The Netherlands - Lay's Chips Unique Flavors

I don't know if I don't eat enough chips or these flavors are new to me: Bolognese Originale, Cheese Onion, and Paprika.

Sometimes in the Netherlands you will also encounter special edition flavors like Whiskey Cocktail flavor from recipe submission competition or something like that, but these three flavors are always available.

There was a sale for these chips in C1000 (0.99 euro for each bag), which is much cheaper from getting the small bag from the vending machine at school.

I tried all of these, and perhaps my favorite Lay's is still Sour Cream & Onion. But if I rank these three, it would be Cheese & Onion, Bolognese Originale and Paprika from the most liked to the least liked.

The flavor of Bolognese Originale was a little hard to figure out. I imagined it was sort of like spaghetti bolognese flavor: beefy, cooked tomato flavor with parmesan cheese. It's hard to detect these three flavors in the chips, and the distribution of flavor was not really good. In some chips I tasted so much cheesy flavor, and on other chips more like barbecue flavor. It's a good flavor on the overall, but the flavor was a little confusing to me.

The Cheese Onion, on the other hand, is easier to perceive. You definitely can tell it's cheese and onion (and perhaps some other flavors but they're mainly cheese and onion). It's a good flavor, and I think the reason why I said I like Cheese Onion better than Bolognese Originale was because I can "understand" the flavor better. Over time, I might like Bolognese Originale better.

And then Paprika. Basically, it tasted like barbecue flavor with less sweetness and less brown color, and more bitterness from paprika powder / capsaicin. If I eat only a little bit, it tastes good, but the more I eat it, the easier it is for me to detect the bitterness. So yes, it's my least favorite.

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The Netherlands - All You Can Eat Sushi @ SUMO

Finding good sushi in a small town like Wageningen is proven to be difficult. One day I went to Rotterdam for a sight-seeing trip and found this well-rumored restaurant called SUMO. From what I found, SUMO is a large all-you-can-eat sushi chain in the Netherlands. 

The all-you-can-eat system here is different from what I'm used to in Singapore and Indonesia, where you just order whatever you like or grab the plates from the rotating conveyor belt, with no time limits, and refillable hot tea. Here in the Netherlands, most all-you-can-eat restaurants do it by rounds.

In this restaurant, you are given 6 rounds per person, and on each round you can order 5 dishes on the menu. Lunches are normally cheaper by about 5 euro because some menu are not available (and they're normally the ones you really want to eat). So in total you will have 30 plates per person.

The first time we came to SUMO, there were six of us. For each round we had to order 5 x 6 = 30 plates, and our table was constantly full. In total, if we went full course for 6 rounds, there would be 6 x 30 = 180 plates, but no one was insane enough to survive round 6. We gave up at round 4, so in total there were 120 plates on our table. For 18.50 euros, it's really worth the money because seafood is very expensive in the Netherlands and a plate of sashimi costs you 12.50 euros. with an extra 6 euros, you can beat yourself to death with sushi.

Of course, the limitation was the drinks. We ordered a pot of green tea each, and by round 2 there was no more tea. And it's not refillable. To top it up, the pot was actually super small. If you measure the volume capacity of the pot, it's actually equivalent to a small mug. The cheapest drink you can get is 2.50, so... yeah, drinks can cost you a lot in this restaurant. But otherwise they will earn no profit and you cannot eat anymore good sushi around :(

They serve "basic" sushi like nigirizushi, makizushi (rolled) and temaki (cone shaped). 

I must say that the quality of the fish was excellent. It was very fresh (no sign of defrosting, like the one I had in Ede), and they didn't just give you tiny cuts of fish. The fish completely covered the rice portion of the sushi (and even way beyond the rice) in case of nigirizushi. 

The sushi rolls were pretty good, although I saw very little difference between crunchy tuna and cream cheese tuna aside from the avocado in crunchy tuna replaced by cream cheese, and the addition of white sesame seeds coating the surface of cream cheese tuna. And spicy tuna rolls were basically crunchy tuna without the crunchy fried tempura batter, basted in chili powder.

They also serve warm food like usuyaki beef (beef roll with asparagus inside), yakitori, beef teriyaki and gyoza.

I don't really recommend the salads because most of them contain meats anyways, and the only fresh-looking salad available, sunomono, is unbelievably sour. It's like drinking vinegar straight from the bottle. 

BUT it tasted good after eating deep fried, oily foods. It helps you to eat more, so it's worth getting after the second round :)

You can see the menu here, or download it straight from the website for more info.

