We were approaching the checkout at Aldi one day when I stumbled upon these at the checkout counter.  I peruse the ad faithfully every Wednesday (when I receive them in my email), and so I know when just about everything is going to be made available–it gets me a little more excited than it should when I see something in stores that I don’t recall seeing in the online circular.

I didn’t know anything about these before purchasing, aside from what was on the bag:  These are apparently naturally flavored “hash brown style” potato sticks.  It’s part of the Deutsche Kuche line, which focus on goods imported from Germany (and is the country where Aldi was founded); most of the things I’ve had from the line have been really good, so that helped to put my mind at ease about blindly buying a product that I knew nothing about.

So intense was my craving for a snack that I happened to stumble into the kitchen just as my wife was unbagging these, and I immediately grabbed them and popped them open.  Sure enough, they look just like typical potato sticks, which is certainly to be expected, though there were some hints of seasoning visible.  I eagerly grabbed a small handful, and shoved them in my mouth, not expecting much–and was hit with a blast of flavor that caught me completely off guard (my wife had just about the exact same reaction that I did).  It’s not that the flavor is anything weird, but I just thought these would be kind of straightforward potato sticks with maybe a unique blend of German spices.  Instead, it tastes strongly of onion.

Obviously, your tolerance for the product will depend on how much you like that vegetable, because the onion flavor is neither subtle, nor hidden.  Personally, I loved the taste of these, and I ended up downing half the bag before I realized what I had done.  Even though the onion is in the spotlight, it’s neither overwhelming, nor repugnant; I thought the taste was an good balance of onion and potato.

Although I find Deutsche Kuche products to have a great track record (as I alluded to earlier), some of the more authentically “German” products (like their peanut puffs, or their baumkuchen layer cake) can have flavors that aren’t quite in line with typical American foods, and thus take some getting used to.  This, however, isn’t one of them.  Right out of the gate it made my mouth water for more, I literally think about eating them when I’m at work, and don’t have access to them, and I would not even hesitate to pick these up again.  The best of their German products I’ve tried yet (and I loved the baumkuchen).

Overall: 9/10.  I literally bought these on a whim, having heard nothing about them before.  All I had to go off was the vague wording on the bag, which simply states that they are “potato sticks” done in a “hash brown style”, which meant nothing to me.  As with the potato sticks of old, I was expecting a taste that was predominantly potato, with maybe a little bit of flavoring thrown in…boy was I wrong.  The flavor was so strong that it just about knocked my socks off.  It’s a very strong onion flavor, but balanced with the potato, it makes for an incredible, and incredibly addicting, snack.  Also, 99 cents a bag.  Well worth it.