March 2023

Lay's "Salt & Vinegar"

Frito-Lay

I’ve already reviewed these, sort of. If you check out the many listings for some of the more popular treats on candycritic.org, you’ll find some repeats that aren’t really repeats. The best example of this is with the regular milk chocolate Kit Kat bars. I’ve reviewed this bar at least 5 times, but there’s a twist. Each one of these bars comes from a different part of the world, and in some cases are very different from one another. I first noticed this with the milk chocolate Kit Kat bar, when I sampled one from England, the USA and Canada at the same time. So now, when I see a snack or treat that seems similar to one I’ve already tried, but in a different country, I pick it up. I should also note that when I find a treat that I’ve reviewed before in another part of the world, I always check the package to see where it’s manufactured, just so I know it’s actually made someplace else.

When I saw this bag of salt and vinegar Lay’s potato chips, I knew that I had already reviewed the Canadian version of this snack. I knew that this bag of chips was not manufactured in Canada as most of the package contained Arabic writing, and a completely different package design (I remember this kind of thing). The thing is, the chips inside tasted exactly the same as the salt and vinegar chips I ate in Canada. This isn’t really a bad thing, as it’s good to know that standards appear to be exactly the same all over the world, but it does make it difficult to write a review that doesn’t just say “read the other review, they’re exactly the same”.

I’m both happy and sad, while I didn’t get to experience a new salt and vinegar potato chip, the Canadian version is a very nostalgic snack for me, so it was nice to enjoy that flavour and crunch that I remember again. I can certainly recommend these to anyone who might want a nice sour and salty snack, but if you’re looking for something exotic you might be out of luck.

I was really deceived by the vinegar bottle on the package, it looks like a darker coloured vinegar, maybe a cider or balsamic, and I was really thinking, it just might be different.