A blog of food and life in Silicon Valley.
WHAT’S UP? Hello world, it’s been a long time since I last blogged. Living in Silicon Valley is not easy. You need two incomes to survive. I have been picking up OT at work and volunteering at my daughter’s school. Blogging has been on the …
If you have ever had a sandwich from an Asian bakery or travelled to a country like Japan/Korea/Taiwan, and wondered why it tasted so sweet and different from American sandwiches, it’s the bread! Asian Milk bread/Hokkaido milk bread/Shokupan/Tangzhong bread is noticeably sweeter, delicate, and fluffier …
My Costco has a boba obsession!
According to this Business Insider article, Costco does some quality research! Costco found that their #1 customers are 39-year old Asian-American females which pretty much sums up me! Costco is also known to sell products that are tailored to the community. When I visit my parents in Fremont, I stop by the Fremont Costco and find whole isles dedicated to beans used in Indian food. In the North San Jose Costco, you can find Vietnamese ham. The area I live in has a sizable Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, and Japanese populations so you can kinda guess what trend is most popular here.
The last time I went to Costco, I couldn’t help but notice that all the boba snacks keep increasing.
How many people out there can claim that their Costcos have two options for boba ice cream?
You can always enjoy boba the original way.
Boba mochi, taking the world by storm. My MIL buys these sometimes for the kids, tastes ok but full of preservatives, and dyes, and artificial colors. Good for parties though 👍.
I’m sure even people in Mid-West Ho’ bunk towns should know what boba is by now.
I feel very privileged that Costco cares about me much and knows just what my cravings are.
Taiyaki and adzuki bean bars are my favorite frozen desserts and bring back a lot of memories of begging my mom to buy these at the Korean market. I didn’t know what the hell durian was until I was 25 years old. It’s on my list of foods I will eat if given to me for free along with natto (Japanese fermented soybeans).
Mochi ice cream makes good bribery to get my kids to do what I want. I always get a good giggle when I see white people buy Melona, since when I was in elementary school the other kids thought that melon flavored candy was weird. I still find it funny how popular Korean food. It brings back memories of when I was in the 5th grade, I brought kimchi for a school lunch and my teacher commented on a “foul” odor in the room. I was so embarrassed when I told him, “I think it’s my lunch”, and went to the restroom and flushed my kimchi in the toilet.
Japanese cookies and Taiwanese taro snack. I like to add a Kukkia to my kid’s parfaits or to shaved ice. I didn’t’t buy this since I only like the matcha flavor.
The anchovy snack is bomb since it has natural ingredients. There’s sugar, salt, sesame seeds, corn starch, corn syrup, anchovies, cashews, and almonds. The baked mackerel looked promising since I’m obsessed with fish but it contained a lot of weird flavor enhancers.
More interesting novelty seafood snacks.
The Autumn Moon Festival/Autumn Solstice or Moon Lady Day (what my kids call it) is around the corner (September 10, 2022) and Costco has us all covered with these moon cakes from Taiwan. I’ll pick up a box for tradition and share with my mom since my hubby doesn’t like moon cake. He says it’s just like fruit cake in the west where people gift it out of tradition but it hardly gets eaten. I have found 4 year old moon cakes in my in-laws freezer! However, I really like the ones with the salty egg yolk in the middle or the east/west fusion styles.
Does your Costco have these snacks? What kind of unique snacks does your Costco carry?
Right now my bitter melon (ku gua, 苦瓜) plant is bursting with flowers and slowly giving me fruits throughout the week. Time to make stir fried bitter melon! I don’t live on an acre of land or a farm, just a regular house in Silicon …