Tidbits from around the world

Here is a collection of international goodies I recently acquired on my trip to Sydney. On the left, is more of the naeng-myun which I recently discovered the wonders of. The guy at the korean supermarket I went to was extremely helpful. I guess I was walking around with a slightly dazed expression. He explained that this was what they referred to as the summer noodle as it was eaten after rinsing with cold water thus it was eaten cold. He told me that this particular brand was from a popular province in north korea. I am keen to find out if it is similar to the one I had before which I felt was extremely good. I followed the pictures at the back of the packet. (Thank God for pictures!) Below the naeng-myun is a chocolate pie. Or rather it was something like what we called choco-pies in Singapore. It had a layer of blueberry jam in the middle, has chocolate casing and is as light as air on the inside, yet a bit cakey rather than biscuity. It was quite yummy although a bit sweet and much lighter than the pies I used to have growing up.

In the middle is stuff bought from Ikea in Rhodes. It has a little grocery store area after you get out of the checkouts full of Swedish goodies. At the top is some crispbread, quite different to any other I've had because its actually in a half bun shape like someone cut a mini bread roll in half and toasted it to a crisp. It has some major crunch to it and is *really* wholemeal and has little grains in it too.
This is a photo of it closer up and I spread the 2 pastes I got from the cold section. I skipped the herring as I find it a bit too salty. The paste on the right is a smoked cod roe paste. I put it with the cucumber on the toastie and it tasted really smoky and creamy all at once. Like a rich caviar mousse. The paste on the left was labelled crab paste however, on closer look at the ingredients, one finds roe also high up amongst the list. There was some crab flavour but also if you look closely, three are green specks of dill. It was pleasant and less fishy tasting than the cod roe.

The green packet contains macaroni that is meant for soup. Yes macaroni soup is a common dish in Singapore and Hong Kong. its a comfort food mostly and warming and easy on the stomach if your not feeling the best. I found that this brand, Nissin, which makes excellent cup noodles and instant noodles also takes the cake in this instant macaroni.

The last lil packet was an old fave of mine. We bought huge bags of these back from the US and I usually get some in Singapore to tide me over snack attacks. However! Target Aust has just started importing them. I really hope people like them and they stay!! Could this be a good beginning to the free trade agreement? Alot of people feel that Aust has more to lose out if US stock flood the market. I agree if it involves fresh stuff and the prices are lower than what the farmers here can afford to sell at. However, I am all for new products on the shelves. The supermarkets here have a whole aisle of breakfast cereal, BUT! there are about 5 different brands of cocoa pop type creal, 5 different brands of rice bubbles, 3 different brands of wheat-bix etc. Either the companies are too lazy to come up with something innovative or they are too scared to try making new products. Either way, I hope that we get to see lots of different ingredients and spices and sauces.

Anyway, this was meant to be a short post! Hope I can see what people think on the comments.