Favourite flavour out of the new Walkers Crisps.

[Paxton Dazo]

I must admit, I've only tried 5 of them, the one I haven't tried being Cajun Squirrel.

The flavours are:

Onion Bhaji - Not to bad, quite tasty.
Duck with Hoi-Sin sauce - Not as bad as Chilli & Choclate, but still aren't brilliant.
Chilli & Choclate - Worst thing, I've ever tasted, whoever invented them must have a screw loose.
Cajun Squirrel - Haven't tried.
Builders Breakfast - So, so nice. Best flavour by far and have got my vote ( Even though I haven't tasted Squirrel.
Fish and Chips - Hmm, nice but the smell of Fish puts me off them.

Anyone know when the deadline is, for the vote?

This is the thread where people voted for which flavour sounded more appealing : http://www.northstandchat.biz/showthread.php?t=141004&highlight=Walkers+Crisps

If you haven't tried any of them, get eating!

 

[SeagullTim]

Tried Cajun Squirrel today and it's my favourite so far.

 

[ali jenkins]

Ive had the cajun one, the duck one ad the breakfast one

I undecided between the squirell and the breakfast

 

[lucas164111]

Builder's breakfast

 

[chez]

Onion Bhaji - Not to bad, quite tasty.
Duck with Hoi-Sin sauce - Not as bad as Chilli & Choclate, but still aren't brilliant.
Chilli & Choclate - Worst thing, I've ever tasted, whoever invented them must have a screw loose.
Cajun Squirrel - Haven't tried.
Builders Breakfast - So, so nice. Best flavour by far and have got my vote ( Even though I haven't tasted Squirrel.
Fish and Chips - Hmm, nice but the smell of Fish puts me off them.

Spot on with this Dazo. I've have tried the Cajun ones as well and although not disgusting are nothing to write home about.

Builders breakfast all the way especially if you suck crisps (you get all the flavours then)

 

[surrey jim]

no tasted the Onion Bhaji ones yet.

The squirrel ones are rank
the Chilli and chocolate are rank
Builders breakfast just tasted of egg
Fish and chips are good
duck and hoisan sauce - couldnt taste too much neded to be stronger flavour

 

[Mendoza]

they were all disappointing, the biggest let down was duck and hoi-sin sauce, my favourite dish of all time, but in crisp format just didnt work

Fish and chips was the worst, onion bhaji probably just about the best

 

[SirDouglasLoft]

I'd say Onion Bhaji are the best, but still not very nice.

Overall I thought that were all pretty rank.

 

[Skaville]

Tried three. They all tasted like shit. Charlie Brooker got it just about spot on in The Guardian last week:

Exciting new crisp flavours? More like a dirty protest in mass-produced packets

In these health-conscious times, potato crisps have a bad reputation. Gone are the days when you could walk down the street cheerfully snuffling through a pack of Smokey Bacon. Try that now and people will stare at you like you're shooting heroin directly into a genital vein.

The standard tuckshop brands of crisps are shameful things, to be eaten in secret on a car journey. Of course, the fey "gourmet" varieties - thicker, hand-cooked "artisan" crisps with flavours such as Aged Stilton and Ambassador's Port - are still considered acceptable by the food Nazis, provided they're served in a bowl at a cocktail party, surrounded by organic vol-au-vents and snobs. That's because our food neurosis is actually snootiness in disguise.

Consequently, the cheap end of the crisp market has to pull stunts to distract you from the crushing social disgrace involved in actually purchasing a bag. Walkers' latest wheeze is a fun competition. Stage one: they ran adverts inviting the public to suggest exotic new taste sensations. Stage two: they chose six finalists, released them into the wild, and asked the public to vote for their favourite. Stage three: the votes are counted and the top flavour becomes a permanent member of the Walkers line-up. We're currently in stage two.

To lend the enterprise some gravitas, on the Walkers website you can watch kitchen surrealist Heston Blumenthal discussing the new flavours as though he genuinely believes they're edible. But are they? As the nation's foremost investigative journalist, I decided to find out, by buying a packet of each and sampling them. It was a mission that would take me to the very heart of a newsagent's and back. Here are my capsule reviews of the six competing varieties:

Builder's Breakfast

There's some confusion over the exact contents of the Builder's Breakfast. On the website, Heston claims they taste of "sausages, bacon, eggs and beans", whereas the packet itself lists "bacon, buttered toast, eggs and tomato sauce". This would imply that even Walkers don't know what they've got on their hands, possibly because the crisps themselves taste of stale fried egg and little else. It captures the feeling of sitting in a greasy spoon, being dumped via text while your food repeats on you. Depressing.

Crispy Duck and Hoisin

A fairly accurate rendition, although if you close your eyes they taste like the standard Roast Chicken flavour might if the "chicken" in them had been killed with a hammer made of compacted sugar. This is probably something Heston actually does in his restaurant.

