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Market Basket: Spicy crab chips, which is best?

Supermarket snack aisles have lately become crowded with potato chips and other snacks inspired by that mixture of fried potatoes and seasonings that only Chickie's & Pete's can legally shill as "Crabfries." We put three of these palate-decimating potato chip products to the test, and enlisted Inquirer restaurant critic Craig LaBan for tasting notes:

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Supermarket snack aisles have lately become crowded with potato chips and other snacks inspired by that mixture of fried potatoes and seasonings that only Chickie's & Pete's can legally shill as "Crabfries."

We put three of these palate-decimating potato chip products to the test, and enlisted Inquirer restaurant critic Craig LaBan for tasting notes:

Herr's Chickie's & Pete's Famous Crabfries Seasoned Potato Chips

It's a ridged chip with that familiar spicy-salty seasoning, plus a powdered dairy coating to call to mind the cheesy dipping sauce that accompanies Crabfries. LaBan likes them as a bar snack: "These are engineered to make you want to drink beer. They have a nice oily, crunchy savor on the end."

$1.49 for a 2.8-ounce bag at Wawa.

Utz the Crab Chip Potato Chips

Presumably to avoid licensing issues, these are advertised as featuring "Chesapeake Bay Crab Seasoning." They're paper-thin, salty, and a little sweet. "The benefit of that is you can eat more of them," LaBan said. "If was going to eat a whole bag of them, I'd go for the Utz."

$4.29 for a 9.5-ounce bag at Acme.

Herr's Old Bay Seasoned Potato Chips

Salty, acidic, crunchy - and not LaBan's favorite chip. "It's too heavy-handed and very lemony. I couldn't eat much of it." $4.29 for a 9.5-ounce bag at Acme.

- Samantha Melamed