Lotus Foods Sriracha Arare Rice Crackers: I sometimes feel guilty when I purchase the Western version of classic asian snacks, made with likely responsibly sourced ingredients and marketed with minimalist, sans-serif packaging. But having had Lotus Food’s Arare rice crackers in the past, I had a sense that the difference in quality would be worthwhile, and it was. Black, red, and yellow rice crackers in a variety of shapes, from stars to squares, have a clear sheen from a chili-flavored glaze. They’re satisfying crunchy, and the hea... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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PaTea Brown sugar oolong milk tea with boba: I really love living in NYC, but one thing that was missing for me was a mom-and-pop super-asian bubble tea shop, the kind that has an overwhelming number of flavors that isn’t a major chain like Gong Cha or Coco. Those types of shops are omnipresent in the Bay Area, but not so much here. However, that gap has now been filled by PaTea, a very small bubble tea shop a few blocks away from Union Square. There, they have the “chubby” bucket-sized bubble tea cups in a variety of milk and fruit te... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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Nature's Soy Black sesame soy milk: I love Asian soy milk, which tends to be a lot less sweet and taste of actual soybeans/tofu compared to American soymilk (there's a very good chapter on this in the book Organic inc.), so when I went to Hong Kong Supermarket in Chinatown NYC, I checked out the refrigerated, fresh soy milk options. This brand happened to have black sesame and matcha soymilk, two of my favorite flavors. Since the half gallons we're quite large and black sesame is a bit more unqiue for this category, I purchase... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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Kuan Sheng Food Seaweed Thin Crackers: These are specialty crackers from Taiwan that are bright matcha green. They contain a kitchen sink of Asian ingredients, from buckwheat to glutinous rice, mung beans, green tea powder, black sesame, and, of course, seaweed. Altogether, though, it somehow works, creating thin, buttery cookies that taste earthy yet faintly sweet and has a slight medicinal quality to it (it contains some mixed Chinese herbs as well). My mom brought this home as a gift from one of her students, so I’m not sur... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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Hsin Tung Yang Sesame flavored dried bean curd: Dried bean curd is one of my favorite Taiwanese snacks and is not quite like anything I've had from American grocery stores. Fried bean curd, saturated in sesame oil, is wrinkled almost like an enlarged raisin, but comes in large strips like beef jerky. It has an intensely savory sweet chili-garlic flavor and leaves your fingers and tongue slick with a (unhealthy) coating of grease, which undoubtably adds to its deliciousness. I can't say exactly where this bag was from as my parents had i... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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Natural Idea Finger Pancakes - Seaweed Flavor: My friend SengMing brought me this snack, which he purchased from 99 Ranch, an Asian supermarket. Directly translate to "Finger Pancakes" (there is no English on the label), these miniature biscuits are irregularly shaped and really do look like pancakes, with the same kind of coloration ( a darker toasted brown on the edges) that you get when you actually make pancakes on the stovetop. The sweet and savory seaweed flavor is super tasty and distinct, with a much more concentrated taste of ... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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