The Late Night Elevator Races

 

The very qualities I dislike about Bob Costas - the over-earnestness, the over-dramatizing - are the very qualities that make him great in these events; they're perfect for parody.

Korean Snack Reviews #6

We're nearing the end. There are 8 Korean Snacks to go and then the Korean section is entirely complete. I'm going to keep things brief to get all 8 in and be done with it forever.

1)

Name: Choco-Pie

Additional Text: With Marshmallow Filling

Review:

You may be thinking, "How is this a Korean snack if the label is written in English?" According to wikipedia:

In 1973, a member of the R&D team of the Korean firm Tongyang Confectionery visited a hotel in Georgia, US, and was inspired by the chocolate-coated sweets available in the hotel's restaurant. He returned to South Korea and began experimenting with a chocolate biscuit cake, creating the “choco pie” as it is known to Koreans. 

So if you've ever had a Moon Pie, you know what this is. I don't know if they have Tastykakes where you are but to me this tastes exactly... ALMOST EXACTLY... like a marshmallow Tastykake. The only difference is the cream doesn't hit as hard. Pretty good. 

2) 

Name: Couque D'Asse

Additional Text: White Torte

Review:

Whatever you do, don't try to pronounce that name. You may be thinking, "How is this a Korean snack if the label is written in French?" Well, wikipedia left me hanging on this one.

This is too small but tastes great. It's a simple vanilla cookie bar with a chocolate strip. It's all a little too light except there is a creamy vanilla flavor in there that I really enjoy. High marks.

3)

Name: Couque D'Asse

Additional Text: Vienna coffee

Review:

You may be thinking, "How is this a Korean..."...ok, I'll stop now. I can't go anywhere near anything with "coffee" labeling so here are some people from the internet to do my job for me:

4)

Name: K-BBQ

Additional Text: Crispy Sea Snack Korean BBQ Flavor

Review:

I'm of two minds. The Korean BBQ flavor part sounds great, I'm excited. The "crispy sea snack" part fills me with dread. Which will win out? I think we get a major clue when we look upon them:

And, as you might expect, the "sea snack" tastes like fish food. It's the classic "walking into the fish section of the pet store" taste. It's horrendous. No offense to anyone but it's one of the worst tastes there could be. No. No. No. No.

5)

Name: Buldak Hot Chicken Flavor Ramen

Additional Text: Cheese

Review:

This feels like the climax to the Korean food eating. This ramen package is one of the largest items in the collection and its yellow packaging means that I've been noticing it for a long time. This is also the only snack that's a meal - and a meal that needs to be cooked.

The directions are so easy, how could I possibly screw this up? 1) Boil the ramen, 2) Remove from water, add "liquid sauce" and stir-fry. 3) Add "cheese powder" and serve.

Well, being me, I had to google "how to stir-fry." If you're saying, "the directions are in the name," remember, this is a blog and I can't hear you. Besides, as it turns out, I still can't do it, even with the directions. Stir-fry requires high heat and I don't have a pan that goes above medium. I improvised and I think it was fine.

On the first bite of the first bowl I realized I was basically done. The packaging that advertises "HOT Chicken Flavor" is no joke. This is so spicy that it's like a food you eat on a dare. My mouth was on fire with spicy pain. I hate that.

Take into account that I'm not a spicy food guy. If you have a "tolerance" or whatever, this might be your thing. But it's not mine. Did I say I hate it, yet? I hate it. Aside from the hotness, how does it taste? I'd guess it's pretty good. 

And I now realize the mistake I made and a warning for all of you out there making this yourselves. In Step 2, I added all the "liquid sauce" and I bet if you wanted it less spicy you could just add a fraction to taste. The directions don't tell you that. Live and learn.

6)

Name: Oh yes!

Review:

Oh yes? How about Oh no!

There's some redundancy in this chocolate section of the Korean snacks. Like the Choco-Pie, this is a chocolate coating around two cakes sandwiching chocolate cream. Apparently the Moon Pie formula really hit it big in Korea.

It's hard to not like cake and chocolate but on the level of a chocolate snack, this is not great. Not terrible but wouldn't recommend.

7)

Name: VicPie (Victory Pie)

Review:

The redundancy continues: like the others, chocolate coating around two biscuits sandwiching cream. The differences are only that the biscuits are more crunchy this time and the cream has a slight strawberry taste to it. The strawberry is very slight. Okay, but pass.

8)

Name: Choco Heim - Choco Hazelnut

Review:

Fans of Korean Snack Reviews #3 will remember White Heim. Well this is that but with chocolate.

It's a sugar-wafery thing that's filled with light chocolate. It's another of those "light" and "subtle" flavor that is nice but unremarkable.

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And that's the end of the Korean Food Reviews. It ends not on a bang, but on a whimper but it's all the luck of the draw, I suppose. Thank you for enduring this year-long journey. There is still one more Japanese episode left.

Late Night - The After School Special

The first fruits of the new Letterman youtube channel - the after school special parody "They Took My Show Away."

