Munchies Paradise, Chinese Style
In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, I’ve been exploring Asian snack food. I last wrote about the weird Japanese eats you can find at a variety of Asian convenience stores. Now it’s time for weird Chinese munchies.
For those who don’t know, Chinese candy is a relative term. There aren’t too many things that are actually sweet, and I myself prefer the sour things like preserved plums and whatnot. Ichiban, a Hong Kong- based store with a ton of locations throughout Chinatown, has a wide variety of dried plums, whole or sliced, and in varying degrees of salti- and sourness. They also have non-candy items like dried squid and roasted mini crabs. (Mmm, crunchy.)
The cool thing about Ichiban is that there are little sample dishes of everything and so you can try a ton of stuff without buying a thing. The uncool thing about the chain is that they’re so snooty. For some reason you can’t take pictures – “You don’t want any extra advertising?” I asked the poor girl who looked at me like, “Please, I just work here” – and I’ve experienced being ignored while white customers were fawned over.
While you’re in Chinatown, definitely hit the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory as well (not to be confused with the Nolita Ice Cream Factory, which sports the same logo and which indeed did confuse me when I returned downtown the next day and got me even more lost than I was).
There’s a wide variety of flavors, “regular” and “exotic” (funny how black sesame, lychee, and ginger are considered regular while banana, chocolate, and coffee are considered exotic). I’ve had the lychee sorbet which is delish and next time definitely want to sample the wasabi.
If you go be prepared for a crowd though, especially on a hot weekend day. But a line out the door can only mean they must be good.
I was just there yesterday, actually. Did you see the tiny roasted crabs they have? I once bought a bag of them from my local Japanese convenience store and ate the entire thing in two go’s b/c I couldn’t believe I was eating MINATURE ROASTED CRABS. And then I had a migraine headache. In addition to being small and creepy, those crabs were also ripe w/ MSG. Eek!
Oh wait, I’m a moron – in addition to double posting, I also just read that you did indeed see them?
I think they ignore Asian customers b/c they’re all like “that Chinese girl, she should know the difference between our 30 varieties of crispy salty dried plums already.” Like hell I do!
catherine: haha, no problem. i deleted your double post.
i did indeed see the mini roasted crabs but didn’t try them. i’m not surprised they’re packed with msg – probably all the good, salty, crunchy stuff is. sorry you got a headache from them!
as for me, my teeth are totally sensitive now from all the preserved plum slices i’ve been chowing on.