Monomasa Tomatillo Salsa

Monomasa do have the nicest designs I really like the way they make a fancy pattern from the ingredients. So I guess what we are looking at here is a tasteful arrangement of Peruvian Amarillo Chillies, some green Mexican tomatoes, and a sprinkling of Quinoa.

I'm not a mad keen fan of tortilla chips and these are particularly floury which is not a texture that really appeals to me, but some of the reluctant taste testers were happy to snack into this high quality product. The taste was quite nice.

Cheese.It

Little Square cheesy biscuits. Not super exciting we thought  but fairly OK.  I'm sure I have heard of Cheese-Its and I was hoping for more exciting stuff. But as Slightly Red Haired Bristolian said, these are kind of like mini cheddars only not so much.

For some reason I seem to have forgotten to photograph this little square snack. Perhaps because I wasn't that thrilled with them. OK but that's as far as I am prepared to go.

Walkers Bacon & Tomato Ketchup

These crisps are supposedly made with Heinz Tomato ketchup and I have to say I'm not that madly impressed. The ketchup flavour is basically more of a vinegar flavour than ketchup and I would never have guessed it was Heinz. It reminds me of that almost clear liquid you get when you open a fresh bottle of ketchup and don't shake it up enough. History Graduate taste tester agreed with me and Noble Friend had much to say on the subject of vinegar. 

We couldn't detect much sign of the bacon and didn't really feel we could recommend this crisp. Definitely could do better.

Dinafood Cheetoz Crunchy Snacks Cheese

Regular readers will have noticed I haven't had much to say recently. Unfortunately I haven't been very well and not fancying my food much. And if you don't fancy your food you can't taste test crispy snacks much less write about them.

But lucky for me I have escaped from the local hospital, albeit with piles of drugs to take forever,  and the reluctant taste testers have given me a lovely bunch of flowers and (of course) a mystery packet of crispy snacks. From Iran no less!  Apparently Noble Friend found them but I don't know where.

Noble Friend just rang me up and as it turns out she went to the local Persian shop specially to look for bonkers crisps for me. And this is what she found. How very kind.

I can't tell you much about this crispy snack because the packet blurb is in Arabic script and Russian. Neither of which I can read. Well, since I learned Greek I can read a bit of Russian, but I don't speak the language so that doesn't really help much. They are very crunchy, as advertised on the packet, but not very cheesy, and a little bit greasy tasting. But actually quite nice.

Now that's enough writing for today. I need  rest.

Seabrook Lattice Food Heroes Steak & Ale

And another packet of Seabrook crisps bought for the delectation and delight of the reluctant taste testers by Noble Friend. The Food Heroes in this case are Black Sheep brewery; a new brewery started by Paul Theakston using 6 generations of experience, and of course they are based in Yorkshire.

I liked these a whole lot better than the Chorizo crisps but honestly I am not completely convinced by this flavour. There is nothing the matter with it, but I couldn't pick the steak flavour, nor the ale flavour neither. Now Tech taste tester is a meaty crisp flavour fan but I'm not sure he was particularly impressed here. A shame because obviously someone has gone to the trouble of choosing a particular beer brand and creating a specific flavour. It isn't a nasty flavour, of course not, just not a flavour that encourages me to have another crisp or buy another packet.

Why are Seabrooks trying so hard to succeed with fancy flavours when they make the plain ones so brilliantly? I adore their sea salt flavour: a true great. It's on our list of favourites because we love it.  But this is ordinary.