Doritos Flamas.

I love chips. If I see a new flavor, I have to try it. The great thing about snack food is that it varies from region to region, so no surprise that Doritos has flavors for the nontrivial demographics in California. Flamas is some sort of super spicy+lime concoction that stains things red. I love spicy things. I love lime, mostly with gin, but I still love lime. Needless to say, I totally dig these. They bring that extra heat that makes you clench your teeth when you inhale, as if the extra air pressure will somehow give you better convection action to soothe your tongue. But that's how you know it's good. (Reminder: I also saw a Doritos Tapatio. Must compare.)

While the staining make me feel slightly uncomfortable consuming these in any quantity, they are too good to stop at just one bag. I anticipate this to be a part of my regular chip rotation this summer. Likewise, there is also a Cheetos analog that I must try. (Aside: Ruffles is making a man chip with increased dimension and manlier flavors, drops in July.) Here is a much more amusing, though less favorable review. It also has a silly picture.

Zapp's.

I wouldn't normally cram all these together, but I ate them all so here we are. Some Zapp's brand kettle chips were on sale a few weeks ago so I decided to pick some up. I saw the Salt & Vinegar and said, "FUCK YEAH," and then I saw a bag of Hotter 'n Hot Jalapeno and I was like "AW SHIT". I grabbed both and started to walk away. But then I was like >_>. I looked again and saw something flavor called. Crawnator. Ok, I'll trade the S&V for the Craws because I love my shrimp chips. But then I saw this other bag called VOODOO, and I was like 0_0. So I traded the jap chips for that. I took three steps, and then I turned around and grabbed the jap chips anyway because I love jalapeno chips. And then I found five dollars.

The Crawnators were pretty disappointing. Mildly shrimpy but not really. The base chip was pretty good and crunchy though but a little greasier than other brands. Still doesn't hold a thing against Asian shrimp chips. The Voodoo was a similar story. I couldn't figure out what flavor it was supposed to be from the ingredients list but even tasting them, I still couldn't really figure it out. It tasted vaguely like the Crawnators with some mild BBQ. The Jalapeno chips were good, but I've had better. They were hot and only mildly peppery. The balance between heat and pepper was pretty good, but again, relatively mild.

For the price, it was good deal for kettle chips, but overall, I've had better kettle chips.