In the spirit of full disclosure, I am only half Chinese (I’ve also got some Italian, Irish, and a little German thrown in for good measure). So I sort of consider myself Asian American with an emphasis on the American. And while I love and deeply respect my Chinese heritage, it didn’t really play a dramatic roll in my upbringing. However I pull out my Asian half in full force when it comes to food. Food was the single aspect of my childhood that was well and truly Asian, five nights out of the week there was rice on our dinner table. To keep that rice, and other Chinese dishes on our dinner table, my family would make a monthly pilgrimage to the Asian Super Market which was around an hour away. This usually involved a large group of our family friends going out to get Dim Sum or Pho or Korean Barbecue and then going to the grocery store on our way back home. While out parents were buying the essentials like kimchi, jasmine rice, and lap cheong, us kids ran wild in the junk food isles. Which leads me to the top ten asian junk foods.
1. Hello Panda
Because Pocky is too mainstream. These tiny cookie bites consist of a creamy filling, usually chocolate, inside of a crunchy cookie shell. They’re basically heaven shaped like cartoons.
2. Aloe Drink
Whenever this is in my fridge I offer it to people who come over and they always cringe and decline, writing it off a some weird Asian health food thing. In actuality it’s loaded with so much sugar that it’s crazy sweet and amazingly delicious. ProTip: If you decide to try this, get one with pulp. It’s the best part.
3. Ramune
If you’ve been to the Asian isle at your local grocery store, you might have seen this. It’s a fizzy soda-like drink that comes in a ton of different flavors in glass bottles that are sealed with marbles. Before you go crying chocking hazard, the marble is impossible to get out of the bottle, believe me, every kid who has had one of these had tried.
4. Senbei Rice Crackers
Senbei crackers are traditionally a Japanese rice cracker flavored with fish sauce. They come in other flavors too, but the traditional fish sauce ones are the best, and no, fish sauce does not taste like fish, it is basically pure umami goodness. Honestly, these cracker are the perfect salty sweet snack,
5. Rice Cracker Mix
Essentially Asian Trail Mix. It’s spicy, it’s salty, it’s perfect.
6. Samanco
More or less it’s and ice cream sandwich that looks like a fish, but you have to get the ones that have red bean paste in them.
7. Shrimp Chips
Honestly, I can’t even describe these, you just have to go buy them.
8. Toasted Seaweed
So yes, this is generally supposed to be eaten with rice, but be ready to just munch straight on the seaweed. I had friends in elementary school who used to bring travel size packs to school for lunch in lieu of potato chips.
9. Lychee Jelly Cups
I once took one of these to school in my lunch and my friends were so intrigued that I ended up taking a bucket of them to school the next day and basically teaching a master class on how to eat them with the proper slurping technique.
10. Botan Rice Candy
These are what always I wanted at the check out line instead of chocolate or packs of gum and I still can’t leave an Aisan grocery store without picking up a box. Basically you leave the rice paper on when you eat the candy and it dissolvesSara in your mouth.
