Recently in Snacks Category

Anything and Whatever is one of the most novel concepts in the beverage industry I've seen to date. I've been hankering to get my hands on the drinks from Singapore, which was recently launched in Malaysia as well, and finally got the stuff today.



I'm supposed to say that it was sent to me from Singapore by the person who sent it. It's not available over here in the remote jungles of Sarawak yet so my friend sent it in a package to me. She wanted me to be the first in Sibu to try it and surprised me with the package.



Unfortunately, she declared it as "alatulis" (stationary) so it got caught up in Customs. I'm sure they were wondering what kind of stationary weighs 0.797 kg and makes a clanking sound when you shake the package with a liquid sloshing echo. ;)



Naturally, astute readers would comment on the fact that Singapore doesn't have PosLaju (which a next-day courier service run by the Malaysian government). This begs the question on where it was actually sent from and by whom - both good questions...to which I have no good answer. ;)



Anything is a carbonated drink which can contain anything from Cola, Cola with Lemon, Apple, Fizz Up, Cloudy Lemon, to Root Beer. You don't know what you're getting until you open up the can. Fascinating concept, eh?



Whatever is the non-carbonated cousin to Anything and contains a surprise flavor that ranges from Ice Lemon Peach, Peach Tea, Jasmine White Tea, Apple Tea, and Chrysanthemum Tea. The can is not labeled (except with a huge question mark) and you don't know what you're getting until you open it. Fun!



I got the Fizz Up for the Anything can. It tastes like 7Up and is a fair emulation of the latter. It tastes alright, but the fun with Anything is that it could be...well, anything!



Whatever dealt me with the Peach Tea. This tastes like the Lipton Peach Tea. Nice! I just adore the concept of not knowing what you're gonna get until you open up the can.

It's just perfect for people like me who loves surprises. Thanks D! :)

Mary texted me the previous night to inform me that the Kokoberry Crepes are now available. I told her I'll be there right after work the next day so I arrived at about 6 pm at Kokoberry, Delta Mall yesterday evening to check out the crepes. I ordered a Hazelnut Chocolate Crepe (RM 2.80) and a Peanut Butter Crepe (RM 2.80).



I was initially unrecognized due to my office attire - it seems that I look different wearing work clothes than I do in casual wear. I've been told this much by a lot of people. I think it's a combination of the way I style my hair during work (very conservative) and the long sleeved shirts that I wear (hides my tattoos).

Blue Sky (RM 3.20 / RM 2.80)



Blue Sky is another one of the Top 9 concoctions of Kokoberry. It's a bit like a float - it contains Sprite (or 7-Up) topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. I honestly don't know where the blue color comes from. It's a refreshing drink though, due to the Sprite/7-Up base - perfect for a non-alcoholic thirst quencher after work.

The Making of a Kokoberry Crepe



The batter is prepared (it takes about 15 minutes) and poured on a flat heating element.



Peanut butter is then slathered evenly on the cooking crepe.



Hazelnut chocolate crepes goes through the same process (but with hazelnut filling, of course).



This is a close up of the cooking crepe. Kokoberry's crepes are thin and crispy, with a chewy end - it tastes surprisingly good.



The finished crepe is then lifted from the heating element and folded up. I got her to pose for a photograph so many times that I think her cheeks are sore from having to maintain a constant smile. ;)



This is what the finished Kokoberry Crepe looks like. The model is none other than Mary, the owner of the outlet.



Hmm...it doubles as a fan too! Cool.
(Pun intended)



The crepes and drinks were on the house again, thanks to Mary. You shouldn't keep doing this Mary, paiseh lah, next time I insist on paying or else I won't go. :p

I was at Delta Mall after work today with Faye and we found this stall selling sushi at a corner. It's relatively cheap at 4 boxes for RM 10.



Each box contains two pieces of sushi and there are a couple of interesting combinations. I notice some of the toppings are decidedly localized, for a lack of a better term. ;)



The clerk was particularly proud of this creation - it was made to look like a smiley face. She made it herself and I think she was a little offended when the both of us couldn't see the similarities. I hear the trick is to look at it sideways...



We got four boxes to eat in the car since Faye had to do some shopping for her newly renovated room. I have been enlisted to apply my superior flair in color coordination to help her choose an appropriate duvet and fitted sheet for her new bed to match her painted walls.



I thought the eel sushi was the best out of the bunch. I didn't really care for the others.



Thus, we did some righteous gorging in the car and headed for another mall. It was alright for the price...



If anything, you made someone really happy by buying that Smiley Face Sushi. =D

Cadbury Dairy Milk Triple Decker (now with Mint flavor) is the latest offering from the Cadbury line of products. I got one at the airport since its new.

It is described as "a layered combination of DAIRY MILK milk chocolate, DREAM real white chocolate and mint flavored confectionary".

The concoction actually tastes rather nice...the milk chocolate and white chocolate flavors blend nicely and it ends on a minty tone.

Snapple

Pink Lemonade.

The Mid Autumn Festival this year has yielded a lot of interesting new mooncake experiments in addition to the already significant variants of more "traditional" mooncakes. I just found out that the differing regions of each Chinese province produces a slightly (or significantly different) version of "their" mooncake.

It seems that every concoction, even the ones we get throughout the year are being called "mooncakes" to target this significant Chinese celebration. It's not actually incorrect, as I've been told...these things are actually mooncakes eaten during the Mid Autumn Festival in their respective provinces in mainland China.

There are several variants that's being produced throughout the year by local mooncake manufacturers though, coz they're actually biscuits and the consumer market seems to have a demand for these products throughout the year.

