Chip Review: Quesabritas

Wordplay

This one may be extra clever: I'm not sure if its a play on "que sabrita" which would mean like "how flavorful!", or "quesa brita", which sounds like it involves cheese and brightness. Perhaps the Quesabrita marketing team is really good and they both work; my Spanish isn't strong enough to say.

Half eaten bag of "Your Snack" Quesabritas

Review

Sadly, we had these so long ago that I barely remember. Melissa says they were amazing, like Planters Cheese Balls (are those still around?).

They were just what they looked like, cheesy little puffs like a cheese ball. It's hard to go wrong.

Rating

• Adam: 4/5
• Melissa: 4.5/5

Chip Review: Doritos Incógnita

Apparently Doritos are feminine, or else these would be Doritos Incógnito. Who knew?

Doritos Incógnita

Review

I'm thinking the gimmick here is that it's a surprise flavor. That surprise seemed to be curry flavor, heavy with turmeric and other spices you'd find in a curry ramen (my least favorite type of curry, but Melissa managed to eat some of these without complaint!)

The overwhelmingly limey finish that is pervasive in Mexican chips didn't skip this one, so you have to keep eating them to taste anything but citric acid and corn for a while. I bought these at a gas station food stop halfway between Oaxaca and Mexico City, so we had some questionable room temp cemitas with mayonnaise to chase down the lime and corn.

Overall, interesting but can't touch a normal Nacho Cheesier red bag of Doritos.

Rating

• Adam: 2/5
• Melissa: 2/5

Chip Reviews: Crujitos and Submarinos Choco Bun

Wordplay

Crujiente means crispy in Spanish, so these means something like "little crispies".

Crujitos!

They were actually a huge departure from most Mexican chips, and a welcome one. They have the shape of thick fusilli, and as the name suggests they are crunchy (what chip isn't?). We ate this as our late night snack while watching the season 7 premiere of Game of Thrones on our travel laptop, so thank you to Crujitos for being there for that special moment!

The bag advertised queso and chile and I suppose I got that. I thought the flavor was kind of mild, not nearly as salty and flavor powder drenched as Cheetos. It's basically your standard "orange" chip flavor but with a bit of chipotle tang as well.

Because they don't make you compulsively eat more like many chips, they're kind of forgettable, but maybe that's a good quality in a chip? Seems like less of a health risk anyway.

Rating

• Adam: 3.5/5
• Melissa: 4/5

Bonus snack: Submarinos Choco Bum

This was a sweet snack supplement to our Game of Thrones chips. I have a soft (spongy?) spot for Twinkies so naturally I can't pass up a chocolate Mexican Twinkie.

I had hoped that since these were refrigerated they'd be a fresher and more "natural" tasting than Twinkies. They were but not: the bread was bone dry (better than "Twinkie greasy"), and while the chocolate cream filling was good there wasn't nearly enough of it. I didn't feel any better after eating these than I would after Twinkies either.

These came in a three pack; I tried one at the bus station where I bought it so I'd have a bite cold, as intended. But it didn't make any difference when I ate the other two at room temp a few hours later. Although edible, there's really no reason to ever buy Submarinos again unless it's the only sweet snack available or I really need a Twinkie taste.

Rating

• Adam: 1/5
• Melissa: 1/5

Chip Review: Ruffles "Queso"

There's not a whole lot of detail to go into on something as simple as "Ruffles" and "Queso". It's exactly the Ruffles chips you'd expect with a slight variation on flavor than any I've seen in the US. To me, the Queso flavoring tasted a bit like Kraft Mac-N-Cheese, along with normal generic chip factory MSG type flavors.

Overall not bad, but completely uninspired. This is the Mexican chip equivalent of orange ruffles in the US; I guess Cheddar?

Ratings

Adam: 3.5/5
Melissa: 3/5

Chip Review: Airplane Snacks!

Airplane Food!  While a lot of airlines in the USA offer peanuts or pretzels as complimentary snacks on short flights, Aeromar Airlines gave us Churrositos - Botanas Lily on our quick 1.5 flight from Merida to Tuxtla Gutierrez.  They were crunchy, slightly chile-y, and pretty damn good.

Ratings:

Melissa: 4 out of 5

Adam: 3 out of 5

Chip Review: Takis

We originally bought these chips within the first couple of days of being in Mexico, but they were in our backpack when we went to the baseball game and we were not allowed to bring any food or drink into the stadium, so they were confiscated at security.  However, we saw them all over the place and bought another bag to try out.

Very, very limey flavor.  Strong, good chile flavor as well, and they kinda became addictive because if you were eating them, the flavor was excellent, but once you stopped, the lime flavor was incredibly overpowering as an aftertaste.  We had these on our roadtrip around the Yucatan, and they were reasonably easy to eat while driving as well.

Ratings:
Melissa: 3 out of 5
Adam: 4 out of 5

**I am having a hard time finding the picture.

Chip Review: "Tostitos Salsa Verde"

These were some of the best local Mexican chip flavors I've had so far.

A classic salsa verde usually has fire roasted tomatillos (roasting really changes the flavor in this case), a green chile like Serrano and cilantro. This bag had all of those components featured prominently on the front.

Like some of the other local chips, the corn flavor is pronounced in these chips. However it's not totally dominant and the flavor powder does get a chance to assert itself. I can't say that this tasted exactly like salsa verde, or even really close to that. The lingering flavor reminds me a bit of cool ranch doritos.