It's worth the money. Really :D

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Instant Noodle around the World 12 - Pork Bone Soup

This is the non-spicy version of Instant Noodle around the World part 11. At first I was hesitant to eat this because of maldigestion problem I suffered after eating the spicy version of this noodle of the same brand. Wasting food is a big taboo for me, so I decided to give it a go.

Instead of chili in oil, there was a pack of dehydrated veggies (cabbage, carrots and scallion). Well, this looked healthier than the spicy version.

Almost everything else from the ingredients list are similar, but no chili oil and chili powder in the seasonings.

Again, there was no nutrition label visible on the packaging and I'm pretty surprised this product went through the EU. As far as I know, food law in EU is known to be very strict compared to the already-strict FDA in the United States.

Well, time to dig in...

It did not taste really great. The pork bone flavor was more noticeable in this version than in the spicy version, although I felt that it lacked something. The dehydrated vegetables rehydrated pretty well - they didn't feel rubbery or exceptionally hard (like the ones you find in Indomie Special Mie Keriting). The noodle was chewy despite being thin and I like chewy noodles.

Although this one is supposed to have less oil, you can clearly see big oil droplets floating on the soup. In the end I didn't finish the soup because I felt traumatized from the spicy version.

Will I buy it again? Probably not. It's not very outstanding. There are still more instant noodles to try out there!

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The Netherlands - Soy Yogurt

Call me crazy but I love spending more time at groceries than at clothes shops, like most normal girls do. Part of it is because I love food and I love trying new things, and the other part is because I enjoy seeing what I learnt in class comes to life. It's a great feeling, I feel that I am not wasting my time.

Anyways, 2 days ago I went to Albert Heijn supermarket to grab some food and my friend recommended me this soy yogurt.

I wasn't too interested in soy yogurt, but I was kind of curious of the texture and the flavor. My friend said that this yogurt gives you a great aftertaste, so all the more the reason I should try it.

From nutrient label perspective, this yogurt sounds awesome. 50 kcal per 100 g (1/5 of the whole product), low sugar, low fat, no cholesterol, and 120 mg calcium? Looks pretty awesome to me!

When I opened it, the yogurt kind of curdled a little bit. You have to stir it a little bit to make it smooth, but it's not a big problem for me.

The thickness and creaminess of the soy yogurt resembled normal-fat cow milk yogurt, which is great. I think it's not as sour as a normal yogurt, too, so you don't really need a lot of sugar if you can't handle sourness. It has a really strong soy aftertaste, and as a soy milk lover, I really love this yogurt. It gives you a clean finish as well.

Maybe if they enhance this with prebiotic/probiotic or fiber, this product would be even more attractive.

Verdict: I will buy this again :)

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Instant Noodle around the World 11 - Spicy Pork Bone

I'm back with more instant noodles from China. It's unfortunate that I can't read any of the characters but the flavor: Spicy Pork Bone.

I wish they have some pinyi attached to the packaging. This way I can only say to people "I bought a Chinese-brand instant noodle. Anyone who can read it, please let me know what the brand is called :)

The portion was kind of big. The noodle's thickness was average, perhaps slightly thinner than average. The seasonings were well packed. The red packet contains non-dehydrated chili in oil, vacuum packed in aluminum. It's quite a high quality packaging. There was the oil-based seasoning (at current temperature in the Netherlands I'd say it's fat-based rather than oil-based) and about 25-35% of what's inside the package was fats. And then lastly there was powder seasoning. Of all three, the powder seasoning had the lowest grade of packaging material.

Verdict? Spicy. Really spicy. I think this is spicier than Shin Ramyun. It's a little sour, but not to the point I'd call this hot and sour soup. The noodle was surprisingly chewy despite the rather thin appearance.

You can't really tell from this picture, but once I started stirring the chili and oil into the noodle, the soup became pretty thick (pickering emulsion - too much fat droplets makes the soup thick - learnt that in class last period). I can taste the pork bone flavor, which is great. I think overall this instant noodle had great flavor - if it could be a little less oily. A lot of spicy Chinese food relies on chili oil if not the chili pepper itself (all Sichuan foods are oily, as far as I know). I guess that makes Chinese spicy flavor delivery its uniqueness.

And oh, there was no cooking instruction on the package. Either that, or the annoying translated label covered it.

Reading this makes me think more about the use of palm oil in instant noodles. Palm oil production has been considered not nature-friendly because making oil palm plantation costs massive area of forest and its habitats. Palm oil has also about 50% saturated fats, which is one of the risk factors of cardiovascular disease (just learned that in class!). 

