Asian Snack Food Crossover Taste Test
Written by Mandroid3000

I ventured into my local Asian grocery store flush with loot and on the prowl for unusual snacks. I did this not just to pig out (though writing a “taste test” article is a good excuse for that) but with a particular purpose in mind – to find if any of these snacks could crossover and become the next big Western snack sensation?

If I was wildly unrealistically successful I could sob myself to sleep knowing that I broke the scoop for a multinational that made $100 million from repackaging candied ox trotters? If I was unsuccessful I would have buyer's remorse and a queasy belly. If I was mildly successful... (enough with the intro. - Ed.)

The snacks are listed in order, starting with those least likely to be crossover sensations. NOTE: Percentages don't mean much, but they are in order! (don't tell people stuff like that please - Ed.)

Egg Soft Flour Cakes

Imagine flavourless Rice Krispie treats with the texture of a globby cube yet, by some miracle, the feeling of unsubstantial airiness. You have just imagined Egg Soft Flour Cakes.

10% - You can buy Rice Krispie squares at the supermarket. I’ve only ever bought them at the school fair, so I would certainly never buy Flour Cakes over the counter. Again.

Bonus - Palm Oil is an ingredient, but not everyone digs it. Friends of the Earth is among them.

Chlorella Job’s Tears Wafer

I now know that Chlorella is an algae that some believe is a 'superfood'. 'Job’s Tears' are some sort of grain. A 'wafer' is a 'wafer'. Disappointingly for all the superfoods and exotic grains, the snack tastes like an ordinary cream wafer.

12% - I learned some stuff.

Bonus - A picture of a Job’s Tears necklace held at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Watermelon Seeds

I usually either spit these out or have them removed from the gaping cavities in my molars by the dental hygienist. These packaged seeds have a salty aniseed taste. Soft in the middle but crunchy on the outside, they leave little tough bits that you want to spit out. That being said, they are the sort of thing I could imagine absent-mindedly eating a whole bag of while watching the Paintball World Championship.

15% - I really don’t want to accidentally eat a whole bag of these.

Bonus - Wikipedia has a list of edible seeds.

Green Tea Cake

Tastes like a Fig Newton or a Full O’ Fruit or whatever your local dried fruit biscuit is. Depending on your tastes, this is either a better or worse outcome than a cake with green tea-flavoured jelly in the middle. Either way, we already have fruit biscuits.

16% - Bonus point for the manufacturing company’s name, Golden Buffalo

Bonus - Info on the Full O’ Fruit biscuit where they inform us that “…if we don’t use the highest grade of sultanas in this product, our machinery simply wouldn't work.”

Vegetable Cubic Pastry

A sweetish flaky wheat biscuit with a vegetable stock flavour. More edible than that may sound.

28% - That name could be jazzed up, but vegetable crackers aren't that sensational.

Bonus - Learn that ‘cubic cleavage’ is not as saucy as it sounds.

Thousand Layers Cookies

A slightly seaweed-flavoured version of the Vegetable Cubic Pastry. Quite stodgy.

29% - Just adding a slight seaweed flavour to wheat biscuits won’t make a crossover snack hit.

Bonus - A photo of a thousand layers pig’s ears.

Seaweed Muffin

These are “Special Made” light layered pastry with seaweed powder on top. Not bad, but I don’t think these are really muffins. They are the sort of snack you could inadvertently eat the whole pack of, if not for the irritating and wasteful wrappers for each biscuit.

39% - Seaweed rice crackers are pretty popular – it’s time seaweed was used in more items. These are a good start.

Bonus -  Muffin Top Mayhem!

The packet seems to picture tar being ground in a mortar and pestle against a backdrop of weevils. If I had read the name of this item while wearing my glasses it would have been obvious that these are brown rice and sesame seeds. The snack itself is a wafer with a chocolate-flavoured sesame paste in the centre. Result, they just taste like chocolate cream wafers.

40% - The healthy slant to a chocolate wafer is a potential sales angle.

Bonus - Did you know 2004 was the International Year of Rice?

Cream Egg Rolls

Basically a sweet rolled up biscuit with sugar on it. The roll shape seems a bit pointless, and they're hollow and take up space, meaning only four rolls per pack. Yet, despite this, as I typed up my notes I had to go and eat the left over ones.

55% - As the packet says, “This is what your relatives and you want.”

Bonus - The History of the White House Easter Egg Roll.

Yam Crackers

Like a tangy homemade biscuit. The yam flavour in question isn’t the yam as we call them in NZ (oca), or the yam as they are known in the US (sweet potato), but the actual yam. They’re nice, but each biscuit is tiny and has its own fiddly wrapper.

68% - Ditch those fiddly wrappers, make each cookie a bit bigger, and this could be a mildly popular cookie flavour.

Bonus: YAM is also an acronym for the Yale Alumni Magazine. You can read an article on the ten greatest fictional Yale graduates here.

!!!CHAMPION!!!

Sweet Roll Biscuit With Silky Pork

My mind has trouble accepting that my body enjoying the combination of meats and sweets. These are tangy threads of pork stuffed in the middle of a round sweet biscuit. An unusual snack, but strangely tasty, snack.

After giving one to a friend he actually took the whole box with him for the ride home. I want them back now. Well, in a way I don't. But I do. Damn silky pork is so insidious, I don't know what I like to eat any more. I love you silky pork. But I should, I must, hate you. I gag, but want to eat more. *sob*

75% - Are candy and meats the next super snack synergy? Maybe. Probably not, but maybe.

BONUS - The Stacy Adams Silky Pork Pie Hat

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