Gotta Get At This: Lay's Arabia Forno Fusion Lebanese Mix and Italian Mix, MAX Salt and Vinegar, and Paprika

Lay's Arabia, which is the Lay's arm across the United Arab Emirates, debuted 2 new Forno Flavor Fusions. The "Forno" range is what we in the states refer to as the "Baked" brand, but I don't think I've seen the "Fusion" branding before. The "Fusion" line appears to be spice mixes on baked chips. The 2 bags being released are a "Lebanese Mix" flavor and an "Italian Mix" flavor. Classic seasonings that work in almost every situation. Sounds yummm.

Arabia has also extended a new flavor in their successful MAX line..."Salt &Vinegar". Also Classic, Also, can't go wrong flavor.
MAX is what we call Ruffles here in the US; not to be confused with the MAXX collection in other Countries which is a Deep Ridged Chip (Which is called XTRA in the UAE).

Bonus:

PS. Here's a bag I missed in November. Arabia permanently added Paprika to their list of permanent flavors.


I'm not a fan of the chips in the standard Lay's Arabia line. I found most of the flavors off-putting, and I thought the potato left A LOT to be desired. It was poor quality potato and odd texture. BUT I can't say I've tried their Baked or Ruffled Offerings. Sooo, they could be better. Let us know if you try any of these in the comments section below, and HAPPY HUNTING!!

Contest: World Cup Round-Up - Colombia, Perú, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Panama, El Salvador, Honduras, Egypt, Arabia, & Chile... and a little Ranting!

Ima put this out there right now. Some of these companies should be ashamed by how bad their online presence is. ASHAMED. The World Cup has been over for like 3 months now, however, 6 of these countries started World Cup contests and just never revealed who the winners were on their shared website. Peru, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Panama, El Salvador, and Honduras; they don't really have websites to begin with, but they launched a beautiful interactive site that was tracking the winners of each round of this contest. I kid you not, go on it right now, it's lovely but that damn site does not say who the winners are (www.copadesabores.com). Guatemala and Peru at least have functioning Facebook pages, and with a little digging I found that they did in fact announce winners on those pages (albeit the announcement was 1 picture hidden away on the timelines). This has actually happened before with Lay's Dominicana, they announced a previous contest online and then never announced the winner... check it out on Facebook, as that page is still showing off pictures from that unresolved contest. Whoever is handling South America's online marketing just needs to get it together... FOR REAL. Go look at how Margarita from Colombia handles their business. Flawlessly, they maintain a nice website, update their Facebook, and interact via Twitter and Instagram. I don't understand how it's that hard for the others to simply update a website that they've already had built.
 END OF RANT.

ok. So, let's talk about the contests that did have winners... and I apologize that it took SO long to share this info. I had really tried to be patient and 'round-up' all the winners in one post.

The only country from South America that actually announced their winner on their website was Colombia and their Margarita Chips. The winner was "Colombia Chorizo con Limon" (Chorizo and Lime). Voters chose to keep it Patriotic, and it's no surprise... Colombia had their most impressive World Cup EVER this year... plus the flavor sounds delish! This flavor is still available for a limited time in Colombia. Grab it while you can.

 Chipsy Egypt and Lay's Arabia shared their Flavor Cup and selected "Brazillian BBQ" as their winner. No surprise there. Not only does that sound yummy. But Brazil did an amazing job of hosting the World Cup and capturing the World's heart.

Chile also went Patriotic with their "Chile Enselada Chilena" and it sounds unique and tasty. I love a good acidic bag of chips. mmm.

Peru went Patriotic as well and chose "Peru Pollo a la Brasa" (Rotisserie Chicken). Can't complain, Chicken is da bomb! Good choice.

Guatemala  was swayed by flavor and chose "Suecia Queso con Especias" (Sweden Cheese with Spices). Can't go wrong with Cheese. Can't go wrong with Spices. The duo sounds awesome.

 Dominican Republic, Panama, El Salvador, and Honduras basically don't have any online presence, so if you know what flavors they ended up choosing, I'd love to know. Share it down below!

