Shake Shack Canadian snacks edition

Maple Salted Pretzel Shakes and More S'mores Concrete at Yonge and Dundas Square Shake Shack

One of the reasons I started writing my own reviews is because experiences don’t always match expectations. After extensive research, I was convinced I’d love the Maple Salted Pretzel Shake—though the More S’mores Concrete was equally tempting (so, of course, I ordered both). And thank goodness I did, because my experience didn’t quite align with what others had raved about.

Maple Salted Pretzel Shake

The Maple Salted Pretzel Shake wasn’t bad, but it lacked the salty pretzel kick that so many reviews had praised. While I appreciated the thick and creamy consistency, the overall flavour felt a bit one-dimensional. It leaned more on the sweet side than I expected, without enough contrast to balance it out. I kept waiting for that salty-sweet harmony to hit, but it never really did. The pretzel flavour was subtle—almost too subtle—making it taste more like a standard caramel or maple shake rather than something unique. For this reason, and the lack of depth in flavour, I’d rate this a 6.5/10.

More S'mores Concrete

The real showstopper was the More S’mores Concrete—a dessert that completely exceeded my expectations! It had everything I wanted: the perfect balance of saltiness, rich chocolatey goodness, and just the right amount of sweetness from the marshmallows. It was like a cold, ice cream version of a perfectly made s’more. The chocolate bits added a delightful crunch, while the well-blended texture ensured that each bite had an ideal mix of flavours. The graham cracker pieces tied everything together, making it taste just like a classic s’more but in a creamy, indulgent form.

For all these reasons, I’m giving it a 9.8/10—a near-perfect treat that I would 100% order again! If you ever find yourself in Toronto (or anywhere in Canada where it’s available), do yourself a favour and try the More S’mores Concrete! It’s a treat worth experiencing for yourself.

This experience reminded me of the importance of trying things for myself rather than relying solely on other people’s reviews. While recommendations can be helpful, taste is subjective, and nothing beats a firsthand experience. What worked for others didn’t quite work for me, and what I least expected ended up being the real winner. Sometimes, the best surprises come from trusting your own instinct and taste buds!

Raw Chocolate ice bars short review

Indulging in the Pure Delights of Raw Chocolate Ice Bars

Introduction: 

Raw chocolate is a familiar concept to chocolate enthusiasts. Unlike its roasted counterpart, raw chocolate is made from unroasted cocoa and does not contain additives like sugars during the manufacturing process. Most chocolatiers add sugar afterwards to achieve the desired sweetness. This results in a pure and creamy chocolate experience, making it a favourite among connoisseurs.

Discovery of Raw Chocolate Ice Bars: 

A few days ago, I stumbled upon an exciting find at my local grocery store: Raw Chocolate Ice Bars. For those who love chocolate, you know how elusive raw chocolate can be. Whenever I come across anything labelled "raw chocolate," I can't resist purchasing it immediately.

one of the raw chocolate ice bars

These particular raw chocolate ice bars were made in Mongolia.

impressions:

• it has a very strong, rich and full chocolate taste
• it has a slight mochi (chewy) texture
• it melts very quickly
• the tin foil/aluminum packaging made it difficult to unwrap the bar

The chocolate flavour is undeniably intense, rich, and full-bodied. The ice bars possess a delightful mochi-like texture, adding a chewy element to each bite. They melt quickly, ensuring an effortless indulgence.

Given recent experiences with unmeltable popsicles/ice cream from China, I appreciate the fact that these raw chocolate ice bars melt as they should. 

the aluminum wrapper made it difficult to unwrap the ice bar

Conclusion:

Discovering these raw chocolate ice bars was a treat. Their strong and rich chocolate taste, coupled with the slight mochi-like texture and quick meltability, made an exceptional experience. If you are a chocolate enthusiast like me, I highly recommend these raw chocolate ice bars. They will allow you to experience the pure allure of raw chocolate.

Score: 10/10

Website: no website

Heijin Black Gold Rice Cracker (黑金鍋巴) review

黑金鍋巴

I wanted to try was this crab roe and salted egg flavour because I love both! After doing some research, I discovered that this is/was trending on the Chinese internet. 

黑金鍋巴 details

These "crackers" are actually overcooked rice that becomes crispy and forms at the bottom of traditional Chinese rice clay pots. These are cheap and healthy snacks that the Chinese enjoy. 

