"chips and salsa" news and stories

Defying customer expectations, Little Rock's leading Tex-Mex restaurant last month slapped a price tag on its chips and salsa.

Lee Womack, manager of Juanita's Mexican Café and Bar, says the groundbreaking measure hasn't yet stimulated a free chip crackdown citywide, but he suspects more restaurants will follow suit after seeing what the new revenue buys. "We were able to get brand new glasses, new utensils and new linens," Womack says. "It's been kind of a radical change."

Juanita's opened in 1986, and rapidly acquired a national reputation for its margaritas and cheese dip, both of which were named Little Rock's best by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette last year. Womack resists calling the redone restaurant "fancy," but concedes, "We cleaned up the old girl."

When testing salsas, we set some rules. First of all, these are all store-bought, jarred salsas. While almost every supermarket has assorted fresh salsa choices, we felt this would be unfair, as there's just no comparing a freshly made salsa with one jarred months prior. Plus, there just aren't enough fresh salsas available that are also national brands. The best fresh salsas are made locally, and in some instances, on the spot. We didn't include any canned salsas, for similar reasons.

Find out the winners after the jump.

Frito Lay is releasing a new version of its popular Tostitos tortilla chips: Multigrain Tostitos. The new chips are made with four whole grains, including corn, oat, buckwheat and wheat, contain no trans fats and little saturated fat. When compared to the classic Restaurant Style Tostitos, which are made with whole, white corn, the Multigrain have 65mg of potassium and more dietary fiber, though they actually contain slightly less calcium. The fat and calorie counts are very similar.

A nuttier, multigrain taste will probably enable the new chips to compete with crackers as a dipable snack food, good for things like cheese spreads and hummus. The regular corn tortilla chips will still be tops for salsa, though, since there isn't enough nutritional benefit to be gained from making a switch to give up that classic taste.

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