i’ll stick to the savory stuff, thanks

look at all the goodies the hubby brought back from his business trip to vietnam. i immediately went for the baked mung bean cake which looks very much like a lorna doone cookie but with sharper corners. i took a bite and immediately spit it out, thinking i had mistakenly put a square of sidewalk chalk in my mouth. it’s nothing at all like a lorna doone, trust me.

next, i tried the durian “fruit crisp candy.” i’m not crazy about durian but i don’t hate it either. even though the hubby bought the candy for me, he wouldn’t go near the stuff claiming durian smells like perfumed garbage. yeah, it smells funky but so does kimchi and taleggio cheese and they’re both delicious. the candy itself is much milder than the fruit. i loved the crisp sugared exterior and the chewy, taffy-like interior that was studded with flecks of dried durian. just as i was saying, “y’know the more you eat it, the more you get used to it” i felt a stomach ache coming on. so i stopped after two pieces.

good in theory…

그린요떡/딸기요떡 at red mango

i always wondered why koreans don’t have their version of the unbelivably delicious mochi ice cream. koreans like ice cream and they like tteok (mochi) so you’d think they’d like the two together. well, the folks at red mango, purveyors of “the yummiest fruit yogurt in the world” finally caught on and launched their latest product, frozen yogurt tteok in two flavor combos: green tea tteok with vanillla frozen yogurt and black sesame ddeok with strawberry yogurt.

it’s such a great idea and i was dying to try it but when i did, i was disappointed. first of all, there’s too much tteok for the teaspoonful of frozen yogurt tucked into the center. it’s oppressive. second, the tteok was freezer burnt and left an unpleasant chalky aftertaste. and third, it was frozen to the point where you could chip a tooth on it and therefore lost all its chewy goodness.

it’s too bad. i really like the frozen yogurt at red mango but these rock hard duds really sucked.

(i wonder, though, if the japanese start marketing mochi frozen yogurt, will they call it “mo-fro-yo?”)

eat this now

matcha (green tea) caramels by morinaga. even more outrageously delicious than their black sugar caramels. so good, you’ll find yourself absentmindedly popping these chewy caramels one after another into your mouth until you realize that the box is empty and you’ll wonder, “did i really snarf an entire box of caramels?” and you only have to look down in your lap to see the detritus of all the little foil wrappers as evidence that yes, you did, you candy hog.

new food find

the chocolate chip 소보루빵 (a.k.a. 소보로빵), a newcomer to the korean pastry scene, is the sexier, wild child cousin of the plain jane 소보루빵. i discovered it during one of my midnight munchie forages at the neighborhood family mart. the snack foods at convenience stores leave a lot to be desired but this chocolate chip 소보루빵 is the best thing you’re going to find for w500 on the baked goods rack. it even has a cocoa cream filling which relieves much of the bread’s dryness that has always been the 소보루빵’s textural downfall.

i recently tried the chocolate chip 소보루빵 from paris baguette and although the chocolate chips were of better quality, it was missing that vital cream filling which really would have helped moisten the stale bread. inexplicably, it also came studded with bits of dried cherry – or what i assumed to be cherry since it had no distinguishable fruit flavor. i think our little vixen already has a lot going on with the chocolate dough and crowning of chocolate chips. the addition of dried “cherries” here may very well tip her over into hoochie territory.

and what exactly is 소보루? since most korean pastry names come from france via japan, i tried to think of the corresponding french word for 소보루: soboroux? soborux? soboreux? i asked the francophone swiss guy in my korean class if 소보루 meant anything in french and he said, “mais non.” merci for nothing, jacques.

well, a little bit of research revealed that 소보루빵 originates from the japanese word そぼろ (so-bo-ro) which means “unraveled like a spool of thread,” a reference to its bumpy texture. it’s also said to be a version of streusel bread but unlike its american counterpart, the beauty of 소보루빵 is its small size which creates more surface area for the crinkled topping. just imagine a really large muffin top without the less appealing cakey stem. oh, if only elaine benes knew about 소보루빵.

everyone needs friends and cookies

our friends from japan are here (girl and boy on the right). the boy on the left is their friend in korea. his name is bada which is korean for “ocean.” i wonder if his parents were hippies or marine biologists.

they came over and we had orion product taste test #3.

product name: 이누야샤 (inuyasha)
weight: 40 grams (1.4 ounces)
price: W500 ($0.48)
tagline: none but it’s named after a japanese manga

the reviews were unanimous. inuyasha are good. they taste just like ‘nilla wafers but may be a smidge better because they’re thinner and crispier.

ratings (out of 5 stars)
aroma: ****
balance of flavors: ****
crunch/texture: *****
mouth feel: *****
size: *****
after-taste: ****
overall satisfaction: ****1/2

orion product taste test #2

product name: 와’클 (wa’cle)
weight: 74 grams (2.6 ounces)
price: W700 ($0.67)
tagline: crunchy baguette that is a tasty mixture of iron grill baked candy and seasonings

today’s product is wa’cle. little nubbins of stale baguette (well, actually, they look like itty bitty ciabatti) with “seasonings” which weren’t specified in the ingredients. from what i could detect, they include dehydrated garlic, onion, dried parsley, sugar, msg, some kind of lactic acid for that tangy ranch kick and tons of preservatives.

they were actually good in a gross kind of way, reminiscent of garlic-flavored new york style bagel chips and snyder’s honey mustard & onion pieces. however, with all the powdered additives, they left a chalky after-taste and for me, they were a twinge too sweet. i guess that would be the “iron grill baked candy” part. what the hell is “iron grill baked candy” anyway? i pondered the possibilities for a while and aha! they must be referring to 뽑기. y’know, that handmade candy sold all over myungdong. why you’d want this in a garlicky baguette snack is beyond me.

and the name wa’cle...is it supposed to evoke “waffle” or is some weird hybrid of 와 for 와우 (wow) + 클 for…i don’t know…miracle? recycle? clavicle?…hmm, it’s hard to think of words that end in “cle.”

wa’cle, it’s no pepperidge farm goldfish but whaddya want for 67 cents?

ratings (out of 5 stars)
aroma: ***
balance of flavors: ****
crunch/texture: ****
mouth feel: ****
size: ****
after-taste: ***
overall satisfaction: ****

at the end of the evening, we got a goodie bag. (god, i miss getting free loot.) tonight’s parting gift was a suitcase filled with orion’s greatest hits except it was missing their #1 hit of all time: the choco-pie! i don’t really like choco-pies but for the sake of nostalgia you’d think whoever compiled the gift bag would’ve added it.

i tried the 초코송이 (choco-mushrooms) but no matter how cute you shape ‘em, you just can’t mask the taste of cheap chocolate combined with crackers made with too much baking soda.