Supermarket Sweep Episode 1

I'd like to introduce my maybe, just maybe, 10 loyal readers to a new feature here on The Playground entitled Supermarket Sweep.

Every week I will tirelessly scour the corner stores, markets and of course 7-11s of Thailand to discover a food I find completely foreign and put my my taste buds as well as gastrointestinal health on the line trying it out.

For episode one of this blog love child experiment I have started off at the top with Taro Fish Snacks which have been, "Thailand's number one favourite fish snack for more than nineteen years." What a title. THE CHAMP IS HERE! More than 19, put not quite 20 years? Not trying to round up or pad the stats, I like the honesty already.

Seriously though it's nothing to laugh at the fish snack market is no fucking joke. Cuttlefish, squid, tuna, no animal of the deep blue is safe from being caught, reprocessed and churned out as a between meals snack for the Thai youth.

Let's get down to business.

The Product: Taro Fish Snack Bar-B-Q Flavoured

The Packaging: The Taro logo looks like something the Seattle Seahawks mascot would love to munch on. It has that whole Pacific Northwest vibe going that is catchy, but at the same time seems at bit out of place. I haven't seen a ton of Chinook tribesmen picking up a bag of these since I've been here.

Appearance: If the people who make Big League Chew ever go into making fish snacks I'd have to imagine it would look like this. Perfectly symmetrical, identical strips of "snack" with a bright yellow almost orange color, seems natural.

Smell: Hint of Tetrafin.

Taste: Not nearly as fisherman's wharf at low tide as I expected. Tastes almost exactly like Teriyaki beef jerky with a chewier, spongier consistency.

Overall: I wouldn't sit at home and nosh on a big bag of beef jerky by choice but in some situations it just fits. Road trips, in my mind, aren't official until a song has been sung in unison, someone has pissed in an empty 2 liter and some beef jerky has been consumed. So if I was stuck on the road for somewhere in the vicinity of 5 hours or more, I could see myself eating some BBQ fish snack, then immediately wanting to brush my teeth.