Here we are now. Entertain us. - Asian Snack Challenge finale

My friend greeted me after tonight's uni class. 'Beer, Mate', he said.

'Wife Cake', I replied, and nodded.

'Hot Kid', we said in unison. And laughed and laughed.

Tonight was nostalgic. It was my final ever class of my Master of Communication degree (before I embark on my thesis). Which also means the final structured and scheduled Asian Snack Challenge.

We walked from class convincing university lecturers and students alike that the Asian Snack Challenge was something to behold. We went into the ins and outs of the names of the snacks, and the concept of the Challenge, bragging just how big it's become.

I actually had a tear in my eye, reflecting on just how great it's been. It was a tear of laughter though. We laughed and laughed about the one liners of Kickapoo Joy Juice, Beer Mate, Get that Sausage, Pocky, Mushroom Jerk (not to be confused with my ex boyfriend), Instant Poo. Oh the memories.

Here are some more things that will be etched in our memory forever.

We wondered if Oatmeal Deluxe is a tautology? Oatmeal is a pretty simple food, yeah?

This is a prawn. From a bag of Prawn Salad. No, we didn't think it was lettuce and prawns with lemon dressing either.

Here is the Justin Bieber of the Asian potato chips.

I wonder what the other 98% is??

So I googled lactic acid. 'Lactic acid is formed from glucose, and used by working muscles for energy. Now it is thought that muscle cells convert glucose or glycogen to lactic acid. Then lactic acid is absorbed converted to a fuel by mitochondria in muscle cells'. Mmmm these snacks sound delicious.

If EVERYONE says 'Good Good Eat' it must be tasty! Mass endorsement.Talk about peer pressure.

Oh Powerful Candy.

It's like the Superman of candy. I picture a lemon wearing a cape, saving the apples from going brown.

Pocket Rocket. Not to be mistaken for me on most days.

This product contains 0.00% Alcohol. I better have a breath test just in case.


Snack Challengers were coming out of the woodwork. It was as though they were in on our game. Clearly word has got around.

We used Asian Snack Challenge like it was a verb.

'Do you Asian Snack Challenge?' I asked others in the grocer tonight.

We met David. He is a fellow Snack Challenger that we happened to stumble across in the biscuit/dried fruit/sweet-savoury aisle.

Here he is posing with some bourbon chocolate.

Note the man on the box looks like an alcoholic. Actualy, the photo makes me look drunk,


I talked to David about how often he Challenges the Asian Snack.

'Once a week', he said.

Same.

I showed him the Beer Mate and the Instant Poo. He enjoyed seeing these things.

David recommended we try some drinks titled 'Whatever' and 'Something Else'. I love these names. Sadly there were not in stock. I will have to seek them out. Import them perhaps.

A lady in the grocer also recommended Kickapoo Joy Juice. We told her we'd tried it last week. I think she told us abut the Joy Juice because she heard how much fun we were having looking and laughing at the candy hot dogs.


Cutest candy ever. Gummy shaped hot dogs. If I had a doll house...

We were distracted by the other Snack Challengers in the grocer. Our decisions were hasty. Hell, I could barely make a decision. I wandered around aimlessly with a pouch of pineapple vinegar for so long we missed the train.


Here is our haul. Fellow commuters realised the importance of the Challenge as they vacated the seat for us to use for photographs.


My friend's first selection was Hand Brand peanuts.

Microscopic peanuts. Microscopic but tasty.

'Big flavour, little nut', I said. We laughed and laughed.

And as he reached the bottom of the bag, the nuts kept on getting smaller.

He also bought Crunky, which tasted like cardboard.
I'll take his word for it. I actually thought that Crunky was cranky chocolate. I'd be cranky too if I tasted like cardboard.

My friend drank Deep Master drink. Serving suggestion: to be drunk before conversation.

He said it tasted shallower than the drink he imagined. 'To be honest, it could be a lot deeper' he said.

And our conversation was certainly not deep once he drank Deep Master.

If anything, our conversation was shallow. We reverted to talking about how the line 'do you Snack Challenge often?' is the new pick up line. And some may say that by met getting a fellow Snack Challenger's email address tonight is half way to getting a phone number.

My friend paid me the ultimate compliment. On choosing some pineapple cakes for me, he noted they contained high class oil.

'High class oil for a high class chick' he said. (The high class chick refers to me.) Awww shucks. What a compliment. Being paired up with oil contained in a pineapple cake. Classy.

FYI the pineapple cake was not nice. It was dry and crumbly and had a wedge of dried pineapple in the middle. My friend thought the middle tasted and felt like bubblegum. He wasn't sure whether he should swallow or blow bubbles.

Here it is, half eaten, alone on a seat. I rejected it good.


I also had Chocolate Collan. Or 'chocolate colon' as I said. I couldn't open my colon. 'What's wrong with my colon?' I asked.

They were wafer rolls with creamy chocolate centres.

