Quinoa chips

Product: Quinoa Chips--Barbeque
Origin: Texas

First looks

Katie:
The chips are similar in appearance to Harvest chips, wavy with a firm texture. That smell though. It's in the neighborhood of barbeque, I'll give the chips that but the overwhelming smell is this unpleasant corny smell. I don't know how else to describe it but it's like old corn...you know how smells linger and what you made for dinner can still be scented hours later, good or bad? It's like that. The remnants of old corn and I don't like it.

Nick:
Uh, that smell might actually be me; I'm stuffed full of movie popcorn and Johnny Rocket's. I'm sorry, everyone. So very sorry. And, don't laugh, I didn't actually know what quinoa was until looking at this, but now I know it's an "ancient grain"! I think it's pretty hard to mess up frying up a vegetable and putting BBQ flavoring on it, so I hope these are going to be good. I mean, not as good as movie popcorn and Johnny Rocket's, let's be realistic.

Post-bite thoughts

Katie:
I still think the smell is the chips. Anyway, they're not awful. The barbeque taste is spot on, spicy in all the right ways. The chips have an odd mouthfeel, though. Not as firm or crunchy as a potato chip or even whatever Harvest Chips are made of (discarded Harvest Moon villagers? Like whoever you don't marry gets chipped? Idk. I only played that game for 10 minutes. I'm more of an Animal Crossing person) but not completely off-putting and awful. I think I could probably get used to it if I ate more of them so overall verdict is...a yes? I think? Hopefully Nick will be more precise. No pressure, dearest!

Nick:
Well, I can't believe I'm typing this, but the gluten-free quinoa chips aren't bad! Like Katie said the flavoring is spot on, but I have the same thing she does where there's something not quite right about these; I think the quinoa itself might be the culprit as it has a kind of musty corn taste that doesn't go with the BBQ flavoring perfectly. The texture is also airier than a potato chip, but that doesn't really bug me; it's the taste of the chip itself under the flavoring, I think. I would recommend these to people who can't have gluten but want a good chip easily, but for myself I think I'm going to stick with BBQ Lay's and Pringles.