Don't Throw This Snowball!

 Are Snowballs (the cake) a winter treat?

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Bangkok Snacking

 We recently got back from a quick trip to Thailand, and boy are my arms tired. That's a really lame joke, and not very relatable to my trip. It would be more appropriate to say that our stomachs are totally stuffed instead of our arms being tired because we filled up on all kinds of great food. What you have to know about this trip before you continue reading is two things. First of all we have been to Bangkok many times, we've lived in South East Asia for several years in the past, and we're living there now. The second thing you should know is something I just said, we live in South East Asia right now. What that means is we're not really going crazy over the South East Asianess of this adventure. We can get street food, great hot pot and all kinds of rice and noodle dishes where we live. In some ways we go to a big city like Bangkok to get a little big city life as well as western food. So don't complain that we did South East Asia poorly on this adventure because we pretty much live it every single day.

As I said, this is a quick journal highlighting some of the things we ate on this adventure. I feel like this is an interesting representation of Thai eating from the perspective of people who lives in South East Asia, and haven't seen a McDonalds in months.

Needless to say, the first thing we ate when we got into the airport was McDonalds. It was nothing special, just a way to get that craving out of the way and eat something quickly before the long cab ride to our hotel. Those of you who have visited Bangkok before know that you need to be prepared for a long cab ride from the airport and fueling up (along with a bathroom break) is essential.

The next morning... McDonalds again (this will be a reoccurring theme). We had a busy day planned and we just wanted to get breakfast quick and we all know that McDonalds breakfast is a travelers dream. The cool thing about this particular breakfast at McDonalds is that I managed to sample one of the Thailand McDonalds exclusives the McPatongko. It's basically a crispy deep fried donut that comes with a condensed milk dipping sauce. Happy that I tried it, but didn't feel the need to get them again.

When we visit Thailand, there are certain places we always like to get food. We'll often go back again and again until we're kind of sick of it, or at the very least until we no longer feel like we'll regret not going one more time. Something you learn traveling in certain parts of the world is that some foods are more dangerous than others when it come to food born illness. Most seasoned travelers will tell you that meat it not the true danger, ice cubes and lettuce are the silent killers. Because we live in South East Asia, in a place that could be a danger for food born illness, we don't often get to enjoy a good salad. The great news is that we know a place in Thailand that not only offers a clean safe salad, but the salads they make are excellent. This place is known as Jones's Salad, and I feel like we ate there at least 3 times on this adventure, and we certain stopped there on our first day.

For those of you looking for something a little more South East Asian, this is your time to shine. Another one of my always first day must have foods is mango sticky rice, bought off of the street. I have two vendors that I always frequent, and they've never disappointed. Mango sticky rice will always be the first and last dessert I get on any trip to Bangkok. Sometimes I'll get one or two in between as well, I believe I've even had a trip where I got a serving of this amazing dessert each and every day of my stay. As a person who loves sweets, I can easily tell you that a well made mango sticky rice is the best dessert on offer in the entirety of Thailand, maybe even in all of South East Asia.

Our next stop in Bangkok makes the least sense of them all, Tim Horton's. Sure we lived in Canada just a few months ago, but for some reason I just can't stop in a city with a Tim Horton's without seeing what they have on offer. For those of you that don't know, Tim Horton's has had great success with locations all over Asia. I love the idea of seeing how these international locations differ and how they're the same as the classic Canadian shops. I'd like to tell you all about that right here, but you'll have to wait a little while as I'm currently writing a blog dedicated to my experience eating Timbits in Thailand.

For one of our lunches we decided to get some Japanese tonkatsu. It was a fine meal, however the interesting part of it was the decorations. The entire restaurant was filled with fun tonkatsu characters all dressed up for Christmas. I found the fact that little pigs were celebrating the holiday season right next to breaded pork cutlets to be a little weird, but that's mostly because I was raised to disassociate my food from the animal. In most Asian cities it's celebrated.