I love scraping the Chinese rice pots whenever we make clay pot rice dishes so I was very very excited to try this!

individually packaged

 impressions:

• why are these sweet? 
• no crab roe taste, salted egg is barely there
• rice cracker has a nice crispiness
• why are the rice crisps black
• individually packed to maintain crispiness

I enjoyed the crispy rice/cracker taste but was confused as to why salted egg and crab roe end up being sweet. I didn't like the sweet taste, I felt it ruined the taste. I will be looking for other flavours and hopefully, they will taste better. 

I have a love-hate relationship with the individual packages because the quantity is compromised (there were only 6 of these crackers inside) and it is not environmentally friendly. However, I understand that they are there for convenience (these crackers can get very crummy and messy) and to preserve their crispiness. 

score: 7.5/10

website: no website

Billy Bee Honey Roasted Peanuts review

Just so you know what to expect for this review, Planters can have been my all-time favourite peanuts in a can. That bar is hard to reach.

My family bought these Billy Bee Honey Roasted Peanuts at a local grocery store and sent them to me. I did some research and learned that Billy Bee is a Canadian honey farm/company based in Alberta, Canada.

To my utmost surprise, I REALLY liked them. The peanuts were, unlike most other non-Planter brands, very fresh.

impressions:

• crispy and fresh
• not overwhelmingly sweet
• light snack
• addictive
• peanuts were of high quality (for peanut lovers you KNOW what I am talking about)
• the honey/sugar formed a light and crispy shell with just the amount of sweetness
• sweet but not overwhelming (keep in mind, I was born in Toronto and I am living in Japan, so I know what is sweet and what is TOO sweet)

For the sweetness factor, I would say it is very light... even for Japanese standards. For comparison, the Japanese Tohato roasted caramel corns are WAY sweeter than these peanuts. 

score: 8.5/10
website: https://www.helloflavour.ca/en-ca/our-brands/billy-bee/products/other-products/honey-roasted-peanuts

Ritz Baked Chips Salt and Black Pepper review

Ritz is one of my favourite crackers so I got super excited when I saw Ritz baked chips at my local grocery store!

This package is only 35 grams.

their size is fairly standard

impressions:

• no resemblance to Ritz the cracker
• does not have the Ritz "fluffiness"
• a little bit of salt and pepper taste
• strong onion/garlic aftertaste
• very light (no bloating)
• despite how small the package was, I struggled to finish it
• ¥138/package - quite expensive for what you get

unfortunately, I didn't really like it. I really want to say I did but I didn't. As a Ritz fan, I am very disappointed. These chips are NOTHING similar to Ritz, and I'm not sure why they were labelled as "Ritz" related.

not a lot inside

For such a tiny package, it took me over a week to finish them. I did not like the onion/garlic taste they put into these chips especially when the flavour should only be Salt and Black Pepper. If you are going into a meeting or meeting someone... do not eat these... they will give you onion/garlic breath.

score: 5.5/10
website: https://www.ritzcrackers.com/products

Sweet Box Fried Potato Sticks review

While a lot of people like Calbee's fried potato sticks, I was never a fan of those. I felt that they were too thin and reminded me too much of potato chips for me to consider them potato sticks. 

I came across these while shopping at my local grocery store (I was craving something cheesy) and decided to give these a try, they were only ¥99 for 50g, which is quite reasonable.

impressions:

• thick cut
• similar to French Fries
• very crispy on the outside with a slight softness on the inside
• needs more of a cheesy taste
• strong potato taste

I prefer these to Calbee's because they are shaped more like French fries and are crispy, like a very crispy French Fry (they are slightly soft inside, whereas Calbee's are hard and crispy inside and out).

Like most Japanese cheesy flavoured snacks, they need to put WAY more cheese flavour.

Other than that, I'm quite fancying these :)

score: 8/10

website: no website

also... please check out my personal blog and follow me around Tokyo :)

Annie's White Cheddar Bunnies review

sometimes you will come across brands you have once loved and have forgotten... and this was what happened to me. I have written about Annie's Mac and Cheese 5 years ago... Wow... can you believe that was 5 years ago...?

back

nutrition facts

the white cheddar bunnies!

impressions:

• similar to Gold Fish
• has more of a wheat taste than Gold Fish
• very addictive
• tastes healthy (not oily so you won't have a guilty feeling)

While these are good, I did grow up with Goldfish, therefore I still prefer Goldfish over these. AND WAIT... I just discovered GoldFishes are healthier??? ok... Annie... you need to work on this... SeRiOUSLY...

