If you read my previous review of a TGI Friday’s product, you know that I was over the forest moon about their Cheddar and Bacon Potato Skins. They tasted good and the flavor was actually kind of authentic.
Well, I am now under that same moon (That has to be the opposite of over the moon, right?). TGI Friday’s you should be ashamed of yourself. You’re lucky I don’t rip the flair buttons right off your suspenders.
TGI Friday’s Jalapeño Cheddar Potato Skins are an abomination. This attempt to approximate a restaurant food could not have fallen shorter of the mark.
I like cheddar cheese. I like jalapenos. Going in, I expected something along the lines of a jalapeño popper. A little deep fried flavor, a little cheesiness, a little spice, some potato. Not an unreasonable expectation. Well, what I got was a gross mess.
Granted, cheese-flavored chips rarely succeed in full flavor replication. No one has ever bitten into a potato chip and checked the bag to see if they were eating actual pieces of cheese. But many come close enough to let your brain make a connection to a real food. Orangish powder does not cheese flavor make, TGI Friday’s.
So maybe throw a little jalapeño flavor into the mix to distract from your horrid excuse for cheese? Nope. Didn’t get that right either. The spiciness and taste of a jalapeño is very distinct. You know a jalapeño when you meet one. TGI Friday’s, in some absurd, Frankenstein food science experiment has managed to completely drain all of the flavor out of a jalapeño but leave behind the spice. That is, I feel my tongue tingling. It recognizes that there is some type of spice trying to bind to its receptors. But it has no flavor! None! How did you do that TGI Friday’s? It’s pretty astounding. You deserve an award for your audacity. And by award, I mean punch in the face.
This whole endeavor is a testament to the dangers of second rate snacking. No one was trying here. No planning. No taste testing. No development. Maybe a new Jim Belushi TV show premiered that week or something.
This flavor can be done. Jalapeño and cheese in chip form is doable. We have the technology. Doritos Stadium Nachos stone cold nailed it. But these are a disaster. Pure aflavorful tripe.
TGI Friday’s is quickly moving down my list of favorite day-of-the-week, catchphrase-based restaurants who also produce snack foods.
That cheese looks furry. I’m having trouble thinking of any other mid-level chain that’s selling snack products, so for now TGIF is in first and last with me.
It is a little fuzzy-looking. Not good.
I found this blog in search for information about these chips as I ate some. They are pretty darn awful.
I read the ingredients and noticed that the word “jalapeno” isn’t in there. Anywhere. Thus I think the reason that it may not taste like jalapeno is because it actually contains zero jalapeno. The ingredient list at least seems to indicate that the cheese actually is cheese, despite it being some kind of horrible, thrice-inbred son of cheese.
Yea, not good. The bacon ones I enjoy. And I love thrice-inbred son of cheese. Well turned phrase sir.