The one thing Allison can't resist when we go to Thailand is Sao Ping. Once again, all of you out there who think that we overdo western food in Thailand, you'll enjoy this. Sao Ping is a fried bean based cake that's a very common street food. They have various fillings and can even have differing ingredients in the cake, but they all have a similar texture and always taste great warm. I've seen them for sale in a few bakeries and grocery stores, but I always feel like the street version is the best. This is probably because of their very short shelf life. While they taste fine a little old, they're so much better fresh off of the heat.

One thing that seems to be constantly growing in all parts of Asia is ice tea. Milk tea, boba tea, and fruit teas run rampant at every corner. There are combinations of these teas, speciality version and over the top dessert ice teas available everywhere. I decided to jump into this trend head first and tried something called a Dirty Nutella Milk Tea. It consisted of a chocolate milk tea, chocolate sauce, many generous scoops of Nutella at the bottom, and oddly marshmallow used like boba balls. The marshmallows were the strangest part, but kind of fun to hunt down throughout the drink. Getting the occasional mouth full of Nutella was fun, but also pretty heavy. While I did enjoy this sweet treat, it left me more thirsty than when I started.

For our last meal we decided to sit down to some shabu shabu. The great thing about shabu shabu is it allows everyone to get a lot of whatever they want. We of coarse stuffed ourselves silly, but I didn't pass up the free scoop of ice cream for dessert.

Given the fact that I just stuffed my face with a great deal of meat a vegetables, I thought I'd give the charcoal ice cream a taste. It made sense since charcoal is known to help with an upset stomach, and it's ice cream, so it'll make it fun too. It actually tasted pretty good, but I can't say it did much to settle my stomach considering the amount we ate.

My final treat, you guessed it, McDonalds. This time I blame the fact that I had 45 minutes between the time we checked out of the hotel to the time we needed to get picked up for our cab ride back to the airport. I did however manage to get another Thailand signature dessert. It's the pineapple pie a la mode. There are so many great things about this dessert that make me wonder why all McDonalds can't have this. First of all the pie is deep fried, unless the filling of a McDonalds pie is ultra unique, I really only go for the deep fried pies. Secondly the pineapple is a fun filling, maybe not something I'd always order, but once in a while it's supper tasty. Finally, putting it in ice cream is a brilliant move. I'm sure if they don't actually offer this at your local McDonalds you could probably just get a sundae and put your pie in it, but I'm kind of lazy, so I've never done that before.

Seeing as we're back in Asia for a few years, I seriously doubt this will be my last stop in Bangkok. I might write another recap, but frankly most of my trips to Bangkok look a lot like this one. 

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This Video Will Make You Feel Regular... or plain... or original

 I've always wondered how candy companies define the words "regular, plain or original". I feel like every treat has its own idea of what this should mean. While I have a few ideas about how some snacks label their basic treat, there are always a few weird ones that don't fit into the mold.

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Indeed This Treats And Beasts Is Fun To Read

 Make sure to pick up your own copy of Treats and Beasts.

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I Don't Like Barbecue

I don't mind the real thing, pork and beef slow cooked over a barbecue pit, but I've never been able to really enjoy barbecue flavoured snacks. I think it has something to do with fake smoke flavouring. I don't mind if something has a real smoky flavour, but that liquid smoke (or any fake smoke) flavour just doesn't cut it for me. In my time as the Candy Critic I've attempt to train myself to appreciated certain flavours like licorice and marshmallows, but I feel like barbeque chips might be one that I just don't bother trying to appreciate. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything just because I don't really dig fake smoke flavouring.

Check out the full review of these barbecue chips, and find out why they didn't do that badly.

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Santa Losing Weight

 I don't really understand the logic of this commercial. It appears that Santa just spent Christmas Eve delivering presents but also eating too much food. He complains about eating too much, but then goes on to eat a candy bar. He also seems a little foul mouthed, but maybe that's just a misinterpretation.

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A Long Time Cactus Coming

When I first tasted Cactus Candy more than 15 years ago, I never thought I'd get to taste it again. I'm glad I did, and I might even try and pick it up again some time in the future.

You can check out the full review here.

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Holy Cow This Treats and Beasts Is Great!

