Koikeya Corn Sticks – Smoked Bacon & Cheese

I’m not personally all too familiar with the brand. If I’ve had their snacks in the past, I probably wasn’t aware of it. The extent of my brand awareness for this brand is that they do a line of snacks labelled STRONG, and apparently have intense flavour. How much of that is marketing jive or truth, I don’t know. What I do know is I love corn snacks, and I like bacon and cheese. What could possibly go wrong?

These smell of a smoky, almost sweet bacon, but not an overpowering bacon. Based on the aroma, it’s got a decently natural smelling bacon flavour to it. Not overly fake or artificial like those weird bacon flavours or bacon extracts have.

Just by looking at these, you’d be forgiven for mistaking them for the much more common Grill-A-Corn snack sticks by Calbee. They look to use the same frying process to give them then distinct, almost rock formation like shape that is also commonly seen in Cheetos.

Texture is very similar, and if you’ve had Cheetos before, these are near identical in texture. They’re crunchy, but not hard – it’s like a cheese puff but with a crunchy exterior. If you like the texture crunchy Cheetos at all, you’ll like these. There really isn’t much else to say about the texture. Flavour is where I feel this snack sets itself apart.

The bacon flavour to these chips is present, but not overpowering. It actually balances well with the cheese flavour to give a nice smoky profile that doesn’t overpower the cheese. Speaking of cheese, I think the choice to go with the cheese powder was a smart one. If you’ve ever had Korean fried chicken, there’s a good chance you’ve tried their cheese powder flavours. This tastes just like that – the cheese powder is not quite the same as the ones more commonly used in the West, like the ones used in mac and cheese. Sometimes referred to as snow cheese, it’s usually a combination of cheese and other ingredients like sugar or garlic powder. It ends up being a very flavourful concoction that is typically equal parts sweet with equal parts savoury, though the “recipe” usually varies widely. Ultimately it adds a nice flavour to items where you don’t want the texture or the moisture that would make the item soggy. If I were to guess I’d say this cheese powder has some sugar to it, which helps give a bit of sweetness to the smoked bacon flavour.

Usually when I have bacon flavoured anything, the bacon is the strongest, dominant flavour and has the habit of sticking around way longer than it should. I don’t get that with this, and the flavour doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. I have come to gain a greater appreciation for snacks that don’t have strong aftertaste, as it leaves me feeling more open to other foods without ruining the experience. While some foods can benefit from that, with a light snack like this, a strong aftertaste works against it, so it gets points for that.

These are pretty good. Depending on the price, I might get these again. I bring up price because these cost more than the Calbee version of the snack. Where I am, it was about 50% more for the same amount. While I do think these taste of a higher quality, they ultimately are just corn sticks, so I’m not sure I would be going for these necessarily, if I get a hankering for corn sticks. Koikeya does do some interesting flavour profiles though, so it will depend on what the flavours or to inform my purchasing decision.