You Won’t Believe These Strange and Wonderful Chinese Snacks Exist

I’ve spent quite a bit of time living in China and I’m always amazed at the new and exciting snacks I find. Here’s some of the cool stuff I’ve found

Potato Chips

Potato chips are popular in China. I tend to stick to the Lays brand, not least because I used to work for the company that designed and built one of their websites.

Strangely, for such a big company the Lays brand isn’t actually used in my native UK. But we do of course have plenty of other potato chip suppliers.

I have to say that my favourite Lays flavour in China is this one – Italian Red Meat. I guess the name is easier for Chinese people to understand than “bolognese”.

Anyway, even though these are aimed at the Asian palate I have to say they’re pretty tasty. I’ll give these 5 out of 5.

Next up is, er, a less conventional flavour for a potato chip – yogurt:

I was really excited about finding these. I even prepared a special curry to eat with them.

Unfortunately this was my verdict on them:

These were just so desparately disappointing. Yes they kind of tasted like yogurt, but it was not a good taste at all.

I’ll award these 2 out of 5.

Next up is something really special. I’m not sure if these are available all year round or they’re timed for the Spring Hanami (Cherry Blossom) time. Anyway, here’s Cherry Blossom flavoured potato chips:

Actually these weren’t bad. I’m a big fan of Chinese flower teas (Chrysanthemum and Osmanthus) so these had quite a nice flavour. Maybe they were a little too sweet though.

So Cherry Blossom Crisps get 3/5 from me.

Here’s another good find. These are very easy to find in China and they’re not seasonal or just a special edition. They’re called numb and spicy flavour. In other words they’re kind of like Sichuan Hot Pot. I guess the flavour comes from Sichuan Peppercorns, which have a kind of numbing effect, allowing you to eat more chillies.

I’m glad to see these are ruffled, I am starting to really get into crinkle-cut potato chips.

Have you ever eaten Sichuan hot pot? I do kind of like it, but it really depends on what you decide to cook in the pot. In China most hotpot restaurants allow you to cook food at your own table. It’s often really cheap. In fact I once dined at one and the entire dinner for two cost less than the big bottle of beer that I ordered it with.

So what’s your favourite weird snack from China? Would you eat Cherry Blossom flavour potato chips? Leave your comments below.