Lay's Thai Taste "Basil Chicken Flavour"


I'm going to spend most of this review explaining to you why I didn’t really enjoy these chips. The strange thing is that while I didn't really like them, I wouldn't not recommend them either. They're not bad chips, and if you wanted some spicy chicken flavoured chips, you'd probably be fairly happy. The problem is that I was expecting so much more than just spicy chicken flavoured chips. The reason my expectations were so high is that these chips suggest that they're going to taste like one of the classic Thai street foods. Basil chicken is one of those Thai foods that by name seems simple, but the flavours are normally very layered and complex. These chips on the other hand were really only one flavour, with a spicy kick.

The flavour I got out of these chips was spicy chicken, with some kind of sweet sauce. The obvious ingredient that was missing from these chips is the basil, which gives Thai basil chicken its unique flavour. The basil offers a fresh contrast to the sweet sauce and spicy peppers. These chips are missing this basil flavour, and are therefore missing the mark a bit. It seems like adding some basil wouldn’t be too hard either. The other problem with these chips is the fact that Thai basil chicken is often served with egg and rice. These additions add a lot of flavour and texture to Thai basil chicken and they're just missing from these chips.

I guess what I'm saying is that as chips, these are fine, they're chicken flavoured with a nice sweets and spicy sauce. As compared to Thai basil chicken, they're a little weak, and don't really represent the dish fully. I think that if Lay's wanted to, they could probably get these to taste a little closer to the original food, but for some reason they decided not to. That's probably why I'm disappointed. I've tasted better representations of foods in chip form, even from Lay's. I'm not sure why these aren't a close match to Thai basil chicken, and that's why they just seemed a little disappointing and boring.