Takis Fuego Chilli and Lime

You may recall that earlier this year when we were in Switzerland I tried Takis Volcano crispy snacks. I rather enjoyed them. They are hot and spicy, but not too hot to be eaten and enjoyed. The Chef missed out on the taste test because he wasn’t feeling at all well. In fact he was rushed to hospital the next day so no wonder he didn’t fancy a piquant snack.

While the Chef was in hospital (horse casserole for lunch one day) I acquired a packet of Takis Fuego chilli and lime flavoured snacks.

Well now, I did not scrutinise the hot/piquant-ometer carefully enough before trying this Fuego snack…. and was a bit thunderstruck at how extremely hot and spicy this crispy snack is. Ridiculously hot if you ask me. I am a bit surprised that Fuego (fire) is hotter than Volcano (volcano). You might think it should be the other way around. And I am honestly not sure if I could detect the lime. Definitely could detect the chilli.

Ski Instructor taste tester tried one. I think he probably eats considerably hotter curries than I do so has a palate better accustomed to heat, but he was not at all impressed, and pronounced this crispy snack a ‘waste of time’ . Well, so it is if you can’t bring yourself to eat it.

No surprise then that we ditched the packet. Do not buy these unless you really really really love lots of chilli. I wonder if Barry from In The Chips would appreciate this snack? I follow him on Instagram and he really seems to enjoy hot flavours.

You will be pleased to know that the Chef is now recovered from the virus that laid him low. It is unfortunately easier than we think to pick up a virus so all we can do is try to be careful.

Takis Volcano Cheese & Chilli

We found this little 100g packet of Spanish snacks in a big branch of the Co-op in Switzerland. Made by a company rather bonkersly called Bimbo Donuts, this little packet of maize based Takis (one taki, several takis perhaps?) is a nice surprise. Basically rolled up corn chips dusted with heaps of quite hot cheese and chilli flavour dust. Yum. I couldn’t stop eating. Quite a hard bite, but you expect that with corn chips so I’m not complaining.

The bar code is shaped like a chilli so if you are paying attention that’s a bit of a giveaway. It’s always nice when the design incorporates details like that.

I don’t think I have ever seen a Bimbo Donut product before. I checked the ingredients list and it comes in English, Turkish, Swedish, Polish, Italian, German, French and Dutch. So plenty of opportunities for you to pick up a packet. The purple and orange is quite noticeable so you may be lucky to find some. I’d buy these again… and the poor Chef wasn’t feeling too good and didn’t get a look in. I scoffed the lot. We better get some more.

Vicente Vidal Patatas Fritas Sabor Huevo Frito

Still a Student (although not for much longer) taste tester went to Barcelona and brought us this exciting packet of potato crisps. How nice is that? We don’t see her very often, but when we do she comes bearing packets of crisps.

And, knowing that the reluctant taste testers and I have tried all manner of exotic crispy snacks Still a Student went out of her way to purchase something interesting. Something she felt sure we would not have tried already. And she succeeded there.

Actually, my favourites are nearly always very simple flavours, but that doesn’t stop me encouraging the taste testers to attempt something fancier.

So, what did we think? Well, this is certainly a fabulous crisp. Some of them very large indeed and with a nice crunch. But for me the taste was just plain weird. Fried egg flavour! What?

The saltiness is nice, but the taste of egg is just wrong. And it is a true eggy taste. It's a bit like the lovely bits of black lace around the edge of a properly fried egg (in my view) but this is not right as a crisp flavour.

However, taste tester from the New Forest was very taken. She said she could eat this crisp every day for the rest of her life! It takes all sorts doesn’t it? And it’s not as though no-one else was snacking up these crisps. Because to be honest, most of us felt this flavour was simply too weird.

Since these crisps come from Barcelona they are named in Spanish and, I suppose, Catalan. “Batatas Fritas con Sabora Ovo Frito”.

Risi Buscalios Sabor Barbacoa / BBQ

Way back when we were still having summer holidays, way back in 2018, taste tester from the New Forest went to Spain on a family holiday, and I am pretty sure it was she who brought home this little packet of barbecue flavour snacks. Gluten free!

Not too strong a flavour, rather tasty corn snack. Not bad.