Goldfish Nutrition Facts

score: 7/10 (without the knowledge of goldfish being healthier -->8.5/10)
website: https://www.annies.com/products/snacks/white-cheddar-bunnies
affiliated link --> https://amzn.to/2U7XzPZ

Win2 Garlic Bread review

I found this at my local supermarket. I love Garlic Toast, so for me to see Garlic Bread Crisps (which is quite similar) I got excited and bought it.

These are from Indonesia, and I really liked them.

contains: 100g

481 calories per bag

Ingredients: Wheat Flour, Palm Oil, Rice, Corn, Sugar, Garlic Seasoning, Corn Starch, Salt Yeast, Calcium Carbonate, Seaweed, Synthetic Food Colouring (tartrazine E102)

the only concerns I have from this list are the Palm Oil and Calcium Carbonate.

image source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/369928556867564764/

These remind me of Calbee's roasted corn snacks with garlic flavour (the ones you can find in HK... somehow I have never seen them in Tokyo.

impressions:

• addictive
• strong garlic taste but not overwhelming
• will give you garlic breath (beware!)
• very crispy
• the seaweed felt very unnecessary... didn't contribute to the taste at all
• seaweed flakes were caught between my nails and cuticles a few times

aren't they cute? 

score: 8.8/10

website: http://www.kobebussan.co.jp

Japanese version of North American Chocolate bar snacks [review]

Aero, Crispy Crunch and KitKat

Hey Everyone!

I hope you are all great!! I hope you all have been following me on Facebook where I do short reviews and updates! Sometimes certain products are quite hard to write full reviews on, so I would just give a short simple review on my Facebook page.

Aero:

Because of the square-ish shape and larger size, this Japanese version of Aero forced me to bite into the chocolate instead of letting it melt like the North American version. It does maintain it's taste but there is a weird sugary residue left in your mouth after you have indulged the chocolate. But, it did have Aero's special bubbly feeling when it was  partially "melting".

I might be biased, but I prefer the Canadian/North American version because it was smaller and easier to melt in my mouth. It also did not leave a weird sugary residue.

score: 5/10

Crunch:

This was the best out of these 3! There were lots of rice crisps in each piece and they made the chocolate so much more exciting and flavourful. The texture was very "crispy". Since there were more rice crisps, the flavour was more rice "cakey" and less chocolate. Either way, it was tasty!

I prefer the Japanese version to the American/Canadian version because there were a lot more rice bits.

score: 9.5/10

KitKat:

quite disappointed... I see why the Japanese KitKat company is always innovating new Kitkats (e.g. roasted KitKat, Matcha Kitkat, Sake Kitkat... etc.) because their original Kitkat kind of taste bad...

The North American version is SOOOOOOOO much better... compared to the Japanese version, the North American version is filled with a creamy layer of sweet milk chocolate whereas the Japanese original Kitkat has a weird bitter cocoa taste (not dark chocolate kind of cococa...) that makes it taste bad... the lack of milk taste in the chocolate also adds to bad taste (cocoa does not have a strong taste either).

score: 7/10

It was definitely interesting trying these 3 candy bars in Japan. When I found them, I didn't expect them to taste any different from the North American versions... I thought they were the same... however, my tastebuds told me I was wrong. The next time I head back to North America... I am definitely stocking up on Kitkats and Aeros!

website: http://nestle.jp/brand/

Vinamit Jackfruit Chips review

Jackfruit Chips

During my trip back to Toronto I discovered these... since I am a huge Tropical Fruits fan, these Jackfruit chips attracted me... my thought were "how do jackfruits taste when they are dehydrated?".

story of Jackfruit Chips

Here is some background information:

The story began more than 20 years ago by a young man coming from a poor farmer family which has 9 sons and daughters. From his name Lam Vien, which means "forest and garden", and his zodiac animal, Ox, it is believed that his fate would be tied with agriculture.

Growing up in the 80's of last century, seeing plenty of fruits rotting because Vietnam did not have post-harvest processing technology at that time, the young man Lam Vien went far away and brought new technology from abroad, with a dream to enrich himself as well as his family and his country. In 1988, he was the first man to manufacture dried jackfruit, turn this kind of fruit from a rustic farm produce into valuable consumer goods. Their appealing tastes convinced not only domestic but also international consumers.

Since then, the first and largest factory in Southeast Asia was built, and familiar brand-names such as Vinamit, Duc Thanh, Jak, Vinatural, etc. has widespread from Vietnam to all over the world.

