Lay's Do Us A Flavor Pt. 1: NY Reuben

At long last, the time has come!  Execution of Fat Mike's master plan for the Lay's "Do Us A Flavor" contest has finally completed, so it’s time to get all of you caught up.  As my loyal readers should know (hahaha) I look forward to the Frito Lay “Do Us A Flavor” contest every year, and this year looked to be very promising in terms of unique flavor profiles.  Once word got out about what the flavors were, I concocted an elaborate scheme to properly evaluate the selected flavors   However, anyone out there with a family can understand that "hatching a plan" doesn’t mean that you can just execute it whenever you want, so I appreciate everyone’s patience while I sorted out the “how” and “when” of this ridiculous adventure.  

Basically, the intention has been to not only taste all the new flavors of Lay’s chips in the contest, but to pair them directly with the corresponding foods in order to truly see if the brilliant minds at Lay’s were able to dissect the nuances and ingredients.  These posts are going to be published as a four part series, so keep checking in with the Fat as we run through all the flavor profiles.  Without further ado, I give you part 1: NY Style Reuben Lay’s Potato chips.

To say that the Fat has a distinct bias in this category is an understatement.  As someone who has spent the better part of my life in the NY metro area, I’ve been a fan of the Reuben for as long as I can remember.  To make matters worse, I’ve always had a near authentic version of the sandwich at my fingertips.  So, I’ll put it out there that this is not only a familiar flavor to me, but also one that I hold dear.  So much so, that I was willing to take my 3yr old son on a 30min car ride just to get a Reuben from one of my favorite delis. (see menu here)

As you can see, I was able to grab a near exact likeness to the pic on the bag, and really felt solid about the pairing.  Unfortunately, as excited as I was Lay's NY Reuben flavor fell a little flat for me.  I’ll concede that tackling a layered and complex flavor profile can be a dangerous undertaking, and I wish I could cut them a little slack on this one, but I think this missed the mark.  The lack of focus on the true flavor of a Reuben leads me to believe that the developers cherry picked what they thought were the “primary” flavors in the sandwich and they focused on the wrong things.  I didn't expect miracles, but one has to assume that some of these flavor scientists may have tasted a Reuben for the first time when exploring how to craft this one.

The chip comes off with a strong flavor of rye right off the bat.  Full praise to the Lay’s folks for not only grabbing on that traditional caraway seed flavor, but marrying it perfectly with a little hint of pumpernickel to truly grab the marble rye atop most sandwiches from the best Jewish delis.  I will throw high praise for that.  Nevertheless, underneath that “bread layer” isn’t anything magical.  If anything, the rest of the chip comes off as a glorified Cheddar and Sour Cream flavor.  An unfortunate side effect of the heavy rye taste is that it subtracts from any “brightness” that you’d get from the traditional Cheddar and Sour Cream chip.  If they had been able to focus on building more complex, creamy flavors like the Thousand Island dressing, or even took the brave leap of trying to nail the Sauerkraut flavor, then this chip would have accomplished more.  Aside from the fact that a Reuben is usually dressed with Swiss cheese, which has a very subtle flavor when combined with the other ingredients of the sandwich.  Focusing on the cheese as an ingredient in the first place was the worst mistake.  And while the chip in itself is reasonably flavored, to say that it tastes like a Reuben is a bit of a stretch.  Simply dressing a Cheddar and Sour Cream chip in Rye bread doesn’t cut it.  I’m sorry to say that this was a miss.  It was a valiant effort, but a miss nonetheless.  My battleship was on "J1", Lay’s, and you guessed "B2" on this one.  You were WAY off.  

I will say, however, that the kid didn’t have any issue with the chips at all.

Nice job, little man.  Thanks for taking the journey with me.