Ravea
19-05-2005, 02:57
Greetings. I stand before you today as a man changed. Changed by time, changed by fate, and, yes...changed by ethnic junk food.
http://www.spoiled-brats.com/_gfx/sab000.jpg
For this review, I chose "Sabritones": a Hispanic-themed item found at the end of the chip aisle in 7-11 surrounded by other things I can't pronounce and/or don't recognize, like those bags of little orange things that look like wagon wheels made of orange Fruit Roll-Ups.
Sabritones are billed as a "puffed wheat snack". Not the usual thing, but hey, puffed rice and puffed oats are pretty harmless, so I figure, what the hell. These are "Chile & Lime" Sabritones; I gather that this is the traditional flavor combination of Mexico, because it says so right there on the back of the bag. I don't know if there's any other flavors in the Sabritones line, or whether the Chile & Limes stand alone; but clearly this is the only one that matters, because it's TRADITIONAL.
Frito-Lay wouldn't lie.
Once you jackhammer open the unusually well-sealed (but festive!) bag, the Sabritones themselves are thick, squarish chips, roughly an inch and a half square. They're mostly air, of course, and liberally coated with what one supposes is magic chile and lime powder.
It's worth noting that the low low price of $.99 seems pretty unusual for a bag of chips this size; but again, you're mostly paying for air. Even Frito-Lay hasn't got the balls to pound a $3.00 price tag onto a bag of fried oxygen.
The bag was also full most of the way to the top, as opposed to the typical products which "settle during shipment". Either they don't ship these very far, or they're so light that they actually counteract gravity. The third option, that Frito-Lay actually fills the whole freaking bag with product, is too silly for serious consideration.
So, moving on to the product itself: the texture is interesting. Not as chewy as puffed oat products (or classic styrofoam peanuts, the ones they stopped making because they were destroying the planet), but not as crispy as something like a fried pork rind. There's a crunch, but not much of one - these things give up the ghost without much resistance.
They also turn to mush pretty quickly, though, so long-term ruminating is definitely out. To return to the shipping products comparison, they're like those starch packing peanuts that dissolve into goo when exposed to moisture.
But about that taste...
I've had lime and chile chips before. I've had both limes and chiles individually before. These didn't taste much like either one, or any combination of the two I've ever experienced. There was no real tang of lime, and no heat at all in the chile; both flavors were suggested, vaguely, sorta. Distantly. Like you'd imagine a lime and chile-themed baby food might be; completely stripped of anything exciting. Neutered.
The most notable flavor was the aftertaste, which was really, really, really damned unpleasant. It had strong chemical overtones, and if that's supposed to represent a taste of traditional Mehico, I have a lot more sympathy for the plight of illegal immigrants. Just nasty. Maybe they wouldn't be so bad as something to munch on if you had a powerful cerveza to wash 'em down, or if you'd already polished off enough brew that you're past the point of caring. But by themselves, they're downright evil.
In summary, I give Sabritones three out of a possible ten, mostly for the oddball texture.
More food reviews to come!
http://www.spoiled-brats.com/_gfx/sab000.jpg
For this review, I chose "Sabritones": a Hispanic-themed item found at the end of the chip aisle in 7-11 surrounded by other things I can't pronounce and/or don't recognize, like those bags of little orange things that look like wagon wheels made of orange Fruit Roll-Ups.
Sabritones are billed as a "puffed wheat snack". Not the usual thing, but hey, puffed rice and puffed oats are pretty harmless, so I figure, what the hell. These are "Chile & Lime" Sabritones; I gather that this is the traditional flavor combination of Mexico, because it says so right there on the back of the bag. I don't know if there's any other flavors in the Sabritones line, or whether the Chile & Limes stand alone; but clearly this is the only one that matters, because it's TRADITIONAL.
Frito-Lay wouldn't lie.
Once you jackhammer open the unusually well-sealed (but festive!) bag, the Sabritones themselves are thick, squarish chips, roughly an inch and a half square. They're mostly air, of course, and liberally coated with what one supposes is magic chile and lime powder.
It's worth noting that the low low price of $.99 seems pretty unusual for a bag of chips this size; but again, you're mostly paying for air. Even Frito-Lay hasn't got the balls to pound a $3.00 price tag onto a bag of fried oxygen.
The bag was also full most of the way to the top, as opposed to the typical products which "settle during shipment". Either they don't ship these very far, or they're so light that they actually counteract gravity. The third option, that Frito-Lay actually fills the whole freaking bag with product, is too silly for serious consideration.
So, moving on to the product itself: the texture is interesting. Not as chewy as puffed oat products (or classic styrofoam peanuts, the ones they stopped making because they were destroying the planet), but not as crispy as something like a fried pork rind. There's a crunch, but not much of one - these things give up the ghost without much resistance.
They also turn to mush pretty quickly, though, so long-term ruminating is definitely out. To return to the shipping products comparison, they're like those starch packing peanuts that dissolve into goo when exposed to moisture.
But about that taste...
I've had lime and chile chips before. I've had both limes and chiles individually before. These didn't taste much like either one, or any combination of the two I've ever experienced. There was no real tang of lime, and no heat at all in the chile; both flavors were suggested, vaguely, sorta. Distantly. Like you'd imagine a lime and chile-themed baby food might be; completely stripped of anything exciting. Neutered.
The most notable flavor was the aftertaste, which was really, really, really damned unpleasant. It had strong chemical overtones, and if that's supposed to represent a taste of traditional Mehico, I have a lot more sympathy for the plight of illegal immigrants. Just nasty. Maybe they wouldn't be so bad as something to munch on if you had a powerful cerveza to wash 'em down, or if you'd already polished off enough brew that you're past the point of caring. But by themselves, they're downright evil.
In summary, I give Sabritones three out of a possible ten, mostly for the oddball texture.
More food reviews to come!