And interestingly, the packet is labelled in English, Spanish and Arabic. I wonder if you can buy this brand in Morocco? I think so, because my iPad just handily presented me with a Moroccan flag 🇲🇦.

Choco Palomitas

This is kind of a weird crispy snack. Kind of a weird chocolatey snack. Hmmn... I'm not sure about this packet of snacks brought home from Spain by taste tester from the New Forest.

Not just me (for a change), I think all the reluctant taste testers thought this just a tiny bit (rather a lot) weird. It is crispy - not just chocolatey - but I confess Senior taste tester would look askance at it. He favours crisps that look like crisps.

Not nasty. Just weird. So next time you go to Spain you should try it for yourself.

Rubio Pijo Patatas Fritas Tradicionales Finisimas

Posh Chips it says on the back of the packet, showing a potato wearing a bow tie. And Pijo, I gather, means posh. Although not perhaps in the politest way.  So there we go.

Apparently these crisps are made in the "Murcia style"; very finely cut, with nothing but potatoes and olive oil. Very simple and old fashioned.

Rather good.

The woman on the packet looks as though she really fancies herself. I think that's the point.

Snatt's Mediterraner Snack Tomate und Oregano

More of a biscuitty crispy snack than what we usually taste test, this brodsnack mid tomato und oregano (German) or pane con pomodoro e origano (Italian) or bread with tomato and oregano... bread? What an off-putting way to describe a snack.

So, more of a biscuitty snack. And very tasty with it.

I have been very slow writing up what the reluctant taste testers thought. And I hardly remember what they said. But I think it was pretty positive. But I know the Chef liked this Spanish snack very much. Hang about... this snack was made in Valencia (Spain) it says here. Why no Spanish text on the packet? That's a bit odd.

Well anyway. I thought this was rather moreish and so did the Chef and so I daresay we'll be seeking out another packet next time we are in Switzerland. Which is where I found this.

Sarriegui Patatas Fritas Con Sal

Managerial taste tester and his wife stopped at a Hackney pub for a drink on a very hot day and by chance discovered this Spanish crisp. And being mightily impressed they bought a packet for me and the reluctant taste testers to try.

This is a very simple crisp. Very finely cut and rather smaller than I was expecting, these crisps taste mostly of crisp: not one of the overexcitable flavours that manufacturers favour nowadays. And the reluctant taste testers were quite taken with the simplicity.

Architectural taste tester (she who hardly comments) loved this crisp. Like an old fashioned crisp she said.

But Managerial taster tester wasn't so impressed on second tasting and wondered why this crisp seemed so familiar? Taste tester from the New Forest discussed it seriously with him and they finished by deciding it reminded them of Pom Bears. Really? Are they sure?

I can honestly say I had quite forgotten we had tried this crisp before. And below you can see what we thought in February 2016

Another packet of crisps from the wonderful Fortnum & Mason.

It occurs to me that you may not know what Fortnums is. You may not realise the shop was opened in 1707 and is as much a tourist attraction as a shop. Although it is a proper shop and sells many wonderful and desirable things. Shopping at Fortnums online is fun, but to get the full flavour you really need to go there in person.

Fortnums is only just around the corner from Buckingham Palace. You can visit both in one day: the Palace in the morning followed by lunch at Fortnums. I know it can be done. Plus you can then go across the road to the Royal Academy or just go shopping in the Burlington Arcade. A great day out.

Anyway, this is a pretty wonderful crisp. A lovely fine cut crisp, a beautiful crunch, a little bit oily by British crispy standards, but not too much salt; just enough really. And because the crisps are rather oily you get a lot of salt stuck to the inside of the packet. Just swipe your finger around the inside of the packet and lick it.... yum. A real old fashioned crispy experience.

Not surprising that the crisps are a little oily perhaps as they are made with 60% extra virgin olive oil, and 40% sunflower oil.

I think most of us liked this Spanish crisp a lot. Certainly we found it difficult to stop eating them.

Although... as the crisps were so fine cut there were quite a lot of broken crisps at the bottom of the packet. And Tech taste tester said he could not help thinking he was looking at a bowl of cornflakes.

