Archer Farms Potato Chips

If it’s a food, they’ll make it a chip.

As previously mentioned, Shaw, McHugh and I played cards at Dave’s house the other night. While Dave was supplying some growlers of beers from 75th Street Brewery, he suggested we bring some more beers and snacks. You’ll be unsurprised that nobody took us up on our offer to share in our 30-pack of Natural Light.

We brought over a few bags of intriguingly flavored Archer Farms chips from Target, too. Choosing which varieties was actually kind of overwhelming -- we settled on Buffalo Wing, General Tso and Greek-Inspired, but they’ve also got Macaroni & Cheese, Honey Barbecue Ribs, Parmesan Garlic, Maui Onion, Loaded Baked Potato, Fire-Roasted Fajita and more.

And then there’s Roasted Vegetable & Olive Oil, which we didn’t even consider for a second. I would like to posit that if you’re truly craving the taste of vegetables, maybe instead of opening a bag of chips you should think about making yourself a salad. 

The game started with 11 players. Shaw got knocked out early, after demonstrating a level of skill slightly above that as seen on Hip Hop Hold’Em -- which is to say, not much skill at all. When half the players were gone we consolidated from two tables to one and took a snack break. Here’s what we thought of the chips.

Greek-Inspired: The bag says they’re seasoned with feta cheese and kalamata olives, and that feta flavor made these far and away the crowd favorite. I think I detected a little bit of pepperoncini zing in there, as well. These were excellent.

General Tso: The back of the bag reads, “This sweet and spicy chicken dish was first served in a Chinese restaurant in 1977. Archer Farms brings you the flavors of this famous dish in a chip.” The first sentence may be true, but the second is an absolute lie. These taste like barbecue chips with a major helping of ginger and way too much salt. They also taste kind of like burnt. These were not good.

Buffalo Wing: Neither terrible nor memorable. It is time for me to accept that no wing-flavored snack will ever be a worthwhile substitute for actual wings. Chicken is necessary, although Buffalo Chicken in a Biskit or Buffalo Pork Rinds could potentially work.

Just a couple of hands after the game started up again, I got knocked out myself. The taste of bitter defeat -- it’s not an Archer Farms flavor yet, but I’d wager it probably tastes a lot like the General Tso chips.