I asked Mike to get me some weird snacks from Grocery Outlet – which sometimes is very good at it – but instead he brought me these sea salt chocolate flavored banana chips from Sun-Maid.
I thought they were just OK. The coating is a sugar and hydrogenated palm oil confectionery flavored with cocoa, and it tastes like bad quality dark chocolate. It’s on the bitter side, and pretty much obliterates the flavor of the banana.
That said, my husband liked them.
Sun-Maid is a brand from a cooperative of farms in California.
What exactly is it about Pocky snacks that makes us love them so much? The cookies dipped in cream icings are not the most delicious thing in the world, they are silly to eat if you’re an adult, and they’re fairly expensive. I got these Peanut Butter Pocky on sale for $1.50 (off $2.50 regular price), and it’s just 1 1/4 oz worth of product. Yet, they are irresistible.
I wasn’t particularly fond of these peanut butter pockys, though. The sweet icing did not taste like peanut butter at all. I’m not sure what they tasted like, but it was somewhat off putting. Not enough to prevent me from eating them all, however – though at least not all at once. I wouldn’t get them again, but you know I’d eat them if I had them.
Carnitas, basic but good. there isn’t much flavor beyond that of the pork, if there is a marinade, I can’t really taste it. It also lacked parts that are crispy and overly roasted. But the fundamental flavor is nice, the carnitas are pretty lean and a bit dry, but they would work to mix with a sauce or dressing.
I asked my husband to bring a weird snack next time he went to Grocery Outlet and he certainly delivered. Trenzy Gahm Milk Classic Rice Snacks ($1) are flatish rectangular rice puffs that come in milk and cheese flavor. The cheese ones, which we got, seem to have the flavor added to the milk one, which results in a sweetish-salty-cheesy one which is definitely weird, but not unpleasant. It’s hard to describe, but it’s exactly the sort of flavor you’d expect coming from Korea or Japan.
The snacks come individually wrapped in a bag of six. I wouldn’t get them again, but I’m glad I tried them. I think it was about $1 for the package, but I need to check.
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 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.
My husband picked up a package of Harry & David Pop! Cinnamon Caramel Popcorn at Grocery Outlet and finally decided to open it today. I had been avoiding it as I don’t take to like cinnamon in commercial products – it’s often fake and tastes horribly. But I tried them and they are pretty good. Not great. I won’t be scarfing them down or encouraging him to buy another package, but they weren’t bad.
First, the cinnamon flavor, which comes from “cinnamon powder,” is pretty subtle. It’s there but it’s not on your face in an offensive way. It mostly just tastes of corn syrup, the ingredient they used to create the “caramel”. And that’s a problem because it doesn’t have those toasty caramel notes you want from caramel. The popcorn is just sweet, overwhelmingly so.
Harry & David introduced their Pop! line of popcorn in 2022, but I don’t see them being sold at the Harry & David website or mainstream retailers anymore, which suggests it’s been discontinued as a brand.
I have had green onion pancakes at Chineserestaurants over the years, and I have never been overly impressed. Still, when I saw these Taiwanese Green Onion Pancakes ($2.50) at Trader Joe’s I still had to get them – don’t ask me why.
My first impression was that they were just OK. They didn’t much in the way of flavor – they were slightly salty. I did like the chewy consistency, which reminded me of Thai roti. While they are quite oily, they still felt pretty dry and screamed for something to dip them into. I tried chimichurri – but it didn’t work very well. They were delicious with honey mustard dressing, of all things. I thought they would be even better with Thai yellow curry, and they might be. But I got some Trader Joe’s yellow curry to try them with, and the curry was horrible.
You heat up these pancakes on a pan, but it only takes a couple of minutes per side and it leaves you with a clean pan that you can reuse without having to wash. I already bought more.
I’m a huge fan of Ritz bits cheese crackers, so when I saw these Mini Cheese sandwich crackers at Trader Joe’s, I thought I’d give them a try.
They are OK. The cheese is a bit saltier and more bitter, with a somewhat unpleasant after taste.
They’re still quite addictive, however.
At $3.30 for the 7.5 oz box, they’re 1/3 cheaper than Ritz bits, which sell for at Safeway for $5.80 for the 8.8 oz box (so 44c/oz vs 66c/oz) – though last time I got them at Safeway they were on sale for under $2.
P-nuff was another item I saw on Shark Tank and decided to try. I found them at Amazon for $8.25, and while I’d normally not pay that much for a snack, I do want to try as many Shark Tank featured food items as possible.
This was another failure.
The peanut puffs are basically peanut flavored Cheetos. Instead of corn meal, these are made with ground navy beans and rice, but it’s the same concept. The ground cereals are mixed with oil and puffed.
They are supposed to be peanut puffs, but the peanut flavor is very subtle. This is not surprising as roasted peanuts are the next to last ingredient – salt is the last one. The peanuts do give the puffs a slight peanut aroma, but it dissipates quickly. It’s not bad, but it’s also not particularly delicious.
This was sold as a healthy snack, but I’m not sure I’d call it that. It has about half the fat and twice the protein that Cheetos, but it’s only a little bit less caloric. It has the same amount of carbs as Cheetos, but more fiber and, surprisingly, twice as much sugar.
I’m sure this is a great snack for vegans, but not something I’d buy again, even at half the price.
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.
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