NACHO CHEESE

8.5/10

It's tough reviewing Nacho Cheese Doritos. They're the standard against which all other Doritos must be measured, simply because they're the standard. I feel like Doritos has so much room to experiment with new flavors because they always have faithful ol' Nacho Cheese moving major units. These things are at every birthday and graduation party in some form; indeed, they have completely permeated our culture. Because of this, when I review Nacho Cheese Doritos, I'm not just confronting a chip, but a lifestyle.

It's not just that, though. These are the Doritos that got me into Doritos, and I think they're really the gateway drug for anybody partial to flavored tortilla chips. They're Frito-Lay's "flagship" Dorito, and with good reason: every more-recent flavor seems to be tied in some way to the flavor precedent laid down by the architects of Nacho Cheese. The taste is completely inoffensive while remaining completely flavorful: not a hint of spice, and the cheese doesn't really even taste like that really fake cheese sauce that comes on nachos at bowling alleys and other places like that. It smells exactly like it tastes, and, funny enough, Jalapeno Popper smells extremely similar.

So is it good? Nacho Cheese is a very, very good Dorito. It's been improved upon, but its role as the blueprint of all that was to come cannot be denied, so I would call it a "classic." It's extremely salty, even saltier than most other Doritos, which are all very salty, so I would possibly score that against Nacho Cheese, but its reputation remains untarnished since that time it got plugged on Wayne's World. Case closed.

Shaaaaaaa-wing!

BLAZIN' BUFFALO & RANCH

9.4/10

I'd had these once before in the wild days before I experienced Jalapeno Popper Doritos and remember thinking that they were good, but unexceptional. The IGA I visited didn't have a huge variety, so it was either this, Nacho Cheese, Cool Ranch, or some other flavor, possibly Spicy Sweet Chili. My friend Dan chose Blazin' Buffalo & Ranch because he had had them and liked them at my house before. I agreed, thinking Nacho Cheese and Cool Ranch were a bit too standard, and recalling that Spicy Sweet Chili tastes like the aftermath of eating four popsicles and then puking (and I will review it eventually to make sure that's how it is-- in reality it's probably better).

Anyway, I broke open the bag and grabbed a few and ate one, and was completely blindsided by how good Blazin' Buffalo & Ranch is. It has a touch of spice to it without allowing spiciness to take over the complex flavors to be found in a good Dorito, and this certainly was a good Dorito. I feel like combining two flavors in one Dorito ("Blazin' Buffalo" and "Ranch") could be a pitfall in the hands of lesser chip architects, but I picked up on both "Buffalo" and "Ranch," which is all the more interesting because the inferior of Doritos' two flagships, Cool Ranch, tastes very little like Ranch. The "Ranch" contained in these chips really did taste like the dressing people drown their salads in because they can't stand vegetables, which is what I think of when I think "Ranch." The "Blazin' Buffalo" is not exactly "Blazin'," but after the slight disappointment of "Fiery Habanero," I was pretty okay with my mouth not being on fire.

The bottom line is that Blazin' Buffalo & Ranch will probably become my fallback whenever some poor store isn't carrying Jalapeno Popper, or when I'm simply Poppered out. This is another prime example of why Doritos remain on the cutting edge of flavored tortilla chips: the balance of Blazin' Buffalo & Ranch really works and makes it an above-average Dorito.

I didn't do what I normally do with a good bag of Doritos, which is eat them until they're gone. I offered them up to other people and they accepted repeatedly, so by the time I went back for more after my initial ten or so handfuls and dinner, they were all gone; it goes without saying that reviews from my peers of this variety were universally positive. A very, very solid Dorito.

LATE NIGHT LAST CALL JALAPENO POPPER

9.9/10

The holy grail of Doritos. These things are beyond delicious- they actually taste sort of like jalapeno poppers. This is, so far, my favorite variety; I am subtracting 0.1 points because I someday hope Doritos can improve on this, but I doubt they will and I might bump this score up to a 10 soon. They're slightly spicy, but not TOO spicy (like Fiery Habanero). Again, I must stress that they have a distinct taste, unlike a lot of varieties of perfectly acceptable Doritos. Flavors like this are why I love Doritos, and I bet these things would be just as great with a sandwich, if not better. I should become an expert in sandwich-Dorito pairings. That is a fantastic idea.

Anyway, I cannot recommend Late Night Last Call Jalapeno Popper Doritos highly enough. Frito-Lay has struck gold, and I would write them if they were ever to discontinue them.

Background/FIERY HABANERO

For a few months now, I've engaged in a passionate search for the ultimate flavor of Dorito. I feel that when the minds behind most brands of chip strike success, they sit back on their laurels. Because of this, Doritos always stay ahead of the game- they constantly come up with new flavors. This allows for a wide variety of "experimental" flavors with limited mainstream appeal, but many of which are excellent. The purpose of this blog will be to review every flavor I can find, including re-visitations of varieties I'm already familiar with (such as Nacho Cheese). Anyway, I tried a new kind, Fiery Habanero today:


FIERY HABANERO DORITOS
JACK: 7/10; QUINN: 6/10

While browsing the chip selection at Price Chopper the other day, I came across a new Dorito flavor and instantly wanted to try it. The bright (but as-yet-unused) colors attracted me, and I instantly wondered: how Fiery is Fiery Habanero? I ended up back around my college today, and as always I ended up sitting around watching a movie, a perfect time for a chip trip.

I went to a gas station near my house, and was somewhat disappointed to discover that the place only sold the 99-cent size of Fiery Habanero, not the huge bag, but I had eaten Five Guys for dinner, so I wasn't exactly starving. In retrospect, this was a fantastic occurrence; I'm not sure I could deal with a whole huge bag of Fiery Habanero, and I think my rating would be much lower if I had:

Fiery Habanero is SPICY. The "Sweet Spicy Chili" flavor (to be reviewed at a later date) has nothing on this. Initially, Fiery Habanero tastes like a cross between Jalapeno and Nacho Cheese, but soon the spice kicks in and the flavor sort of fades. I wish I'd had a glass of milk on hand or something, but it faded soon enough that I could note that the chip's aftertaste is very similar to Jalapeno. What this essentially means is that Fiery Habanero is a way-spicier Jalapeno. Jalapeno is, thus far, my favorite variety, but I actually like being able to taste it, and Fiery Habanero's similarity to a superior chip scores pretty low creativity-wise. I could honestly see buying Fiery Habanero again, but I wouldn't call it anything more than okay.