Fish and Chips

Sounds like a good idea, but think about it: FISH CRISPS. Consequently they smell vaguely infected. Actually eat one and it's like kissing someone who's just eaten a plateful of scampi. Halfway through they belch in your mouth.

Onion Bhaji

The most convincing flavour, but they taste watered-down; as though Heston boiled one tiny bhaji in a swimming pool full of Evian, and then dipped some potatoes in it. It's like a lame TV movie about onion bhajis, starring Adam Woodyatt, with a soundtrack consisting entirely of library music, broadcast directly on to your tastebuds.

Cajun Squirrel

Self-consciously "wacky" and attention-grabbing entry. Walkers are keen to point out that "no squirrels were harmed in the making of this crisp", which is a pity because I had chucklesome visions of thousands of live, screaming squirrels being bulldozered into an immense bubbling cauldron in front of a party of horrified schoolchildren. The flavour itself is truly vile: if they'd called it Squirrel's Blood, everyone would've believed them. They taste precisely like a tiny cat piping hot farts through a pot-pourri pouch into your mouth.

Chilli and Chocolate

Excreted Battery Acid, more like. A boring lunatic with halitosis explains the smell of charred wood to your tastebuds. It's vaguely like the smell you get when you bleed a radiator, but sharper, more disgusting, and worryingly "human". They should've called it "Dirty Protest" instead.

So there you have it. They're uniformly horrible. Worst of all, none are a patch on, say, standard Salt and Vinegar, which has been around since the Cro-Magnon era. Obviously, they should've chosen more ambitiously. Since the squirrel flavour doesn't actually contain any squirrel, they could unleash other tastes you're vaguely curious about, but would never actually eat, like Cyanide and Lemon, or The Late Marilyn Monroe. If they'd bitten the bullet and genuinely released a flavour called Dirty Protest, people would queue round the block to try it, provided the packet carried a prominent guarantee that it was merely a simulation, not the genuine article. (For the record, according to The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices by Brenda Love [ISBN 0 349 10676 2], "faeces supposedly has a charred or sour flavour but otherwise tastes similar to whatever was consumed". So now you know.)

Or maybe they could've worked on flavours that evoked a time and mood instead of mimicking an existing substance. Who could resist Wartime Romance (cigarettes, lipstick, and railway station)? Or Studio 54 (cocaine, sweat, and Bianca Jagger)? Even Medieval Times (mud, gibbet and wet tunic) would be worth trying.

But no. They didn't dare to dream. So in summary: don't vote for any of them. Spoil your ballot paper instead. Because that's what they've done to these innocent potatoes. The bastards. The absolute unconscionable bastards.

• This week Charlie finished the seventh series of The Shield: "A brilliant final reckoning." He also spent about 97 hours desperately washing the taste of crisps out of his mouth: "The combined effect of all those flavours is like eating 15 bad orchestras made of tinfoil and grease."

 

[Paxton Dazo]

I personally think the flavours are spot on. All taste what there ment to taste of. But I agree with Jim that the dominant flavour in the Breakfast one is, Egg, which I dont mind. And that the Duck crisps need more flavours.

Anyone know when the vote finishes.

 

[Twinkle Toes]

Chilli and Chocolate

"Excreted Battery Acid, more like. A boring lunatic with halitosis explains the smell of charred wood to your tastebuds. It's vaguely like the smell you get when you bleed a radiator, but sharper, more disgusting, and worryingly "human". They should've called it 'Dirty Protest' instead ".

Mr Brooker summed it up perfectly there for me.

Call me old-fashioned, but I'm sticking to Ready Salted in future.

 

[Cian]

None, Walkers are VILE and they use the wrong colours for their packets.

 

[Spider]

Ha, Brooker is on form and correct as usual. To be fair, I've only tried two - Bhaji and Builders Breakfast, but I agree that they were both pretty horrible. The Bhaji one would have been nice but the flavour isn't strong enough - a good idea but a really cheap flavouring on it so it doesn't really taste any different to most crisps. The Buildres Breakfast one was horrible - I don't really like the bacon flavour they use on crisps anyway, but the egg flavour they use is even worse.

 

[murraymints4brighton]

They all tasted revolting to me. The chili and chocolate also had a faint wif of boot polish about it.

 

[Frutos]

Builder's Breakfast

 

[Andrew]

Fish and Chips, no thought

 

[desprateseagull]

are these really new flavoursa, or rebranded stuff that isnt selling?

 

[Jam The Man]

Fish & chips for me.. anyone else remember these wonderful things?:

 

[Paxton Dazo]

Walkers use the wrong colours for their packets.

I agree with you there. I agree that Cheese & Onion crisps should have a green packet and Salt & Vinegar blue.Just like Golden Wonder.

Call me old-fashioned, but I'm sticking to Ready Salted in future.

Snorzville

Builder's Breakfast

 

[Robbie G]

Fish & chips for me.. anyone else remember these wonderful things?:

I distinctly remember them as I was eating them as a child, when a wasp stung me in my neck