POParazzi Popcorn, Houston

Some people (like my mom), don't munch on snacks all day long.  I don't get it.  I'm an avid snacker.  And in particular, I have a fondness (er, weakness?), for one particular type of snack: popcorn.  So when I was recently in Houston, and found a local fancy popcorn maker, with a cute name - POParazzi - I couldn't resist trying a number of their very pricey popcorns.

POParazzi is a small chain, with 3 locations in the Houston area.  They make 110 flavors of popcorn.  110!  These are broken down into categories like "breakfast", "starters", "munchies", "entree's and combo's", "desserts", etc.  En extensive lineup of both sweet and savory.

$45 worth of popcorn?!

I tried 6 different flavors, ranging from savory to cloyingly sweet.  In general, I was underwhelmed.  The popcorn was quite expensive, and several flavors really didn't seem fresh.  As much as I was tempted by some of the flavors, I wouldn't get more of their popcorn.

Starters

The "starters" lineup is most of the savory ones, including a slew of different cheese options (white cheese, cheddar cheese, spicy cheese, parmesan garlic, jalapeno cheese ), puckery options (spicy pickle, dill pickle, lemon pepper, salt & vinegar), and other flavors you'll find on appetizer menus like ranch, jalapeno ranch, and hot wings.  Many of these are available in combinations as well (e.g. buffalo wings and ranch).

Smoked BBQ. Small. $7.95.

"Prepared with smoke."

I wanted a savory option, and while I could have gone with any of the cheesy ones, and nearly did, I was drawn to the bbq flavor, as I do love bbq potato chips, and I was in Texas after all.  Bbq it was.

This was a good flavor.  It was lightly smoky, slightly sweet, fairly mesquite spiced.  Basically, a mild bbq flavor, and not one that specifically reminded me of any commercial brand bbq products.  I liked that it was savory and flavorful, and not decadent, which made it a great snack popcorn, not loaded with as much sugar.

***+.

Healthy Choice

If you'd like something a bit lighter than most of the decadent popcorns Poparazzi makes, there are4 lite flavors available: butter, cheese, low salt, and caramelite, plus 2 combos, classic Chicago mix with cheese and caramel, or "Tripple Deck" with butter popcorn as well. 

Lite Triple Deck. Small. $7.95.

"Cheddar cheese, caramel and butter."

I was feeling very indecisive, and thus, the "Triple Deck" helped me not need to make a firm decision.  I could try 3 at once!

The butter popcorn was fairly average, standard butter popcorn.  Not much interesting to say about it. ***.

The cheddar cheese turned out to be my favorite, just the right level of cheesiness for me that meant I could eat the whole bag without feeling awful.  I'm curious how the regular, non-lite, version compares?  ***+.

And finally, caramel, which turned out to be really quite sweet, very coated pieces.  I thought that a "lite" version would be more akin to kettle corn, just slightly more caramelized.  This seemed just as caramel-heavy as many caramel corns out there.  It was good, but, certainly a heavy sweet. ***.

I'm glad I tried this, but, the butter popcorn really seemed like a waste to me ... I guess there is a reason the classic duo of Chicago mix is more popular, the butter popcorn just didn't add anything to this, and wasn't necessary.

*** overall.

Caramelite. Small. $7.95.

I also got a bag of just the caramelite, and it was the same as the caramel in the triple deck mix, again, more heavy and coated than I was expecting given the "lite" branding, but still good caramel corn.  ***.

Fruits & Sweets

For sweet, but not totally decadent crazy options, Poparazzi has an assortment of "Fruits & Sweets", all brightly colored, candy coated, sweet popcorns.  There are 24 to pick from, so I won't enumerate them here, but, basically every fruity or sweet flavor you can imagine (cotton candy, bubble gum, caramel, cheesecake, apple pie, and others are in this category too).  Most of these are in the same price category as the Healthy Ones.

Hot Cinnamon. Small. $7.95.

For my first sweet flavor, I was tempted by several of the fruity ones, but, worried they'd really be too sweet, and wanting something more unique, I made a last minute switch to select the hot cinnamon.  It was brilliantly red, much like a candy apple.  The pieces were all very well coated, no real popcorn white showing.