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Spice Might Kill You

I feel like the word "spice" is a difficult word to define. The word has always meant two things to me. Spice for me can either be defining something that has some heat, or it can also just mean something that has herbs and spices added to change the flavour of something. While the heat element could be seen as something that changes the flavour of something, it has something else about it too. More recently, spice in both senses of the word tend to mean an extreme flavour addition, be it spicy or not. It's as if some "spicing" of foods doesn't deserve to be called spice, only if the spice is more powerful than every other flavour in the food. This new review is a key example of "spice" in the extreme.

Check out this treat that does not go light on the spice.

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Christmas Traditions

There are certain traditions that I have, including watching this adorable M&M's commercial.

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The Advent of Calendars

Every year I go to the store and stare dumbfounded at the Christmas items. My first thought is often, September seems a little early to be selling Christmas items, but that’s followed by my indecision trying to pick out my advent calendar for the Christmas season. The advent calendar is probably the first Christmas treat I think about for the holidays. It seems like the only holiday treat you can buy well before Christmas, mostly because you actually start eating it on December 1st.

So there I am, staring at the vast selection of cardboard walls filled with 24 doors hiding surprises behind each. The question is, which one should I get? For the sake of argument, and to keep this blog on brand, let’s eliminate any non-candy themed advent calendar. I’m not saying that they’re inauthentic or better or worse than the candy themed advent calendars. I just feel like they’re in a category all their own. The question I want to focus on is which of the candy filled advent calendars should I get.

While the selection is huge, one thing I’ve noticed is that almost all of them seem to have a chocolate theme. It’s pretty rare (if not impossible) to find an advent calendar filled with hard candy or gum. There’s also three basic categories I find with advent calendars. There’s the inexpensive basic chocolate calendars, calendars filled with popular candy bars, and calendars filled with fine chocolates. The prices of these different categories also have a huge range. First let’s look at each category, then try and figure out what’s best.

To me, the most traditional form of advent calendars are the simple chocolate ones. At the very least, these are the kind that I used to get as a kid. I’m not sure if the candy bar calendars and fancy calendars came out later in my life, or if my parents kept them away from me so they wouldn’t have to spend that much money. In general the quality of the chocolate is not great. Sometimes it’s downright awful (as I’m experiencing right now). The kinds/sizes of the chocolate in these simple advent calendars tends to be pretty basic, on occasion they have a bigger chocolate for the last one. Shapes can also vary in variety, however I often find that these simpler calendars have some pretty festive shapes and designs. The biggest advantage of these advent calendars is the price. If you’re looking for the fun of opening a door every day, maybe to a fun little shape, but you don’t care about the chocolate, these are for you.

The next category is the candy bar calendars. These are advent calendars filled with a name brand candy like Kit Kat or Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. I feel like these have come about more recently as advent calendars have become more popular. The size of the treat in these can also vary, but most of the time you have snack or mini sized versions of the classic treat, with a full sized treat as your last. Theme wise it can sometimes be a little weak as the focus is on the candy being recognizable and not festive. Although this is changing a bit over the last few years with many candy brands releasing special holiday themed versions of their treats. The price of these is one of the differences between these and the simple advent calendars. You can find these candy bar calendars going for 10 times the price of the basic simple calendars. These will give you the treats you want/like, but you’re paying for it and you might be disappointed with the size of each treat.

The final category of advent calendar is filled with fine chocolates. The quality of these treats guarantees you’ll enjoy eating each and every chocolate. Theme wise they can really vary, in some cases they can be truly festive, sometimes they just hint at the holidays, while other times they’re more concerned with making pretty chocolates over the festive spirit. These treats will often make your mouth very excited about opening each door, but it’s at a cost as they’re never cheap. I’ve seen some of these calendars go for over 100 dollars.

Which calendar you buy really depends on what experience you want, and if you’re willing to pay for it. In general, I tend to go for the simple cheap chocolate calendars. I feel like part of it is out of nostalgia, but also what I’m looking for. There’s something fun about opening a little door each morning, seeing a little festive designed treat, and getting just a little sweet chocolate taste. If I want something fancy or name brand, I feel like I’d be better off just buying that treat separately. I will say that on occasion I’ve been very disappointed with the quality of the treats in these simple calendars, however I’ve also been surprised at how good some of them are too. 

