Chewy Extinguisher Sour Citrus Candy

They all look like they're in various stages of anal distress

I'm always on the lookout for sour candies that'll make me happy.  Ever since the candy shop in the mall that I would go to and get my sour gummy goodness before catching a flick at the theatre closed, I have been a regular visitor to Sadsville.

Now, that's not to say I can't get my sour gummies elsewhere... but this place had such a wide variety of flavors, it was awesome.

And no... Sour Patch Kids DO NOT do it for me.  (They just don't taste right.)

So unable to depend solely on my sour gummies anymore, I have been on the lookout for other sour yummy candies.

What I'm looking for is not something that'll make my mouth pucker more than a cat's anus.  I'm merely looking for something that is sour in an "oh yeah... that's sour" kind of way while still being able to look at people without appearing as if a parade of Smurfs has just exited my keester.

You're welcome for the visual.

While at the new candy store near my house, the dude working there saw me walking around and asked if he could help me with anything.  So... I asked him what he had in the way of sour candies.

One of which he drew me to were the "extinguisher" candies.

I have seen these candies before, but something about them kept turning me away.  They didn't seem like they'd make me happy, but after years of saying no... upon the employees suggestion, I decided to give them a go.

Never again.

This tiny little box has a tray of colored candies inside that correspond with the lovely cover.  If the cover is to be believed, orange (tangerine) is the mildest at 'tangy' followed by yellow (lemon) as 'sour' with green (lime) being 'super sour'.  Now the premise of this candy is that you can eat whichever sour bad boy you choose, but if you need a breather, you can get 'sweet relief' by popping one of the (berry) blue ones.

I don't know if it was the sour powder or what, but they all had this aftertaste (maybe the blue ones not so much) just like how most energy drinks have a caffeine aftertaste.

Only this was worse.

I could taste what they were trying to pass off as 'sour', but it was more like off-candy flavor... and that lasted shorter than a finger snap.  While doing whatever would be classified as the opposite of enjoying this candy, I read the box which made me laugh.

Aside from the faces of the candy on the front of the box that, I suppose, is supposed to convey how sour they're flavor is, it asks the question, "How sour can you take it?"  My answer to that would be, "More than you can give apparently."

Then on the back there's a diagram starting with tangy tangerine with an arrow pointing to sour lemon with another arrow pointing to super sour lime then a final arrow to the final candy with the caption above it saying "Can you munch through all 3 sour levels without reaching for the Sweet Mixed Berry EXTINGUISHER?"

Yes, you crappy candy.  I can.

I'm not going to bother with serving sizes because it's a ridiculously tiny box, and I think y'all can safely assume this stuff isn't made with the healthiest of ingredients... but I will say (if for some reason you want to try this) the allergy warning are "contains wheat and soy".

Would I ever try this again?  No.  This was yet another candy claiming to be sour but just left me disappointed and grumbly.

American Licorice Company
Consumer Affairs Group
2796 NW Clearwater Drive
Bend, OR 97701
USA

www.extinguishercandy.com*
*the website is listed on the box though it doesn't seem to exist on the interwebs as of this post

Lychee Pocky

let's have some fun
this snack is sick
I wanna take a bite
of your Pocky stick

Okay, so make all the Asian jokes you want, but I love me some Pocky.  And I also love me some lychee.

And for those that have told me that they don't like lychee since it feels like they're eating eyeballs... you're weird.  Eyeballs are delicious!

Seriously though, here we go...

The candy store where I bought the bacon soda (which was a bad idea... DO NOT DRINK THAT!... unless you find a way to make a delicious alcoholic beverage, then please... let me know) was selling various types of Pocky.

What is Pocky?

Well, essentially it's a tiny breadstick covered in stuff rather it be chocolate or a yogurty fruit topping or nuts.

It's sweet and a little salty and makes me with they were the size of breadsticks from Olive Garden since they're just so damn yummy.

I bought them just before going out of town and visiting my family, and my brother and his wife are selective in what they let their daughter (my love four-year-old niece) eat.

The rule is basically: if you can't pronounce it or know what the frak it is, don't eat it.

So here are the ingredients:  wheat flour, sugar, palm oil, milk powder, lychee flakes, margarine, skim milk powder, cocoa powder, lychee flavoring.

And then there's the allergy advice of: contains wheat and milk.

