I got Dolcetto Tuscan Crisps at World Market ($5), and seldom I’ve been more disappointed on a World Market find. Granted, it’s my fault for not having closely examined the ingredients before I bought them. If I had, I’d noticed that far from having an “Italian cheese blend,” they had practically no cheese at all. Indeed, “natural cheese flavor” is listed as an ingredient after salt, and “cheese” is the next to last ingredient.
The result is that they don’t taste like cheese. They are mildly salty, but they don’t really taste like anything. They might be a good conduit for actual cheese – I haven’t tried them with any yet – but on their own, they are just insipid.
I’ve been late to the Dubai chocolate craze. Indeed, my first encounter with Dubai chocolates didn’t come until last week, when my husband gave me one of the Nutty Fruitty Dubai chocolate bars he had bought at Costco ($17 at Costco).
The bag came with 15 individually packaged square chocolates, approximately 1 1/2″ x 1 1/2″). The chocolates basically consist of pistachio butter in a milk chocolate coating. They are pretty good, quite tasty but I found them too sweet. As I’ve found pretty much every confectionary I’ve tasted in the last few weeks “too sweet,” I have to conclude that’s a me problem.
My husband liked them as well, but he was a little annoyed at the fact that they are not really chocolate, the chocolate covering is there as a wrapper, rather than to contribute much to the flavor. I’m not sure if that’s true with other Dubai chocolates, I’ll probably give another one a try at some point.
I love international snack boxes, but they are usually a bit too expensive for my pocketbook. Alas, I found this box of Universal Yums Germany snacks at World Market on clearance for $9, or 55% off its regular price, as they were near expiration, and decided to give them a go. Most of the snacks expired in December, so the box wasn’t really appropriate as a gift, but there is nothing wrong with gifting yourself.
The box comes with a little booklet describing the snacks, that includes some trivia about German food and even a recipe. There is also a sheet for rating your snacks.
The first snack I tried was this package of Waffelz cheesecake flavored wafers ($3.10 at Universal Yums). This seems to be a relatively new brand of wafers of an old German baking company, and I was somewhat surprised the whole packaging was in English – which suggests it’s manufactured for export. The wafers were just OK. They weren’t as crispy as we prefer – whether this was because they were near expiration or their style, it’s hard to stay – but the main issue was the flavor. It basically tasted like a sour version of a regular vanilla wafer. It didn’t taste of cheesecake, however. I wouldn’t buy them.
Second, I tried the Lorenz Pomsticks, in sour cream (geschmack) flavor. These are very crispy, thin and short potato sticks seasoned with onion powder, parsley and yeast extract, as well as buttermilk powder and sour cream. They don’t have the very strong sour flavor of American sour cream and onion chips; rather, it’s more subtle. They are also less salty than their American equivalent. They are just as addictive, however, and I had eaten half the 2.5 oz package before I realized what I was doing. All in all, I preferred it to American chips, both because of just how crispy they were and how mild the flavor was.
While the chips are made in Germany, this particular bag seems to have been imported to either the Philippines, Malaysia or Singapore before making its way to the US. They were sold out at Universal Yum (previously $3.70), but they are available from other German food stores in the US.
The third and fourth treat I tried was this yum bag which came with five Kuhbonbon salted caramel candies (I ate one before the photo) and four or five unbranded candies. I felt that Universal Yums was rather deceitful about counting this bag of small candies as two treats, particularly as even put together they don’t amount to a full size bag of candy! This con would make me reluctant to buy a box at full price.
Fortunately, both candies were pretty good. The Kuhbonbon candies had a very strong caramel flavor, which was almost too intense. They were a bit crumbly, perhaps because they weren’t very fresh. The unbranded little candies – which came in green apple, grapefruit and passion fruit flavors – provided intense bursts of delicious flavor. Sure, they had only a passing relationship with the flavor of the actual fruits, but they were delicious anyway. Unfortunately, they are very small.
The fifth treat were Halloren O’s fudge in “Brownie” flavor ($5.50 at Universal Yums). The package came with a dozen bite size bombons with a soft center and a chocolate cover.
I was very disappointed in these brownies. They had no chocolate flavor whatsoever and instead they were just super sweet. It was also a weird sweetness, probably because, in addition to sugar, they are sweetened with “wheat glucose syrup,” which I’m going to guess is even sweeter than sugar. I struggled to finish one, and I’m going to leave the rest for low-sugar episodes, where flavor doesn’t matter. Update: they worked exceptionally well for that.
The sixth treat was a nice-sized bar of Böhme Pfefferminz Creme-Schokolade ($3.60 at Universal yums). This was one of two treats that actually had German-language packaging. This is a chocolate bar with a creamy mint filling. I’m not a huge fan of mint chocolates, and I particularly disliked this one (you guessed it, too sweet), but my husband liked it very much.