After more than 20 years, Mr. Lam Vien still leads Vinamit to accompany farmers and Vietnamese agriculture, with various fruits, even with rice and coffee, to add value for Vietnamese agricultural commodities.

back of package

a closer look at the ingredients

There aren't a lot of ingredients... and they seem safe... in case you missed it, there are only 2. Jackfruit and Canola Oil. The Nutrition Facts also produce an indication that these chips are safe to eat (if you are on a diet). For the WHOLE bag, it only contains 15.62g of sugar and 3.88g of fat! What a nice snack!

a look at the product

Impressions

Very crunch

Sweet

fried/baked jack fruit

lacking jackfruit taste

close up of product

While these Jackfruit chips were a wonderful novel experiment, I do miss the juiciness which makes Jackfruits... Jackfruits. These were crispy but I felt they were slightly too hard for my teeth (and that means a lot since I sometimes chew on ice!). Without the juiciness, I felt they were slightly too sweet.

Score: 5.8/10
Website: no website

豐記 雞蛋仔 review

Fung Gei's Chinese Egg Waffle

Lately, it seems that every where I look, every street I walk down, there is a Chinese Egg waffle place (雞蛋仔). I have seen all kinds, from Cheese-filled Egg Waffles to Chocolate Fills. However, my favourite has to be the original. Call me weird, but I prefer the original because I like the sweetness of the batter. I haven't tried many flavours... but I think that if a place cannot get the "original flavour" right... forget about trying the fancier ones.

menu item

While walking down Granville Road, I came across this place. During that first encounter, I decided to not try it because this place was crowded. It was around 5:00pm of a public holiday, there were dozens of people of all ages trying to get some form of snack from this "shop". I told myself that I will come to this place when it is WAY less crowded.

Across the street is Granville Circuit

The next day I visited this place, it was empty. I was the only customer there (strange how things change so suddenly, huh?). This time, I got a closer view of the place, I learned that quite a number of celebrities and food show hosts have been to this place.

bag of Chinese Egg Waffles

As usual, I got my Original Chinese Egg Waffles for $15 HKD. 

how the Chinese Egg Waffles look

Impressions:

• these were not made "recently" 
• batter was not made (lacking lots of ingredients)
• empty on the inside and not chewy nor crispy on the outside

I was disappointed that these Chinese Egg Waffles were cold when they gave it to me. Having a shop should indicate freshness. Unfortunately, this was not the case for this. However, my disappointment did not stop there. The taste was terrible, it was so bland. 

All I can conclude is... No wonder it was so empty when I went! I guess you can trick your customers the first time but not the second time. It was no wonder I was the only customer there the next day. I do not recommend this place... there are much more better Chinese Egg Waffle places in Tsim Sha Tsui, just walk down the street a little and you will find other ones that will be much better than this place! Total disappointment!

Score: 1/10

Website: no website

Orville Redenbacher Movie Theatre Butter Popcorn review

popcorn!

For those who know me will know of my obsession for popcorn! Particularly Movie Theatre Popcorn is my all time favourite.

nutrition facts

Popcorn is one of the healthiest choices you can choose when you are snacking out of other junk foods (e.g. chips, chocolate)

apologies for the blurry image

impressions:

• slightly greasy
• tastes much better than their microwave popcorn
• addictive
• tastes very buttery (especially compared to their microwave version)
• slightly pricey ($5/bag)

score: 8.5/10
website: http://www.orville.com/homemade-popcorn

A&W' s handcrafted Onion Rings review

Apologies for the late review... this week has been tediously busy...

Onion Rings from A&W

A&W is definitely one of the more popular fast food restaurants in Toronto. And recently, it seems they have made improvements to their

nicely fried/baked

Impressions:

• nice texture
• very crispy
• very tasty (ketchup was not necessary)
• not greasy
• onions tasted fresh

don't you feel annoyed when your images are turned 90 degrees for no apparent reason?

The salt amount was perfect... it was enough to enhance the taste of the batter and onion rings. I didn't feel the need to dip them in ketchup as they were nicely moistened inside.

hardly any oil after placing the onion ring on the napkin

Each Onion ring was a different size.
The pictures do a good job showing how non greasy it was.

after finishing, there is hardly any oil

I was very impressed! It has been some time since I have ordered from A&Ws... I was very impressed with their onion rings and I will likely be buying more from them... The price is reasonable for such great quality and I didn't have any guilty feeling after eating

Score: 9.5/10

Website: http://www.aw.ca/foodfacts.nsf/NutrientsByRef/95C53F7385ACB14788256DF1006713D6?opendocument