Tong Tong? I may love Korean snacks and watch K-dramas (THIS is my favorite), but I can't speak Korean, so even though there are plenty of context clues on the bag to let me know what this product actually is, I had to google "Tong Tong" to figure out what the product name means.
According to the good ol' internet, it's a slang term for being "chubby." Which, if true, is freaking adorable. They named a junk food after what junk food does to you! I wish America would have fun with their product names like that. Then again "Honey Chubs" might not be as warmly received by the general public here in America...
Honey flavored savory snacks BLEW UP in Korea and food bloggers around the world took notice. I've gotten my hands on a few goodies for the blog, and while they were yummy, I didn't obsess over them the same way everyone else has. I have, however, fallen completely in love with this packaging.
Pink burlap-textured backdrop, matte finish foiled plastic, gorgeous food illustrations, and little strawberry vines at the top with itty bitty cartoon bees holding a beautiful honey comb? It's like this bag was created just for me. It photographs BEAUTIFULLY and it looks gorgeous! If you saw this on the shelves you know you would have bought it too. This design is colorful, appetizing, playful. If they sold this imagery on merchandise like shirts and bags, I'd buy them in a heartbeat! So the packaging gets like, a million gold stars from me, but this is totally my "aesthetic," so admittedly, I'm biased.
It actually pained me to tear into this bag and destroy the pretty design, so I chicken out and used scissors to cut the less cute backside open to get to the strawberry snacks inside.
Once opened, the snacks smell salty, buttery, savory, sweet, and fruity all at the same time. It's like movie popcorn and Frankenberry cereal had a food-baby, and I don't know how I feel about that. It's not gross or off putting, but is this really something I want to eat?
The snacks inside are puffy and shaped like triangles with little stripe-like grooves that hold onto more of the flavoring powder than the rest of the snack, and they have a faint pink coloring. I popped a triangle in my mouth, and it was like I salted and buttered my breakfast cereal. We have a light and crispy texture, similar to fried snacks like Bugles, but these are potato based, not corn, so it has more of a potato chip flavor to it, and then mix that with a heavy honey flavoring and a hint of strawberry. I don't hate it, but it's just so...odd. I don't know how I feel about this. I ate a few handfuls and I still couldn't figure out my stance, so I took it around to some friends and family to get a general consensus. Well, after giving this to 4 other people...All I got were horrified faces, negative comments, and one even spat it out.
I guess these snacks are just a pretty face. Normally I share all the things I review with friends and family, but it looks like I'll be finishing this one off by myself. I don't have the extremely negative reaction the rest of my family does, but I definitely wouldn't buy them again. These taste like salted, buttered, Frankenberry, and that just isn't a flavor that I would find myself craving in the future, but...I do love the bag. If this company makes any wearable merch with this design on it...consider it SOLD!© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net
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