Lay’s Potato Sticks – Tomato Flavour
On the hunt for interesting, regional varieties of snacks from North American brands, I came across this little pack of what appears to be potato sticks made my Lay’s for the Chinese market. It looks strikingly similar to Jagabee, a line of, for lack of a better description, potato sticks. To simply call them potato sticks would be a disservice. It’s more like, eating a dehydrated french fry. Trust me it tastes much better than that sounds.
Anyways, today’s product seems to be Lay’s take on the formula. Having tried Jagabee before, I already have an expectation of what it will be, but I’ll try and be objective as possible. Truthfully the flavour doesn’t matter much to me for these kinds of potato sticks, as the texture is really what sets these apart from your standard potato chip.
Something interesting about these potato sticks, and really any potato sticks made by any brand, is that they most come in this cup like container that’s lined with aluminum on the inside, with a fairly sturdy cup. I imagine it’s to protect the contents. I’m fairly certain that these sticks take more time and money to produce, as they are more expensive than a bag of potato chips of the same size. It makes sense you would want to protect them from breakage and damage before being consumed. Nothing is worse than getting excited to eat a french fry, only to see it’s already broken or snapped in half.
After being greeted by a slightly adorable, slightly creepy anthropomorphic potato stick, I peel back the foil top to reveal a cup full of french fry looking potato sticks. They smell quite like it too, with just the slightest smell of tomato soup. Visually, each of the sticks looks near identical to an actual french fry. The only way you’d tell the two apart is that these are very dry looking compared to the glistening oil drenched appearance of a fresh french fry. There also isn’t much indication that these have flavour on them, as visually the seasoning is very mild and almost undetectable to the naked eye. It even has the potato skins left on the ends of the sticks, which is a nice touch. That and the faint smell combined, you probably wouldn’t know without trying them. Which is what I’m about to do.
The tomato flavour is very mild, which I think is a good thing. I wouldn’t exactly say this taste like ketchup, but rather it’s more like a tomato soup, or a watered down, mild tomato sauce. I think it actually works well in this case, as it doesn’t take away from the rest of the potato stick. One thing I do like about this is that it actually has a potato flavour to it, much like a thick cut potato chip or french fry that’s been lightly salted.
That brings me to the texture, which is the real highlight of the snack. You may think that it’s like a classic shoestring french fry, given that it looks like one. While a french fry would have a light crisp on the outside and be starchy and soft on the inside, this thing is crispy throughout. It’s got a good, solid crunch to it as well similar to a really, really thick cut potato chip. In fact, you could think about these sticks as having a similar texture to a kettle cooked potato chip, except its in a condense stick form. You still kind of get that starchy texture on the inside, but it lacks any moisture whatsoever, so it may be a bit weird at first. It’s like a dehydrated mashed potato that was dropped into a deep fryer.
These things are surprisingly light, and don’t leave much aftertaste or much of anything behind. I’m kind of left wanting more, and craving something more substantial. It certainly doesn’t help given that the whole cup is only 40g. But it’s good in a way, since forcible portion control is what keeps me from gorging myself on these. So yes, I would recommend these. But only if you can get past the fact that you are indeed paying more for less compare to a traditional pack of chips.
