Old Dutch – Rip-L Mexican Chili

Mexican chili is certainly…a description. I guess I’m not much of a chili aficionado to know what Mexican implies, but I’m sure there’s some reason behind it. As someone who doesn’t eat much chili, I can only say this flavour intrigues me. Chili is one of those flavours I prefer to be accompanied by the texture, so I would consider a regular chip with an actual bowl of chili as a dip of sorts. But I guess the benefit of this is having the similar flavour profile without the mess and toots.

I have to admit I respect how many of these chips are unbroken and how big some of them are. People complain a lot about air taking up all that space, without realizing it also helps cushion thing and prevent bags of dust from being sold. I’m sure there’s a lot of extra air that may or may not need to be there, but I for one prefer having one less chip than to have more broken ones.

When I think of chili I get a very distinct, vivid image on my minds tongue. This fits the description pretty well, though it’s hard for me to pin down exactly where that flavour comes from. Is it the tomato? Onion? Jalapenos? Beans?! What it is, it’s very distinct and the best thing I can say is it reminds me of actual chili. Not really sure what else to say. The taste fits the smell as well, and again, tastes like chili. Though less scalding and hot, it does a pretty good job of capturing the essence. Admittedly, in chip form it’s a bit saltier to taste than if it was in liquid-ish form, so I can’t have too many of these in a sitting without guzzling some liquids.

The texture is standard for wavy or ripple chips – they are somewhere between kettle chips and standard mass produced chips, not too light but not all that hard. There’s a much softer crunch than kettle which some people like. I should say most, as not many people like their chips as hard or crunchy as me. To each their own I guess. These are a good balance between crunching on rocks and paper thin chips, so it’s a good hedge that I think most people will appreciate.

Would I get these again? Most likely yes. While the flavour is something I tend to associate more with corn chips, it still works in potato chip form. It’s just a tad on the saltier side in terms of taste, though I doubt they’re actually saltier than any of it’s corn chip counter parts.