All the winners should still be available for a limited time in the Countries that conducted the contests. If you're interested in these, I'd say try to find them soon since like I said, this article is coming a bit late. AND If you're just curious and would like a reminder of what the other flavors were in this contest; click the "World Cup" tag at the end of this post.

Contest: Lay's Arabia & Chipsy Egypt Flavors Cup Part 2

3 more flavors have been highlighted online recently. To read the first part of this article click here!
Unlike the Flavor Cup happening in South America, the Middle East has chosen to have all 5 flavors compete at once with the bag getting the most votes becoming the unchallenged winner.
I already told you guys about Mexican "Chilli con Carne" as well as South African "Cheese"... but here are the final 3 competitors.

 Spain is getting their "Black Olives" shown off with this bag. I don't know what a bag of "Black Olive" flavored Chips will taste like... hopefully similar to "Pickle" flavored. By that I mean, sour and pleasant with Salt.

 Japan's flavor is "Sweet & Sour Sauce". Sounds kind of gross. But whatever. Also, isn't "Sweet & Sour sauce" Chinese???

Brazil gets the same if not similar flavor everyone has in this contest; "Brazilian BBQ". But hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.














So, is there anything here you've just got to try? Let us know below!

Contest: Lay's Arabia & Chipsy Egypt Flavors Cup

I guess South America aren't the only ones throwing a Flavor Cup! The Middle East is getting in on the action. Lay's Arabia (which caters to the Emirates) and Chipsy (Egypt) are both running a flavor cup on their own. The image above shows 5 flavors, like the South American contests, I have only seen 2 flavors highlighted online. However, I did see a 3rd flavor posted on Twitter that a fan had posted and enjoyed. So, these contests are basically just confusing me to NO end.

This one stands out to me in comparison to the other contest in that the flavors are MUCH more exotic.

This image depicts the 5 flavors and it looks like: Japanese Sweet & Sour Sauce, South African Cheese, Mexican Chile Con Carne, Brazillian BBQ, and Spanish Black Olives.

 The First of 2 flavors that have been highlighted so far are "Mexican Chili Con Carne"... which A) Sounds Delicious and B) Why has this never come out here?? I love the packaging, its got the flag with the little cactus' and maracas and Mexican icons. Then the flavor is featured prominently in the middle, it just makes me want chips and dip reallllll bad!

The 2nd flavor featured is South African Cheese. I have no idea what that tastes like, but I think it is a brilliant idea for a Chip flavor. Again the little doodle icons look great against the South African flag color scheme. Look at the adorable giraffe and the whale. I love it.




All in all, I find this contest a bit more interesting. I have tried Lay's Arabia's chips before and was not impressed with the quality of the potato. It doesn't come close to the amazing quality of the chips from South America, but I feel that these flavors are more exciting and pay more tribute to a nation (as opposed to making an Italian flavor Pizza, if you get what I'm saying). Should be fun to watch.

Voting is not yet open on these, but I will update you guys as soon as something of interest occurs.

Gotta Get At This: Lay's Arabia Forno and Lay's Cyprus Στό Φούρνο

Here's a little update on some new international lines. Lay's Arabia is currently promoting their new Lay's Forno line, which is their baked chips. Looks like they are starting off with 2 flavors, Authentic Cheese and Black Pepper. These started showing up online last month but they just started their big push on Facebook recently and are finally sharing commercials for it... if you like Baked Lay's check it out.

 

Also showing off their Baked line right now is Lay's Cyprus. Their Στό Φούρνο or "In The Oven" line consists of Barbecue, Mediterranean Herbs, Salted, and Oregano (Ive also seen Paprika but its not listed on their FB). I know the Salted and Med Herbs are older in the line, so my guess is they are expanding the collection right now. If you like Baked chips, Oregano sounds delish!

