Snack Corner 001 - China (Part 1)

This is unlike most of the content on my blog in that rather than letting you know what you must try in each country and city, from the most traditional to the most popular. It is more based on random snacks that I find in a country that I think are interesting/unique to that country (and I realise that it might be sold elsewhere) as I feel  how and what people snack on very much represents a country's preferences  and can give you an insight on another culture (as well as give you some tasty ideas).

These may or may not be traditional, but, they were nonetheless purchased in that country and I hope you will find some snacks that may interest you. Anywho, I say on with the show.


N.B. - I understand that certain companies like Orion and Glico aren't Chinese however, these items can be found in China and certain flavours are only available there.

1. Paul Frank Binsi Nut Choco Crisp - Tea Flavour

This was quite surprising to find as I knew of Paul Frank as a fashion brand but never realised they sold food items as well. Upon closer inspection, it seems that the actual manufacturer is a brand by the name 'Date and Fate' and was just licensed by Paul Frank. The packaging is nice and neat with the biscuits themselves individually wrapped.

In terms of taste, the biscuits had a pleasant green tea flavour and were nice and crunchy resembling a cereal cluster. However, the nut aspect was somewhat lost as I could not really taste the almond embedded within it. Overall, a pleasant tasting biscuit but I would say its uniqueness lies with its branding rather than with its taste.

Taste - 7/10 

Uniqueness- 5/10

2. Glico Q.cookie- Green Tea Flavour

Glico, whilst a Japanese company, is quite a popular snack brand in China, and there seems to be green tea flavour everything.
From the packaging, I was expecting a soft biscuit that was around the size of a golf ball (in diameter), however in reality, they were thumb sized and had a shortbread consistency. It had the typical artificial green tea flavour and there seemed to be hardly any of the promised chocolate chips. Overall, fairly underwhelming.

Taste - 3/10 

Uniqueness- 3/10

3. AStick mini- Green Tea Flavour

Perhaps I should rename this review from China to green tea edition, as there seems to be inadvertently large number of products with this flavour. Nonetheless, this is a crunchy wafer stick with a green tea cream filling (and also other flavours like chocolate, cheese, peanut butter and coconut). Again, I was expecting a larger wafer as these type of biscuits in Europe tend to be the size of a thick milkshake straw but these were instead pencil sized. To no surprise, the green tea flavour was again the same as before but the wafer was at least nice and crunchy.

Taste - 4/10 

Uniqueness- 3/10

4. Oreo 巧心结 Cream Filled Pockets - Tiramisu Flavour

Now these are an interesting product manufactured by oreo, whilst in most countries, the most variety comes from the unique and weird flavours of oreos, I have so far not seen this product line in any country apart from China, so much so that I could not even find an English translation of it. Basically, it is a wafer pocket lined with a flavoured creme such as strawberry, chocolate or in this case, tiramisu. Dare I say it, but I almost prefer these over regular oreos (the blasphemy) as they aren't too sweet, had a nice rounded coffee taste and were conveniently bite sized. Going along the thought that oreos are popularly dunked in milk, I poured a couple of these into a bowl with some milk and they also made surprisingly good cereal. In terms of uniqueness, whilst this concept is definitely not new, I have never seen (or realised) oreo had its own version of them.

Taste - 7/10 

Uniqueness- 6/10

5. White Rabbit Cream Prune Drops

White Rabbit is a very well known brand in China and is eponymous with their nougat sweets which everyone has had at one point in their lives. Therefore, it is unsurprising that they would venture out with other sweets, and in this case, create 'cream prune drops'. Whilst this may conjure up images of grandmothers offering them to you as a child (in the UK at least), prune flavoured sweets are also very common and popular in China. These ones are very pleasant with its sourness balanced out by the creaminess, and as prune drops go, are very tasty. If you haven't tried them before, these are a good option.