Snatt's Mediterraner Snack Knoblauch und Petersilie

Don’t worry about the German name, this is a very tasty garlic and parsley crispy snack. But mysteriously made in Spain by Grefusa S.L.

I confess I wasn’t expecting these biscuitty snacks to be quite so large. Well... not large exactly but rather larger than your average crispy snack. And I think the reluctant taste testers were a little taken aback too. It took them a while to tuck in. But once they started they really enjoyed this mysteriously made in Spain snack.

Jam Maker taste tester was very enthusiastic (lucky thing she enjoyed this snack as she has left us forever to join a well-known London museum so no more crispy snacks for her), and Slightly Red Haired Bristolian loved it too. I agreed with her that it would likely be very nice with a dip but even without I thought it pretty tasty.

I was fascinated that on the packet this snack is described as bread with garlic and parsley. In five different languages. I suppose it is a sort of biscuitty version of garlic bread but I didn’t even think about breadiness until I read the packet. Quite a lot of tasty oil though, a bit like garlic bread; lots of finger licking yumminess.

I found this packet in the Co-op in Grimisuat in Switzerland. The Chef is still out there and I have suggested he seek out another packet.

Daylesford Organic Apple

Eat to be healthy; just slow dried organic apple and nothing else; no added sugar, low fat, high fibre. All from Daylesford Organic Farm in Gloucestershire. Says the front of the packet.

These little chunks of organic dried apple were advertised as coming from Gloucestershire. But it seems they come from Austria/Hungary. What? The Austrian-Hungarian Empire? Are the apples exported from Gloucestershire to the Empire, or are these secretly Austrian/Hungarian apples? And then the packet says produced in Spain. It's all surpringly opaque and weird.

And I am sorry to report that the dried apple itself, while actually tasting of apple, has the consistency of foam board. Or how foam board looks as though it would feel if you bit into it. The reluctant taste testers were not madly impressed.

Not as nice as I had hoped, and not as English as I had expected. And very difficult to get into the packet without scissors. I bought this packet in Harrods Food Hall because I wanted a healthy snack to eat on the way home. I went without.

Torres Selecta Extra Virgin Olive Oil

This is a bit of a turn up. I never saw a non-M&S crisp or crispy snack or bag of popcorn in Marks & Spencer before today. But lo! Here we are with this wondrous packet of Spanish crisps on the top shelf of one of the four shelves of crisps in my local M&S.

The reluctant taste testers and I tried a packet of Torre crisps before: truffle flavour. I thought they tasted disgusting! Possibly because I really don't like truffle as a flavour. Most of the taste testers don't like truffle either:so not a success.

But I did think the crisps themselves were lovely. A beautiful golden colour. Very handsome indeed. And this olive oil flavoured crisp is just as lovely to look at. And luckily the flavour is lovely too: not so much olive oil, more a very pleasant simple saltiness.

It's one of those crisps that don't taste of very much - but are all the better for it.

Tech taste tester was pleased to approve as were Tall and Tall Elegant taste tester. I liked them a lot and I'm sure the Chef will too.

I noticed that M&S are selling the truffle flavour. And.... guess what? Caviar flavour crisps. Caviar! Whatever next? I can't believe they'll be nice but I think we have to try. Don't you?

Ideal Choco Crisps

So (taking advantage of the current style of explanatory speech), so I was looking at Amazon a couple of months back and spotted these chocolate coated crisps which looked rather interesting. But I told myself that there were plenty of crisps in the shops and anyway I was shortly going to be visiting a massive crisp heaven supermarket in France so it would be silly to buy them off Amazon.

Fast forward to the other day when we suddenly needed one of those lampshade ensmallifier rings that make the bit of your lampshade that sits on the part the bulb goes into smaller. Yeah I didn't know what they were called either but it turns out that Amazon's search engine was able to help me out there. Anyway, lovely old Amazon alerted me to the fact that Choco Crisps were now reduced in price. So I bought a packet.

And?

Well, these Spanish crisps come in two silver baggies inside a cardboard box. I went into work for a cup of coffee this week because I've been missing all the taste testers and they claim to be missing me. Plus, Tall taste tester emailed to say they have been finding themselves very short of potato based snacks. So I took one of the little silver baggies in with me. Well, I thought they might be disappointed if I arrived minus potatoey products.

