Chitato Chips

As regular blog readers know by now, I sure love my snacks, and, in recent years, chips, particularly when they come from other countries and have more interesting flavors to me than our American counterparts, which led me at some point to Chitato. 

Chitato is a potato chip brand, one of several product lines from the Indofood company, started in 1990.   They are made in Indonesia.  The parent company also has a Chitato Lite line, with thinner sliced potatoes, Maxicorn tortilla chips, and the more interesting Qtela, Jetz and Chiki lines with diverse snacky offerings.

"Chitato products are the catalysts that encourages our consumer to live life fearlessly. The real fresh potato with crunchiness like no other, and the wavy cut that preserve the flavour. The bold taste and texture triggers them, so they don't hold back and can keep riding the wave of life. Chitato give them a rich variety of full sensation products that opens up to a wealth of experiences."

The Chitato brand really embraces the wave form factor of the chips, with slogans around riding the wave, never laying flat, and so on (although when they first came to market they also offered flat versions).  From what I can find online, I think potato chips are their only offering.  They come in fairly normal flavors (not in America obviously) like spicy chicken, bbq beef or chicken, cheese, and so on, but also an assortment of very Asian flavors, such as okonomiyaki, spicy bulgogi, thai satay, or, as I tried, mi goreng.  

Mi Goreng Fried Noodles Flavor.

"The real fresh potato with crunchiness like no other, and the wavy cut that preserve the flavour. The bold taste and texture triggers them , so they don't hold back and can keep riding the wave of life. Chitato gives a rich variety of full sensation products that opens up to a wealth of experiences."

The chips are indeed a thicker cut, and quite wavy.  And the wave nature did indeed really provide the ridges to trap a ton of flavor.  Good form factor.

Now, as for the flavor, I went for the mi goreng flavor.  If you are unfamiliar with Indonesian food, mi goreng is traditional Indonesian stir fried noodle dish.  Basically thin rice noodles stir fried with some kind of protein (chicken, beef, prawns, etc), garlic/onions/shallots, cabbage, egg, chilis, and more.  How would that translate into chips?

I'm still not really sure.  Did they remind me of fried noodles?  Not at all.  But they were extremely complex savory flavor powerhouses.  Somehow onion and garlic powder, soy sauce powder, chicken "flavor", sugar, and salt translate into just tons of savoriness.  

I liked these, and they were quite different, but I wouldn't seek them out again.  ***+ for good form factor, strong flavors, and novelty.