The flavor, whatever it ended up tasting like, was pretty good, and addictive. Overall I ended up liking these a fair bit, and they weren't super sour like many here!

Score

Adam: 4/5
Melissa: 4/5

Bonus Candy Review: Tamborines???

No idea what this is or is called

We got some candies with our checks from the Club Nautico restaurant in Puerto Juarez, like after dinner mints. There wasn't really enough print on the wrapper to make sense out of what these where, I'm not even sure if Tamborines is the full name.

I haven't had mine yet. Melissa couldn't really put into words what hers tasted like, but I do have a picture.

She didn't like it

Rating

Melissa: 0/5

Chip Review: Sabritas Stax Crema y Cebolla

Stax: Not Pringles

Let's break this one down a little bit. Sabritas seems to be the local Lays, possibly simply the Mexican branding for the same company and production chips. As Melissa put it, she wanted to try the "local brand" of chips.

Sabor means flavor or taste in Spanish, I suspect that Sabritas is a play on that. Crema y Cebolla is sour cream and onion, literally. Crema is actually Mexican sour cream, but it's much thinner than US tubs of sour cream, just barely pourable. If you've been to Chiplotle and had the giant spoon of sour cream, that's crema.

In my mind, Pringles are one of the best chips for eating on the road. Perhaps they're common on the road and packed lunches because the tube travels well, and so I associate it with that kind of eating. But it works well and these weird pressed potato saddle shaped chips just feel right when eating a cold sandwich somewhere remote.

We'd been planning to drive through the Sian Kaan bioreserve from Tulum and my plan was to get some pre-made tortas and Pringle-like chips for the road and have a nice picnic type lunch in the middle of a jungle road. It didn't work out quite like that but we got the "Pringles".

These were exactly what you'd expect from sour cream and onion Pringles, although with a bit less seasoning than I think you get in the US version. Really nothing to report here, we both love sour cream and onion and Pringles, and that's what we got.

Score

Adam: 4/5
Melissa: 4/5

Chip Review: Ruffles Mega Crunch Salsa Roja

Most of the chips in this bag were already broken

I was really excited for this one; I love salsa rojas! And Ruffles is a brand we know and like. Plus any chip with that much seasoning color has got to be good!

This is not a chip I would buy again given the options out there. The roja/savory part of this was good, although not amazing. Sadly the dominate flavor on most of the chips was sour, way too sour. Kind of like lime juice but probably mostly just citric acid and generic sour flavor. This seems to be a bit of a theme in Mexican chips, they do like sour...

Meanwhile in Mexico

Score

Adam: 2/5 - I've been snacking on them but wouldn't buy again
Melissa: 3.5/5 - I assume because she loves lime and sour

Upcoming Chip Review: Melissa eats a whole bag of Que Totis

Seen at Mercado 23

Chip Review: Doritos (diablo flavor, orange bag)

Not even worth my time of writing a review.  Boring, tasted like chips we could make at home - corn chip with lime and chili powder, but not as good as it sounds.

No picture!  We had another bag of chips to review, but you're not allowed to bring any food or drink into the baseball stadium, so I had to throw them away at "security."

Rating:
Melissa: 1.5 out of 5
Adam: 1.5 out of 5 (and he LOVES doritos and was so excited for them!)

Chip Review: Papas Toreadas Sabor Chile Habanero

Since I love spicy foods, I was really looking forward to trying these chips. Habanero taste to me should be spicy, but with a ton of flavor. 

These chips were bordering on bland. They had a bit of sour/vinegar flavor but with very, very little heat. A very middle of the road chip.

Chip rating:

Melissa: 3 out of 5

Adam: 3 out of 5

Next up: Doritos!

Chip Review: St. Mary's Cassava Chips

Anyone who knows me knows my love for anything carb-y, salty, potato-y.  While in Jamaica, Adam came back from the store with a surprise for me: sour cream and onion cassava chips. We didn't get a chance to have them until today. The sour cream and onion flavor was a bit too mild for me, and the cassava chip was a bit firm. Adam found the texture to be better than Lays and on par with Ruffles; I have to completely disagree. The texture to me was more like a plantain chip, which is fine, but I always feel like I'm going to break a tooth on them.

Rating:
Melissa: 2.5 out of 5
Adam: 3.5 out of 5
Mike, the British guy we were hanging out with: 2 out of 5



Coming up: Papas Toreadas Savor Chile Habanero

Chip Review: Big Foot

"Big Foot" by Holiday Snacks out of Trinidad and Tobago.
The giant size cheese snack

One of the most interesting things about travel to me is the differences in the mundane things that you never really read about in travel literature or hear about in food-based travel shows. Especially breakfast: even if your city has great restaurants for every kind of cuisine, you don't typically have a chance to eat what people in other countries have for breakfast.

Soft drinks, chips and other snacks are also fascinating samples of a different culture that it's hard to obtain by any means other than travel. I don't drink many soft drinks, but I am usually delighted to find and try chips from around the world.

Big Foot Spicy

Texture is almost exactly like the fat american cheetos, or cheese balls, nothing new.

The seasoning on these is pretty good and kind of light; compared to an american chip you'd think this missed a bunch of seasoning in the factory. It's got a bit of heat that builds as you plow through a bag, some nice tangy-ness and a rich red chili taste. A bit like the Japanese chili sauce I've had on ramen: rayu.

Adam ranking: 3/5
Melissa ranking: 4/5