Neal Brothers – Mexican Street Corn Chips

Neal Brothers is one of the bigger brands in Canada, and I find myself getting their snacks on occasion. When I think of Neal Brothers I associate them more with pretzels and tortilla chips as well as salsa. But I have stumbled upon a release that caught my eye more so for the flavour than the brand itself.

While I haven’t experienced traditional Mexican street corn itself, I’ve tried products that simulate the flavour so I have a very vague sense of what it should taste like. I recall the flavour being very tangy and savoury, with garlic, mayo, cheese, lime, cilantro and cheese. It sort of hits every flavour note you want in something savoury. Perhaps it’s the volume and complexity of those flavours that makes it difficult to capture in just a corn chip, but I’m all for brands trying.

So right off the bad, based on years of indoctrination, I was expecting a very different chip size. These are quite large, and each piece is big enough to be the head of a tablespoon. Incidentally these would make for a great dipping chip, if not for the fact that these are absolutely coated in seasoning. A few of these chips have the entire underside coated in green, which I can only assume is the seasoning of the spices.

These smell pretty much what I expect of Mexican street corn, it smells like it’s equal parts sweet, tangy and savoury. These are different though, in that they added the smoky flavour to it, which is sometimes absent in some of the other snacks I’ve had. The flavour is very smoky, and it packs a lot more kick than I was anticipating. It’s got a chipotle heat that hits the back of your throat, so be prepared and try not to inhale it. The most prominent flavour is the smokiness and the savoury of the mayo, followed by the garlic and the lime. The sweetness sort of follows afterwards, but the smoke and spice is what hits the hardest and lingers the longest.

Once I got past the initial kick of the spice and smoke, I found myself downing these quite quickly. The texture is slightly different from what I am used to in these style of corn chips – it’s still got a nice crisp and crunch to it but it is thicker and not as dry, so it feels like you are chewing on an actual fried corn snack. It also means it leaves behind more grit but it’s nothing you don’t expect from corn. Overall I found these to be only slightly less crispy and snappy than Fritos but far more satisfying, which I always prefer.

I will definitely be getting these again. They did a good job with the texture, and the flavour while different from what I expected, was still quite tasty and kept me coming back for more.