Kuching has a mooncake to call its own, called the la ko mooncake. It comes in black and beige colors and it's sprinkled with sesame seeds and something that looks remarkably like maggots dipped in pink food coloring.

The best implementation of la ko is arguably the ones made by Biscuit Factory, Kuching.

This la ko has sesame seeds on top as well as kuaci seeds and the abovementioned quasi-maggots.

It also contains lotus paste inside. It tastes remarkably like nien kau, the sweet confection that's eaten during Chinese New Year. It's good, and most importantly, it's a mooncake to call our own. :)

The Nyonya Sambal Mooncake is another new mooncake filling that came out this year. It retails for RM 11.50 each or RM 23 for a elongated tin box of two which comes with a cutter.

The stroke of midnight yesterday marks the Mid Autumn Festival and I went out with a group of my friends to enjoy the sambal filled mooncake at a pub.

I also bought a cheese filled mooncake made by the same manufacturer - this time the cheese mooncake comes in the conventional "wrap" instead of a jelly wrap.

This is the Cheese Mooncake - the mooncake tastes sweet and the cheese filling complements the mooncake well. It's definitely a mooncake that bodes well to repeated consumption.

This is the Nyonya Sambal Mooncake...there is a visible core of sambal paste and the sambal is spicy. This may seem like a weird combination, but I prefer the word unique. ;) The sambal mooncake tastes surprisingly good as well - the spicy sambal is offset by the semi-sweet mooncake covering. It's tasty, the manufacturer manages to fuse unusual fillings into edible mooncakes.

Have a great Mid Autumn Festival everyone!

Ramune is the famous Japanese drink which has a glass marble inside. I've had Ramune in Australia (from Asian grocery shops) and fish_fish [blogspot.com] was kind enough to bring back a bottle of Ramune from Japan from me about a year ago. I didn't think Ramune is available here until I saw it on the shelves of Ta Kiong.

Ramune retails for RM 5.80 for a 200 ml bottle and the unique bottle design is as much of an attraction as the drink itself. I got the original flavored version of Ramune which tastes like soda and bubblegum.

The instructions for opening the Ramune bottle is printed on both the bottle itself...

...and also the cover wrap on the bottle neck for Ramune virgins.

The top of the Ramune bottle has a "false cap" on top which contains the pop-out device to open the bottle of Ramune.

Ramune is unusual due to the unique glass marble that acts as a stopper and a liquid flow control device when it "drops" down to the first chamber (the top of the glass).

The glass marble on top of the Ramune bottle keeps the bottle pressurized until the push-down device (shown above) in the "false cap" is detached to release the glass marble.

There are various ways to open a Ramune bottle - some people like to push the glass marble down into the chamber and hold the stopper in place for a couple of seconds until the pressure stabilizes before drinking.

Personally, I like to just push to glass marble down and immediately start drinking - the fizzy bubbles will come out when the glass marble is forced down into the first chamber so its best to hold the Ramune bottle ready if this method is used.

There is a technique for drinking Ramune - notice the two indentations in the bottle chamber on the top? It can be used to hold the glass marble in place or release it, which controls the liquid flow rate.

Ramune - the drink that's as much fun to open as it is to drink. ;)

I saw this Japanese snack on the shelves and couldn't resist getting it due to the highly amusing tagline which goes "Let's have hot sake tonight!". The phrase tickled me to no end, but then again it doesn't take much to amuse me. ;)

It's a cod fish snack with white sesame embedded into the individual strands. It's like our local flagship Dahfa Snek Ikan (Dahfa Fish Snack) except the fish strands have a sesame paste sandwiched inside.

It retails for RM 19.80 and contains about 130 grams of cod fish strands arranged neatly in a pull out plastic tray. The packaging is very nicely done, as with most products of Japanese origin.

I did not have hot sake handy, but the cod fish snack tastes great with cold beer as well. :)

Kambly is Switzerland's largest biscuit manufacturer and I saw a whole range of their products on the shelves with interesting names like Sublime, Caprice and Butterfly. Kambly [kambly.ch] has a range of both sweet and salty biscuits and crackers.

The one that caught my eye was the Kambly Mont Choco - a butter biscuit with a tablet of Swiss milk chocolate with nougat pieces. The tablet is molded to look like a mountain range, which I presume is made in the likeness of the Alps.

The long box of Kambly Mont Choco contains 10 biscuits and retails for RM 8.80. It is one of their premier product lines and is described as a "Light butter buscuit with a tablet of Swiss milk chocolate with slivers of nougat.".

The Kambly Mont Choco biscuits taste delicious! The mountain range shaped chocolate on top can be detached with a slight nudge from the tongue. It tastes like pure chocolate. It's a good thing that my gf does not like the chocolate tablet but doesn't mind the biscuits. Thus, I just ate the chocolate tablets. Mmm...chocolate. ;)

Pokka has a huge bottle of nice, radioactive orange colored carrot fruit juice. It's available in most hypermarkets for RM 9.20 and it tastes great! The interesting bit about Pokka's Carrot Fruit Juice is that carrot is not the only fruit inside, although it's the one with the highest concentrations.

Pokka Carrot Juice also has orange juice, apple juice and cane sugar in addition to the carrot juice. Pokka Carrot Fruit Juice is made from the combination of carrot and fresh fruit juice and that gives it a distinctively unique taste. It's supposed to be high in Vitamins C and E and also contains Beta Carotene (from carrots).

I think they got the carrot to other fruit juice ratios just perfect for the drink is amazingly refreshing. The taste of the carrot juice (which I love) and cane sugar dominates the initial swallow, but it leaves a tangible citrus bite in its aftertaste, revealing orange and apple fruit notes. It's a great drink!