鯛 Tai Arare: I purchased this snack from Tokyo Fish Market, a Japanese grocery store in Berkeley, hoping the fish-shaped crackers would be seafood flavored, as many Asian snacks are. The Chinese character on the packaging even literally translates to "red snapper" (though I have to admit that I had to use Google Translate to determine that). Despite the name and shape, the crackers are just regular glazed rice crackers – crunchy, sweeter than you would expect, but still with a savory soy aftertaste. At first, I was disappointed, but then I realized that people outside of the US might feel the same coming across our American counterpart, the Goldfish cracker, which despite its shape and name is not flavored like fish either. In that way, it's kind of comforting that fish-shaped crackers are somewhat universal in their ambiguity. 3.0/5.0

tokyofishmarket ricecrackers soy japanese tai arare 3.0