Lays - Flavour mashup special - Ketchup + Cheese and Dill Pickle + White Cheddar

Those brand new Lays flavours are pretty cool! There's a third one called BBQ+ Sweet Chili Heat but the store I went to were out, I'm sure it rules as well

Lays Ketchup + Cheese

The simple yet effective packaging is reflected in this top notch mix of flavours. It's not for the snobs with refined palet but more for the working class who grew up with mums who sometimes had to cook Kraft Dinner mac and cheese and add some tomato sauce to it to make it less bland. Often served with sliced hot dogs too. I always liked those flavours so I was sold right from the start. I am but a simple man finding pleasures in simple things.

Merging the Lays Ketchup flavour with the cheesy taste of Cheetos isn't a simple task and I'm surprised the mortals from Frito Lay accomplished it with such a resounding success. "Two iconic flavours combined" is what we were promised and that's what we got. The Ketchup Lays are honestly a top 5 flavours and I always prefered a simple chip to the soft, spongy texture of cheetos (the hard ones are legit) so that's a godsend. 

At first, it's nothing impressive but then it hits you, the simplicity, the difficult yet accomplished mission of The Merging, the tasteful aura of nostalgia, it all creates such a powerful blow to the taste buds that it cannot be ignored.

Lays Dill Pickles + White Cheddar

I like dill pickles chips well enough. Those new spicy Miss Vickies were one of the most talked chips I've seen in years and for good reason, they were outstanding. What about this merging of powers we have here though? Well, it's certainly interesting and successful. One of the weaknesses of dill pickles chips is their acidity and saltiness, it's good but it makes them a "only once in a while" purchase, same for salt and vinegar chips.

The big difference here is how the white cheddar (from the Smartfood white cheddar popcorn) flavour blocks some of the saltiness of the dill pickles and adds a sort of enjoyable creaminess. Maybe like a cheesy dill dip!? I now want to eat them with the new Doritos cheese dips (world changer to be honest) and be fat forever. It's a more eatable dill pickle chips, it's dangerous as it's faster to finish a bag!

Lays redeems themselves after a few disgusting flavours, the two Chinese inspired bags I tried (Chicken and Tomato, Cucumber) were awful but those two are worth trying for sure.

The Snack Series - Lays Taco and Lays Pizza

As you can see, I only pick healthy choices when I do my groceries

Lays just unleashed a new trio of flavors upon all the Canadian fatties and I had to try them. I now regret not buying "Grilled Cheese", the third flavor but it looked a bit too tame. I think this new series called Lays StEATS is a good idea despite the lack of originality. Lays has been quite bold with the contests they had and it wasn't often a big success (those Cinnamon Buns chips remain one of the most disgusting thing I ever tried and the only chips bag I had to throw away without finishing it). Sure, those three flavors are safe choices but they're also safe bets and classics.

Price: $5.50 for two 240 grams bags. Pretty damn fair.


Lays Pizza

Packaging: blue isn't a colour I tend to associate with pizza unlike green, red or white but fine, ok, I'll buy it anyway. The slice on the bag looks Italian and not the bastardized American version which is a good thing.

Texture/look: slightly reddish colour, nothing out of the ordinary. I wasn't expecting anything weird. Were you? No, there's no dried tomatoes in the bag!

Taste: One of my only points of comparaison were the Pringles Pizza and surprisingly the Lays are better. The taste is milder but more pizza-esque. The tomato taste is subtle but present and there's a slight herb touch to be found. It doesn't taste like pepperoni or cheese which could be interpreted as a welcome change or a risky interpretation depending on who you ask. Appreciable but not mind blowing.
7/10

White bowl = Taco - Green bowl = Pizza. I actually ate more than 2 bowls to be fully honest.

Lays Taco
Packaging: This time, green is a colour that works for the flavor. Lettuce is important for a taco!

Texture/look: Once again, it's a traditional Lays chip... There's some weird blackish spots on there to indicate that you're not eating normal bland Lays.

Taste: the Taco flavor is more complex than the Pizza one, there's hints of salsa, ground beef, spice, lettuce and even (maybe?) cheese in there. There's a short lived bang in your mouth too and it's more than just dipping your tongue into a little bag of taco spice powder. It's a good effort and I think it would perhaps be good enough to win a blind contest of "what does this taste like?". Recommended.
8/10

The Snack Series – Lays BLT

The Snack Series – Lay's BLT

Price: $2.99 Canadian for a 180 grams bag. Not too bad.

Packaging: Bright blue with a big BLT on the bag. I’m a bit disappointed by the fact it’s a smaller bag than their usual bigger ones but considering Lay's did some weird experiments in the past (during their contests, remember the cinnamon buns flavour? EWW!), it's understandable that they're not doing gigantic bags for their temporary or special releases.

Texture/look: Normal colour, same as the original Lay's brand but there's some black spots on the chips. Nothing quite special here.

Taste: It doesn't really taste like a BLT at all but this was to be expected with simulated flavors. The flavor at the forefront would be mayonnaise and then there's some slight bacon and tomato in the aftertaste but I had to eat the whole bag in 30 mins to find those. I'm a big mayonnaise fan (it's not an instrument, by the way) but those Lay's weren't really interesting. I'd say that they're a bit better than the Bacon Lay's though.

Spend your snack money on something else. They're not bad but they're uninteresting and uninspired.

6/10