"Do you know what it mean for a show to be cancelled, Jimmy?"

Dave Letterman on Youtube

 David Letterman has announced and launched his own Youtube channel: youtube.com/letterman.

So far, the channel is a clip/highlight channel, posting 7-10 minute videos of interviews from his talk shows. Also, the channel uploaded about a hundred videos today alone... So that's a problem.

I have mixed feelings about another highlight/clip channel. I've always wished for a channel to upload all his episodes in full and in chronological order but that seems like too much to ask for.

I also wonder if I'll start getting copyright strikes on my Letterman videos now.

Credit to Vic for flagging this up. I don't have a twitter machine.

Month #2: Poland Snacks

I know you've probably heard it before and you're probably still not happy hearing it again, but this is what the ideal blog looks like.

Alright, if you're bored with the endless snack reviews at this point, I apologize. We're in the mouth of madness and I'm merely trying to get through the snacks as quickly as they're coming in. If I can just ge through Japan and Korea, there will still be another year of snack reviews but it'll only be one per month. I'm treading water over here.

Before we get started, let's learn a little about Poland.

The famous astronomer Copernicus was Polish. 

In Poland, your "name day" is a more significant day than your birthday. Every day of the year commemorates a male and female saint and when the name of that saint matches yours, it's your name day.

The phrase "Na zdrowie" means both "bless you" and "cheers."

Though we don't know where cheese was invented, the earliest known traces of it (strainers from 5500 BC) were discovered in Kujawy, Poland.

Finally, when the Polish city of Gdansk was ruled by Prussia from the late 18th century to the early 20th century it was called Danzig. YOW!

1) Beskidzkie Pretzel Sticks (Cheese and Onion Flavored)

Review: 

"Pret-zel?" Who ever heard of a "pretzel?" Can you believe these foreign foods?!

Well I'm a pretzel fan so I'm okay with it. Here's the crux of the issue: the "cheese and onion" aspect. Apparently this is meant to echo the Polish tradition of pierogies. I would describe the taste as pretzels with a slight "funk" to them. I'm not saying they taste like cheese or onion but I'm not saying they don't either. 

There's nothing crazy or "exotic" here, just reviewing the food, these are inoffensive but I don't like them - I would have so much preferred plain pretzels. Slow start.

2) Monster Munch (Original)

Review:

It's a step forward in the "familiar to exotic" direction. Sure, I've never heard of or tasted these before but they are "Crispy Potato Snacks" which is not so foreign a concept.

These are thinnish but fried and airy. They look like pork rinds or Munchos and both the texture and feel is not very different either.

The initial taste is like that Muncho/rind taste and it's not great. But as it progresses, there is a definite potatoey aftertaste which is really good and savory. Not amazing but a satisfying snack and a class above the pretzels.

3) Milk Fudges

Review:

I was surprised by this one. I admit I don't know much about fudge. In my mind, it's associated with chocolate but a type of chocolate that's maybe thicker or chewier. These are "milk fudges" but don't taste like chocolate at all. To my tasting, this is caramel and my googled knowledge of the subject reveals that this is legitimate "fudge."

Personal confusion aside, this is a win. In all of the snacks in all of the countries, this is one of my favorites. It's been a long time since I had a good caramel candy and this hits the bullseye. The picture above is very enlarged - these are about the size of a Werther's Original. I wish there was more; I'll try to buy some. Wonderful.

4) Beskidzkie Gingerbread Sticks - Cocoa Glaze

Review:

These have the exact same structure and form of Pocky. But as the name implies, they're chocolate and gingerbread. The resulting taste is pumpkin pie/pumpkin spice/gingerbread plus chocolate. It tastes great.

Like Pocky, if you're hungry for a snack, this will not fill you up but the taste itself is tremendous. Two enthusiastic thumbs up.

The box says "Limited Edition." So that's good. It's always nice to find something new that you like only to find that you can never have it again.

5) Chocolate Covered Pierniczki Gingerbread

Review:

"Chocolate covered gingerbread cookies" is more or less self-explanatory. One thing I will say is that the gingerbread is very soft and cakey. And I don't think it works. How can I love the chocolate covered gingerbread pocky and not like the chocolate covered gingerbread cookie? I don't know, I just can. I don't like it. I don't care what Chopin thought, I don't like it.

6) Ptasie Mlecsko Batonik Waniliowy

Review:

This is a marshmallow bar with a chocolate shell. That's it. It tastes exactly the way it sounds. Not my thing, for sure. I don't think I've ever liked marshmallow and chocolate candy. If it was a toasted marshmallow that might be a game changer.

7) Bajeczny

Another chocolate bar, this is chocolate-covered chocolate crunchy. There are also some nut chunks in there, I believe. I'm going to say something possibly controversial: I think it tastes almost exactly like a Nestle Crunch Bar. So if you like those, maybe try one of these.

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And that's it. Month #2 is in the books. Thank you, Poland. Na zdrowie.

Let's Game It Out - Mining Crypto at an Internet Cafe