Guess what? All the reluctant taste testers said they liked them. "Wrong but good" said Tall taste tester taking another. "Oh these are quite nice" said Tall Elegant taste tester. Yes, quite nice plain crisps with quite a lot of quite nice chocolate. As you can see from the photograph it's almost quite nice chocolate with a crisp on top.

Not sure I would buy them again though because to be honest crisp plus chocolate is slightly weird.

Frit Ravich Ruedas de Patata

Un snack muy crujiente says the packet. Which I judge to mean a very crispy/crunchy snack. Interesting to note that Spanish for snack is... snack. And why not?
 ¿Todavia no las has probado? (not tried this product yet?) Crujientes y sabrosas (crunchy and tasty) and ¡un sabor sorprendented! (a surprising taste). Well, now we know.

This wheel-shaped snack was brought home by the Dutch taste tester and her husband the Vinyl Collector from Barcelona. The wheels survived the French railways (including a strike and cancelled trains) but suffered some breakages on the public transport network in London. Which is a shame, but of course wheel-shaped or not, the snack still tastes the same.

And what does it taste of exactly? To be honest, not very much. Basically it tastes of frying. And it's mostly air. But surprisingly tasty not-tasting-of-anything-much Spanish air.

All the reluctant taste testers really rather liked this no-taste style snack. Most of us felt that we could happily sit down in a comfy chair with a good book or a box set and eat the entire packet.

And we feel that's a pretty good recommendation.

HiperDino Food Conos de Maiz Sabor Queso/Bacon

Noble friend went to the Canary Islands for a little winter sunshine and brought back this packet of crisps. Which was very nice of her.

These crisps seem to have been produced and packed in Spain for Dinosol Supermercados which is a supermarket in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. So local crisps. Excellent.

For some strange reason you don't get bugle-shaped crispy snacks in the UK. I really don't know why not. I've seen them in Italy, here we have a Spanish version, and I know they are popular in The Netherlands. If I am wrong about bugles in the UK please let me know.

The Dutch taste tester liked this crispy snack, and the extremely sceptical taste tester loved them. Between us we ate the whole 80g packet in no time at all.

I must say I was a bit dubious. Cheese and bacon can be a sinister combination. But in fact this is a lovely light flavour, very pleasant. There's a good lot of flavour dust (not too much) and a nice crunch. I'm not sure that I was aware of the interesting texture/pattern as shown on the packet. But after all, that has nothing to do with the taste.

All in all a pretty good crispy snack.

Patatas Fritas de Soria Garijo Baigorri Aceite de Oliva

I'm not sure I have the name of these crisps correct.

I don't speak much Spanish and I'm not at all sure which bit of the text on the packet is the name of the manufacturer, and which is the name of the crisp. So I put it all in and I'm hoping for the best.

The packet tells us we have Patatas Fritas Artesanas... possibly crisps fried by artisans? Could this be Spanish for hand cooked crisps? And then El Placer del Crujiente which Google translate tells me means "crusty pleasure". Which doesn't sound quite right!

The ingredients are potatoes, olive oil, and sea salt.

The tall taste tester donated this empty packet, again from his visit to Madrid. He said he really didn't like them. They were all oily, he said. Too much olive oil, he said. So not for him.

The aroma from the packet is salty, but also very high quality frying. Actually, it smells rather good. But of course I've not had the opportunity to try the actual crisps.

The potatoes were grown in the highlands of Castilla y Leon which for some reason sounds lovely.

There is a website, but as I said I don't speak much Spanish (most of it garnered from watching westerns or NCIS), so I'm not much the wiser! I am following a Spanish blog All4Barbie which is expanding my vocabulary but Barbie leads a very healthy lifestyle and doesn't seem to eat too many crisps.

Anyway, if you fancy olive oil flavoured crisps next time you visit Spain you could give these a go.

Torres Selecta Black Truffle

Don't these crisps look lovely?

What a handsome golden colour! Beautifully cooked with a "just right" crunch. They feel good too.

Unfortunately.... unfortunately none of the reluctant taste testers liked them at all. And I thought they were really horrible.

