M&S 'Ever So Posh' Hand Cooked crisps

The regularly occurring crisp-related posts on this blog are an obvious indicator of my fondness for this fried potato snack. These days I try and limit my regular crisp consumption a bit, but am always quite keen to try out a new flavour. I remembered a tweet from the delightful Sabrina Ghayour a few weeks ago when she spotted these crisps, and when I was in Marks and Spencer recently and saw they were part of a BOGOF offer I thought I had better buy some (for ahem, research purposes).

So this 'Ever So Posh' range are hand cooked crisps which come in a choice of lobster cocktail (pretty posh); parmesan, asparagus and truffle (posh), and some sort of salt and vinegar-type flavour I can't exactly remember (less posh). I bought the first two flavours as they sounded the most unusual.
The lobster cocktail flavour reminded me a little of a more refined prawn cracker (a good thing I think). They had a mild seafood-y aroma which matched the taste, and hefty dose of paprika which made up the rest of the flavour. They weren't overly sweet in the way that 'prawn cocktail' crisps often are, and I was very happy to scoff a large bowl of these.
The parmesan, asparagus and truffle flavour was a little more unique than its lobster brethren. There was a distinct grassy taste from the asparagus, which was a bit unexpected but not unpleasant. And I think this actually worked quite well against the cheese-y background of the parmesan. I'm not sure that I could detect much truffle flavour, but then again I'm also not sure that I've really eaten enough truffle to recognise it. These crisps seem to be quite a nice variation on the traditional cheese 'and something' flavours, and as with the lobster cocktail I was very happy to eat them.
Both these flavours of crisps were pretty grease-free and had a good crunchy texture but without turning into bits of shrapnel when eating. They were both very much standalone crisps though, and I would predict that the distinctive flavours wouldn't work that well when dipped into other things like hummous. And neither flavour appear to be suitable for proper vegetarians, due to the presence of dried lobster and parmesan cheese.
These seem more than just novelty flavours from M&S, and it looks as if some thought has gone into putting them together. Anyway, my overall verdict on both these crisp flavours is a positive one as I'd very happy to eat either again.

M&S Ever So Posh Hand Cooked Crisps
I rate them 8/10
Around £1.80 for a 150g bag, (may still be on a buy-one-get-one free offer)