Some More on Food

I find it very amusing to see the innovation of companies or individuals marketing to foreign groups. Two of my favorite examples in the US are fortune cookies and cream cheese wontons. For those of you not familiar with these they can be found at any Chinese restaurant in the US, but they are not at all Chinese. I have yet to see anything even close to them here. I have discovered a couple innovations here that I have to share with you back in the states.

The first is the ice cream mooncakes and you know the makers - Dairy Queen, Häagen-Dazs, and Cold Stone Creamery. We saw tons of people walking around with boxes of Dairy Queen Mooncakes (they are not sold separately), but we have yet to find a Dairy Queen. As the Dairy Queens here are all independently owned they have no website to research. The Cold Stone Creamery mooncakes were all sold out when we finally decided to try them so we had the Häagen-Dazs ones. With basic western favors of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry I am sure they would be a hit in the US too.

The second is Lays chips. You can still find the western flavors if you like, but at 6-7 dollars a small bag I would recommend the local flavors. They tend to be less than a dollar a bag and are actually quite good. I have included a picture, but some of the other flavors are French Chicken and Spicy Sichuan Meat. Hmm… Meat flavored chips. I can see this trend taking over the market in the US soon.

The last actually has nothing to do with innovation and is just a comment on the snack food here. Most of it is low in fat (though not advertised as everyone here is skinny in the first place). The nutritional value I can’t comment on as I can’t tell if they are nutritional values listed in Chinese. Here are some examples. Individual sealed packs of 5 paper thin seaweed strips. Very good (if you like seaweed). Individually wrapped organ meat or dried meat. Try the smoked and spiced duck gizzards. These are good, but it is a little weird eating room temperature none dried meat out of a bag.