They were so so. Then again, I don't really enjoy chocolate.

The pinnacle of the Asian Snack Challenge tonight was to be the bevvy. Only because of the name.

Taste Nirvana.


Its cap said 'happiness in a bottle'.
Tastes like teen spirit, alright.

I felt like I was finally going to be at one with Kurt Cobain through drinking this young coconut juice with real shavings of coconut in it. I imagined it was going to be like Penny Royal Tea.

Doesn't this picture of me and Taste Nirvana just scream 'here we are now. Entertain us'?

But as soon as a popped the cap (or rather, my friend did as I'm hopeless with opening packaging), the young coconut juice smelt like crème caramel baby food.

The line from Heart Shaped Box really applied to this shitty bevvy situation. 'Hey! Wait! I got a real complaint'.

It was then I remembered two things: I did not like coconut juice last time I drank it. And caramel is a food on my most hated list. The smell made me queasy. I didn't think caramel had the power to do that, because I never eat it. Note to self: YOU ARE A FOOL FOR CHOOSING THIS DRINK BASED ON CONNOTATIONS OF KURT COBAIN ALONE!

This picture of Kurt Cobain is exactly how I felt after the sip of the Taste Nirvana coconut juice.


I felt Kurt Cobain let me down. It was not the Kurt I imagined. Courtney Love tampered with him or something.

Yuck. (I still love you Kurt.)

And that my friends is the final Asian Snack Challenge for now. I hope to do sporadic ones someday soon. In the meantime, look out for something big and exciting that the Asian Snack Challenge is destined for in the not too distant future.

It has been a blast. I have enjoyed the laughs and creating the commentary. Thanks for playing along.

Tastes like fish food!
There's so much do do in this random food venture!
Laughing cookies
Get that Sausage!
A little bit of Japanish
I wanna take a ride on your biscuit stick!
Kickapoo Joy Juice

Kickapoo Joy Juice - Impromptu Asian Snack Challenge

As uber glamourous fashionista and domestic goddess Faux Fuschia would say, I was Challenging the Paradigm with the Asian Snack Challenge last Wednesday. Not only was it impromptu because of an afternoon uni class and we only expected there to be one more Asian Snack Challenge, but I challenged myself by sourcing ingredients for dinner. And that is how I applied the concept of Challenging the Paradigm to my life. I thought I never would.

We had a bit of time, because at that time of the day there are express trains that don't run to our station, thus a good amount of minutes between trains.

Here is what we saw:

This donkey. He teeters between cute and ugly.

You push a lever and his tongue pops out.

Popcorn.

A money box...

That doubles as a cute pudding holder.


My friend bought a plethora of snacks. None were good. NONE. Even he will vouch for that.


Keripak Singkong. Pizza flavoured cassava chips.

They did NOT taste like Italian pizza, or any pizza for that matter.

Snow pea crisps.

They looked like snow peas but merely paid a homage to the actual snow pea. Really, they were snow peas and a heap of preservatives and other stuff ground down and moulded into snow pea shapes. Probably would have been quicker to snap freeze some snow peas. But I doubt there is an abundance of snow peas to satiate the perceived desire for snow pea chips.

Kickapoo Joy Juice. I love this name. My friend said it was a cross between lime and passiona.

Sweet dried plums. Wow, these were out of this world. And not in a good way. Space junk out of this world.

The experience of eating these was a pretty shitty situation. Even shittier than the situation that could have been with the drunk man on the train asking my name.

The sweet dried plums were the saltiest thing we'd ever tasted. Ever. They should come with a health warning. I believe salt was the ingredient that came before sugar and after plums.

It was a funny Asian Snack Challenge, despite the lack of energy in this blog entry, and we laughed and laughed as usual.

Here was my haul.

For dinner


I bought chicken frying flour, migoreng noodles and tofu.



I made a stirfry with vegies already in my fridge. I coated the tofu with the chicken frying flour. It was as underwhelming as this photo.


And my haul of snacks.
I have not eaten the sweets. I am actually not fond of lollies. Just the cuteness of them.
'This is cute. What is it?' is a line often used on the Asian Snack Challenge.

This is mushroom jerk. It is like beef jerky but mushroom.


This is me with mushroom jerk.

Mushroom jerk is not to be confused with my ex boyfriend.

I wanna take a ride on your biscuit stick! Are you wooed yet? - Asian Snack Challenge

The Asian Snack Challenge was well deserved tonight. It was interrupted last week by some small event called The State Budget. And I delivered a presentation to my class tonight. My friend and I earned tonight's Snacks. Plus, I have a new iPhone that I can use to take bad and blurry photographs. And to celebrate, this is a mammoth blog entry.

Key observations (without pictures) of the Asian Snack Challenge tonight:
- squawking plastic chickens have sold by the dozen since the last blog entry about the Asian Snack Challenge. It is clear that people who have read this blog have coveted a plastic chicken.
- giant lollypops were excessive.
- there is simply too much Pocky.