It turns out that none of us like truffle, not even the tall elegant taste tester who correctly identified the nasty taste as truffle. Everyone else had guessed mustard or petrol. Yes, really. Initially I thought garlic but then decided on bad breath. And the taste lingers.

Oh dear oh dear.

I can only suppose that someone likes these handsome crisps. But maybe that someone (all those someones) are in Spain.

Considering none of us liked the crisps it was a shame this was a great big 125g bag.

Lay's Mix Sabor a Pizza & Extra de Queso/Queijo

The Dutch taste tester went to Barcelona the other day and very thoughtfully brought back this 170g packet of Spanish (and Portuguese) crisps for us to try.

I have read about Lay's Mix crisps on other blogs recently. They seem to be appearing all over the world except in the UK of course; we have Walkers Mix Ups instead. So pretty much a universal innovation then.

Although... when I say universal.... I've not seen many crisps featuring in SF films or TV shows (none!) so perhaps that's not quite the right word.

Anyway, the bloggers seem to feel that this new mix of flavours is a good idea. And indeed the reluctant taste testers made away with three large bowls of these crisps which is an enthusiastic response.

These are very nice crisps with a good crunch and a lovely deep golden colour. And there's the problem for me. The packet design indicates that it contains a mix of cheese flavour crisps (queso in Spanish and queijo in Portuguese) and pizza flavour. Apparently pizza is pizza or something very similar in every language I can read; I don't know how you say పిజ్జా which is Telagu for pizza, nor ភីហ្ which is Khmer (according to Google translate).
And that's a fine plan but I felt the cheese crisps, of which I only discovered two (rather tasty), were almost entirely overwhelmed by the pizza crisps. And once again with a pizza flavour crisp I wasn't that impressed. Somehow pizza crisps never taste of that really wonderful pizza you had in Rome - or what about Arthur's Pizzas we used to get on Oxford Street in Sydney? so good - but instead are like the thin floppy ones from the freezer cabinet in the supermarket.

And interestingly most of the reluctant taste testers told me they felt the pizza crisps tasted of cheap frozen pizza, but it didn't seem to stop them enjoying the crisps. Otherwise why eat three bowlsful?

San Nicasio Extra Virgin Potato Chips con Sal Rosa del Himalaya

These crisps from Cordoba say they are extra virgin potato chips (selected potatoes, extra virgin olive oil and salt) and the salt.... is Himalayan pink salt (a gastronomic treasure).

Yes, well it may be a treasure but the enormous disappointment is that you cannot see the pink salt.

Call me stupid if you will but I was honestly expecting to see the crisps strewn with teeny weeny pale pink salt crystals. Why not dark pink I can't tell you (maybe that didn't seem a realistic prospect), but to see no pink crystals at all is very disappointing.

The crisps are quite fine cut, with not a bad crunch. They look good, some of the crisps are very big,  and have quite a nice lightly salted taste.

Seriously though, would I have bought these Spanish crisps had I not been seduced (in the Bern branch of Globus) by the lure of pink salt? Maybe, maybe not but basically what we have here is a packet  of salted crisps. It's a very nice packet of (slightly lightly) salted crisps. But nothing very fancy.

Himalayan Pink Salt comes from Pakistan and takes its colour from iron oxide but is not really pink at all. It's kind of orangey brown (by the look of the picture online).

Terrifically swanky pink and silver packaging though. Extremely smart, although put together slightly on the skew.

Frutos Secos Chips a la Flor de Sal de Ibiza

There's a very odd thing that some packets of crisps do when subjected to sudden changes of pressure or temperature. The pressure is more obvious - just try packing a bag of crisps in your case when you fly home from Greece. Has all the air been sucked out and the crisps turned to crumbs? It can happen. Or maybe the bag has swollen up like a football? I try to pack my crisps in Ziploc bags and suck out as much air as possible before travelling, but it doesn't always work.

Plus sometimes you really aren't expecting this weirdness. We bought this perfectly ordinary bag of crisps at Globus in Bern where they have a very nice food department in the basement. This bag felt just like any old bag but then we came home through the Lötschberg Tunnel. I don't know if it was the pressure or the heat (it certainly was a very hot and crowded train) but by the time we got home we had a little football. Full to bursting with air. I stabbed it with a sharp knife before snipping open the top.