The last treat was a full size bar of Porta amarena kirsche ($5.50 at Universal Yums), chocolate with cherry flavored filling. None of us in the house are fans of cherries, so I think it will take a while before anyone tries it.
Pralines are sweet confections of nuts in a caramelized sugar base. In France, these are rather hard, closer to brittle and typically based on almonds. In America, pralines are made with a combination of sugar, butter and cream, milk or half and half and typically pecan based. They are closer to a nutty fudge than a candy.
The New Orleans School of Cooking makes their pralines on site, and they generously offer you samples. They have both plain and a chocolate kind. I preferred the plain but they were too sweet for my taste. I also didn’t really like how soft they were. We bought a couple, but I never actually felt tempted to eat them. Still, if you like fudge and pecans, you’ll probably like them.
There is no reason why these corn puffs should be soooo addictive
I hate Shirakiku curvee Corn Puffs, the cheeto-like puffs, with a strange, artificial corn potage flavor Mike has been getting from Grocery Outlet. The puffs are extremely addictive. You can be fully committed to eat just one, but before you know it, the whole package will be gone. And it might be a good thing that it is, because once open, they go flat within a day, absorbing humidity you didn’t even know existed in relatively dry California. But they seem to travel directly from your mouth to your blood stream, increasing blood glucose levels to previously unknown possibilities.
The worst part about these chips is that they don’t actually taste good. I don’t think that anyone who pops one into their mouth will be wowed by their flavor. Cheetos are far tastier. It’s hard to describe Curvee corn puffs, particularly if you’ve never had Japanese style corn potage before, but they do taste somewhat of bouillion powder, albeit they’re sweeter and less salty. And yet, their addictiveness cannot be denied.
During our brief trip to NYC, we took a tour of the outer boroughs. We visited Harlem, the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn, and we stopped for food twice. In the Bronx, we purportedly stopped to see a mural of Christopher Rios, a young rapper from the neighborhood who had met an early death. But really, the point was to visit Cancun Deli & Grocery, kitty corner from the mural.
I was happy to stop at Cancun for a couple of reasons. One, is that one of the typical foodie cultural experiences to have in NYC is to stop at a bodega. The second was their empanadas. They were mentioned in glowing terms in many of the reviews of the tour. Apparently, it is indeed visits from tour groups that keep Cancun Deli open – the enterprising owners started giving empanada samples to tour guides that came to visit the mural, and they got hooked. Now they have several tours stopping by daily.
Cancun’s empanadas are made by hand (though by now, they may be assembled by machine) by the owner, Nathalie Rodriguez, a Dominican immigrant who learned to make empanadas by watching YouTube videos. After tasting them, I can say she found her calling. The fried empanadas, served warm, had a thin, crunchy tasty shell and a generous amount of filling. I ordered the Korean beef empanada and Mike had the standard beef empanada. Mike liked his empanada, which was quite flavorful, but we both loved mine. I don’t think there was much to it, it was basically a bulgogi empanada, which is a brilliant, brilliant idea that I’ll have to try myself (though, while fried empanadas are usually better than oven-baked ones, I’m not a fan of deep frying).
In all, the stop at Cancun was great, and if you happen to be in the neighborhood – or take a tour of the Bronx – make sure you grab an empanada there.
Cancun Deli & Grocery 908 E 163rd St The Bronx, NYC (718) 676-9765 7 AM - 10 PM
My oldest daughter came up with this loaded toast and liked it so much that she made it again. Denali, the cat, was not very amused, maybe because she knew my daughter wasn’t planning to share. Here is the recipe for anyone in search of inspiration.
Denali’s Toast
Layer in order
Sliced bread, toasted
Hummus
Avocado
Sliced or smashed fresh tomatoes
Fried egg
Season with dill, onion powder, paprika, turmeric and black pepper
I got these Butterfly Crispy Rolls at the small 88 market in San Leandro. I didn’t have high expectations for them, but they were very tasty, to the point of being addictive. They are flaky but less dry than I would have thought. I had imagined they would need some filling, but they are flavorful enough that they don’t need it. All in all I’d buy them again.
We found these chips at Santos’ Spice Market and loved them. As the name implies, they have an Indian spices flavor and they are slightly spicy (I can handle them, but someone who doesn’t like spices at all wouldn’t). They can be pretty addictive. I
I got these Esaki Glico Caplico Mini Japanese snacks twice now at the large 88 market on East 14th in San Leandro. I don’t recall the exact price, but it was around $4-$5 for the package. They are small wafer cones with a sweet flavored filling, not too disimilar to the filling in an oreo cookie, but lighter and less sweet. They are remarkably delicious.
Each cone is individually packaged and rather small – this is very much a special treat.
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