Our Flamin' Hot Odyssey continues

[Fat4all]

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What did you think? Had them a month ago or so ago and thought they were delicious

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these are very tasty and easy to snack on

you get three very distinct sensations while eating them; smell and first taste is ranch heavy, then the heat blends in and it almost starts tasting like a blue cheese dressing, then the flavor pretty much is gone before you're done chewing and all that's left is the flavor of corn with a slight backend of heat

my only complaint is that the Flamin' Hot flavor doesn't really break through anywhere, even though it's heat does. it ends up getting overpowered a tad by the ranch

nice crisps, tho. i'll prob get them again

 

[Fat4all]

these are ok. not that spicy tho

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yeah, the layer of Flamin' Hot on them is a bit too light

the only real way to get a kick of it is to eat a big handful, and even then it fades p quickly

i should buy a bunch of bags and make peanut butter

 

[Fat4all]

Tried the flamingo hot staxx (lays version of Pringles)

Pretty good

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speak of the devil

these are a lot saltier than I was expecting, but they up the levels of Flamin' Hot to compensate

I'm more of a fan of Pringles, but I could see myself getting these again

 

[Fat4all]

found two different Flamin' Hot items tonight

was looking for this for a while, first time finding it

finally found it in a dollar store

VERY strong Flamin' Hot flavor and spice, super tasty

they didn't have the Famin' Hot Puff Corn, tho :(


second item was at a GetGo (Giant Eagle gas station thing)

just like with Slim Jims, super super oily

the spice is on point, hits you immediately and lasts a good bit

meat is a bit gritty and pretty salty

honestly, it's not terrible but I'm not a fan of meat sticks, if you're someone who loves both meat sticks and Flamin' Hot these are on point

 

[Fat4all]

These are really interesting.

So, they are thin pretzels with a fairly thick coating of Flamin' Hot on the outside with only a smidgen of salt (most of the saltiness comes from the Flamin' Hot itself).

From the first bite, you get a blast of Flamin' Hot flavor, really nice shit. Hits ya strong on the palette from the get go.

But very quickly the flavor is cut through with the buttery pretzel chip, and it smothers away the spice.

Normally I don't like that, but the shift from Flamin' Hot to butter, and the repeat of this chip after chip, works really well.

It's like every crisp is a palette cleansing for the next blast of Flamin' Hot.

Really nice, very easy to burn through.

 

[Fat4all]

THE DAY HAS COME AND SO HAVE I

These Flamin' Hot Fritos are really sommit else. They are super tasty and very different from other Flamin' Hot products.

They smell like normal Fritos, and at first taste almost exactly like normal Fritos, but the flavor of Flamin' Hot creeps up on you and hits you right in the back of the throat. Its really something else, you barely get only spice on the tongue, its almost all relegated to the back of the throat.

That makes it super, super easy to eat, even more so than the Rold Gold Pretzel ones.

The flavor of Flamin' Hot is pretty muted, which is a small ding against it, but the mixture of Fritos flavor and Flamin' Hot flavor really works well, I can see myself buying this multiple times.

Probably my favorite Frito flavor of all their variants.

 

[Fat4all]

Flamin' Hot Habanero

Good heat, habanero flavor overpowers the Flamin' Hot a bit, but it melds together well enough. A slight sweetness on the back end.

and some non-Flamin' Hot discoveries:

Walmart Great Value brand Burnin' Hot

Generic spicy flavor, the heat doesn't really pull its weight either.

I like that they were kettle chips, tho. But for a buck more you could have the genuine article.

Summertime Ranch

Had too much Flamin' Hot and need to cool down? Dump some ranch in your mouth.

Very sharp ranch flavor, the star shapes are kinda weird but not unpleasant.

 

[Fat4all]

so they finally made it to my local shop

Flamin' Hot Doritos.

off the bat, I dig the packaging, very striking and the Flamin' Hot font is nice and big and in the middle of the pic

the black background around the middle but not taking up the whole packaging also does a good job setting it apart from the other spicy Dorito chips

opening up the bag, the scent is only Nacho cheese. If the chips weren't so dark red, I'd confuse them with normal Nacho Doritos on smell alone. Not even a whiff of Flamin' Hot

chips are dark red, with a decent layer of flavoring on each chip. I bought a bag of Spicy Nacho Doritos as a comparison, and these are much darker red

the flavor is immediately Nacho Cheese. The cheese overpowers the Flamin' Hot flavor for a solid two or three seconds

not until then, a few seconds into chewing, does the Flamin' Hot do its work. A good upward wave of Flamin' Hot spice cuts through the Nacho cheese flavor, and it stays around for a long time just at the back of your mouth

even after a sip of water, the Flamin' Hot keeps a consistent burn going for something like 40 seconds before mellowing a good bit

as i said before, i got the Spicy Nacho as a direct comparison, and its heat doesn't quite match up. It's there and gone very quickly, and the Nacho cheese flavor mingles with it more as well. Not a bad crisp, but not quite what I want from a spicy chip

if you eat one Flamin' Hot chip after another, you get a good rhythm of the strong cheese being massively present, then immediately being usurped by the Flamin' Hot over and over again

very bingeable, especially if you like both Nacho Cheese Doritos and Flamin' Hot

 

[Fat4all]

After seeing those Flamin' Hot Dill I went out in the middle of the night to take a look around.