The flavor was instantly familiar to me: it tasted exactly like red hots.  100%, exactly the same.  Sweet but cinnamon-y.  And kinda fun to have red hots in a more crunchy form.  I was happy with this choice, and it was nice to have a sweet flavor that wasn't standard cloying sweet.

***+.

Dessert

And when you are ready to go for really truly ridiculous popcorn, there is the dessert category, another 24 flavors, and these are all more highly priced.  Some contain mix-ins.  Nearly all of these called out to me (no surprise there right?), like Southern Praline, White Chocolate Pretzel, Cinnamon Roll (drizzled of course!), Reeses, Pecan White Chocolate, Heath Almond, Red Velvet Cake, Nutty Buddy Ice Cream (!!), and many more.  They mean it when they call these the dessert offerings!

Puppy Chow. Small. $9.95.

"Peanut butter, chex mix, and chocolate."

As I said, I wanted nearly all the dessert flavors, but I narrowed it down to one fairly easily actually.  For my first dessert flavor, I had no choice, once I saw the Puppy Chow.  ZOMG.  I *adore* puppy chow, and have asked my mom to make it for me with popcorn added in before, and here it was, my first time ever seeing it in the wild.  The mix promised to have the standard puppy chow base of chex mix and pretzels, covered in peanut butter and chocolate, and smothered in powdered sugar, but, with popcorn too.  ZOMG.

Spoiler: this was not ZOMG worthy.  First, I did not detect any peanut butter in it.  Peanut butter is a key ingredient to puppy chow.  1st strike.

Second, while there was clearly some chocolate, the chocolate taste was not very noticeable either.  The crux of puppy chow is that incredible chocolate-peanut butter combo, and this didn't deliver on either.  2nd strike.

Next, they made a pretty critical error in my mind when it comes to the base for the popcorn.  It wasn't plain, nor buttered, nor salted.  It was caramel corn.  Very candied caramel corn.  Now, I like caramel corn, don't get me wrong, but the caramel here served to mask the little chocolate there was, entirely mask the peanut butter (if it even really existed, which I still doubt), and, when combined with the puppy chow signature powdered sugar coating, which was generously applied applied (unlike the peanut butter and chocolate), just made for cloying sweet.  3rd strike.

This mix was already out, but, there is more: the ingredient distribution.  Yes, there were I think 2 pretzel rods and 2 pretzel twists, and perhaps 3 pieces of Chex cereal, the rest was all popcorn.  I know this is a popcorn company, and I love popcorn, but, this was basically just popcorn, not Chex mix.  

So, cloying sweet powdered sugar caramel corn with a modicum of chocolate, and a couple token pieces of Chex and pretzel.  NOT puppy chow.  It delivered on nothing that makes puppy chow so addicting. And at ~$10 for the tiny bag, it was certainly over priced, not that I wanted more. *+.

Sweet Potato Pie (Seasonal). Small. $10.95.

There are several POParazzi locations in Houston, but as far as I can tell, only had this flavor: sweet potato pie.  I jumped on it instantly when I saw that it did indeed have chunks of pie crust in it (as did the key lime pie flavor).   Or, what I thought was pie crusts.  It turned out to I think be hunks of graham cracker?  Mine had very few bits anyway.

But the lack of pie crust was not the issue with this flavor.  I had expected I'd love this, and at $10.95 it was the priciest flavor available, and it was the worst of any I tried, and honestly, I would have brought it back to the store to ask if it was bad if I had been closer.  It was truly awful.  It tasted stale, and rancid, all at once.  It was deeply candied, really, really candied (think: candied yams, not pumpkin pie, so that direction of sweet potato), in a way that made me teeth stick together instantly (which again, wasn't the main issue, although that wasn't great either).  It did not taste of anything I'd identify as sweet potato.  But really, the fairly rancid taste, and stale nature to it, I couldn't get past.  I tried a few pieces from deeper down in the bag, but it all tasted just as awful.

I hope this was just a very old batch, and not what they intended to serve? This doesn't really even get a single star from me ...