Woodbridge Snacks – Sticky Rice Chips Garlic and Pepper
Rice crackers, and rice snacks in general are nothing new to me, growing up more Asian than Canadian. Despite it being nothing new to me, I love to try anything snack related if it has rice in it. Well, almost anything. Rice pudding just isn’t my thing. Gross.
Everything else was fair game, and despite all the warnings about how bad rice is and how it makes your blood sugar spike, I can’t justify dropping it. It’s too ingrained in my culture and upbringing to just put it aside. It certainly doesn’t help that I’m always finding new, interesting snacks that are rice based. I happened upon these purely by chance. I’m assuming this is a fairly new brand, since I’ve never heard of them until very recently (aka before checkout). I’ve always been a fan of rice cakes in any form, so I figure this snack is a safe choice.
As far as how sticky rice chips compare to typical rice chips or rice cakes, they tend to be fluffier like the actual thing. Whereas sticky rice tends to be softer and wetter at times than normal rice, the fried up “chip” version isn’t as dense in texture and tends to have more airiness to them. The best way I can describe the texture of these to someone who hasn’t had rice crackers is that these are like eating rice crispy squares without the marshmallow, and these are savoury as opposed to sweet. While I prefer a firmer, or tougher texture because I like the substantial feel to my snacks, these have a unique enough texture that I could see myself enjoying other flavours as long as it has a similar texture to these.
The flavour is where I get a little torn on these. The texture is great for snacking, but this particular flavour is a bit off putting. Some people may enjoy strong black pepper, but to me the black pepper is a tad too strong and heavy handed here; so much so that it basically leaves a hot burning sensation behind, rather than a nice tickle. The flavour is so strong that it overpowers any potential garlic, and any potential flavour from the rice itself, though if I try hard enough I can taste a bit of toasted rice flavour. This is rather unfortunate for me, because I’ve come to associate strong black pepper flavours to things that use pepper to mask not so fresh food, in particular meats. If you are a gourmand for black pepper though, this might be just what you’re looking for.
I’m kind of on the fence with these. Based on texture alone, I would get these again. The flavour though, is overpowering. I don’t know if I had a bad batch, but the black pepper was just too much for me. If you like really strong, powerful ground pepper, these are a viable choice. As it is though, I can’t really recommend this particular flavour. I do want to try out their other flavours to see if they are all so strong, but I have to take a hard pass to this specific flavour.