Enjoy some pictures and other observations before I begin the commentary:

This is cute. A can that looks like a fruit with a face on it.

I have a distate for thin milk at the best of times.

Can I get a body like that? I shudder to think what's in the ingredients, even though it is the only product in store that has an accurate title.

Peacock biscuits. Are they blue and green?

When you eat these you will receive instant beauty.

'She was working in a bridal shop in Flushing, Queens,
'Til her boyfriend kicked her out in one of those crushing scenes.
What was she to do? Where was she to go? She was out on her fanny...
So over the bridge from Flushing to the Sheffield's door.
She was there to sell make-up, but the father saw more.
Fran as the Nanny She had style! She had flair! She was there.
That's how she became the Nanny!'

Alcoholic Asian Snack?

This drink has 'sweat' in its title. Apparently it replenishes moisture lost through exercise. Phew! It's not actual sweat!

Attention Uni Students: 40 packets of MiGoreng for $14.99! Would you like Pocky with that?

Romantic snacks




We had an audience as we photographed our haul tonight. Our Asian Snack Challenge was impinging on the ability of commuters to sit down. Impinging was a concept we learned in last semester's class. Now we can apply it!


My friend had Munchy's mini cheese. The size of the biscuit is not to scale with the picture on the packet. They were quite nice. A bit like the Arnott's Country Cheese biscuits sandwiched with some fake cheese filling.

He also had Pocky. Dark chocolate on biscuit stick. I love how literal the descriptions are.

I kept singing the Lady Gaga song Love Game but made a parody out of the Pocky situation.

'Let's have some fun, this beat is sick
I wanna take a ride on your biscuit stick'.

I know. I am ashamed I know the words and tune to a Gaga song enough to make a parody out of it.

Still, we laughed and laughed.

It was a family night tonight. Not on account of the participants of the Asian Snack Challenge, but the theme of my components of the Challenge. And to team with the theme, it was economical. $10.39 for four substantial snacks. Family friendly. With that budget, I am ready to provide for a family.

I bought a crushed strawberry drink.

It was actually delicious. Really.

There was this. Product title gold. Beer Mate.

Beer Mate is like crispy seaweed, only flimsier. Also tastes like fish food.


Apparently, you can enjoy Beer Mate anytime anywhere!

Translation of blurry image:
'Enjoy with beer
Enjoy on TV watching
Enjoy on picnic
Dietary snack for women'

Hahahaha. I assume the women don't drink beer, they just live on this Beer Mate. Sexist much?

We decided it is called Beer, Mate. 'Get on that Beer, Mate'.

And another product title gold. Wife Cake.



Like on most nights of the Asian Snack Challenge, I found the packets difficult to open. I could not open the Wife Cakes, and nor could my friend.
'Do you have a knife?' he asked me.
'Nope'.

'You must be the only one in Melbourne not to carry a knife on you'.

I opened and ate my Wife Cake at home. Wow. Wife Cakes are something else. Like a savoury biscuit filled with something spicy, something fishy and something sweet. The front of the packet says Spicy Salted Shrimp flavour.

I can't quite get my tastebuds around it.

The ingredients are unidentifiable without Googling. Tepung Gandum, Tepung Nutmeg, Gula, Minyak Masak, Garam, Bikian and Telur. If I was doing the MasterChef taste challenge for the ingredients of Wife Cake, I would fail. Dismally.

I also bought Hello Kitty marshmallow cones. Because they looked cute.


They came in strawberry, melon and orange flavour. They were like eating a bucket of sugar. I ate one.


Inside the Hello Kitty marshmallow cone packet, there was a bookmark.

'Yay! It's a bookmark. Oh good, something practical'.

I have a lot of leftovers tonight. The Snacks just weren't that great. I just wasn't that into them. My friend said I can serve them to potential suitors.

He suggested Wife Cakes are ideal for potential suitors. Never mind the taste.

I disagree.Potential suitors will be relying on my good looks alone to be wooed. Wife cakes just won't do it for them.

Beer, Mate is ideal to ply the potential suitor. It will also need to be combined with my good looks, because quite frankly, what potential suitor enjoys fish food?

See picture below for example of my Beer, Mate combined with my good looks.

Are you wooed yet?

And Hot Kid is the result of the potential suitor!


Next week is our last Asian Snack Challenge. Because it is our last class of uni EVER! Well, there is the small project known as the thesis to do, but no more uni classes. My leftovers from tonight will probably get me through the thesis, actually. I will be sad to end the Challenge.

Before I leave you, let me tell you, the Asian Snack Challenge has been commissioned for bigger and better things outside of this blog.

I know.
I didn't think there was a bigger or better thing than this blog.

But alas! Look out for the Asian Snack Challenge going global. I am serious.

My friend and I predict it will be featured on CNBC Asia soon. Stay tuned.