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Prik Pao Cheese Chips
Hope you had a good Christmas Break! Since it was Christmas Break, I haven’t made a chip post in a while so I am fixing that today. Today isn’t my first day trying these. The first time I saw these was when we were eating dinner at ZOE with the short-term team that was there last November. They had a table full of Thai treats and our friend Ben pointed these out as his favorite. My dad was impressed with these and got them again. Today, I tried them again in order to write a critique for you. And here we are.
Jeremiah and Tallulah really like these. In fact, as I write this, Jeremiah is waiting for me to give him the rest of the bag. Now, for the flavor: Prik Pao, for those of you who don’t know, is a spicy-sweet relish or paste type sauce that is made with charred chilis, shallots, and garlic mixed with dried shrimp, fish sauce, tamarind paste, palm sugar, and–in keeping with Thai tradition–lots of oil then cooked in more oil. If you don’t know what cheese is: your loss. With these chips, it is very hard to pinpoint an exact flavor, but you can get both the Prik Pao and the Cheese at the same time. The cheese tastes like swiss (which is what the picture shows) and the Prik Pao tastes like every ingredient I have listed. I love the spiciness of the Prik along with the garlic and shallot flavor. I can even get some of the dried shrimp. These chips would be one of my favorites if it weren’t for the cheese flavor which I feel shouldn’t be there. Without the cheese, these chips would for sure be on the podium for favorite Thai chips.
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Double Whammy
It has been quite a while since I last made a post, and these chips were in our cupboard forever waiting for me to try them, so I thought I would make a double-post today.
Stir Fried Shrimp with Chili and Garlic Flavor
As soon as you open a bag of these Stir-Fried Shrimp and Chili and Garlic Chips, you are blasted with an unappetizing aroma. Selah knew what they smelled like right away. She said, and I quote, “Ew! Those smell like fish food!” She is one hundred percent correct. They smell horrible, but the taste actually isn’t that bad. These are the spiciest chips I have eaten so far, but not too painful to not eat them. Not even close. I immediately get a lot of strong shrimp flavor and a decent amount Thai chili, but I barely taste any garlic.
So not the worst and not the best. 7/10
Boat Noodles Chips (ก๋วยเตียว)
I didn’t know what “boat noodles” were until I read ก๋วยเตียว. The Thai characters are saying Guay Tiaw, which is a clear soup with the pork, chicken, or beef bones, and is seasoned with salt and pepper, garlic, cilantro, and some sugar. The picture on the chip bag makes Guay Tiaw look disgusting because it shows the kind of Guay Tiaw with blood broth. I haven’t tried that kind, and I am not sure I ever will. I have only had ก๋วยเตียว with clear broth and duck meat. Duck meat seems pretty popular in Asia, I saw it a lot in China as a meal option and I see it a lot here in Thailand, too.
I haven’t eaten Guay Tiaw in a while so I didn’t know what to expect when I tried the chip version. They smell like all the other weird flavors of chips. Gross. They aren’t as gross as they smell, but they don’t taste very good either. There is a little spice from the pepper and a brothy taste.
Not the best. Not the worst. We still have seaweed chips keeping the last slot. 6/10
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The Snack Shack
Our kitchen has the coolest window. It slides open and it slides shut. On one side of the window, it is the kitchen and on the other side, it is the dining room. I came up with the coolest idea: what if I served snacks from the kitchen to people in the dining room?
From there, it became “The Snack Shack.” First my sister, Selah, bought a cash register. Then my dad put shelves in so that we could pass things out from there. Now I sell candy, and Oreos, and Beng Bengs (which are candy bars that are like rice krispies with chocolate on them). And now I am partnered in association with a business called “Keim Café.” Selah can tell you about that.
For a couple of days, during math time for school, mom and I figured out how much everything should cost. We took the total price for a box, counted how many things were in the box, and then divided up the price. In my head I could estimate how much each thing cost. We have 5 baht treats and 10 baht treats. That way people could pay for it with the money we get each week for snacks.
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Nori Seaweed Chips (YUCK!)
I hate seaweed. I always have. It tastes like salt, ocean mud, fish pee, and grass. Oh wait! That’s what seaweed is! These chips tasted exactly like seaweed but saltier and they had more crunch. They were so gross. We couldn’t even finish the bag we just threw it away half full. These chips are everywhere and they seem to be a good seller. I cannot get my head around that. I can’t find anything in seaweed chips that strikes me as “Yum!” Do seaweed chips sound good to you? And if so, why!!!?
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Road Trip Chips
Try saying that 5 times fast.
If you walk into any 7Eleven in Thailand there will probably be a whole row of potato chips. And there will probably be at least 25 different flavors that you would never find in America. But not all of them taste like Thai food. We found these two flavors at an 7Eleven on our trip to Myanmar (or how the Thai say it, PaMaa, or, พม่า,) and we had to try them. First we tried the double cheeseburger. No one in my family liked them. They tasted like over-peppered American cheese with a tiny bit of a pickle taste.
The Carbonara Parmesan weren’t bad but we don’t need to get them again. They taste like Carbonara (creamy spaghetti) with a ton of salt, a little lemon, and much more parmesan than I like.
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Hot Chili Squid Potato Chips
My name is Josiah Keim and I am going to do my best explaining the complex and exotic flavors in Thai Food. Everything from Pad Thai to potato chips.
Speaking of, I tried the craziest flavor of potato chips today: Hot Chili Squid. They might sound gross but I kinda like them. So does my sister Tallulah. But she likes any flavor of potato chip. I tried tricking my siblings into eating them by saying they were Mae Ploy and Potato flavored. Surprisingly, when I tried them I felt like that is actually what I think they taste like. If you don’t know, (which is normal for most Americans), Mae Ploy is a Thai sweet chili sauce. You can buy it in the states and it is amazing with sticky rice and chicken. It isn’t too spicy and the flavor is delicious. My dad even put it on pizzas at our pub before we moved. The chips taste a lot like a raw potato that someone dipped in Mae Ploy, but there is also a salty seaweed taste at the back of my tongue.
Like I said, I like them, my sister Tallulah likes them, my dad hasn’t tried them yet but I bet he likes them. The rest of my family thinks they are disgusting but that is because they expected them to be gross. If you get rid of your expectations you may really like them.