So I asked my brother if I could share some with my niece (being respective of a kid's parents and all), and he said sure, but he wasn't sure she'd like it.  So while playing with puzzles, I offered her one, and she loved them.  She was so cute... asking me for mas Pocky.  (I loves her to pieces!)

The box was a whole whopping 37g and guess what?  That is also the serving size.  Woo hoo!!!  I can actually see an entire box of yogurt-covered pretzel sticks being a serving as opposed to a small bag of M&M's having 3 pieces be a serving.

In any case, Pocky is yumscious, and I've never been disappointed by any of their flavors.  I mean, it's a simple premise... like the chocolate-dipped soft serve cone. 

Now if they start going the way of Harry Potter Bernie Bott's Beans... *shrug*


Would I ever try this again?  Yup!  I liked it a lot.  It's a nice snack while watching a movie or reading or while writing.  (But aside from saying how tasty it is, I have to say when I looked them up online, their website made me giggle.  So check it out.  The music and outfits.  *grin*)

Imported by:
CTC FOOD INTERNATIONAL INC.
131 West Harris Ave. So.
San Francisco, CA 94080
USA

http://pocky.jp/

Nem Heo (from Lee's Sandwiches)

Yum yum food place!

Tonight I was at a a loss for dinner ideas so like I occasionally do, I texted several friends for suggestions.

One friend suggested Taco Bell which I'd only been to once since they added their breakfast menu.  Another friend suggested KFC.  Then as my tastebuds leaned toward a taco salad of some sort, a friend suggested a Vietnamese sandwich.  When I texted her back with a "Where am I supposed to get one of those?", she reminded me of a food place called Lee's Sandwiches.  I hadn't been there in a while so I started to think... Yeah... a sandwich would be good.

Thanks to my handy-dandy iPhone, I found the closest location and headed on over.  I got the BBQ sandwich on baguette (a #6, I think) which was yummy tasty as well as a pork meatball skewer from the hot case.  While waiting for my order (which included an iced coffee), I went over to the cold case to check some stuff out and found some pre-packaged items next to the cans and bottles of drinks.

The item up for discussion?: Nem Heo

Little pork rolls of joy!!!

They had ones that looked like the picture to the left or like little squares.  I chose the rolls since they were more aesthetically pleasing to me.

According to the tag/label, it said the ingredients were: pork skin, nam seasoning (sugar salt), garlic, pepper.

There were no "cooking instructions" so I've been eating them as is.

OMFG!!!  They are good!!!  But let me warn you right off the bat, they're a little spicy.  I'm assuming the big white bits in the picture I took are the garlic (yay garlic!) and of course the meat stuff is the pork (yay pork!), but when they say pepper, they mean peppercorns which make the rolls just a tad bit spicy... at least for me.  I prefer my peppercorns ground.

I popped the first roll in my mouth and was happy but then tasted the spice and lived (thanks for caring... now you can go along with your day).  The next roll, I took a bite and looked inside and saw some little seeds which leads me to think they're jalapeno seeds...or bell pepper seeds.  In either case, they might have just accidentally gotten into the batch of eight I bought so no harm, no foul.

Though whole peppercorns???  Whole?  Really?

But damn, the rolls are good.

When looking up "nem heo" on the internet, I came up with "nem" meaning "eggroll" and "heo" meaning "pork"?  At least that's the best I came up with.  One post online I found with something that looked similar to what I ate referred to it as "pickled pork" which I can taste so that sounds like an adequate description.

In all the stuff I found online, there wasn't a listing for just "nem heo" though there were listings for things with those two words in the name for the food which resembled what I ate so I'm assuming it's more of a general term like adobo in Filipino food that I've had.  (A friend of mine had sworn that if he was on Death Row, he wanted his final meal to be my mom's adobo, and I had to ask him - since I'm nice - which adobo he meant since there's chicken, beef, pork, squid...)

my friend: (making a face hearing my other adobo options) What's the kind your mom makes?
me: Chicken.
my friend: (hurriedly) Yeah.  Chicken.  That's the one I want.  Chicken.

It pays to be specific.  *grin*

And to comment on the rest of my meal, the BBQ pork sandwich was great and hit the spot as did the pork meatballs and the iced coffee was yummers!!!

Would I try it again? Yuppers!  They were quite tasty.  Now I'm wondering what else they have.  Also wondering where else I can find nem heo aside from Lee's.  

http://leesandwiches.com/2008/