Trader Joe's Ridge Cut Sweet Potato Chips

TJ's track record with sweet potato products is pretty stellar. Probably because it's pretty hard to screw up the sweet potato. Fry it, mash it, bake it...it's aaall goood. So far Sonia and I have checked out the Sweet Potato Pie Bites, and Russ and Sandy tried the Sweet Potato Frites. These products garnered scores of 8.5 and 9, respectively. Not bad. We're tough graders. Now, I'm not exactly sure where the term "frites" came from. I would have assumed it's some British nonsense, but I know that they generally call their fries "chips," and they call their chips "crisps." Well anyway, these are "chips" in the American sense of the word. Ridge cut chips, a la Ruffles brand.

These have a lot of good sweet potato flavor. They're nice and crunchable. Yes, "crunchable." As in "crunchable chipses." As in, that's what Gollum would call them. As in, I wish it were December already so I could watch the new Hobbit movie. But alas, I'm off on one of my notorious rabbit-trails.

Sonia says these chips are a good alternative to regular chips. If you're a chip kind of person, these do break up the monotony of regular old potato chips. And they're not super-sweet. If TJ's had decided to add some kind of brown sugar or mapley flavoring to boost the sweetness level, these would have been much more dessert-like and confection-ish. In my opinion, that would not have been a terrible idea—but I do have a bigger sweet tooth than the average bear. Sonia likes them just the way they are. There's just a hint of salt. When I think of them in my mind, though, I think of them as being more salty than they actually are. Not sure why. They're just... so... chip-ish, and chips tend to be salty.

My only complaint would be that they're not super sweet, and they're not super salty. They do taste natural, which is good. But for me, when I crave a snack, I'm usually looking for a sweet snack like a cookie, or a salty snack like regular chips. These kind of get lost in the middle somehow, and I don't find myself actually craving them ever, although they're absolutely snacktastic if you're down for something slightly salty, slightly sweet. I give them a 3. Sonia gives them a 3.5. If you're on the fence about trying them, and this review didn't sway you either way, I'd say that if you like sweet potatoes or sweet potato products at all, these are absolutely worth a try.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10.