Hot crisps update, May 2013

Hello snack fans everywhere. (Good evening, Enceladus!) Here we go again with another update on the hot/chilli crisps scene. Two more offerings for you this time: Real brand Jalapeno Pepper flavour, and Levi Roots’ Reggae Reggae crisps.

Reggae Reggae first. Groove cut, appropriately, and manufactured by our old friends in Devon, Burts, these babies have a pleasant appearance and flavour but no heat. Which is a shame, especially as the bag says “Medium”, not “Mild” (nor “suitable for patients recovering from surgery”). Reminiscent of our favourite Nando’s Hot Peri-Peri crisps (also made by Burts), but registering only 0.5, maybe 1 on the insertcrisps.com heat scale. Nice but not the full ker-ching.

Real (a make to be found in Starbuckses, and elsewhere) have repackaged their crisps in bold colours, and the relaunch includes this new (to us) flavour: Jalapeno Pepper. (What, no tilde?) They claim to be hot, and – huzzah – they are: we registered substantial heat on the tongue and in the throat, hitting 3 or 4 on our homebrewed heat scale. Very salty though. The colour is deep and golden, thanks to turmeric being used as a colouring. Recommended.

Gotta love Unicode

Love this decodeunicode video on Vimeo. Basically it's all the Unicode characters, at a rate of some per second, and it's transfixing. And two and a half hours long. Nice soundtrack too if you like minimalist electronica (and I do).

Now that’s Crème Brûlée ice cream

You may recall my utter disgruntlement with Carte D’Or Crème Brûlée ice cream recently (I described it as “basically just foam”). But now, hot on its heels comes Häagen-Dazs’ version, from their Secret Sensations range (name: 0/10).

Yum. It’s suitably creamy and ... mm ... ooh, nice crunchy “crème-brûlée-caramelised-top” bits, and there are pools of gooey melty caramelly sugary stuff, and, well, you get the picture. That’s how you do Crème Brûlée ice cream, people.

Chilli crisps roundup: Waitrose parsnip crisps yay; Sunbites woo; Lidl chili storm meh

It’s been a while since we last discussed chilli-flavoured crisps here (no, really, it has), and there have been some new developments, so here’s the February 2013 update from insertcrisps.com.

El Tequito “chili storm” tortillas from Lidl

 

Seeing as Lidl have previously served up joy in the shape of their Inferno chilli crisps, I thought these tortilla chips would be worth a go, but sadly they are a disappointment. The texture is oddly hard and bony, rather than pleasingly crunchy. When it comes to flavour, well, nothing much comes at all: there is a certain taste of popcorn, and they are a bit sweet (sugar ranks high on the ingredients list). Definitely more of a slight tomatoey salsa vibe than chilli, and there is absolutely no heat at all – stone-cold zero on the insertcrisps.com heat scale. “Chili storm” my elbow. “Mild salsa” flavour more like.

Walkers Sunbites, sweet chilli flavour
 

These were a present/suggested test sample from my auxiliary tester. I don’t normally do Sweet Chilli flavours here because we are looking for heat, but nevertheless I’m glad to report that they are very pleasant and quite moreish. Nice, a bit tomatoey, with some gentle chilli heat (scoring 1). Nice texture too.

Waitrose winter-spiced parsnip crisps with chilli

These are absolutely my new favourite thing. I have a great fondness for parsnip crisps but it’s hard to find good ones. These, I’m glad to report, are very very good indeed. They pack a proper chilli kick (3 on the insertcrisps.com scale) – really nice and spicy with cinnamon and, according to the packet, cloves (I must admit I couldn’t tell you what cloves actually taste like, although reportedly they go well with Tom Collins mix and frozen pie crust). Given that these crisps are labelled “winter-spiced”, it may be that they will only be available for a short time, so stock up now, kids.

Time Team map fail

Last week's Time Team featured a map animation showing the routes taken by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes in the invasion of Britain.

Curious how the various peoples' homelands, as shown on the map, exactly match the borders of modern-day Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands.

Fail, people. Back to school for you. Fail, fail, fail.

Cinnamon pretzels

Delicious, large, soft, cinnamon pretzels from Patisserie Melissa on Camden High Street. Yum.

Meaningless offers

OK, this is a particular bugbear of mine: claims such as "Removes up to 100% of stains", "Up to 50% off" and so on. These are almost meaningless and simply designed to mislead.

If something removes "up to 100% of stains", then maybe on rare occasions it might remove all the stains, but usually it will remove anything from 0% to 99% of them. And here, "up to 60% less" might as well say "Prices reduced on some products. In some cases by 10%, in others 25%, in a few 60%. But don't expect to find any price reductions better than this. And some products haven't had their prices reduced at all." Aaargh.

Crème Brûlée ice cream? Meh brûlée, more like

Regular readers of this blog (poor you) will be aware that I am a bit of a fan of ice cream. You may also have noticed mentions in passing that I'm partial to crème brûlée. So imagine the general yayness I felt on seeing this stuff on sale. I mean, crème brûlée ice cream – what's not to like?

Well, there is a layer of burnt – sorry, caramelised – sugar on top, and the flavour of the dessert is fairly CB-like. But the texture is an utter disappointment: it's basically just foam. It barely registers in the mouth at all. And there are interesting-looking layers and swirls within the ice cream, but these prove to be the same stuff, just a different shade of beige. Totally unremarkable, I'm afraid.

Cider paradox (should that be peardrax?)

Something here is just wrong.

Häagen-Dazs Salted Caramel ice cream

Last week, while in London, I made my usual pilgrimage to the Häagen-Dazs shop on Leicester Square to see what limited-release delights they had in store. I'm rather glad I did.

Just the one "special" this time: Salted caramel flavour. Yes, Salted. Caramel. My auxiliary taster, who up till this point had maintained that it would be stupid to eat ice cream when it was so bitterly cold outside, changed her mind when given a taste.

The flavour, as you would imagine, is just about the best caramel you've ever tasted, and every now and again you encounter a little crunchy nodule of caramelly fantasticness.

It really is epically good. Words fail.