Crunch is one of my favorite food qualities, so I love potato chips. When visiting Japan, there is an easily discovered assortment of unfamiliar flavor combinations available at any convenient store.
I chose these Koikeya brand potato chips because this company is one of the largest pioneers of mass produced snacks in Japan. I was also very intrigued, and ultimately sold, by the fact that the sentence “It is a special tast that uses a lot of ingredients, allowing you to experience multi-layered deliciousness” appears in English on the front of the bag.
The chips are thick cut with ridges, which for comparison feel slightly thicker than Ruffles. The flavor is labeled as strong but tastes mild to me. It seems to have paprika or a hint of chilli powder as its main ingredient. The seafood powders that are added all blend together in a way that doesn’t really point directly at any one of them. There is a fullness to the flavor, but it doesn’t really remind me of any sort of sea foods.
It’s a chip and it tastes roughly like most of the other thick cut chips Japan. There is a bit of a lingering spice flavor in my mouth as I type this, but nothing overpowering or super distinctive. Maybe my palette isn’t developed enough to detect and report minor notes in the chips, but I think it is more likely that I have an American palette numbed to the subtleties of Japanese commercial flavoring. When I think of strong spice, I think of blue Takis or Hot Cheetos, and I think that is probably why I often miss the “bold” flavors put forward in Japanese cuisine.
Reviewing chips is not a personal interest of mine, but I thought it would be fun to write one after watching hundreds of chip reviews done by the pop artist known as The SUCKLORD. You can see one of his reviews by clicking here. What I like most about his reviews is that he is not a gourmond, and he does not try to elevate his reviews to anything other than the casual familiarity of one friend telling another friend about his favorite chips.
I think the intenet could benefit from more casual reviews of food by people without the motives of sponsorship or product placement. It could help open us all up to more new foods.
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