Snack Review: Morinaga Ottoto Korean Barbeque Flavor Crackers
I am sucker for animal-shaped food, and for anything Japanese. So just imagine if the animals were weird and Japanese: squid, crab, blowfish, starfish, tuna, shrimp, octopus, even uni (sea urchin)! Even those big weird ocean sunfish! Yes, I was beside myself.
The shapes are wonderful. The texture is really fantastic - they’re totally puffed up and hollow, even though they retain their animal shapes, and perfectly thin and light and crunchy.
The only catch is that I totally chose the wrong flavor. There are two choices of flavor, Salt and Korean Barbeque. I am not sure what I was thinking when I ordered the Korean Barbeque. I know that I am the kind of person who likes the simple, plain version of things. I never eat potato chips in any flavor other than plain, for instance, which I know is virtually un-American. I wouldn’t eat a barbeque flavor potato chip, for instance, if it were the last food in the house.
But, let’s be honest, Japanese crackers in the shape of squid and blowfish - if these had been Horrible Garbage flavor, I still would have wanted to try them. So I probably wasn’t thinking straight.
Although Korean food is famous for being spicy hot, that’s not what this flavor is. There’s an illustration on the box of a little bottle of brown sauce, like the Japanese sauce that’s put on katsu or okonomiyaki - that thick, sweetish sauce seems like what they’re going for here.
The flavor’s OK, actually, but the smell is kind of chemical and offputting. I have to be careful I don’t take a whiff of the bag when I’m chewing. Also, I wouldn’t mind if they were just a tiny bit more salty, which is something I’ve never said about an American snack, so I’m not really complaining. It’s better than chips that are so salty that I have to wipe them off with a paper towel (which I have been known to do).
So, I did a stupid thing, but maybe it’s OK, because if they had been plain salt flavor, I probably would have been too beside myself to write a review. You know whether you’re the kind of person who wants the salt flavor or the barbeque. Whichever it is, you want these. They are wonderful. TWO TENTACLES UP!
3 Comments
saundersr on April 24th, 2009
Your standards are too high to eat something “Horrible Garbage Flavored” even if it was animal shaped and Japanese.
Linda on April 24th, 2009
But I think I’d want to make sure it wasn’t just a bad translation!
Jim on April 23rd, 2009
Funny you should mention the reproductive organs of sea urchins (uni); check out my friend Lenore eating the real thing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ2kvGgpRL0