And actually there was another story to tell about this. I'm not 100% sure that this instant noodle was the real culprit, but later on the same day I had this instant noodle for lunch, I suffered from serious fat maldigestion. I don't really want to talk about the symptoms because it's pretty... disgusting. If you are interested to know, just Google it, or you can read it here. It's pretty ironic because the morning before I had this instant noodle I just learned everything about fat maldigestion in class. And 5 hours later, I had a first-hand experience suffering fat maldigestion.

I hoped to see a nutrition content label on the packaging but I couldn't find it. But I really think the amount of fats in this instant noodle was pretty absurd.

Will I buy it again? No, thanks. I don't want to risk myself suffering another fat maldigestion. It was a horrible 2-day experience.

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Instant Noodle around the World 10 - Chinese Pickled Cabbage & Fish Sweet Potato Noodle

We went to The Hague about two weeks ago to get our Irish visa ready for January. On the way back, we found China Town and I asked them if I could stop by the Chinese groceries store. The shops in Wageningen, the town where I am right now, are small and they don't have a wide variety of goods. I got nice stuffs like kimchi and bean curds. Then I saw my Chinese friend hugging a lot of this instant noodle:

My friend said this instant noodle is very, very, very delicious. All the more the reason to try it :D

Although maybe people who are not adventurous enough might find the name of the flavor to be rather exotic.

Since I bought this in the Netherlands, they replaced the ingredients list in Dutch with a sticker. 

I do understand a little bit of Dutch, but not too much. I had to peel it off to see what's in there. It's quite annoying to do this every single time I buy exported goods in the Netherlands.

The first thing I notice was, naturally, the letters in capital. Ooh yeah, all sort of flavor enhancer, the family of monosodium glutamate (MSG). No wonder it's delicious. But hey it's not a reason not to try. After all, I don't eat instant noodle every day. I'll just have to drink a lot of water afterwards! Then it will (hopefully) be flushed out of the system.

Inside the packaging are the sweet potato noodles, powder seasoning, wet seasoning and pickled cabbage in the green package. 

I'm not entire sure what's in the wet seasoning but it is a little spicy. It's delicious.

The sweet potato noodle look like thin rice / mung bean vermicelli. Sweet potato instant noodles are quite rare; most instant noodles I see in the market are made of wheat. The only other sweet potato instant noodle I had seen (and tried) was Korean, and it's served cold.

I'd like to say that the packaging for the powder seasoning was really poor. Do you see that chunk of white/brownish flake below?

Yup, the powder seasoning had undergone caking (absorbs water and becomes one giant chunk of solid instead of a powder). But it doesn't really matter since this kind of seasoning readily dissolved in hot water even at this state.

The cooking method was also different: pour boiling water into the bowl with everything inside, leave it for 5-6 minutes. I was getting impatient because usually instant noodles take only 3 minutes to cook. It's worth the wait, I say.

The soup looks dark and the overal appearance just didn't look quite appetizing, but once you put it in your mouth... ooh la la! YUMMY!!

The only biggest concern here is the amount of saturated fat and sodium. They are really high. That's why don't eat this every day. Have it as an occasional treat comfort food ;)

I will buy it again if I find it, but I will not buy in large quantity just because there are still a lot of instant noodles around the world to discover!

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The Netherlands - Kibbeling (fried fish) in Open Market

The open market every Saturday is one of the highlights of my life in the Netherlands. When I was in the US, there is also something similar called the farmers market. However, even though they offer fresh produce, most of the vegetables and fruits are more expensive than those sold in huge groceries stores like Walmart. Plus, they close really fast, around noon. By then, most of the good stuffs will be gone.

In the Netherlands, the open market is normally huge. I heard the biggest open market can be found in Rotterdam, and I'm proud to say that I've been there. It was truly large, and they have wide selection of produce and goods like cheap clothes, accessories and house wares.

Every time I passed the market, I always see these fried fish called kibbeling being sold in stalls that sell fresh fish and seafood. At first I thought these fried fish would be soggy and oily because it has been left in open air for quite some time and it's always chilly outside. My mind associates it with french fries that have been stored in an air-conditioned room for an hour.

But being adventurous, I can't help but to try it. I bought these for 3.50 euro. And of course, all fried foods in the Netherlands has to be eaten with mayonnaise. After all, they call mayonnaise frittesaus (the sauce for fried foods).

The kibbeling turned out to be very fresh and crispy. The fish meat was juicy and delicious. It really went well with the mayonnaise. It's SUPER GOOD.

How many calories? Bah, I don't care. It's too delicious to miss!

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