Lay's France Chips à l'Ancienne Nature

I waited a longgg time to try this bag... and it was well worth the wait! Here's a bag of Natural flavored chips from Lay's France's Traditional line. The hallmark of these chips is that they are light and crispy and have rich, authentic potato flavor. You'll notice a difference right away when you open the bag. The chips are a bit smaller, and all the edges are curled. The cooking process puts a natural wave into the edges of the chips. They have intense potato flavor, the flavor that lingers in your mouth for a few minutes after a bite. Interestingly, these reminded me of Hawaiian style kettle chips in flavor. When you started eating a chip, a light, flavorful oil would fill your mouth. Almost, like the chips were sponges that had overfilled. But the oil wasn't heavy or greasy, it was flavorful and shared some of that potato taste. The salting was perfect and complimented the potato and oil used. I would prefer this cut and cooking method above the standard Lay's France bag any day. The chips just tasted more flavorful, and the texture was heads above the standard chips. This bag is definitely one of the best natural/original/salted bags I've ever had. Yumm!

Maui Style Potato Chips

So here's a bag of Maui Style Potato Chips. Normally I like to write about bags with the Yellow circle logo, but today we get an exception because I thought these fell into the same spectrum. These Maui Style are produced by Frito Lay USA; BUT they can only be bought in Hawaii (or at a handful of Asian or Hawaiian stores), thus I consider them somewhat of an import. My mom was really thoughtful and grabbed these for me on her latest trip to Hawaii.
These are cooked Maui style... which is a kettle cooked style. These are like the laidback cousin of Lay's Kettle Cooked chips. The slices are bigger and flatter, the chip is noticeably more oily, and the chip is somehow thick and transparent at the same time. Like the Kettle Cooked line, these are really crunchy and allow for more potato taste. When the chip touches your tongue you instantly taste a very rich oil... almost like butter. It's not gross and greasy... its rich and tasty... but it might freak you out at first sight. The chips are full blown transparent. See Thru. But the chip is thick, so its kind of bizarre. They dont have visible salt on them, but they are SUPER salty. This is very complimentary to the oil... and normally I would call it heavy handed seasoning... but somehow it works. It was almost as if the potatoes had been soaked in salt water for a long time before they were cooked, because the salt seemed to permeate the chip. If you like Kettle style and aren't afraid of the insane calories (450 for a bag... about the size you would get at Subway), then I def think these are worth a try on your next trip to the islands.