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| These are interesting and delicious. |
“What are lattice-cut chips?”, you
may be wondering, just as I was before scooping them up one day at
Aldi. Well, the image on the front of the packaging sums it up well: imagine a waffle fry fucking a potato chip, and you’ll pretty
much be in the right ballpark.
But how does that affect the actual
texture, in practice? It delivers the extra crunchiness of a kettle
chip (because that’s what these technically are), but manages to be
slightly unique thanks to the wavy, “grid-style” ridges. The end
result is a thin chip with some small, pin-sized holes throughout.
Honestly, I like that a bit more than most typical kettle chips,
simply because there’s less chip here; this means they don’t get
overly crunchy like some of the “normal”, thicker kettle chips
do.
But no food product can be good if it’s
lacking in taste, and I am proud to announce that these pass the
flavor test with flying colors. I will say that I think there tends
to be a little bit too much black pepper for my liking, which leads
to the “sodium burn” typically reserved for excess salt (which
there’s a decent amount of, too), but the cheese is appropriately
inviting, and counterbalances the “harshness” of the pepper, for
the most part. It's rather light, and also kind of veers off
into a slightly sweet territory that I wasn't expecting, although
that might just be a gustastory illusion courtesy of the interplay
between the cheese and pepper. At any rate, I have a hard time
stopping once I start eating these—which is typically a good sign
of deliciousness.
That being said, as good as the flavor
is, it does start to wear thin after a while, which prevents this
from being an “everyday” kind of potato chip that I could eat
almost all of the time, such as their ranch tortilla chips. That
means these are a once-or-twice-a-year kind of a thing, which works
out pretty well considering they are only available as a Special Buy
a few times throughout the year. It's the perfect example of a
product confined to special buy cycles that absolutely should be.
Popping in at $2.19 (per 7 oz. bag),
they’re certainly a bit more expensive than their typical chips;
presumably, it costs a few extra cents for them to add another angle
of cutting to the chip. Still, it’s far cheaper than national brand
chips in general, and since this is presented by Specially Selected,
Aldi's more “premium” label, that helps to justify and explain
the slight cost increase versus their other chips. At the very least, they're worth buying at least once just to give them a shot, especially if you're tired of the typical options.
Overall: 7/10. These lattice cut chips
are, basically, a thin waffle fry texture in chip form, with a
“grid-like” cross-cut throughout that delivers extra crunch
without being so thick that they threaten to shatter teeth. The
flavor here is good, with a light cheddar flavor paired up with a bit
too much cracked black pepper for my liking, leading to that feeling
of “sodium burn” that you get from eating overly salty snacks for
too long. Once I hit that threshold, I know it's time to put them
down, but they are pretty addicting before reaching that point. I
wouldn't get these all the time, even if I could (on account of them
being a special buy and all) but they're a great change from the
norm, and at $2.19 per 7 oz. package, a reasonable value at the same
time.
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