The coronavirus has made captives of us all. This is especially true of devotees of chips and salsa, who mentally salivate over memories of chips fresh from the restaurant oven (or better still the fryolator) and salsa whose homemade pedigree is evident in each chunky, mildly searing bite.
Ordering through Instacart, alas, brings you only mass-produced commercial variants that frankly don’t satisfy the cravings of true chips and salsa aficionados.
If that includes you, take heart. A promising new line of chips and salsa born on the bayou and perfected in New York is available on local supermarket shelves and by mail order. Its name — Dreams Aren’t This Good — is also a challenge. At least it was for the natural-born skeptics in our 10-person tasting panel.
But tasting is believing, and we’re hear to tell you that these chips and salsa are the real deal. The chips are without exaggeration infectious (we devoured three bags in one tasting). And if you heat them at 350° for a few minutes, as the package recommends, they rival the best restaurant chips in New York.
As a bonus, the chips solve logistical problems with chips and salsa eating that we weren’t aware existed before out close encounter with DATG. You know how when you dip a chip, sometimes a fragment of it breaks off and winds up in the salsa? Or worse still breaks en route to your mouth? DATG eliminates that occupational hazard by starting with extra-thick tortillas that remain intact throughout dipping. Even better, the tortillas are cut into inch-thick strips, for easier dipping and bowl-to-mouth transport.
The salsa comes in four flavors: The Fighter, Just Dance, Now or Never, and Girls Girls Girls — aka garlic cilantro, jalapeño pineapple, avocado pepper, and blueberry coconut, respectively — as well as The Original (no translation needed). All have the amount of heat you would find in a commercial brand labeled “medium” (as opposed to “mild” or “hot”). And all are as delicious as they are imaginative. Eight members of the panel got hooked on the jalapeño pineapple, which again they found hard to stop eating.
If there already wasn’t reason enough to love this product, $.05 of every sale goes to partner philanthropies including Hunger Free America, MTV Staying Alive Foundation, The Center NYC, The Association of Community Employment Programs for the Homeless (ACE), Girl Up, and LIFEbeat.
The price reflects the quality, which is another way of saying chips and salsa this good don’t come cheaply. The chips sell online for $24.99 a 9-ounce bag, salsa $29.99 for a pack of three 16-ounce jars.
Dreams Aren’t This Good chips and salsa are available in the tri-state area at Foodtown, Key Food, City Acres Market, Amish Market, Mekelburg’s, Brooklyn Harvest Market, Westside Market, and Foragers. You can also order them online by clicking here.
