Tag Archives: Herr’s

Junk Food, Miscellaneous

Herr’s Kansas City Prime Steak Flavor Artificially Flavored Potato Chips

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Hey, it’s the day after Easter! For some of you dear readers, you may have just finished the holiday tradition of Lent. Whether you abstained from meat on Fridays, gave it up altogether, or just cut out red meat, you can now continue your carnivorous ways.

I figure today seemed like the perfect day to review something I’ve been holding onto for a while. Back in December, I received a bag of chips from a generous friend of mine, who works at a place that apparently considers rib-flavored potato chips a perfectly normal selection for their break room vending machine. Having had some harrying encounters with meat-flavored non-meat items around that same time, I was justifiably nervous, but I reviewed them anyway, and found them to be quite enjoyable, and also free of any creepy meat flavor.

In the process of that review, I took a look at Herr’s website, and found some wacky flavors that I would’ve loved to have gotten my hands on. Unfortunately, I’d never seen Herr’s in my area. A little while back, I found myself outside my normal grocery/convenience store zone, and decided to check out the local Basha’s. To my surprise, they carried Herr’s! I was disappointed that they didn’t have Creamy Dill Pickle flavor, but they did have Kansas City Prime Steak, which I consider a mighty fine consolation prize.

I’ve always been curious about the name of these potato chips. I get the Prime part; in terms of USDA beef grading, Prime is the highest grade a piece of meat can get, and Prime steaks are usually only sold in hotels and restaurants. Prime means quality.  But why Kansas City? I didn’t care enough to research before, but now that I’m writing about these chips, I have to. For you. You’re welcome.

According to Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge and my primary care physician, Kansas City (the Missouri one, not the Kansas one, mind you) is famous for its steaks and, more specifically, the Kansas City Strip Steak. The strip steak is the cut of beef where T-bones and Porterhouses come from, just so you know. Deliciousness.

Kansas City became famous for its steaks due to the creation of the Kansas City Stockyards, which were built to give livestock owners better prices for their stock. At the Kansas City Live Stock Exchange, the headquarters of the Stockyards, livestock was sold at auction, which gave owners a chance at getting more money for their cattle. Previously, cattle owners west of Kansas City had to concede to whatever price the railroad was offering.

In the heyday year of 1923, 1,194,527 cattle (45% of the gross cattle sold) were purchased by local packing houses and markets, making Kansas City the place to get fresh, delicious steak. Built in 1871, the Stockyards flourished well into the 1940s. Unfortunately, the Great Flood of 1951 devastated the Stockyards, and they never really recovered, finally closing in 1991.

And now you know why Herr’s chose to call their steak-flavored potato chips Kansas City Prime. I just went all educational on yo’ ass. Take it. LIKE IT.

Back to the chips! From the mouth of Herr Herr: “Take a bite of this unique flavor sensation, Kansas City Prime Steak Potato Chips. Herr’s takes the finest potatoes and cooks them in pure vegetable oil to a golden crispy crunch. We then top them with the flavor of thick and juicy steak. It’s hard to find this bold flavor outside of your favorite steakhouse.”

“Unique flavor sensation” sounds like a phrase I would use to trick someone into eating something nasty. It’s the equivalent of setting your friend up on a blind date and telling him “she has a great personality”! I can read between the lines, here. I’m also pretty sure you won’t be finding this “bold flavor” inside OR outside of your favorite steakhouse.

I just noticed that the picture on the bag is actually a “serving suggestion”. So you’re supposed to serve these steak-flavored chips with…steak? How very meta. I have a feeling that if you served Kansas City Prime chips with a delicious Porterhouse straight from the grill, the chips are going to pale in comparison to the real thing. I enjoy potato chips, but I enjoy a juicy slab of meat a hell of a lot more.

All of that said, I actually have some high hopes for these chips. From my experience with their rib-flavored chips, I know that Herr’s has not yet figured out the dark magic that Frito-Lay uses to make their meat-flavored chips, so I’m not worried about that. I’m hoping for a chip flavored with a dry steak rub, which, in my opinion, would be awesome. Let’s see how Kansas City Prime these chips actually are.

The first impression I got from these chips was holy balls these chips are salty.  That’s a bold statement coming from a salt vampire like myself.  I would go so far as to call them excessively salty.  The second impression was holy balls these chips are garlicky.  It took a few mouthfuls before I could detect the more subtle flavors in the seasoning.  Namely, that it tastes like they tossed the chips in a combination of beef ramen seasoning and garlic powder.  There’s definitely a beefy taste, but it’s artificial, like you’re sucking on a cube of beef bullion.

This may not seem like a ringing endorsement for Kansas City Prime, but I found myself rather enjoying the chips.  This probably puts me in the minority; I’m pretty sure most people wouldn’t want to get intimate with a bag full of chip that taste like beefy garlic salt.  I don’t even know how many I could eat before I reached the limit of my admittedly high sodium tolerance, but I could see myself having a handful or two here and there.  I also like the texture of Herr’s chips; they’re thick and deliver a nice crunch, but not so thick that shards of potato pierce your gums like shrapnel every time you take a bite.

That said, as a reviewer, I have to be objective, and in the end, not only do Herr’s Kansas City Prime Steak Flavor Artificially Flavored Potato Chips taste nothing like steak, they’re also too salty and remind me of being poor and having 17 cent ramen for dinner.  On the plus side, there’s enough garlic in them to ensure that nobody will kiss you for the rest of the day, so if your boyfriend has severe halitosis and you’re too nice to break it to him, these chips will assist you nicely.

