Snack Chat: A Fried Chicken Snack

Everyone who eats chicken has a soft spot for good fried chicken. I am definitely a huge fan, so it didn’t take much convincing to add these corn snacks to my cart. The sticker on the back of the packet has translated the Chinese branding to ‘Corn Soup Snack – Chicken Flavour’. I don’t actually know if that’s accurate, my Chinese is very shabby! But Snack Affair, where I bought them from, calls it ‘Crispy Cereal Chicken Crackers’.

Top points for the fun and loud packaging. Nothing says, “eat me, I’m yum” like a photo of fried chicken covered in a crunchy coating. I was imagining a bag of golden gnarly chunks of battered puffed corn. I was craving clusters of textures and flavour so addictive you want to eat it with steamed rice.

What was inside this packet completely threw me off.

These square-shaped pillows of crunchy puffed corn look more like chicken nuggets than fried chicken. Each piece was coated with seasoning dust and black pepper speckles. It tasted sweet and savoury, a bit like teriyaki sauce, and was perfumed by the floral heat of black pepper. Like any good savoury packet snack, the seasoning powder sticks to your fingers, tempting you to lick them – just like any good fried chicken.

The texture is phenomenal: Crunchy, airy and gone too soon. Each piece is a good 3 cm puff, so the snack to air ratio per packet seems reasonable. Each crunchy puff takes like 2 seconds to eat. I had a snack attack in the afternoon so ate like 10 of these in minutes.

Would I get this again? Look, probably not if there were other snacks around. It’s enjoyable, fun and I’m really glad I got to try it. While it’s tasty, it’s a little unmemorable. Good for when you need to sate a snack attack but not what you would go for when your blood sugar hasn’t dipped.

Extra info: I bought this snack online from Snack Affair for AU$3.99. Banana print wrapping paper used in the header image is from WRAP magazine, designed by Ruby Taylor.