Yakwa

 

This is my all-time favourite cookie.  It’s kind of dense and not overly sweet, but I loves it!

You can buy it from almost any convenience store for 500-600 won, which makes it a hella cheap delicious snack.

Convenience Store Bibimbap

When I was really hungry in the middle of the night, I ran out to my nearest convenience store in search of food.  The bibimbap caught my eye, but I wasn’t so sure about it.  I mean, how good could convenience store bibimbap possibly be?

All of the toppings were separated in a tray which was above the rice.  I microwaved everything together before mixing.

You see that?  Yeah, I know just how ugly it looks, but I mixed and it still looked ugly.  Oh well.

But to answer my earlier question (how good could convenience store bibimbap possibly be?), either I was extremely hungry, or this was extremely good, because I thought it was delicious.  It was so delicious, in fact, that I’ve gone back several times looking for this at the convenience store and never had any luck.

 

7-Eleven Meals in Thailand, Curry Edition!

On my way back from Sathorn Pier after applying for a new Myanmar visa at the embassy, I was feeling a little thirsty, so I stopped in at the 7-Eleven just before the pier and I noticed something INCREDIBLE: ready-made meals in RED trays!  Now, I’ve seen their ready-made meals in black trays (usually a fried rice or minced meat-type mixture with rice, but always involving rice), I’ve seen their meals in beige trays (my beloved soy protein option), and I’ve seen their meals in orange trays (no clue what the orange signifies– maybe rice dishes that are not Thai?), but I had yet to see the red trays.  Well, I just had to stop and inspect this situation.  I found rice with omelette, rice with omelette with red curry, and this little number which I ended up making mine: rice with green curry with two playful little fishcakes.  I mean, what is not to love about any of that, no?

Oh, it was heavenly!  The green curry was everything it should be, and the fish cakes were pretty near as good as the ones I got form my street vendor the other week.  All in all, a pretty darned amazing 7-Eleven meal!

Oh, and also, I LOVE the checkerboard tables that are all over the place in Bangkok, don’t you?

Collon Cookies

I wonder who the genius is who invented a tubular chocolate cream-filled cookie and thought it would be a good idea to name it “Collon”.  Whenever I see this on the shelf here in Thailand, I always imagine their thought process to go something like, “But, I bet if we spelled it with TWO L’s, nobody will ever make the connection!”

I posted this photo to facebook quite awhile ago, and one of my friends made a funny observation that  Chocolate Collon’s promiscuous homosexual cousin was standing right beside it.  That’s right folks, Cream Collon!  You’ve gotta respect Glico’s commitment to diversity!

Green Tea Ice Cream

I’ve been in Asia for long enough that I really should have known that this would be green tea ice cream (usually not my favourite, unless we’re talking about the green tea ice cream with poppy seeds which I had the other day at Gourmet World in Siam Paragon, which was pretty amazing), but I somehow managed to convince myself that those darling little leaves depicted on the lid of this ice cream were mint leaves and that buying this ice cream would definitely be a good idea.  Well, they weren’t and it wasn’t.

Corn and Red Bean Dutchie-brand Yogurt

When I was in Laos, I discovered a brand of yogurt which I really fell in love with.  Here in Thailand, there is also a popular brand of yogurt (although there is something just so much less hipster about Dutchie Yogurt than there is abou Xaoban Yogurt).  I kind of really like Dutchie Yogurt, though, and at roughly 50 cents for a small container, how can you really go wrong?  I usually just go for their strawberry flavour, or sometimes their tropical fruit flavour.  There is a flavour which I always avoid because, for however much of my life which I’ve spent in Asia, I still haven’t learned to love either red beans or corn in desserts.  I mean, I know that certain vegetables have a fairly high sugar content so they lend themselves well to being incorporated into desserts (carrot cake, anyone?) , and I also know that corn has a high sugar content and is used to make high-fructose/glucose syrup (essentially, corn is an ingredient in nearly ever single pre-packaged food available in North America, even if the ingredients label doesn’t say so outright), but it’s just…. corn in my yogurt?  Really?

But in the interests of food exploration, I decided to give it a go and, just to be safe, I bought a container of the coconut flavour to wash it down with (because coconut yogurt is also purdy darn yummy, too) and, as pretty much always, I was super glad I had some yummy coconut yogurt to wash down my corn and red bean yogurt with.  Food items that have the texture of either red beans or yellow corn both belong in a hearty stew, or in a burrito, but certainly not in my smooth, delicious yogurt.

7-Eleven Mooncakes

I’m not sure what else there is to say about mooncakes.  I mean, I kind of hate them.  There is nothing delicious about them, and in the middle, there is a rock solid egg yolk.  BUT, 7-Eleven also sells mooncakes.  Good ol’ 7-Eleven.  And their mooncakes are so pretty.  Naturally, I felt somewhat compelled to try them.  I’m such a sucker for good-looking food (if only I had the same weakness for boys, but alas! When it comes to men, I usually get weak-kneed around chubby gingers—when I see a chubby ginger man, it’s just kind of like, “Stick a baby in me, I’m done!”). As far as I can see, they have three flavours of mooncake over at 7-Eleven: durian, fruit and nut, and lotus.  Durian pretty much tops my list of least favourite fruits.  Fruit and nut looked pretty safe, but I kind of wanted to try something interesting, so I went with the lotus one. I don’t know if I was expecting the lotus flavour to give my mooncake magical properties that turned it into something delicious, but it certainly didn’t.  It was just another really super gross mooncake.  I really feel like I need to know: who actually likes these things?  And why?

Lay’s in Thailand

Okay, I’ve already talked about how much I love Lay’s Nori Seaweed chips here in Thailand.  What I don’t think I mentioned is that Lay’s in Thailand does a whole host of other interesting, unique-to-Thailand flavours:

Salmon

Some kind of Thai Sauce (Too bad this label isn’t in English)

Some Kind of Thai flavour (I wish this label were in English)

Spicy Basil

Some Kind of Meatball (I wish the label were also in English)

Lobster Hot Plate

Extra Barbecue

A Lay’s Thailand nod to American food: American Cheese and Paprika

Hot Squid

Which of these Lay’s flavours would you like to see sold in your country?

7-Eleven Meals in Thailand, Sticky Rice Burger Edition!

Awhile back, I discovered 7-Eleven meals in Thailand.  This month, I discovered more options at 7-Eleven.

I’ve seen sticky rice burgers before in Asia, but I had never really paid much attention to them.  However, when I was in Laos, I kind of got into this whole idea of using sticky rice to pick up other food, so when I got back to Thailand and glanced over the refrigerated foods section, this time I paused to give the sticky rice burgers a little more consideration.  On the first night, I sampled the Spicy Minced Pork with Sticky Rice Burger and on the second night, I sampled the Hat Ya Chicken with Sticky Rice Burger.  Both were pretty good, and just check out how itty bitty and cute they are!

Apple or Passionfruit Popsicles

Wall’s Ice Creams makes a selection of popsicles.  The popsicles cost only 15 Baht, and since there aren’t really any popsicles in Burma, I kind of go a little nuts enjoying extremely cheap, extremely delicious popsicles when I come to Thailand.  My favourite flavour ever is the apple flavour, but if apple isn’t available, they have a passionfruit flavour which also isn’t bad.  If neither of those is available, there is a grape flavour which will do in a pinch.

Last time I went hunting for popsicles, I noticed there was a new flavour in the freezer: pomegranate!  I went ahead and tried it because I just couldn’t help myself (I’m a food explorer!).  I think apple is still my favourite flavour, though!