Wasabi & Soy Sauce Doritos

Japanese Food Review #101

I know that I recently said that I don't like Doritos, but those were Royal Doritos and these are just the normal type. It turns out I don't really like these either. I guess they were pretty good for Doritos. They're no Nacho Cheese, though. The wasabi taste was strong and a little spicy. I couldn't really pick up on the soy sauce flavor. It was just salty. Why am I trying to explain this? The samurai dude on the package does a perfect job:

Ratings:
Gaybot: 5
Girlbot: 4  She does not like wasabi, but she was happy that these weren't too spicy.
Overall: 4.5

Royal Tandoori Chicken Doritos

Japanese Food Review #99

These were much better than the Keema Curry Doritos and actually had a flavor resembling tandoori chicken. Still, they weren't very good. Maybe I'm just getting to a point where I can't eat Doritos anymore, but I think it might just be the thickness of Royal Doritos. For some reason the flavor of the chip (not the powder) kept making me think of dog food.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 4.5  I have to give it a better rating than the curry ones.
Girlbot: 6  She ate one, said they were much better, even good, and then said she didn't want a second chip ever again. So... 6.
Overall: 5.25

Royal Keema Curry Doritos

Japanese Food Review #98

In the past, I've written about Gourmet Doritos. They are limited edition flavors of Doritos that are slightly thicker and the flavor is added twice (because spraying your edible cardboard with synthetic powdered cheese but one time is so pedestrian). Perhaps the days of Gourmet Doritos are behind us, because these are Royal Doritos but seem to be the exact same thing.

Frito Lay has released two Indian flavors at the same time. Today we'll be looking at the keema curry ones. First off, making thicker Doritos is a bad idea. The actual chip is still of the lowest quality, so twice as thin would be a better gimmick. The flavor here didn't really seem like curry, or I would never have guessed curry if I hadn't seen the bag. It tasted kind of like Don Tacos (fake taco flavor) except spicier. Also, there was maybe a little Cool Ranch in there.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 4  Not good, but I did end up finishing the bag over the course of three days (it's not a large bag).
Girlbot: 2  She could only stomach one chip.
Overall: 3

I did buy the other Royal Doritos flavor, so check back every hour to see if I wrote about that eating experience.

Gourmet Doritos: Smoke Bacon

Japanese Food Review #64

The chefs at the Doritos compound have created smoke bacon flavor chips. It should be stressed that these are not smoked bacon Doritos, but are rather the flavor that one could feel in their mind if they literally smoked several pounds of bacon. I'm assuming that smoking bacon has become a popular fad among the youths of Japan much as smoking banana peels or crack cocaine have been in the past. Surprisingly, the concept of inhaling bacon in your lungs tastes very much like bacon indeed, at least according to these particular Doritos chefs.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 5.5 These chips were only average, but were fun to try once.
Girlbot: 4 She says they tasted very much like bacon, but she didn't like the flavor.
Overall: 4.75

Fried Chicken Doritos

Japanese Food Review #45

 It's well known that Pepsi and Frito Lay teamed up to make Cheeseburger Cheetos, but did you know they also produced Fried Chicken Doritos? They didn't really taste like fried chicken, but maybe dipping them in Pepsi would have helped.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 5.5:  They're not bad, but they're closer to boring than good.
Girlbot 4:  They weren't as good as she was expecting.
Overall: 4.75

Japanese Food Review #43: The Mexican Salt Doritos

Let's be clear, this isn't any old Mexican salt. This is "the Mexican salt," so imagine my surprise when it didn't taste like cocaine at all! It wasn't even spicy. I guess "the Mexican salt" is Japanese for "lightly salted." Apparently the salt in this bag actually comes from a Mexican lagoon, but I have no idea why that would be appealing. There are several snacks in Japan that boast of having exotic salts, but to my untrained tongue, they all taste quite similar to wherever the normal salt I eat is from.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 4   They're not actually bad, but they're boring.
Girlbot: 5   She described them as "chip" flavor.
Overall: 4.5

Japanese Food Review #40: Gourmet Corn Potage Doritos

Corn potage, or cream corn soup, is very popular in Japan. In no way would I consider it a gourmet item seeing as heated cans of it are often sold from vending machines. Girlbot has been known to purchase these cans from time to time, but I would never consider it.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 3  I was tempted to give it a higher score because they did an amazing job simulating the original flavor, but I remembered I don't care for that flavor, and the aftertaste was horrible.
Girlbot: 5 This comment really tells you a lot about these chips, "It wasn't bad, but it wasn't super delicious, so 5."
Overall: 4

Japanese Food Review #35: 7 Spice Doritos

Doritos has matched the flavor of juicy meat with seven spices: garlic, paprika, onion, oregano, black pepper, cumin, and red pepper. It could easily be called fajita flavor or taco flavor. It's much better than normal taco flavor Doritos. I thought they were delicious, but real corn chips are nearly non-existent in Japan (or incredibly expensive), so I'm sure I might be overrating these. It's a small bag, but at 78 yen, it's quite a steal.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 8   They've become my go to corn chips while supplies last.
Girlbot: 7   She would like to eat them again.
Overall: 7.5

Japanese Food Review #30: Gourmet Cheese Fondue Doritos

 You know that fake liquid nacho cheese that you get at sporting events. Get one of those cups, put a spoonful of sugar in there, mix her up, put 'er on some Doritos (have fun experimenting with flavors) and you have pretty much recreated these chips. You now have yourself a gourmet meal.

