Hardbite – Honey Dijon With Avocado Oil
Let me begin by saying I really like Hardbite. Not only are they a Canadian brand, they are also a company after my own heart – making quality, hearty, crunchy chips. It’s rarely a risk when I go for Hardbite, since they rarely, if ever, disappoint me. Today’s product is a line of chips made with avocado oil. I don’t really know too much about the cooking process and the effect of different oils. All I know is whether it tastes good or not.
Being that the first two ingredients are potatoes and avocado oil, suffice to say that they aren’t lying about using avocado oil. I’m curious to find out how these will taste. I don’t imagine the oil itself will affect the flavour too much, but more so how they will affect the texture of the chips. Hardbite has good flavours don’t get me wrong, but the main reason I buy them is for their texture.
It’s hard to see from the pictures, but these chips are super yellow. The chips themselves look to be quite thick compared to even the standard kettle cooked chips. I like how each chip seems to have a sort of rim to it. The chips started life thick enough that you can see the skin from the original potato was left on for the most part. That should give you an idea how thick these are.
Even among kettle cooked chips, these are quite thick and substantial. While these are crisp, they aren’t the sort of clean snap-away-into-crumbs sort of crisp, they more than make up for it with a resounding crunch. The crunch is so satisfying that it reminds me of eating an overcooked or over baked potato wedge thick cut french fry; you know the one, the one that’s been twice fried so that it’s got almost no fluffy potato inside but just a super crunchy piece. I love that kind of stuff, like the corners of an overcooked lasagna, or mac and cheese. I like overcooked stuff okay. Don’t judge. Bottom line is, these are nothing short of amazing in terms of texture, at least for me.
The flavour is straightforward and simple, in the best way. The best way I can describe it is if you dropped a potato dipped in honey Dijon mustard into a deep fryer and pulled it back out after. The honey Dijon mustard is just right – not too strong, and not too faint. It gets the Goldilocks seal of approval. After you get past the mustard flavour, you can taste the potato itself. While many chips are fried into oblivion to the point you can’t taste the potato, this one still has that neutral but unmistakable starchy potato taste to it, which I quite like. Some people take for granted the flavour of potato, because they think it taste like nothing. It isn’t until you try foods and snacks that try to make fries out of other items that you realize what a difference the flavour can make. I can’t get enough of these.
I know a big selling point of these is that they are cooked with avocado oil, but I honestly am not smart enough or seasoned enough to know the difference. The only thing I know is I like these. I like these a lot. Which is why I’m sad the bag is so small. Something to consider is that these are fairly expensive, at about $4 for a bag that’s roughly 130g. That’s half the size of your standard bag of chips of double the weight or more. That being said, I feel like it’s well worth it. These chips are more substantial than most, and the quality of them more than makes up for the higher price.
