Asian snacks -- Chocolate biscuit

More Asian snacks from December! These were chocolate-filled little crunchy biscuits. I mostly bought them because I like the box with the woodland scene and cute little squirrels, but the treats inside were pretty tasty too!

These were small crunchy biscuits filled with hardened milk chocolate and they made nice snacks -- I would definitely eat them again. Chocolate biscuits -- the food of choice for small woodland creatures!

Asian snacks -- Almond Pocky

Digging around in my photos a little more, I found lots of Asian snack foods that I ate in Washington, but never got around to posting. Now that my dissertation is nearing its final completion, I am going to try and post more on my blog -- I've been neglecting it a little bit.

Here is Almond Pocky! I love Pocky: biscuit sticks dipped in chocolate. These Almond Pocky tasted mostly like milk chocolate with very little discernible almond flavor. They were good, but not really what I was expecting. I will stick to the dark chocolate-covered Men's Pocky!

Asian snacks -- Sweet corn sticks

I can't believe how busy I have been recently with writing, job hunting, etc. so this poor blog has been on the backburner for a little while. I don't have anything exciting to write about because I am trying to finish my dissertation and prepare for graduation!
In the meantime, until I do something exciting, here is another Asian snacks post about sweet corn biscuit sticks! I had these at home in Washington and bought them from the best store: Uwajimaya. These were really good and I would definitely eat them again. They tasted like sweet buttery corn with salt and soy sauce -- weird but interesting!

Asian snacks -- Soda candies

I bought these soda candies a reeeaaally long time ago (I also ate them a long time ago), so my review of them might be a little hazy. I remember that they were very good and I will buy them again if I see them. There were 6 flavors of candies in the package: purple = grape, aqua blue = ramune (a type of clear Japanese soda), yellow = lemon, orange = orange, clear = apple, and brown = cola.

All of the candies were fizzy (like soda) and had nice, strong flavors. My favorites were apple, cola, and ramune (but all of them were really good). Even the shapes of the candies were really cute -- they resembled little smiling imps!

Anyway, I am trying to go through some of the things I have put into my little "to blog about" folder that I have accrued over the year -- there are a lot of craft things I have been working on, but I can't post about them because I am doing hand-made gift-giving this year and I don't want to spoil any present surprises. Frustrating! At least after the holidays I will have lots to post about.

PS. Happy birthday Shannon -- see you in a little over a week!

Asian snacks -- Almond Meltyblend

I bought these chocolates because they have a cool name and my sister said that they were nice. I like them, but I probably wouldn't buy them again -- they weren't anything special. I expected them to have a strong almond flavor, but they mostly just tasted like milk chocolate covered with cocoa powder.

Asian snacks -- Cheese Pretz

I've had Pretz before (tomato and salad flavors) and they are really interesting and tasty little cracker-like sticks. While back home, I found cheese-flavored Pretz and these are so far my favorite Pretz sticks. They kind of taste like parmesan cheese and are really thin and breakable. I wonder what other flavors of Pretz are out there for me to try?

Asian snacks -- Green tea Collon

I love that these snacks are called Collon. I have reviewed this brand of snack before (vanilla cream Collon), but I had never seen green tea flavored Colllons before! I really liked this flavor (green tea is one of my favorite flavors of dessert). The cookie tube is sweet and waffle-cone tasting. The green tea cream inside was soft and really green tea-y. I would like to get these again if I see them. Remlington (the dog) also liked them a lot -- he is really into green tea, I think.

Asian snacks -- Pocky!

Now that I am all finished with my DC travel posts, what should I write about for NaBloPoMo? Ah yes, I still have a lot of leftover things that I have in a folder called "Blog" (appropriate, no?) that I can write about. I will start with a classic Asian snacks post -- I haven't written about those for a while!

I went to Uwajimaya with Shannon and mom when we were home last August; or course we stocked up on snacks! I even took pictures of all the goodies out on the deck so that I could blog about them.

We bought a lot of Pocky: normal milk chocolate Pocky, Men's Pocky (my favorite), and coconut Pocky (that was Shannon's). I really like the dark chocolate Men's Pocky (I have no idea why it is called "Men's"...maybe it is really manly and strong?), but I didn't try the coconut Pocky -- I will have to get my sister's opinion of it. You just can't go wrong with Pocky I think!

Asian snacks -- Blueberry candies

Keeping with the theme of blueberries, I bought these hard blueberry candies from the Asian market many weeks ago. They are still in the cabinet, so they aren't that great. They don't taste much like blueberries (though blueberry candies rarely taste accurate) and instead have a strong medicinal flavor. The cough-drop taste is kind of gross and when I chewed up the candy, it is very sticky and got stuck in my teeth. Blech! I will stick with the real fruits!

Asian snacks -- Green tea cookies

I ate some of these cookies today (a pre-dinner snack to tide me over while the curry and rice were cooking). These are great -- very tasty and buttery with a subtle grassy green tea flavor. They also go really well with tea!

