Trader Joe's Sriracha Potato Chips

Lattice cut. Kettle Cooked. And sriracha? WHAAAAAAAT? 

For the record, Trader Joe's is kind of late to the party.  The Korean grocery store has been carrying sriracha popcorn for years, and somebody suggested it in a national potato-chip-flavor-contest two or three years ago. But considering the fact that I'm perpetually 2-3 years behind on pop culture, I forgive them completely. Hats off to you, TJ's.

Dragon-emblazoned bag. LOL. And yes, I would probably dip these in ranch dressing at some point just to see how they fare. And if I really want to burn my insides, I'll dip it in that leftover sriracha ranch, which I sort of regret purchasing now. 

Every chip bag is mostly air y'all. It's inevitable, but still they look so inviting. 

The lattice cut is hands down the best texture for this chip flavor. It just works. As long as you get an adequately seasoned chip, it enables better flavor distribution in the mouth upon contact. For the record, this isn't nearly as spicy as regular sriracha sauce. In fact, it really doesn't taste much like real sriracha, so it should be quite tolerable for people with a low spice tolerance. Actually too much spice, like the sriracha ranch/cayenne, would have ruined this for sure, but at the present level it's perfect with the sweetness and slight vinegaryness. The spicy with a hint of sweet is vaguely reminiscent of Korean-style chicken wings but not nearly as sweet. It's a spicy barbecue-esque taste, just a bit more vinegary and less sweet compared to regular American barbecue flavor. My only critique- compared to the ghost pepper chips, the seasoning distribution lacks consistency, which kind of defeats the purpose of presenting it in lattice form. Some of the pieces were spicier than others, others too salty, others too bland, etc. You can see it in the picture too that the color is more concentrated in some areas and not others. The oil distribution could have something to do with that, but I'm not totally sure. In any event, the seasoning distribution difference wasn't significant enough to affect the product as a whole- I'm just nitpicking at this point. You can barely taste the difference after you chomp down on enough chips. :P 

A rates this a 4.5, which I will conveniently not take into account (because that's what people apparently do these days when something doesn't help your cause :D). He dislikes it, mainly because this lacks anything that tickles his taste buds (meat. bacon. white rice just to name a few). Spicy? Nope, A doesn't eat spicy (not really :P). A slight vinegar taste? A hates sour, vinegary, acidic foods. He's also not a snacker so not particularly helpful here. He said it was interesting for the first few bites, but after that it got old. Shame. 

BUT I LOVED IT. Dare I say, this might be the best potato chip I've had all year? Dare I also say that so far it's been good enough to make me forget about pickle popcorn? I want to know what exactly is so seasonal about sriracha, because it's so sad that this will disappear from the shelves in one or two months. The $2.29 price per bag is reasonable enough too. Commence the hoarding. 

TL;DR: Trader Joe's Sriracha Potato Chips. Lattice cut sriracha delicious salty crunchy snack! I wish you were there for me all year round! 8 out of 10.