Junk Food Nation, no idle chit chat this morning!  Let’s get right to it, because I have a lot of pictures to show you all (oooo pretty).  Moreover, my apologies for the delay – WordPress has been acting up like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli.  I’m hoping I can get through this post without crashing the entire net.

My eldest sister gave me the following three junk foods to review, and what I’d like to do today is a side-by-side-by-side comparison of all three. I love Mexican food and one of my favorite sauces is Tapatio, a delicious red pepper hot sauce that has a tangy kick.

Just like a regular hot sauce, I can put Tapatio on anything – eggs, pizza, sandwiches.  It’s a universal sauce, and, if you can believe it, I only learned of its existence last year!  Craziness.  Anyways, when I was informed that Frito-Lay had launched three brand new junk food products, featuring this spicy sauce, I knew a review was coming.  And here they are, in no particular order:

Tapatio Fritos! Frito-Lay decided to highlight their twisting corn chip product here.  Pretty basic packaging concept – slap a picture of the bottle on the front and BOOM! Done.

Sabritas is basically Frito-Lay in Mexico, as they are both owned by the same company.  I wish all my snacks had such a happy face!

As a sidenote, by the way, I’m starting to feel like Frito-Lay is a juggernaut. Bent on world domination. Just sayin’.

“Frituras de maiz con especias” means “corn fried/fritters with spices.”  I guess that’s what Fritos are…

More spanish!  Ya llego = “it has arrived!” Dile Holaa = “tell him/her/it Hello.” Sure, Sabritas! Whatever you say!  I’ll give Tapatio Fritos credit – this is one cheerful snack.

Next up are Tapatio Doritos, of course:

Tapatio Doritos!  Again, simple design with the bottle and — wow, those are some red chips, people. Bold promise, Doritos, bold promise.

Totopos de maiz = corn tortilla chips!  Reading these bags is better than Rosetta Stone, and a lot cheaper too.

Finally, what better way to end than with a nice potato chip…

Tapatio Limon Ruffles!  A little different than the other two, these popular wavy potato chips add a kick of lime.  Now, I’m not a HUGE fan of lime on chips, but I was willing to give these a shot.

Papas fritas con especias = potato chips with spices.  See?  I didn’t even need to use Google Translate for that one.

Now that you’ve seen the packaging, let’s discuss my criteria for this side by side taste test:

(1) Does the junk food look like what has been represented on the package?

(2) Does the junk food deliver on its promise of strong Tapatio flavor?

(3) Which junk food is the most successful?

Let’s go backwards, starting with the Tapatio Ruffles:

Each Ruffles chip begins the same way – a perfect oval of potato fried goodness with those signature ripples on its surface.  The chip certainly isn’t as red as the picture on the bag, but you can see a fair amount of flavor powder on the chip, all over.  Let’s take a closer look:

Well, hello there. Up close, you can observe all those nice orange and red flaky powder granules, embedded into the ripples of the chip, and adhering to the oily surface.  The burnt edges remind you that these chips are made from potato. (Um, in case you needed reminding.)

I chomped a big stack of these: immediately was hit with strong acidity with a well represented Tapatio flavor.  The acidity grew and grew until the lime flavor REALLY kicked through.  It all ended with a very satisfying burn of the hot sauce that actually made me cough a little bit.  High marks here.  I’m not a huge lime fan, but these were pretty damn good.

Next up: the Dorito.

Traditional Doritos shape, and even with this step-back photo, you can tell the chip is packed with powder.  Let’s go in closer:

YIKES!  So. Much. Red.  I’m almost frightened by the amount of flavor powder on this chip. Its as if Doritos said, “Ok, we’re really going to hurt you with this chip. You want extreme? HERE’S YOUR EXTREME, BUDDY!”

First bite: WOW. To be fair, the first flavor you get is cheese – very cheesy tortilla chip. You can taste the Tapatio tang in the background.  But then you chew, and chew, and chew, and the Tapatio flavor grows and grows and grows – until it REALLY comes through at the end, slugging you in the mouth.  Not as spicy as the Ruffles, surprisingly, but probably the clearest Tapatio flavor of two.  Delicious.

And finally, the Fritos:

Whoever at Fritos thought of twisting the corn chips into fusilli-like pieces is a GENIUS. The structural innovation has allowed the CRUNCH of the traditional corn chip to really shine.

Up close, the Frito looks semi-disappointing – although you can see all the flavor wedged up in there in between each curl, there’s not a lot of it.  This is somewhat surprising, because the surface of a Frito isn’t all that different from a Ruffle or a Dorito – its oily and full of crevices to load with powder.

I took a bite ….. let down.  As I suspected, the weakest flavor of the three.  They still tasted good, but definitely lacked any discernible Tapatio flavor. I tried a few in a row and really only got the taste of spice – nothing distinctly Tapatio.  Booo.  What a shame – it was so cheerful to start!

If I had to rank the three, it would clearly go: Doritos, Ruffles, Fritos.  The Doritos hit on all notes; they looked exactly like the package represented, almost angrily-red with flavor.  They tasted exactly like Tapatio through a nice balance of spice.  Most importantly, you never forgot tat you were eating a Dorito.

The Ruffles were tasty and very spicy, but the lime, to me, was a bit overwhelming, the entire chip felt less like a chip and more like a vehicle to get that flavor into your mouth.  I prefer a complete chip.

The Fritos – well, I threw those out.

Happy Friday everyone!  If you’ve had these, I’d love to hear what some of you think in the comments below!

Sincerely, Junk Food Guy