Asian snacks -- Petit Strawberry Candy

As a sweet snack today, I ate some of these -- Petit Strawberry Candies! There are five different strawberry-themed flavors of hard candies in the bag and for the most part, they were sweet and tasty!


Dark red = tasted like a wild strawberry, juicy, and sweet (my favorite of these)

Opaque pink = creamy, sweet, and milky with only a hint of strawberry flavor there

Shiny light pink with speckles = blah, tart fake sour strawberry taste (eeew)

Powder pink = softer wild strawberry flavor than dark red, really good!

Translucent pink = juicy, sour (not artificial-tasting) strawberry

Overall, I really liked these candies. The dark red and powder pink candies tasted very close to real strawberries -- one of my favorite fruits!

Asian snacks -- Pucca

These snacks disappeared pretty fast so I thought I would write about them before I forget. Pucca are salted pretzel shells that are shaped like fish (and possible octopi and jellyfish?) and filled with creamy white chocolate. I am normally not a fan of white chocolate (I prefer dark chocolate), but it was very delicious in these cookies. The salty pretzel component matched perfectly and balanced the sweet white chocolate within. I will definitely get these snacks again -- maybe in another flavor!

Asian snacks -- Men's Pocky

Despite the inexplicable name, these Pocky are my favorites of the brand -- these are thin biscuit stick cookies covered in dark, almost bitter chocolate. Men's Pocky make a tasty, quick snack and have the perfect ratio of chocolate to cookie. The only thing I don't like about them is that they disappear too fast!

Asian snacks -- Gyoza

On Thursday (my usual morning to run errands before going to campus/home to work/write) I visited the Asian market to stock up on snacks and food items (e.g. curry, sauces, noodles, nori). So...now I have a few more Asian snacks that I can talk about!

I bought some frozen gyoza (little potsticker dumplings) and gyoza sauce at the market and this turned into our dinner that night (with some sticky rice). These gyoza are filled with shrimp and vegetables and are delicious. This is a very easy, inexpensive meal -- you just have to pan-fry the frozen gyoza until they are brown and crispy on one side, then add some water, cover, and cook until the water evaporates! Carlos and I really like these with the gyoza sauce -- it tastes like soy sauce with some citrus and spicy notes. These are so good!

Asian snacks -- Tree stumps

It's been a while since I've talked about Asian snacks, but I found some old pictures that I took during Christmas break so I thought I would write about this snack: Chocolate tree stumps! I bought these as part of my sister's Christmas present and after she opened them I got to try a couple -- they are really good. Basically, these are little graham-like cookies shaped like stumps with chocolate covering the base -- a really good combination and the cookies are super-cute! I should try these again and take a picture of the actual cookies this time.

Asian snacks -- Litchi candies

These hard lychee (or litchi) candies are really good -- possibly my favorite lychee-flavored items (besides lychee fruits themselves). I have eaten fresh lychees straight from the tree and they are the best. Canned ones are OK if you can't eat the fresh fruits which are pretty hard to come by in the states.
As for these candies, they are a pleasant transparent pale pink color and have a light sweet lychee taste that is a little floral. I usually buy these if I see them and they are a nice candy to snack on.

Asian snacks -- Tomato Pretz

Keeping with the Pretz theme, today I will review the other flavor of Pretz I got from Uwajimaya: Tomato Pretz. These thin little biscuit sticks were a little more red in color than the Salad Pretz and tasted very tomato-y. I preferred these to the salad Pretz because I liked the slight sun-dried tomato flavor that they gave. I would enjoy eating these as a regular snack. I know there are many more flavors of Pretz out there and I will try to sample more in the future. If they have a pea-flavored Pretz, I will definitely give those a try!

Asian snacks -- Salad Pretz

I was intrigued first by this snack's name: Salad Pretz. These are pretzel-like buttery biscuit sticks and they are apparently salad flavored. I was interested to know what a salad-flavored snack would taste like and I have discovered that it tastes more like salty oregano than lettuce. Hmmmm...it was not what I was expecting, but I liked these snack sticks nonetheless. I also purchased Tomato Pretz (which honestly sounded more intriguing even than Salad Pretz!), but I will wait to talk about those on another day.

Asian snacks -- Watermelon candies

I really like the flavor of watermelon -- it may be among my favorite fruits -- so I decided to give these hard watermelon candies a try. They were pretty good and came in 4 different varieties. The pink ones were sweeter than the yellow, but they were all good hard candies. I especially liked all the little details that went into the design of the candies and making them look like mini-watermelon pieces.

Asian snacks -- Pea crisps

These may very well be my favorite snack (at least on par with yukon gold salt and vinegar potato chips!) -- Saya pea crisps! It may sound weird, but these pea flavored chips are very, very good and taste a lot like fresh snap peas -- if those peas were dried and molded into little pea pod-shaped crisps. I get these every time I see them and I have only ever seen them at Asian food markets. There is a similar style chip that I found at Whole Foods, but the taste just isn't as strong and delicious as this variety. I highly recommend these chips, you might like them even if you don't like peas -- they are THAT good!