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| Ranked and ordered according to a number of factors including, but not limited to: taste, originality, differentness from Canadian chips, texture, strangeness, and probably some other stuff. |
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Cucumber 5/5
Surprisingly delicious and so cucumber-y! I’m stumped as to how they created so much flavour resembling something I’d previously considered rather flavourless.
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Honey and Butter 1/5
Granted it wasn’t terrible, but I did have a very difficult time finishing them. It was just its sheer unCHIPlikeness that renders it completely unacceptable. The only chip-like quality it had was its crispiness. I swear there was not an ounce of salt in these chips. It is a very sweet chip with a very buttery/extra-fatty flavour - like a vanilla sandwich cookie in chip form. Or a Twinkie. Not cool.
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Kimchi 4.5/5
Panda-approved. It’s sort of like “barbeque flavour meets cabbage.” The interesting tasting cooked cabbage in a barbeque chip adds a whole new level of strange, but it’s so TASTY. It still left a slight “huh” flavour at the back of my mouth that doesn’t create a huge desire to buy them again, so it doesn’t get a perfect score. Then again, they are the flavour I’ve been buying the most of any of these, so I’m giving half a point back.
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Numb and Spicy Hot Pot 2/5
NUMB IS RIGHT HOLY HELL!! Although I hated them, they’re getting an extra point because I had no idea one chip could literally make your entire mouth raw. Fascinating.
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Yogurt 5/5
Why wouldn’t Canada have this?!?! It tastes just like a simulated baked potato with sour cream but with extra salt. The flavour isn’t quite as strong as some of the other flavours, but clearly distinct. It tastes almost like you could eat it with any meal and it would be socially acceptable. The flavours aren’t even traditional Chinese flavours – why does this exist here but not in Canada?!?!
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Mexican Tomato Chicken 4/5
VERY different from the plain “Tomato” flavour. This one is distinctly tomato – not ketchup. Absolutely still salty (I mean c’mon, it’s a chip), but not overkill. There is also a certain tang to it that has a strong pico de gallo feel. I’m not 100% sure how they managed this, but it’s fascinating. It feels like I’m eating pico de gallo, but on a potato chip instead of a corn chip, and you can’t feel the individual tomatoes.
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Cheese 1/5
Shivering with disgust. Remember those fake plastic cheese squares – Kraft singles? Or Cheese Wiz? Or the orange goo inside those Ritz mini-sandwich crackers? Now put everything so disgusting about that and put it on a chip.
Oyster and Egg 5/5
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No photo, unfortunately :( I’m really not sure how I can advertise a chip flavoured “oyster and egg” in a way that will acceptably overcome the grotesque name to show the sheer deliciousness underneath. I’m not even sure how to describe it. There’s a whole array of “streetfood-like” flavours with an undeniable almost-suffer-like taste underneath. It’s just…good? I’d buy these every day but they’re rather expensive.
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Cherry Blossom 5/5
If I said these taste like ketchup chips mixed with rosewater, that probably sounds disgusting, yet this unique chip flavour is shockingly delicious. It has a distinctly aromatic, floral taste. I’m 90% sure it’s rosewater, but the floral taste also has this deep, almost “fruity” flavour like ketchup chips. Meanwhile the chips are still definitely salty over sweet. A careful, delicate crunch to boot. It’s different from any other chip I’ve ever taste and it works so well. I highly recommend.
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Matcha 4/5
This flavour is definitely catching onto that whole matcha bandwagon – there’s no way this chip flavour would have just “appeared” on its own. Matcha? It definitely scores creativity points. A mix of sweet and salty with a satisfying crisp and distinct almost-bitter matcha flavour. They carried it out quite well. The one drawback… matcha’s a bandwagon primarily because it’s healthy – not because it tastes all that great. It doesn’t. (In my opinion). They did a decent job of replicating a taste that just doesn’t taste that great to begin with. Also I’m 99% certain its health benefits aren’t carrying over into the chips.
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Grilled Squid 3/5
Yooo ever wondered what slightly seafood-y plus distinctly burnt chip tastes like? Look no further. It sounds horrible, but the intentionality of it is intriguingly tasty. If you’ve ever watched squid being grilled, you probably know that it’s so white that some of the charcoal on the grill inevitably rubs off onto the squid and thus you can taste it when eating it. There are no burnt marks on these chips – they deliberately simulated a burnt taste. Fascinating.
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Gong Bao Chicken 4/5
I continue to be fascinated by how close these artificial flavours are to their original dishes. Our Ayi makes Gong Bao Chicken all the time and these chips taste remarkably close. I don’t understand this phenomenon. You can taste the peanut intermingling with the chicken and corn – how?! Could have used some spiciness.
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Lime ?/5
Well shit. I ate this chip and cannot remember what it tasted like.
Old Cheddar and Green Onion 3/5
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Relatively boring compared to Shanghai’s other flavours, but I rated it higher than the chicken wing chips because of the high quality of its artificial flavouring. It is distinctly aged cheddar with green onions. Way more distinct than any Sour Cream & Onion I’ve ever had and the cheese flavour is LEAGUES ahead of the other cheese-flavoured chips. Even labelled just “cheese and onion”, someone would have been able to tell it was aged cheddar and green onions. How the hell do they get their chip flavours so spot on??? Unappealing and relatively boring flavour choice, but deliciously high-quality enough to warrant a third star.
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Roasted Chicken Wing 1/5
Meh. It was okay. Boring AF and not work the review.
Italian Red Meat 2/5
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Somewhat boring. Why are meat flavours so popular here? I swear I’ve maybe seen one meat-flavoured chip in Canada, but almost every other flavour here is some sort of meat. This one’s kind of like barbecue with some extra spices in it (thus adding the one extra point).
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Tomato 2/5
Literally just Ketchup chips. They taste nothing like tomatoes but everything like ketchup. Granted, ketchup chips are utterly delicious, but they’re pretty unoriginal, thus bringing down the creativity points. You could just buy any old bag of ketchup chips back in Canada. Lame.
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Grilled Pork 2/5
I mean… it wasn’t bad, it was just extremely basic. Kind of like a thicker-cut, ruffled barbecue chip with a slightly more smoky flavour. Certainly not a poor chip but just so boring. All the good qualities of a chip should have but no originality. No uniqueness to this chip.
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