Lay's Arabia Chili

BLURGH.
I just ate this bag... nay, a single chip from this bag. It's pretty fowl. I had a friend over who reads my blog (Hi Malyssa!) and we dared to try this flavor. Thought the worst part would be the spice... boy, were we wrong. You open the bag and the smell is indescribable. Maybe like milk left out over night in an old leather bag. It was just BAD. We couldnt figure the smell out, but presumed it wouldnt impact the taste. How this bag could take on a taste so foul, I will never know. It tasted like the smell. Whatever that was. Followed by a tiny, itty bitty, bite of spice. Then... the creepy unknown flavor amplifies... and it sits in your mouth... for what feels like forever. The chip is very similar to the US Lays in texture; its quite flaky and thin. But you can't focus on the chip with a flavor so disturbing.

Do not ever, ever, eat this bag of chips. Do you understand?

This has been a Public Service Announcement, brought to you by your friends at The Chip Report.

Gotta Get At This: Lay's Arabia Flavor Me! Contest Winner

Lay's Arabia has had an ongoing contest called "Flavor Me!" in which people submit what they would like the next Lay's Arabia flavor to be. Voting and submissions have been going on for some time now, but it looks like the people have finally made there choice! The winner was declared to be... PIZZA!!

Ok, it's not super original, but hey, it is unique to the region and this does open the door for the next "Flavor Me!" winner to be even more interesting. So yay for PIZZA!!

If you have access to chips from the region served by Lay's Arabia (Emirates etc.) then you should be seeing these soon. They posted the photo below with the caption "Coming Soon to you." Looks like they are already being shipped to stores. I'm gonna try and get my hands on these. mmm.

Lay's Arabia French Cheese

This bag is so weird I put off writing about it for a little while. It's a bag of French Cheese Lay's from Lay's Arabia. The chips are like US domestic lays, they have a flaky, thin, texture to them. Lots of air bubbles from the fry, and you can see a bit of oil on the surface. They had a hint of potato flavor to them, not as much as I would like. The seasoning itself is what tripped me out. The first few chips were AWESOME. It was a fun unique taste with nostalgia for me, as I had grown up eating this cheese. HOWEVER, I started to notice a lack of salt and the sourish after taste the cheese was leaving on my palate. Halfway through I had to quit. I still have the other half and would love to try and finish it to give this review more resolution... because frankly I don't know how I feel about this bag. I KNOW that I had the thought "these are my new favorite" when I started... but by the end was like "no I cant have another one, uh uh". I think this is definitely made for fans of cheeses like Jarlsberg and the like. It has what I would call a "potent" finish to it. So if you like funky cheese taste it may be something you really enjoy. This bag can be purchased across the emirates and I think the flavor also exists in other middle eastern countries (by other versions of Lays). Definitely a nice change of pace from the usual Cheddar.

Lay's Arabia Salt

I was SOO stoked to get these chips. The logo is so cute! These little baggies are from Lay's Arabia... which I guess you can find in many of the Emirates, my cousin grabbed me a few from Abu Dhabi when he went to visit his family for Christmas. So basically, it was Christmas for me too, YAY! First off, the bag is itty bitty. Its like the size of those really small bags that come in the giant Costco variety pack boxes. I love that they are rockin English and Arabic at the same time.

Alright; the point. These taste almost exactly like US Lay's. The salt is more invasive, almost like the potatoes were soaked in salt water pre-fry. Invasive is probably a bad word, but I can't think of a better one. These had a really great Salty flavor... I think a noticeable amount more than what we are used to. Since it's not a highly complex flavor, I'll talk more about the potato. It had a nice potato flavor, but it had a texture similar to the US stuff. I noticed that these, as with the US ones, seem to get LOTS of air bubbles in them. The bubbles make like 2 thin layers of chip separated by air, which make them feel flakier in your mouth. If you love the smooth texture of Walkers, you'll immediately notice the textural difference. Unlike the US ones, these have more potato taste (a little bit more) and less oil taste (way less) which ultimately make them tastier. I think people who don't eat chips often will think these taste EXACTLY like Lay's, so honestly, if you are in the middle east and looking for your Lay's fix, these will satisfy... otherwise, no need to hunt these down, unless it's for the fun looking bag :p