I feel like the ceremony of the advent calendar is much more important than the treat itself. While it’s always nice to get something tasty, it’s not so important to me that it would ruin the yearly tradition of opening up little doors every day in December even if the chocolate isn’t that great.

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Good Golly, It's Treats and Beasts

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Drink Your Gum

I think there's a subtle art to the candy crossover. Not every company can pull it off. Those who do pull it off fall into one of two categories. Either you spend a lot of time crafting the perfect crossover, balancing the flavours and textures of the original in order to try cross them over with a different kind of treat. The other are those who have a treat that just naturally works with other treats. Kool-Aid has a lot of options when it comes crossing over since they have simple yet iconic flavours. I'm hoping this is only the first step towards more Kool-Aid themed treats in the future.

Check out the first of 3 Kool-Aid gum reviews that I'm posting this week.

If you want to check out the other Kool-Aid gum reviews that I'm posting later, make sure to check out Facbook, Instagram or Twitter.

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Ring My Bell

 Every year I watch this commercial and every year it makes me smile.

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Finally You Can Get A Copy Of Treats and Beasts

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A Simple Grocery Store Bulk Candy

I want to give a little bit of context to this candy. It's Ukrainian and was purchased (and consumed) before the events that happened there. More relevant to this story, it was purchased at an average grocery store in the bulk candy bins. The bulk candy bins are a place that most of us, myself included, often pass up unless we're looking to get a certain amount of a treat we love. However, when traveling it's rare that I stop at bulk bins in grocery stores, and I'm not really sure why. This amazing chocolate treat is a perfect example of why I should stop doing this, because this turned out to be one of the best chocolate's I've ever eaten in my life.

Read more about this amazing chocolate treat, found in a bulk bin.

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Blow You a Kiss

 With a name like Kiss, you'd think that the process of making them would be much more magical. Not enough pixy dust and magic wands in my opinion.

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Cereal Innovation or Waste of Packaging

 I recently came across a new cereal. It's likely not new to the world, but it's very new to me. It grabbed my attention because it offered some new fruity flavours that I'd never had in a cereal before, papaya and pineapple. The package implies that the fruit is also real, which makes sense given how common these fruits are where this cereal is made, which is Myanmar. The panda is also very cute, so  since I needed something for breakfast, this seemed like the perfect fit.

Upon opening the box I was even more confused/surprised by what was inside. It's not often that the format of how cereal is delivered is surprising to me. Rather than give you one giant bag of cereal, they've portioned the cereal into 5 separate bags. Better still they've separated the fruit and portioned that into another 5 separate bags. I wasn't sure if this was a brilliant idea at first, or an extreme waste of packaging. My first guess was that they split the cereal into separate packages to help it stay fresh and keep bugs out. South East Asia (where this cereal sells) is known for being very humid and also having a lot of bugs. Both of these are due to the constant warm weather in the area, so it makes sense as a way to keep your cereal fresh.

I took my single portion of cereal and I was truly excited by the cute little packages.

The writing on the bags of cereal was a little weird.

The cereal portion was a little strange. I was expecting something like corn flakes, but instead got what looking like tiny little squashed circles. They also had some kind of sweet coating on the outside. Frankly I would have been satisfied with just these, but there was more.

I opened up my little bag of dried pineapple and papaya and they were nicely chopped into tiny little cubes. I definitely felt like the ratio of cereal to fruit was pretty good. Too much of either would have ruined this cereal experience. Adding the milk however proved to me another reason why one might break this cereal into individual portions in particularly with the fruit.

The second I added my milk, all of the fruit sunk to the bottom. It made me think that the same would have happened in the box, had it not been portioned out in little separate bags. I had to dig down to the bottom of the bowl for each bite, however my bowl had a perfect proportion of cereal and fruit. I'll be honest, I wasn't totally blown away with the flavour of this cereal, it was fine. The little disks did stay very crunchy in the milk however, almost too crunchy as they didn't seem to let any of the milk penetrate at all. There are a few other cereals made by this company, and I think I'll probably attempt to try them all. 

At a certain age you don't really expect to be surprised at the way cereal is packaged, but as it turns out, you never know.

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