Hardbite – Tikka Masala

Hardbite is a much beloved brand in my heart, at least in contemporary times. I can’t swear fealty to a brand when so much can change in the blink of an eye, but I will admit that the brand loyalty is strong here. At least as of writing this, they are still a relatively small company based on Canada, and there target demographic seems to be people like me – willing to pay a premium for better quality chips. Quality over quantity, as I’ve always said.

They are back at it with another new flavour – tikka masala. This isn’t really a surprising flavour at all, and the only surprise is that they haven’t tried this sooner. While the flavour profile can be quite distinct, I think given the general landscape of Canada as a whole, tikka masala is a very typical, normal thing you find everywhere these days.

This smells on point and looks the part. I attribute a lot of that to turmeric which tends to provide a distinct colour and flavour. Turmeric is a great ingredient for all the touted benefits, but also because I just like how it tastes. The downside of turmeric though is if it stains your clothes it will very likely stay there for time eternal, barring some chemical divine intervention.

I’ve said it before, but Hardbite tends to be more natural, and as a result some of their flavours end up being more tame and subtle, or even bland to some. This one is definitely on the tamer side, but all the flavour notes like the turmeric, paprika, tomato and other general flavours you get in most tikka masalas is there, if maybe a little quiet and not as rowdy. I like to think of it as making way for the real star of the show here, which is the potato. The potato is here, and it’s not shy. Unlike some brands where the potato is fried to the point where it tastes like an oily mess, this one has a “clean” taste to it and still tastes like an actual potato, which I really appreciate. I know some people enjoy that taste of fry oil, but sometimes I prefer a nice clean tasting potato, and that’s why I find Hardbite superior. It probably also costs them more to keep switching the oil.

The texture is what you hope for in a nice kettle cooked chip – crunchy, yet crispy, and overall satisfying. Thew one complaint I’ll levy is that my bag seemed to have a lot of smaller pieces. I meant smaller circles, which leads me to believe either the potatoes are smaller or the they way they are slicing is making smaller cuts. Either way the potatoes themselves are at least similar so the texture is still bang on and one of my favourite on the market currently. Bonus points for hailing from Canada.

In the end, I found these to be a bit on the milder side, but that’s about par for the course when it comes to Hardbite. The name of the game is texture, and they hit that out of the park every time. While I wouldn’t mind getting this one again, if there was another new flavour to try I would likely grab that first. But this one is good as a backup.