Disappointment at Trader Joe's

Standing in line at Trader Joe's the other day, I nearly dropped to my knees and wept with joy. There, in the checkout line, were bags upon bags of their new Milk Chocolate-Covered Potato Chips. When I worked at the chocolate shop in college, we had chocolate potato chips that were sublime, a perfect balance of sweet chocolate and salty chips. The chips used were Ruffles because, I was told, they didn't get soggy once they were dipped. The result was something akin to a Nestle Crunch, only with a hint of salt. They were $10.95 a pound back then (I'm shivering as I now realize that was 16 years ago), so I can only imagine what they go for now. Seeing them at TJ's for less than $3 a bag made the purchase a no-brainer.
After I distracted the Sugar Baby with a granola bar, I surreptitiously stole a potato chip out of the bag for myself. I bit into it, expecting to hear angels sing. Instead, I got "wah, wah, wahhhhhh." The chip was stale-ish tasting. It didn't mesh well with the chocolate. It was so not good that I still have the entire bag, untouched, in my pantry. Believe me, something's got to be pretty bad to stick around here.

My other purchase from that trip was the Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Caramel with Sea Salt. Again, this seemed like an instant win. The bar is super thin, which made it very difficult to break into sections. In fact, I ended up getting caramel all over the wrapper because it was impossible to get a clean break. As for the taste, well, it was much better than the potato chips, but it's not one of my favorite TJ's chocolates. The problem with this was that the chocolate was too dark (70%) for the rather large salt crystals. To me, it bordered on savory.