Ratings:

Gaybot: 4

Girlbot: 4

Overall: 4

Japanese Food Review #29: Pizza-la Get's Flavor Doritos

Pizza-la is about as big as Domino's or Pizza Hut over here, and they create about the same quality of fake pizza. Apparently "Get's" is the type of pizza pictured here. The bag says the pizza is known for having a lot of garlic and mushrooms, but you can also see bacon, green peppers, tomatoes and corn in the picture. The chips don't have a strong flavor, but the most distinct flavor is garlic. If I hadn't seen the bag, I might of guessed that it was an attempt to make taco flavored chips.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 6  Not bad, nothing special.
Girlbot: 4  She agrees that it's not bad but thinks it should be penalized for not having enough kick.
Overall: 5

Japanese Food Review #25: Gourmet Sesame and Salt Doritos

A lot of you won't shut up about wanting to know the other seasonal gourmet Doritos flavors. It uses real sesame seeds, as you can see. I'm an old-fashioned guy. I like my sesame seeds like I like small butterfly tattoos: On buns and at 3 in the morning when I'm too drunk to know what I'm doing (and also I'm probably crying). Anyway, not a huge fan of these.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 3
Girbot: 7  She likes sesame seeds.
Overall: 5

Japanese Food Review #24: Gourmet Almond Cheese Doritos

The folks at Frito Lay Japan have come out with the new autumn gourmet Doritos. Maybe I'll write about the other new flavor later. That will be quite a treat for all of you. Anyway, back to today's chips. The first bite was surprisingly almondy and horrible, but I continued eating them. I didn't spend 150 yen for nothing. After three chips I had completely changed my mind. These are clearly edible. I would say they are pretty much thick Nacho Cheese Doritos with some almond flavor sprinkled on. In other words, it's the type of food you might expect to be produced by some gourmet chef in a fancy French restaurant.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 5
Girlbot: 4  She only had one and decided she will never eat another one, but somehow it got up to 4.

Japanese Food Review #14: Gourmet Anchovy and Garlic Doritos

I'll admit that I don't like anchovies to begin with, but these were horrible. The garlic flavor was actually quite strong, which should have been a good thing, but it for some reason brought to mind biting into a clove of raw garlic (which would still be much better than these chips). Neither girlbort nor I were able to get through a whole chip. The rest of the bag ended up in the garbage. The next day when I was throwing away the coffee grounds, I couldn't believe the over-powering stench coming from the trash can. I don't know, maybe some of you would be into these, but this is now the standard for worst snack in Japan as far as I'm concerned.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 0
Girlbot: 0
Overall: 0

Japanese Food Review #12: Gourmet Salami Doritos

This is one of those gourmet Doritos covered with flavor TWO TIMES!!! I've always said, the only reason nacho cheese Doritos aren't gourmet is because there's not enough cheese flavored powder. You're supposed to drink beer with these salami Doritos. Hey, I'll second that emotion (that's kind of a witty thing I've been getting into saying). My first reaction to biting into to the triangular chip was that I didn't really like the flavor, but they really tasted like salami. I have to respect the work done by the Frito Lay scientists. Girlbot, on the other hand, said they didn't taste like salami. She believed  there was simply a black pepper taste. Though there is a black pepper flavor involved, she is dead wrong. She later admitted that there was at least a salami after taste.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 5
Girlbot: 3
Overall: 4

Japanese Food Review 8:Rich Butter and Soy Sauce Doritos

I think the idea here is that since the chips are made of corn, they should make a corn on the cob flavor (Japanese style). I couldn't taste the soy sauce flavor. This may have been because the butter flavor was so overpowering. It was a bit of a sweet butter. And the texture you ask? I would say it was very similar to the texture of all other Doritos.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 7    It should be noted that I was tired and hungry when I ate these. I very well would have enjoyed eating butter alone.
Girlbot: 4   Again, she bit into one and exclaimed, "It's good!" and then promptly labeled them a four.
Overall: 5.5

Japanese Food Review 1: Teriyaki Mayonnaise Doritos

I was a little surprised to see these labeled as gourmet. Does that mean normal Cool Ranch Doritos aren't gourmet? Are they simply classy? I also normally wouldn't consider mayonnaise and teriyaki sauce to be particularly gourmet flavors. Teriyaki and Cool Whip, maybe. I think the only thing that makes them "gourmet" is the fact that they've been coated with flavors twice.

The most surprising thing about these chips...

They're shiny. That's also pretty fancy, I suppose. The taste? I went through three distinct stages of flavor enjoyment.
1) This is horrible
2) Is this a little sweet? What's going on?
3) I guess I can eat this.

I asked girlbot, a Japanese lady, what she thought of them. "It's good!" she said enthusiastically. Then she gave it a 3 out of 10. The Japanese must use a different rating system.

Final ratings:
girlbot: 3
gaybot: 4
overall: 3.5
conclusion: I will never purchase this again.