Review: PopChips Cheddar & Sour Cream Potato Ridges & When You Fly, Do You Bring a Plane Snack?

JFG Nation, thanks for all of your suggestions yesterday for places to eat in Las Vegas. EAT is now definitely on the list of places to try. Deep fried deviled eggs??? YES PLEASE.

Since I’m flying out to the West, I thought I’d revisit a topic I put up last year: Do you bring snacks on a plane? As I stated last year:

Sure, on a plane, you might get plenty of liquid snacks (something I am quite looking forward to) and if you’re lucky and fly JetBlue or the like, you might get more than a tiny bag of pretzels thrown at you…but otherwise, what is your GO-TO food/snack when you fly long trips?

Normally, if I were flying out of Dulles, I’d just grab a huge burrito from the Chipotle across from the Virgin America gates and nosh on it mid-flight. I did that recently on a trip to the Bay Area, and the dude next to me couldn’t believe I had packed a burrito into my carry-on. DON’T BE JELLY, SIR. YOU COULD’VE HAD THIS SOFRITOS TOO.

But of course now Chipotle has all sorts of issues, so that likely won’t be my go to this time. So now what? Do I drop $12 on some random snack mix from Hudson News? I actually love random Asian snack mixes, but (1) the plastic on those bags never rips right and half the mix ends up all over my tray table and on the guy next to me, and (2) halfway through the bag I’m STILL hungry and wanting something with more OOMPH.

I’ve seen people bring sandwiches from home (guilty), bring fruit from home (guilty), bring pita chips and hummus (how did you get through security?), and as I mentioned previously I once saw a guy eat a sandwich bag of cherries, spitting the seed into a plastic cup. It was revolting.

I’m still not sure what I should bring this year. Any suggestion on your go-to plane snack? Let me know in the comments below.

Today’s junk food: PopChips Cheddar & Sour Cream Potato Ridges!!

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PopChips Potato Ridges!!! My good friends at PopChips sent me a box of these to try. I know I’ve seen them on the shelves at Walmart already, but my inside intel suggests that they won’t be widespread distributed until June….still, they are out there if you are looking for them! Four flavors: Cheddar & Sour Cream Potato Ridges, Salted Ridges, Tangy BBQ Ridges, and Chili Cheese Ridges.

You guys know that Cheddar & Sour Cream is my jam, so I had to dig into those first:

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“They’re ridged for your pleasure…” Cheeky, PopChips.

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Opening this bag of PopChips Cheddar & Sour Cream Potato Ridges, I could smell LOTS of cheese flavor. Plenty of savory notes too among the typical potato-y aroma.

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Each of the PopChips Cheddar & Sour Cream Potato Ridges was BLASTED with powder, was, indeed, ridged! Large ridges of course….PopChips are already sort of a weird shape, so adding rows of contour to the chips isn’t the most graceful look in the world. Still, who cares if it tastes good, right?

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And “taste good” is exactly what these PopChips Cheddar & Sour Cream Potato Ridges are all about! Crunching into a handful, the flavor was ON POINT – lots of cheddar flavor with a good amount of sharpness. The tang of the cheddar was well complemented by the tang of the sour cream flavor. The onion-y notes helped bring this chip to a level beyond just a “cheese chip.”

Ruffles Cheddar and Sour Cream Chips are my favorite, and part of what makes them awesome is the balance of the flavors on a delicate ridged chip. These chips are clearly thicker, so they don’t have the same thin delicateness of the Ruffles. However, they are so LIGHT these chips didn’t need MORE powder than normal to compensate for the chip. Once everything is crunched together, this chip had lots of balance.

Did the ridged form add more crunchiness? It did! PopChips are already crunchy and puffy and light, but I did think these ridged chips were slightly crunchier than normal PopChips. JUST SLIGHTLY, enough that I noticed it.

All in all, I loved these. Tasty and the new form didn’t distract. Thanks, PopChips!

PURCHASED AT: Sent to me, but available at Walmart and soon, everywhere!

COST: you can usually find them for like $2.50-$3.00

Thoughts? Please comment below or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. I also have Google+!! Let’s hang out.

Sincerely,

Junk Food Guy

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Discuss - 4 Comments

  1. Jessica Kuligowski says:

    Since I actually do try to stick to a diet (despite the fact I probably I eat as much junk food as whole foods), I brought snacks for the whole weekend, which included a box of protein bars, several single serve packages of raisins and nuts, and a box of Dr. Kracker crispbreads. All in my carryon because I didn’t want to be separated from it if my luggage got lost. I know I ate 1 bar on the way and another for breakfast the next day. Some of it came back home. But that’s me. I’m weird.

  2. ibagoalie says:

    In my backpack, I usually have a Kind nut bar, jerky/beef stick and a squeezable pouch of fruit puree (the kind you buy in the baby food aisle). That way, nothing spoils, the smell doesn’t bother my seatmate and I have a choice of sweet or savory, depending on my mood. Lastly, all my items are relatively healthy.

  3. T says:

    21 chips for 120 calories sounds pretty good, although I can’t really tell how small these chips are. Regardless, I’ll probably give them a try. Thanks for the review as always!

  4. Chip Review says:

    Great review. We wholeheartedly agree!! These are some really tasty Popchips!

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