No luck on the Dill, but I did see the Beer Cheese chips, so there's a good change they're around me somewhere.

But I did make a new discovery:

Flamin' Hot Lime Sunflower Seeds

Just like with the Flamin' Hot peanuts, these are pretty weak in flavor unless you shove a whole bunch of them in your mouth, but i will say that the Lime flavor dies pair very well with the salty seeds.

 

[Fat4all]

hot damn

The bags design is great, the reflective purple catches the eye really well, though the font choices could be better matched.

Opening up the bag, you get a pure pickle smell. If you've ever had Lays Dill chips, these smell exactly the same, very sharp vinegar smell. No hint of heat from the smell.

Looking at the chips, they look almost like cheddar and sour cream chips, very pale red, doesn't look like any other Flamin' Hot crisp, which are usually much more red.

OH MAN THIS TASTE. It's closing up my throat in a good way. The first thing you get is the pickle, followed immediately by the heat. The heat takes you by surprise, its almost like the pickle flavor lets the guard down to something more refreshing, but instead its bombarded by Flamin' Hot. It 100% tastes hotter than normal Flamin' Hot, it's very intense.

It's such a nice, sharp burn, and it drops off very quickly, making you want another chip asap. Aftertaste is mostly the tingle of heat and pickle.

This is one of the better combinations of flavors I've ever had, but that is because I do love both Pickle and Flamin' Hot. If you don't like Pickle chips, you probably won't like these, besides the heat they are roughly the same bright pickle flavor you get from the regular Dill Lays.

This is a fucking winner, hot damn.

 

[Fat4all]

it took a lot longer for these to crop up around me than I thought they would

the baked Lays crisps have always been a bit hit-or-miss for me, either pretty good or pretty bad, but this one is right down the middle imo

the Flamin' Hot flavor is solid, you get a decent kick of heat asap

it lacks outside of the Flamin' Hot. There's very little to no cheese flavor, so light that the Flamin' Hot consumes it pretty much

these are a lot less "fatty" tasting, I guess is how I would describe it. Less oily/greasy?

thats a plus in the health department, but the flavor compared to the original is not great

very middle of the road, like I said before. All that really drives me through the bag is the repeated hits of the Flamin' Hot, but that's the only level it offers really

 

[Fat4all]

Decided to stop at a gas station I never stopped at before and found these.

These are the cousins of the Flamin' Hot Peanuts I talked about previously, but much much better. around nearly every nut is a shell of intense Flamin' Hot flavoring. With the normal Flamin' Hot nuts it would take a whole handful to get a good amount of heat going, but with these you can pop them in your gob one at a time and get a really good spice level going.

The biggest downside is that the bag is under 2 ounces, had to get at least two bags but luckily they aren't too expensive.

Big upgrade from the regular nuts, would recommend!

 

[Fat4all]

These took much too long for me to find, but today was my lucky day.

Returning from a snack age past, the return of Asteroids aren't quite as special as they could of been. Think of it as an embarrassment of riches, but Asteroids are essentially just a smaller version of the Flamin' Hot Puffs, coming back into a world of many many different Flamin' Hot flavors. There's nothing really wrong with Asteroids. They have a good heat bite, and there's no real cheese flavor to speak of (good for people who prefer just the corn and Flamin' Hot kick), but its very one-note and flat when compared to some other Flamin' Hot snacks today.

The biggest difference between these and the Flamin' Hot Puffs (besides their size), is actually the corn flavor. These asteroids have a decent kick of spice, but just like with the Flamin' Hot Nuts, you need to eat a good handful to get the kind of kick you are used to with even the normal Crunchy Cheetos. Eaten slowly and only a few at a time, and the corn of the Asteroid itself pokes through, and while this isn't unpleasant (and along with the size of the product) it kind of made me think of cereal while eating it.

I wouldn't say no to trying Flamin' Hot cereal, but as a snack while at work it wasn't something I expected to pop into my head.

These just aren't super interesting. While its a part of the Flavor Shots line of snacks, those Flamin' Hot Nacho Shelled Nuts I had last week were much more interesting, with a nice mixture of different textures, along with a good combo of the heat and the nut balancing each other out.

Just a touch disappointed.

