NEAROF

While NEAROF! often leans towards the sweet side of things, we’re not averse to an occasional detour into savoury country. And French onion soup? Well, that’s nice and savoury, if by savoury you mean full of salty goodness. This boxed cylinder of frozen soup, complete with cheese and croutons on top, comes from M&M Meat [...]

The Pitch: Like all other kettle chips before them, Lays is selling their kettle-cooked chips on their naturalish-ness. “Natural flavours, timeless taste,” says the bag, which claims the chips are made with all natural flavours, no artificial colours, no preservatives, 0 trans fat, no MSG … and “100% happiness.” Well, if they’ll contribute to my [...]

Pita is great, isn’t it? Whether used as the shell for grilled chicken souvlaki or a delicious sweet-and-spicy donair, pita bread is both useful and yummy. But pita chips? I haven’t had much experience with these. Are they supposed to be more healthy than regular chips? Less greasy, perhaps? One look at the nutritional info [...]

The last time I tried a Doritos flavour based on a potato chip seasoning, it was the disastrous Ketchup Doritos, a nasty combination that didn’t work at all. Needless to say, it didn’t last. Given that history, I was justifiably apprehensive when I spotted these. I’m a sucker for dill pickle potato chips – another [...]

Unexpected fusion foods tend to capture my attention. Combining one cuisine with another in a culinary mashup can yield both interesting results and unmitigated train wrecks; the results vary widely. In this case, R.W. Garcia Thai Sweet and Spicy Tortilla Chips combine Thai seasoning with tortilla chips, which sounded like a combination that would yield [...]

I’m having a REALLY hard time trying to figure out how someone is supposed to bake chips in a kettle, but maybe that’s just me. In any event, these new honey-hickory-barbeque baked Kettle Brand chips have been around at Planet Organic for awhile, and I finally bought a bag. The Pitch: “65% less fat than [...]

This bag of Ruffles Loaded Chili & Cheese potato chips made its way to NEAROF! HQ in Canada from its native habitat in the United States of America. The Look: The image on the bag looks both delicious and disgusting. It depicts potato chips covered in chili and cheese, a combination that I suddenly want [...]

Breaded chicken stuffed with cheese and ham? Classy. Pretzels stuffed with peanut butter? Admittedly less classy, but still fine at cocktail parties, provided they are placed in a silver dish with tiny sugar-cube serving tongs. These curious President’s Choice peanut butter filled pretzels showed up at my place of employ as part of a media [...]