Survival Sunday 241: Boston Trip Taste Testing!

I went on a trip and forgot to take pictures!

It's not often that I venture far from the blanket fort, but the opportunity to go explore Boston, Massachusetts came up and I absolutely could not say "no". On this trip I tried a lot of food:

• a delicious Butter Milk roll from a bakery in Chinatown
• cold and herbal matcha rolled ice cream topped with mochi and condensed milk and black sesame and grass jelly (which is shockingly tasty) at a place called "Juicy Spot" (which Leonardo DiCaprio has visited in the past!)
• spicy kimchi miso ramen and tonkatsu curry from the food court at an H Mart (the curry was from Go Go Curry!)
• some comically large pork rolls from a place I think was called Viet Pho in another food court
• comically bad pork cookies (like, super not good and yes you read that right)
• some tasty peanut mochi
• some tasty strawberry daifuku mochi
• an obscenely large bowl of bibimbap from somewhere called "Reliable Mart" (where I also tried a friend's spicy beef bulgogi and now I'm an addict)
• some fabulous tofu teriyaki from a really nice Japanese restaurant whose name I'm forgetting...
• some Lays potato chips that I think were called "grilled beef" or "grilled steak" but I can find 0 evidence for on the internet
• some chocolate-covered cookie tubes with creme brulee pudding inside them
• more things I'm forgetting right now, I'm sure!

The point is this: I went, I ate, it was delicious.

But we also brought back some snacks to try at home, so here's my reviews of these snacks:

A comically large 13+ oz bottle of original flavored Ramune

I. Love. Ramune.

Ramune is, for those not in the know, a Japanese soda best known for being sold in glass bottles that are stopped with a glass marble. This marble is forced out with a plunger that comes attached to the bottle top. Sometimes, it takes a lot of pressure to force the marble out, since it's being held in place by a combination of tension and the pressure of the carbonation. Regardless, it's a soda that sounds like a faint gunshot every time you open one, and it comes in a plethora of flavors, some of which are so bizarre the Jones Soda Co would lose their minds. Like... pandan, lychee, or even durian (only one of which I've drank...).

The Original flavor of Ramune is somewhere between bubblegum and vaguely citrus. It's flavored with citric acid and sugar. Ounce to ounce, there is slightly less sugar in Ramune than there is in Coke. It also tastes better and is caffeine free, and (if Original flavor) has absolutely no food coloring. It's basically the perfect soda, to me.

So when I saw that there was a comically large bottle at one of the stores we went to, of course it came home with me.

It was exactly as I described - vaguely citrusy, sweet, and refreshing. Perfect for what we drank it with...

A big yakisoba!

We brought yakisoba home with us, since the Blanket Fort lacks any kind of Asian market, and interesting noodles are few and far between unless you have an Umai Crate subscription. So we each got ourselves some good dry noodles. I didn't eat the one above.

I ate this one, purchased at the H Mart.

They were pretty self-explanatory, to be honest. Open the lids halfway, remove the packets, dump in the veggie packet, boil water, fill to line with water, close lid, wait 3 minutes, open vent (there's a vent, I promise), drain water, remove lid completely, add in sauce and/or spice, then artistically add the mustard mayonnaise.

See? Pretty self-explanatory.

These noodles were incredible. The yakisoba sauce was sweet and tangy, the cabbage was reconstituted perfectly, and the noodles were firm, but the real star was that mustard mayo. You'd think it would be zippy, but not too rough. You'd be wrong. It was almost horseradish-levels of spicy, and it was the perfect foil to the dark, sweet yakisoba sauce. It really, really made me wish I could eat it every day. I'm craving it right now.

Of course, I can't just give you my impression of instant noodles. That would be boring.

Korean Crackers? Okay, I'll bite!

I'd never had these before, but they're basically little cracker puffs held together with some sort of sweet coating. They're pretty bland and inoffensive, kinda like a super-crunchy popcorn ball! I'd absolutely use these for a party treat! Very nice.

Just be aware that they're really, really hard and crunchy.

Next I tried something that I knew would be good.

I mean, how bad can roasted chicken wing flavor be?

I'm used to chicken flavoring like you get in Maruchan ramen - salty and not much else. These had a definite "roasted poultry" flavor to them, and they were perfectly crisp and tasty! I was very impressed, and I'd love to get these again.

Big cronchers!

And then I broke out the chips I'd been worried about. We bought Numb and Spicy Hot Pot Flavor, but I don't fear that heat. I don't fear them being stale like some friends warned us they might be either. These are not the Numb and Spicy Hot Pot chips.

You read that right.
Grilled Eel.

I was very nervous about these. I hate seafood flavored chips. Shrimp, clam, crab - it doesn't matter. It all tastes nasty to me. These were much the same, but... I couldn't stop eating them. These are very much in the same vein as the Crab Seasoning chips you can sometimes find up here. You know, the Utz ones with the Chesapeake Bay Seasoning? Old Bay chips? Yeah, those. They're not good. I don't like them, but they brainwash you into finishing the bag regardless.

To be honest, they tasted like a lot of nori and eel sauce.
And I love eel sauce. And nori.
But there was definitely something... seafoody about them.

So that's what I've worked through so far, as far as snacks I brought home. Hope you got some ideas of what to get the next time you're at an Asian market!

I strongly advocate for mochi, by the way, because it's squishy, sweet, and delightful. I've been fortunate enough to never have bad mochi.

That's all from me for today!

Go Enjoy Something!!!
FC