 

[Fat4all]

This is a bit late, as I wanted to try out the other spicy Smartfood Popcorn variant, Hot Buffalo. Now that's done, here are my impressions:

Smartfood Popcorn is not something I typically buy. When I want popcorn I usually buy popcorn pre-popped, as its cheaper and I like the smell as it pops up in the microwave. While its more expensive as buying pre-popped, I can certainly see the appeal of the bagged popcorn. No kernels or burnt pieces, and the addition of flavors in an even fashion.

Flamin' Hot Smartfood Popcorn is very good. It's got an intense first impression of Flamin' Hot flavor, and then a really nice after-taste of the white cheddar as your tongue tingles. This makes it a very bingeable food, and I went through an entire bag in maybe one 24 hour period. It's not quite the strongest Flamin' Hot heat, but its up there, and lasts just long enough to take control of your taste buds.

Now, this isn't the first time I'v had Flamin' Hot popcorn.

The Chester's Brand Flamin' Hot Popcorn was good, but saltier. I would also say that the heat wasn't as intense, but I'm not sure if that's because of the change of the complementing cheese (Cheeto's cheese vs white cheddar). Overall, Smartfood Popcorn wins out.

As one more comparison I wanted to try out Smartfood Popcorns Hot Buffalo flavor, just to get a comparison to how far apart the flavors/heat might be. The Hot Buffalo are very Frank's-like in flavor, a good amount of vinegar cutting through the straint burn. It's a bit less savory than I would've expected for a buffalo flavor, but I was very happy that it wasn't too salty. I imagine Smartfood dials back the salt flavor a bit on purpose. Not bad, but I'm more into Flamin' Hot.

 

[Fat4all]

the lime is pretty strong in the Doritos, but it works better than i thought they would

the like acts like a flash in the pan, sparks up your taste buds

like with the dill chips, the Flamin' Hot works well at counterbalancing the sour notes, but unlike the normal lays where the chip flavor isn't really a factor, with Doritos the corn flavor finish works well

not as easy to eat as some chips, it's a real shock to the system depending on how much flavor coating is on the chip, but pretty interesting

 

[Fat4all]

So, these are pretty good. They kinda strike a balance between the regular Flamin' Hot Lays and the Ripples Flamin' Hots (with the added bonus of being a lot crispier). Not too oily, which is good as it doesn't interfere with the spice levels too much. The crisp is on point, if you are already a fan of kettle-style chips then you will like these as well.

I will say that there was the odd chip or two that was kinda lacking the Flamin' Hot kick, which is odd because all of them are pretty bright red, almost look soaked into the chip, but I'll just put those down to flukes, for the most part they were a solid and dependable bag of crisps.

Now there's a Flamin' Hot Style for near every variety of potato chip fan! Regular Lays, Wavy, Stax, and Kettle.

All that's missing is maybe some reduced sodium/fat ones, as well as Lays "Naturals" line of chips, which has no Flamin' Hot styles yet.

 

[Fat4all]

These are pretty much the same as the 'Chester's Flamin' Hot Popcorn', seen here:

This redesigned line has three things going for it, tho:

1. More popcorn per bag (so a bit more expensive), but also mini snack bags

2. In a lot more stores than the Chester's line (usually found at dollar stores)

3. Flashier bag design, makes it stand out.

Flavor wise and quality wise the popcorn is pretty much identical from the old design. You still get a good amount of shells and not quite popped pieces (which I find annoying), something that is much improved in the Smartfood Flamin' Hot Popcorn (tho it is more expensive). The cheddar flavor is a bit one-note and doen't stand against the Flamin' Hot like the white cheddar of the Smartfood Brand as well.

 

[Fat4all]

This took me a while to find, but I'm glad I did! I enjoyed this jerky much more than I enjoyed the Matador 'slim jim' style meat stick that was also Flamin' Hot. Matador Flamin' Hot is pretty standard with other bagged jerky you find in terms of quality and texture. A bit dry, but has a good chew.

Where it works well is in the subtly of the Flamin' Hot. You get a good bit of heat off the nose right away, but it mellows out pretty quickly. Instead of fading as you chew, it sort of just sticks around on the back of your throat. The heat never blows your socks off, but it does a good job melding the smoked meat flavors and the Flamin' Hot spice.

It's a bit of a novelty in a way, but it works a lot better than I thought it would (certainly much better than Flamin' Hot peanuts).

 

[Ferrio]

So I made something

Flaming Hot Cheeto Marshmellow Treats. Followed the regular rice krispies recipe but replaced them with Flaming Hot Cheetos. Lockdown is causing me to do weird stuff I normally would be too lazy to do.

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Verdict: Actually not as bad as I expected. The intense sweet + sour is really odd, and the sweetness kinda overpowers an sense of heat until you're done eating it. I don't think I'd make them again, but I was expecting something puke quality.