Columns | SNACK REVIEWS



Welcome to the first of hopefully many parts of this here review section, focused around all those things that people tell us not to eat—Namely candy, snacks, junk food, sodas, and things of that nature.

For future reviews, I might bring in some outside help, and have a little discussion around the sampled goodies. But for this first time around, you’ll just have to keep up with my company. I’m Mike Original, and if you got some snacks or something you think I’d like, please contact me.

For this first edition, I went on a strool downtown, and checked into the different Asian markets we have where I live. I frequent one of the stores pretty often and the people working there are very helpful and also tease you if you choose the less strong sweetchilisauce, so it’s a good store. They have a large selection of sweets and things of that nature, but I had decided beforehand to focus on chips and the likes of that, so no candy this time.

I also bought the drink I’m reviewing there. Thank you to Khai Hoan and Siam Shop in Linköping.


Name: Carada Nugget

Flavour: Chicken Spicy

Made by: Greenland

Weight: 75g

Not suitable for cornallergics

I’ve been a vegetarian for over 20 years and chicken is pretty much the only thing I miss eating, so I was really excited to try this snack. The snack is a puffed corn, similar to a cheese crunchie, but square. I liked that it was crispy and had a bite to it, but still was easy to eat much like already mentioned cheese crunchie, or something of that nature. To quote one of those pretentious TV-chefs... it was light, and I don’t really see a problem eating the whole bag without getting sick. The snack might be baked instead of fried actually, which only adds to the light feeling. The big winner with this snack is the taste. It tastes great. Not sure it tastes like chicken, but maybe a little if I remember correctly. The taste is a bit sweet and has a good pepper-taste. It’s not hot but the pepper gives it a nice warm feeling when you eat it. It’s black pepper, and they manage to sprinkle exactly the right amount on these snacks to make it taste great. I also like the fact that the ingredientslist isn’t a mile long, it’s only 5 ingredients and from what I can see they’re all natural. Corn, rice, sugar, pepper and vegetable oil. Perfect.

Definitely a snack I’ll buy again. Highly recommended!

8/10


Name: Carada Nugget

Flavour: Sesame Seaweed

Made by: Greenland

Weight: 75g

Not suitable for cornallergics or soyallergics

Same company and same sort of snacks as the Chicken Spicy-snack. Whenever I go out to eat sushi I always get the seaweed-salad. It has quickly become one of my favourite things to eat.

Does it translate well into a snack? Well…. Not really, I’m afraid. I was hoping that this snack would either be just as tasty as the salad or disgusting to the point of being funny.

But it wasn’t any of those things. I kinda liked the snack, but it wasn’t anywhere near as tasty as the chicken spicy. It was sweet and had a little aftertaste of the seaweed, but nothing that stood out really. It was actually a bit too sweet to be a snack for a movienight, but wasn’t sweet enough to be a candy for a movienight. I tried it before I tried the chicken spicy so the grade for this one got lowered when I found out exactly how good snacks from the Greenland company can be. If someone had these and treated me to a couple I’d eat them, but it wasn’t as good as I hoped. It’s hard to translate something as delicious as seaweed-salad into a cornsnack… but nice try!


6/10


Name: Cornae

Flavour: American Corn Snack

Made by: Useful Food

Weight: 56g

Not suitable for cornallergics or soyallergics

In Sweden we have a snack called Sombreros, which is basically the same snacks as these but this is much sweeter. I’m not really into snacks being sweet, I’m more into salty, hot, or with some kind of onion or herbal-flavour. Since I’m used to the Sombreros, which are salty, it felt a bit weird to eat these snacks, which look exactly the same but taste differently. When I got over the sweet in the flavour it was ok, but still not digging it a whole lot.

A funny thing about this bag is the note on the back which states that the snack is “attractive to eat, valuable to health and good for family’s…” Not sure if corn snacks are really valuable for your health, but hey.. if the bag says so, it must be true.. mustn’t it? I’ll stick with Sombreros in the future.

5/10


Name: Snack Jack

Flavour: BBQ

Made By: Unknown (Can’t read Thai… sorry)

Weight: 70g

First thing that hit me when I opened the bag was that it had a strong scent, and I understood right away that this time it’s gonna be hot. I was partially right.

It was pretty hot, but not to the point of being unbearable. I’m in no way a tough person when it comes to spices and chiliflavours but this was on the right side of that line. I like it hot, but to a certain degree.

Jalapénos is usually my go to place when I wanna spice something up. Snack Jack packed a good sort of hot punch and it gave me a light burning sensation on my tongue, but it’s good.

It has a bbq flavour which fades out into this strong taste that stays with you after the bag is done. The color of the snack might be a bit offputting for some. It’s sorta looks like French fries with a hint of green to it, but that’s all from the snacks being made with green peas. This is a first for me, and I hope it’s not the last because the consistency is perfect. Crispy with a bite to it, and I think the green peas gives it a sweet flavour which mixes perfectly with the strong spices.

I also love the logo. A happy green pea with a head band, can’t go wrong with that. Snack Jack, ladies and gentlemen: My new friend.

I once again gotta hand it to Snack Jacks that the consistency is really nice, and every piece is packed full of taste. I really liked it, and my first encounter with snacks made with green peas couldn’t be better.

8/10


Name: Fresh

Flavour: Basil seed with honey

Made by: V. Thai Food

290 ml

Me and some friends meet up almost every Tuesday to hang out and watch UFC or a movie.

Sometimes we buy funny snacks and drinks to try out, much like I have done for this review section. A couple of months ago, I bought a coconutdrink that had bits of coconut floating around in the drink. The taste was nice, but the pieces of nut were a bit hard for us to muster, since it had been soaking in liquid and got a bit slimy. So I thought I’d up the ante and try this basil seed drink.

First thing I noticed was the smell—it had a light beer-smell to it, but mixed up with seawater that has been sitting in a glass still somewhere. The taste was also similar to how I think that old seawater taste, with a hint of something grassy if the grass had been wet and has gone a bit bad.

The honey did nothing to disguise it, unfortunately. But the worst thing was all the seeds. I can’t get past drinking something that has small pieces of slimy, kinda-hard particles in it. I just can’t. I was about to throw up, first from the seeds and then from the taste, and then from trying to explain this drink.

Hats off to anyone who can finish this bottle. On the shelves in the store there were more drinks like this, and if I know myself I’ll probably buy all of them... stay tuned.

The grade is a bit higher because I got chocked about how undrinkable it was, and I think I might have to buy it some other time and try to get other people to drink it (To paraphrase GSMF from Cleveland: If I’m at your party you’re shit out of luck!).

3/10