  • Score: 2.5 out of 5 totally interesting and not at all boring facts about the history of steak in Kansas City, Missouri
  • Price: $2.99
  • Size: 8 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Basha’s #19
  • Nutritional Quirks: It’s the inclusion of salt and MSG that really makes the chips pop! Also contains butter (what?) and “extractives of tumeric”, which sounds like an ingredient you would need to hunt down if you were concocting a brew to put a curse on someone.
Junk Food

Herr’s Baby Back Ribs Potato Chips

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Today’s little gem comes from a young lady in Indiana. I’m not sure if she loves me or hates me, based on this “gift” she shipped to my mailbox. Herr’s doesn’t distribute in my neck of the woods, so I never would have had the chance to…experience these chips without outside help. I wouldn’t have even known they existed. According to my source, she spotted these in the vending machine at her work, and thought I might “enjoy” them. First of all, I want to see where someone works when they have Baby Back Ribs potato chips in their vending machines. Out of all the places I’ve worked, I’ve never seen anything that interesting in a vending machine. I’d be lucky to spot some Chili Cheese Fritos or Sour Cream and Cheddar Ruffles. Most of the rest was all blandsville, all the time. I probably would have had an autistic freakout if I’d ever seen Baby Back Ribs in a machine. My fingers wouldn’t have been able to fumble a dollar bill into the slot fast enough.

As if the flavor itself wasn’t enough, look at that package! Crazy font! Barbeque sauce splurts everywhere! Wait, that doesn’t look like barbeque sauce, that looks like…BLOOD! And what’s this now…

Finger Lickin’ Rib Flavor Apron! As my friend/chip donor commented, this is quickly turning from an innocent little bag of chips into some sort of serial killer crime scene. I imagine Dexter Morgan putting up plastic tarp all around a dark shack in the middle of nowhere, wearing this apron as he does his dirty work. Blood spatters everywhere as he hacks up his latest victim. Those ribs on the package look sort of ominous, too. More sickly than inviting. If Dexter were a cannibal, I think he’d be disappointed with this rack of human.

My cat and I have differing levels of desire to eat these chips.

After my last adventure with things that should not be meat, in addition to my previous experience with rib chips, I’m more than a little trepidatious about Herr’s Baby Back Rib Potato Chips. But, there’s nothing left to do but dive in. Let’s see if I need to take a little trip east to visit my friend, armed with an apron, a butcher knife, and a copy of How to Serve Man.

Upon opening the bag, the smell is encouraging. And by that I mean, it doesn’t smell at all like an animal died and was sealed in a foil pouch. It smells mostly like pretty much any other barbecue-flavored chip on the market. The chips are ridged, a little less tightly than Ruffles, with a light coating of red flavor powder. I noticed that these seem to be much less intensely powdered than a typical Frito-Lay chip.

I took a quick break (one might call it a stalling mechanism, but hey) to visit Herr’s website. From the looks of it, all, or at least most, of Herr’s chips are ridged. That’s a boring fact. Here’s a less boring fact: Herr’s is just as awesomely batshit with their flavors as Frito-Lay is. Creamy Dill Pickle! (Really? Creamy dill pickle?) Kansas City Prime Steak! Old Bay! An entire line of “Snack Friez”! That’s it, I’m moving to Indiana. I’m uprooting my entire life to move somewhere that sells Herr’s potato chips. The actions of a responsible adult, to be sure.

While I’d love to get my greasy little hands on all those flavors, what I have in my possession are Baby Back Rib potato chips. Which, oddly, are not listed on Herr’s website as a flavor they produce. The logical conclusion is that my friend has a magical vending machine at her work that is producing its own flavors of Herr’s chips. More updates as events warrant.

Enough stalling, let’s eat these chips.

I have to say, I can’t decide if I’m disappointed or relieved that I could not detect any creepy meat flavor in these chips. A little bit of both? I guess Herr’s hasn’t discovered whatever dark secret Doritos has that has given them the ability to make chips taste like meat. That said, Herr’s Baby Back Ribs didn’t exactly taste like a typical barbeque chip, either. They did have properties of a typical barbeque chip, including that little bit of sweetness they all seem to have, but they also had an extra depth of flavor. They seemed a little more smoky than your typical BBQ chip, and they also had a garlicky undertone that was quite tasty. They were also super salty, which I loved. The chips themselves were the perfect thickness and texture.

What started as dread quickly turned into enjoyment while I was eating Herr’s Baby Back Ribs Potato Chips. While Herr’s failed to actually make their chips taste like ribs, they totally succeeded in creating a barbecue-flavored chip that stands out in a world already stuffed with chips of that flavor. The smokey undertone, the garlic, the extra salt and the texture of the chip all worked together to make this one of the best BBQ chips I’ve had so far. If you’re going have a cartoon apron telling the world your chips taste like ribs, and they actually don’t, that’s a marketing fail. That said, the taste of these chips is a total win. I guess my serial killing spree through Indiana will have to wait.

  • Score: 4 out of 5 bloody aprons
  • Price: Free, or probably about 75 cents from your local vending machine that makes its own flavors
  • Size: 1 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: My mailbox via someone’s work vending machine
  • Nutritional Quirks: The first ingredient listed is “choice” potatoes. To think of all the un-choice potato chips I’ve eaten…