Tag Archives: Universal Yums

Ukrainian Yum

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Ukraine

The March box of goodies hailed from the country of Ukraine and looked promising right off the bat with the amount of chocolate I could see. Before I get on to the snacks let me say that the little booklet that comes with this as well as the intro card are educational and interesting so if you have kids at home these boxes are educational as well as mostly delicious.

Now on to the goodies. The one I liked the best was a pack of little chocolate squares that had a caramel and cinnamon filling in the center.

I was kind of skeptical at first but the bitterness of the dark chocolate paired with the sweet caramel was a given winner and the hint of cinnamon was a very nice add in. The number two snack was also a chocolate based snack.

I had not read the description in the booklet and took this at face value expecting nothing more than a milk chocolate bar. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to have a creme brule center. That was the kind of unexpected good fortune that cements a high rating in the snack competition. Another surprise, without the same result, garnered the middle of this trio the weirdest snack title.

If you look closely you can see a dark spot in the center. The outside of this was like a cross between a jellied candy and a gummy worm and in the center was a viscous liquid artificially flavored core. There were a mix of flavors and none were bad per se but just an odd combination of textures and flavors. No the only bad snack was the hands down winner of the worst snack moniker.

I had mixed feelings going into this trial. When I saw the flavor was meat jelly I recalled the Russian snack that was meat jelly flavored and how unappealing that was. On the other hand I was hoping the novelty of the potato planks and horseradish might redeem it. My hope was for naught. These smelled disgusting as soon as the package was opened and the flavor was every bit as noxious as the Russian snack had been. It left a foul aftertaste and gave me heartburn even though I only powered through a couple of the chips.

There was another box of chips with dill and sour cream flavor and they at least redeemed the company’s name and let me enjoy the unique chip. I have to say I was digging the packaging and long slender potato crisps. They were kind of like Pringles in texture but a touch thinner. Very little wasted space unlike our 1/3 filled bags of chips.

Other snacks in the box included french fry shaped snacks made from corn with potato flakes added. Two varieties were included, one onion and one veal and adjka flavored. There was a pack of really nice caramels with a great dairy taste. For breakfast one morning I had the ham and mustard corn puffs. Aside from the little candies there was a big bar of dark chocolate with bits of dried fruit stuck to the outside.

Overall the box was a winner in spite of the meat jelly assault. I can’t wait to see what’s in the April box from Israel.

Thailand Yum

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Siamese Snacks

The September Yum snack box was Thailand themed and continued the streak of fun boxes loaded with interesting and unusual snacks.

 

I’ll continue highlighting my favorite and number two as well as the worst and most unusual but I’m also going to mention a couple of the others that just need to be touched on because they were both weird and weirdly good.

So the favorite was the first one I tried from the box.

Coconut Snack Bites sounded like a can’t go wrong and that big package looked like it was going to be a two session snacking event.  Alas it was a case of excess packaging but the contents were delicious.  They were little round golden brown crispy treats with a nice toasted coconut flavor. Real shredded coconut that was not too sweet so you got the natural coconut taste.  The package says crispy and yummy and I concur.

My number two was the Coconut Cream-O Choco Plus.

This was a five pack of two cookie sleeves so they were easy to parcel out and enjoy several times.  The cookies had chocolate and coconut flavored caramel. The cookie part tasted like a regular butter cookie that had a well in the center lined with a very thin layer of caramel with coconut flavoring at the bottom and topped with chocolate. The chocolate was soft, the caramel was a bit chewy and the cookie was crumbly. All working in harmony to provide an enjoyable snack.

The worst snack was the only snack I haven’t finished from any box to date.

Big Roll Grilled Seaweed roll Tom Yum Goong flavor.  This was the second snack I tried from the box and thank goodness it was not indicative of the rest of the box.  I’m not a seaweed hater but the mascot looks like Eric Cartman so maybe that should have been a hint.  Man was this not good.  It was a thin, fragile seaweed roll that was flaky and on first taste had a strong salty sea / fishy taste and then I forgot about that as the hot and sour flavor came to the fore.  The hot and sour wasn’t bad but trying to get by that fishy salty nastiness wasn’t worth it with a box of other choices.  One of which was the most unusual.

Sticky rice with coconut cream and mango.  Living up to the name it was very moist and sticky.  Unusual but quite tasty.  At first the coconut and mango were both mild flavors but definitely present.  Then as I got into it there turned out to be a very ripe piece of mango in the center of the sticky rice.  The look, feel and texture could easily be off-putting but it was a tasty little snack once you got past all that.

Two others I liked that were just odd enough I wanted to share them as well.

The Juzi-C gummy strip was a spicy pineapple fruit roll up type of snack.  The strip itself was thin, flat and coated with a light dusting of sugar crystals.  A bite of the stretchy treat got you a sweet pineapple taste that resolved into an eye opening spicy sweet treat.  It wasn’t too hot when balanced by the sugar but it was definitely not something you have every day.

The other was a savory snack.  Jack ‘n Jill sausage and sweet chili potato rings.  This snack was on my radar to be in the weird column because it had a hot dog on the package and it was unusual. They were wee little crunchy rings.  After I opened the package the first thing to hit me was the smell.  They smelled like hot dogs so the package was no lie and as I was eating them the immediate impression was the same but a microsecond after they hit your tongue the sweet chili flavor takes over. Not bad but staying in the weird column.

I signed up for a 6 month subscription and this was box 5 and unless box number 6 totally tanks I’m definitely going to let the auto renew go through.  If you’re interested in securing a box or more for yourself use the link below and you’ll get $5 off and so will I on my future purchases.

Universal Yums referral link