3rd Eye on Snacking: Savoury Junk in Sri Lanka

As anyone who has spent a fair amount of time with me will readily attest, I have a savoury tooth. Throw all that belgian chocolate, turkish delight and sugar-dusted truffle into the ocean for all I care. To the possible detriment of my heart and future blood pressure, I love to snack on all things salty. I might be half deer. I can wake up and eat a bowl of popcorn and skip dessert for the rest of the year without a flinch. In that, visiting foreign cities and being exposed to a full and wonderful spectrum of crisps, chips, nuts, noodles, rolls and packages makes me feel like a kid in a candy store that has thrown out all its candy. Not being a wild shopper or proper slave to fashion, much of my disposable income (what a funny term) goes towards food. Join me now as we start a new "column" of this blog entitled 3rd Eye on Snacking: Savoury Junk in Sri Lanka, where I will attempt to sample and review all manner of packaged nosh.

Product: Tipi Tip Cheesy Balls Extruded Snack
Brand: Uswatte
Motto: If you're happy with this snack, tell your friends. If not, tell us.
Ingredients: Maize grit, vegetable oil, natural cheese flavouring.

Mmm, when "grit" is one of the listed ingredients, you know you're in for a special experience. God, this package is hard to open. Is this a child-safety issue? The bag smells not unlike an old pot of kraft dinner. These are your typical hyper-processed packing foam style snacks. The taste I would describe being somewhere between my memory of Corn Pops breakfast cereal and permanent marker.Verdict: Meh. Maybe if they washed up on the shore of my desert island, but I'd probably do some grub hunting instead. 4/10

Product: Mr. Bitz: Bitz Tops
Brand: CHITO
Motto: Lifes pretty straight without. . . .
Ingredients: Corn and Rice meal, Oil, Cheese powder, lactic acid, permitted flavours and flavour enhancer.

Mr Bitz has a worryingly seasick expression, green hair and rouge on his cheeks. There is something slightly ominous about "permitted flavours" on the ingredients list, as though they're pushing the boundaries but still JUST inside legal limits of chemical additives. On tasting, they're again your average extruded cheese spheres, about the size of a chickpea. However, they smell less like cheese and rice meal and more like the feet of a hippie triathlete. I am not sure if I will permit more than 3 of these in my mouth in my lifetime. 3/10

Product: Devilled Cashew Nuts
Brand: Liyona Cashew
Ingredients: not listed. I'm going to hazard a guess by saying Cashews, Vegetable Oil and Chili

Sri Lanka is one of the world's top cashew producers and exporters. Street stalls and supermarkets sell the freakishly large legumes roasted plain or "devilled," dusted with red chili. These particular vacuum-packed little wonders are crunchy, with a creamy nut meat and nice creeping heat that lasts for a solid minute. Aftertaste is faintly stale, but compared to the processed dross i've been sampling, these are a winner. Sri Lanka, I love your nuts and I want to put them in my mouth. 8/10

Product: Snack and Nuts Makanan Ringan
Brand: Ken Kee
Ingredients: Broadbean, Palm Oil, Salt, Egg, Sugar, MSG, Flour, Colouring

A happy, hydrocephalic cow in bowling shoes is giving these the thumbs up. Let's give them a shot. . .These smell exactly like a dusty, abandoned wig factory. After a fire. Gak! Ugg! It feels like I'm eating someone else's tooth. It's like little, dusty chunks of what was left over from making the benches at JFK airport. I can't even tell if they're stale. These might not even be a food item and I'm missing something in translation. I bet they're plant fertilizer or something. 2/10
Product: Corntos: BBQ Flavour (New Formula)
Brand: Double Decker
Motto: Once you've tasted Corntos, there's no going back. It reveals a new pleasure you never would've thought possible. Corntos. Try it, you'll see the light.
Ingredients: Corn, Rice Oil, BBQ Powder, Spices, Soy Sauce Powder, Sugar, Salt

I think that's the boldest product statement I've ever seen on anything. It sounds like they're going to make me smarter and improve my sex life. Opening the bag. . . . .
They certainly don't smell like BBQ. They smell a lot like curry and dirt. The appearance is wild, with irregular shapes ranging from matchsticks and pebbles to school eraser sized tumors. Ok, good texture; super crunchy and fairly dense. I'm not sold on the taste completely. I don't mind it, but it's not mind blowing. These would be nice in a sour cream and onion or salt and vinegar flavour, although I think they only have them in either chicken or cuttlefish. Overall, not too shabby. Debating whether I'd actually serve these to guests. 6.5/10


Product: Mister Pop Star Cheese n' Onion Snacks
Brand: Hemas Marketing Firm
Ingredients: Corn, Rice, Corn Starch, Vegetable Oil, Salt, Permitted Flavour Enhancer.

At 16 grams, these are a pretty small bag. Judging by the ingredients, I think I know what I'm in for, and i do not have my hopes up. Now, are these Mister Pop snacks, "Star" edition, or is the insane doodle figure at the bottom of the bag Mr. Pop Star? From his expression, he appears to be in the throes of a spasmodic snack-induced seizure, waving a wild warning against opening the bag. But I must! *Cough* Man, that was a nose rape. I shouldn't go back in there, but it's like an olfactory car wreck, i can't stop. Maybe if I do the scientist's waft towards my nose with my hand. GAG! I am seriously considering not eating these. They smell like I've got my face over the chimney of a crematorium that's burning mannequins. I'm eating one. Wow. These are seriously worse than styrofoam packing peanuts. They don't even merit more description. The bag came with a free tiny car to assemble out of paper, which I am not going to do. I don't pay money to have an experience like this. 2/10



Product: Bite Rings
Brand: SMK
Ingredients: Not Listed. At least not in English characters.

Man, these look crazy. The colour is way too bright for an edible foodstuff. They look pretty budget, but we've had better luck from local brands, so let's give it a shot. Ring me!
Mmm- they actually smell good. In a guilty way, maybe, like walking through the food area of a carnival. They LOOK like Carnie food, actually. Hmm. . . not terrible. They're basically little fried dough rounds with chili on them. They fall soundly into that category of something that tastes not-amazing that you end up eating all of. I'll keep these around. 6.5/10