Lay's Chicken & Waffles

In the same grouping as Lay's Cheesy Garlic Bread, we have these... Lay's Chicken & Waffles.  I don't want to speak poorly of them before trying them, as I do enjoy chicken and waffles... sometimes even chicken and waffles combined, but... in a chip?  What?  But... why?  Do people really enjoy them so much that this was a top three front-runner for the new flavor?

 Also, given my experience with multi-flavor chips only really having one main flavor, I'm unsure if I'll taste chicken or waffle or some magical combination of the two.  Who can say?  I can because I'm about to try them.

But what do they taste like?
They taste a lot like how they smell which is 'syrup-y'.  Not much chicken or waffle in fact.  It's mostly syrup that I'm tasting.  And... I guess, to be fair, if you're eating chicken and waffles and you put maple syrup on them then that's pretty much all you're going to taste.  But... if you advertise chicken and waffles then I kinda expect to at least taste some chicken or waffles and not just the topping.  I think the big problem is that they're thinking too big.  Make one flavor really good - not this weird mix of two flavors that completely fails at tasting like either.

There's something little bit... smokey... about them, which I guess could be argued as the 'chicken' flavor, but I don't think it really qualifies.  I had chicken chips in Australia and those often tasted like chicken - with this I don't get much chicken flavor at all.  These really mostly taste like syrup and it's a little disappointing.  I was promised several flavors, and I'm just not seeing it.

There's something weird about eating syrup flavored potato chips that I don't think requires a repeat.  These are a novelty, sure, but nothing more.  I certainly hope they don't win the flavor war, or, if they do, are branded just as syrup chips because that's what they are.  The hunt continues for the Sriracha flavored chips, but until then, the Cheesy Garlic Bread is the winner, even though they weren't all that great either.  Still... these aren't awful, they're just very syrup-y.

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Lay's Cheesy Garlic Bread

So Lay's is doing this promotion I guess where they have three new chip flavors: Chicken and Waffles, Cheesy Garlic Bread and Sriracha.  We, the American people, get to decide which is chosen!  These are Cheesy Garlic Bread and I'm excited.  I love a good garlic bread, especially the cheesy sort.

But... the smell isn't particularly cheesy or garlic bread-y.  They smell more like plain chips than anything, and there are no seasoning nibblies on it.  This isn't super promising.

But what do they taste like?
Garlic-y.  Actually... these are pretty good.  They don't do the cheesy part well, but they do the base garlic bread part well I think.  I'm actually pretty impressed that they taste like garlic bread, and not just garlic.  But, the problem is that they rarely taste like garlic bread.  Maybe it's the lack of seasonings that keeps these from having a stronger flavor, which is disappointing because the flavor that's there is tasty.  This tastes a bit butter-y, too.  Yummy!  There's now a stronger flavor of buttery bread than garlic and cheese.

Buuuut, the big problem is that the flavor just isn't that strong.  I'd imagine that with the Chicken and Waffles chips I'll appreciate a lack of flavor, but cheesy garlic bread is delicious!  Why hide this flavor with potato chip flavor?

Bottom line?  These are pretty good, but they just don't pack much of a punch for me.  What I'd like to see is actual, powerful garlic bread flavor.  That sounds delicious!  I want this chip flavor times three or four.  And maybe some actual cheese taste, too.  That'd be nice.

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