Taste - 7/10 

Uniqueness- 7/10

6. Orion Mushroom Shaped Biscuits - Red Bean Chocolate Flavour

When I was trying these, I forgot that they were marketed as red bean flavour so when I bit into one, I was caught somewhat off guard. However, it was a  pleasant surprise as the chocolate biscuit itself is very nice and the red bean flavour tasted 'natural' and lacked the chemical taste of certain red bean products. So overall, these are good find for someone who likes red bean snacks but perhaps won't appeal to those who just want a classic chocolaty biscuit.

Taste - 9/10 

Uniqueness- 6/10

7. Glico Pejoy - Red Wine & Chocolate/Lemon Tart Flavour

Pejoy, the less known cousin of the popular pocky, is different in that rather than a coating around the pretzel stick, it is instead hollow and filled with the stated flavour. In this case, red wine and lemon tart (worry not, it is two separate flavours and not a horrific mashup of the two). In terms of the red wine pejoy, it perhaps should be renamed chocolate and grape as that is what it essentially was and personally, I hate the artificial grape flavour that is prevalent in most grape flavoured biscuits, sweets and drinks so this was not my most favourite thing. In addition, I don't really think the grape and chocolate pairing went particularly well together.

Taste - 2/10 

Uniqueness- 2/10

In contrast, the lemon tart flavour was delicious as it was a mellow and creamy lemon filling (in their words, a 'cozy taste', whatever that means, their poems on the front of the package in general are quite amusing to read) that lacked the acidity or bitterness of some other products. Far nicer than the red wine pejoy.

Taste - 7/10 

Uniqueness- 2/10

8. Glico Pocky - Green Tea Mousse Flavour

One cannot have an asian snack review without mentioning the (in)famous pocky, where once it was asia's best kept secret but is now popular the world over. Their product lines and flavours are as varied as oreo's are in America and this particular line is the 'mousse' line, which basically just features a thicker coating. In terms of flavour, it's your quickly familiar green tea snack flavouring so again, if you like green tea flavoured things, you'll like this. Personally, I prefer the normal green tea pocky's as these thicker ones are a bit too sickly sweet for me.

Taste - 4/10 

Uniqueness- 2/10

9. Glico Kittyland Biscuits - Milky Green Tea Flavour

Again, these are basically the same thing but in a different shape with the same green tea flavour (I feel like glico have the same vat of green tea cream that just gets put on differently shaped biscuits....) but hey, they're individually packaged and have a 'fun' picture on each one. Though, the biscuit is nicer than many other similar ones as it was just crumbly enough without being too dry or flaky.

Taste - 5/10 

Uniqueness- 3/10

10. Glico Pretz - Tomato/Double Latte Flavour

The third variation on the pocky is the pretz, which is basically a pocky without the cream coating and is instead normally dusted with a thin coating of seasoning. Hence, this is probably my favourite variation as it is the most 'balanced' and there are more savoury flavours. In addition, you seem to get more of them in a pack. The tomato pretz is one of my favourites as it is deliciously savoury and tangy and is perfect when you don't want a sweet snack (like in the summer where it gets to 40 degrees centigrade in places). The tomato flavour kind of reminds me of some of the pizza flavoured snacks in the USA, but with less cheese.

Taste - 9/10 

Uniqueness- 3/10

On the other hand, I had never tried the double latte pretz and the 'double' refers to the two sections of; a latte flavoured biscuit and a (generic) coffee flavoured chocolate coating on one side. Whilst I couldn't differentiate between the two sections, the overall product is quite tasty and the bitterness of the coffee did cut through some of the sweetness and made for a decent snack.

Taste - 8/10 

Uniqueness- 3/10

Here ends part 1 of snack corner in China, I do have some more items from both China and other countries and will review them in due course. In particular, I will do a traditional Chinese snack corner perhaps featuring snacks like the white rabbit nougat. I do hope that this was interesting to read and maybe will give you some ideas on what to buy when wandering around the country.