hit, they’re easier to eat in bulk.
Crunch: 7/10. It’s thicker so it has more bite than the classic Lays crisp.
Texture: 5/10. A little better than normal but feels too consistent.
Appearance: 7/10. If it were a normal oval crisp, I’d rate this higher, but they look like they all came out of the same octagonal cutter, it’s the McNugget of potato crisps.
Total: 33/50. It’s easy to eat, a lot less fat, about the same sodium, and a lot less flavor.
