PIZZA SUPREME

7.5/10

Being a hungry guy, I decided to review the second bag of chips my friend Thom gave me a little ahead of schedule (?) despite having a sort of natural aversion to pizza-flavored Doritos. I chose these second for a reason, but much to my surprise, they ended up being more to my taste than Original Taco.

Unfortunately, my first meeting with Pizza Supreme wasn't too great. I opened up the bag and took a whiff, and I have to say, these smell pretty atrocious. Not quite as bad as cheeseburger, but definitely not a good smell. As such, I had to gather the courage to take the first bite, but when I did, I was pleased to note that they taste much better than they smell. The bad news there is that the taste is nothing special, even if it's pretty good. Like Original Taco, these have a rather mild taste to them, although I wouldn't expect my pizza to be spicy as I would my tacos. They have a nice hint of cheesiness to them, always the best thing in a good Dorito, but the non-taste of the corn chip seems to dominate proceedings here. Strangely, while I would feel somewhat comfortable bringing a big sack of Original Taco to a Doritos if the store had run out of Nacho Cheese, I'm not sure I could say the same about Pizza Supreme. There's a flavor in them that's difficult to place (tomato flakes?) that I could easily see rubbing someone the wrong way, and unfortunately, it's a pretty bland flavor apart from having something funny about it.

So that concludes this round of Dorito reviews; unfortunately, neither of the new flavors stand up to the classics because, honestly, they're just not flavorful enough. While I didn't always love their "degree" flavors, they were at least over-the-top enough to forgive if they weren't good. With both Original Taco and Pizza Supreme, I feel underwhelmed by Doritos for the first (and hopefully last) time.

OG TACO

7.0/10

So before I start, I'd like to do a shout-out to my man Thom, who hooked me up with this bag of Original Taco Doritos and another variety, Pizza Supreme, which I'll review later. As this is my first real Dorito review in about eleven months, I'll just say that it takes a lot to get me off my ass to do one of these things, but if you give me an unreviewed flavor, I'll still give it my best shot. Anyway, here goes:

When I look back, I somehow think that I've consumed Doritos on most of the July 4th I've been alive for. At any summer holiday party involving cookouts, someone always brings Doritos, usually either Nacho Cheese or, if they're a bit more adventurous, Cool Ranch. These two flavors absolutely work for parties, since they're not really very "bold"; in fact, they're pretty inoffensive. I still consider Nacho Cheese to be a great flavor, and I've never not enjoyed a few. Cool Ranch is also good, though I don't have the same bond with it, having grown up eating Nacho Cheese Doritos and little else. Since then, I've had all sorts (see the rest of this blog), and many of them, including the best flavors, i.e. Jalapeno Popper, Midnight Taco, and Cheesy Enchilada, build on that cheesiness, possibly adding sodium, maybe a hint of lime or cumin, and the all-important "SPICE" powder.

Though my favorite remains Jalapeno Popper, Midnight Taco is a great one, and as such, I found myself wondering how Original Taco would be. Well, the answer is, pretty underwhelming. It is in no way offensive, which is a plus, but it has none of that great cheesiness, it isn't that salty, and it doesn't have anything weird to really keep you guessing; in short, it's probably the most boring Dorito that I've seen, "Toasted Corn" Doritos excepted. And I'll be honest, these would be pretty good at a party, maybe even as good or better than Nacho Cheese--No saltiness to dry your mouth! No flavor assault to kill your hunger!--but man, we're still talking about the most adventurous brand of chips in American history. Midnight Taco probably tastes less like tacos than Original Taco, but it succeeds because it takes no prisoners and makes you focus on the flavor. Original Taco serves its purpose, I guess, but I still feel like there are better flavors to buy, regardless of your level of Dorito experience.

COMING SOON: PIZZA SUPREME REVIEW