Leader Price Saveur Barbecue

Well, the title of ‘Leader Price’ isn’t exactly something to inspire you full of confidence in a products quality, but my experiences with that particular generic brand have been both hit and miss, and well, the price couldn’t be beat, as you might imagine.  As Europe is pretty systematically barbecue-sauce deficient, I had been kind of in the mood for barbecue chips for a while, and lacking sufficient outlet for those pent up urges, that is how I ended up trying out a bag of Price-Leader French barbecue chips.  (Defensive note: yes, of course I can, and *ahem* have bought barbecue sauce in a French grocery store, but really I am left with too few excuses to use it…)

I suppose if I were really that desperate
for barbecue I would go to the Buffalo
Grill.  The French seem to like them and
they're everywhere.  You can tell they're
American inspired because of the horns.

Oddly enough I have been fairly pleased with result, even though the flavoring of the chips is rather light on the sweet/mesquite end of things.  In compensation, they have a delightful smoky flavoring which I found most pleasing, and which is effectively abetted by the use of sunflower seed oil.  The sweet elements, such as they are, come from light onion and garlic flavoring, providing adequate counterpoint, though frankly I still feel myself yearning for something a little sweeter.  Fortunately, the texture of the chips is pretty good for commercial mass market, being very crunchy and relatively interesting- about as good as it gets short of being an actual kettle-cooked hippie organic grass-fed sort of chip.

So what you have is a slightly above-average in texture chip, some mild-sweet elements, and some awesome smoky-goodness flavoring- not enough to make these great barbecue chips, but more than enough to keep me happily munching them down in short order.  Not great, but possibly addictive if you lack for other alternative, and with its own unique little thrill I suppose.

Stars: 2/4

Pros:

- Nice smokey flavor

- Above average texture for low-priced chips

- Pretty decent way to get a barbecue fix in Europe

Cons:

- Lacking in the sweets-department.  Time and again, European fail to realize that chips, and barbecue sauce especially, should have more in common with the candy then you’d think…