Aside from this oddness with the packaging (which is a handsome eau de nil and gold), this is a very nice crisp indeed. Lovely crispy aroma, great big crisps with some nice bubbles from the frying, good colour and a fabulous salty yumminess. I can hear the Chef crunching away behind me. What could be better? Flor de Sal de Ibiza is obviously top quality salt. Very very tasty.

Made of potatoes, sunflower oil, flor de sel and sea salt, and lots of love. OK! Truly Cristal de la Vida (it says here).

I think these crisps qualify as superb, and the Chef (not quite so given to superlatives) thinks they are very nice.

The packaging seems familiar and I'm wondering if I've seen them in London - Fortnums perhaps - when I was looking for something else.

Cheetos Pandilla Sabor a Queso

Yes... well I'm not really quite sure what to say about these sort-of cheesy snacks.

Kind friend Susan brought them back from Mallorca. She bought the maddest looking crisps she could find, and they are pretty mad: reconstituted potato snacks shaped like ghosts and bats. I don't know if they are only produced at this time of year - in plenty of time for Halloween - or if you can buy them all year round.

The packet, which is mostly purple,  shows several ghosts and bats (actually a lot more ghost- and bat-like than the contents of my packet, although that may have suffered from being stuffed into a suitcase and manhandled by British Airways) and also the less than charismatic Chester Cheetah who advertises the Cheetos brand all over the world.

I read online that Chester Cheetah leads the life of a (cartoon) mega star. He strikes me as a combination of the Pink Panther and Leisure Suit Larry desperately aspiring to be James Bond. Chester wears dark glasses all the time. Even the cuddly toy wears dark glasses. Apparently he has featured in a long-running series of TV commercials, and even two video games, and since 2007 has been aimed at adults rather than children. Weird.

You can ring Chester if your crisps are not perfect but interestingly his (cartoon) phone looks really old-fashioned. You'd think he'd have a smart-phone by now. And although the packaging claims to be recyclable Chester is encouraging me to throw it in a bin.

NB Chester and Cheetos are registered trademarks.

On the purple packaging Chester is dangling like a bat, appropriately I suppose, and wearing a sort of white shrug thing round his shoulders. I really can't make out what that is supposed to be, can you?

And on to the crisps... The aroma on opening the bag is rather more smokey bacon than cheesy and the flavour isn't my idea of cheesy. The colour is kind of generic reconstituted potato coloured with paprika orange - the usual sort of thing - a little pale perhaps. And the snacks themselves are not really shaped much like either ghosts or bats. The crunch is fine but the texture is rather dry but at the same time rather greasy. So I am not 100% convinced by this effort from Cheetos.

This particular packet came with an angry bird sticker and a tazo also with an angry bird on it. I have no idea what you do with a tazo. It seems they may be collectible but I can't think why. Do you stick them together to build a... something? Obviously whole swathes of popular culture have passed me by.

Anyhow. Generally not very impressed. And we didn't finish the bag.
There seem to be hundreds of different sorts of Cheetos so I hope the rest are a bit nicer.

I ought to tell you that there is a helpful nutritional pyramid on the back of the packet advising you that snacks should only make up the small pointy bit of the pyramid that is your diet. Below snacks come milk products and meat and fish, then fruit and veg, and right at the bottom carbohydrates (bread, wheat, toast, some small grainy things - rice maybe? - and pasta). You need to take regular exercise and drink lots of water. So, you know, rubbish crisps but good advice.

Update: January 2016
Noble Friend went to the Canary Islands and brought home another packet of these crispy crunchy ghosts. Which, as you see, has a different packet design.

And I think that the reluctant taste testers liked them better second time around. Apparently one of the taste testers thought these were sheep -shaped (!) but otherwise they all seemed pretty happy to tuck in and eat the entire packet. They are quite moreish even though they still don't taste of much.

Interesting how sometimes you like things better the second time. And sometimes you absolutely don't. I have yet to work out how this works. Perhaps it's just a thing and you can't do a scientific survey.