Hello Shiquers and welcome back to Nerdy Shique Universe! It is time for a haul and a review! It’s been a long time since I’ve done any haul especially from an Asian Market since I do still go to them time to time to try new foods and snacks and this time it is from a market that StellarNan took us to! Let’s see what I got and what I think about it!

First Oriental Super Market!

So the store we went to is called First Oriental Super Market and it’s located on West Colonial Drive near the Fairgrounds. This place is a very big place and even bigger than my and Gondras’ fave spot Donga Corps. On E. Colonial & Mills. Not only that they carry a lot more than just food and also have cheaper prices! Normally on Donga I spend around $30+ on snacks and tea alone but here I spent $10 on cookies, some candy items, a bowl, and a pack of chopsticks, not kidding there is stuff more than food here! There is even an aisle dedicated to cookware alone if you needed it! Besides that you also have your meat and seafood counters and a small bakery area on top of it but will get to a different bakery later. Let’s see what I got!

Hi-Chew in Acai Berry, Kiwi, and Cherry: To start is my favorite candy from Japan and that is Hi-Chew! I lost my Pokémon container that contained my orange flavor and triple berry flavored ones and not sure where I lost it and have not gotten any new ones since. I should’ve bought some from the Japanese Snacks Guy at Omni but completely didn’t realize it until after the con. I was glad that this place had more flavors than Donga and a bit less than Japanese Snacks Guy since he has a bigger display when he is at cons, I have to make sure at the next one I get more Hi-Chew. Anyways, I did remember enjoying the cherry flavor which is one of the flavors they had. I tend to not like cherry flavored things especially with cough syrup but these Hi-Chews make it taste like real cherries! They also had banana flavor, strawberry, green apple, and even had kiwi which I never tried before and decided to get it. What caught me by surprise was the Acai flavored Hi-Chew! I know there are accent marks with the berry name but it may be complicated to do. I didn’t notice this flavor before since there was the triple berry I got once and the strawberry ones being a common flavor, I have a feeling it’s new since Japan does make new flavors over time and decided why not try these out and how I feel. I’m glad to get these again because there are times when I need something to chew on and don’t chew gum and this is a good replacement because you can chew and swallow it. According to history of Japan, taking out gum from your mouth is gross and unpleasant so making these were to replace that and yes they do have gum in Japan. Another interesting fact, the creator of Fruits Basket in an interview talked about how she is a major gum chewer even while creating her manga panels. I would be too or I was when I was younger but then got off of it and decided these are my replacement when needed and I did start using my Easter Egg containers from Lip Smackers to contain a pack of these things.

Chocolate Mint Hard Candies: Sorry for the long tangent above, next item is these mint candies that contain chocolate chew bits in the middle. The funny thing was that while being in the snacks and candy aisle I gravitated towards something out of nowhere and it was a bag of these candies and StellarNan noticed and was surprised that I took a guess out of nowhere that they were mint candies since I love carrying mints in my bag and love other mint things. I did try these out this morning and besides being minty they also had chocolate and that made it even better! I love chocolate and mint together, especially dark chocolate and mint. The candies started out with the mint coating and then when you bite into it you have a chocolatey chew in the middle. It dissolves as you chew and if you bite into it if it still has a little bit of mint left over then you have both flavors. I guess I picked up a really good item based on assumption.

Lemon Cream Wafer Cookies: Next are some wafer cookies. I did love these when I got them at Donga and when me, Stellar, Tobi, and Vivi went to this place for our first time last year I found the same wafer cookies and they were cheaper but also more flavors to choose from. Last year I got the sesame cream and the taro cream which they tasted very light. As in, they weren’t a-punch-to-your-face taste like most things. Well, the cappuccino ones I tried first had that idea and had to dip it in hot cocoa to make them taste better and it worked better. I did try the strawberry ones but they were too light to me while sesame they had more of a roasted taste since sesame seeds tend to do that and the cream tasted interesting with the wafers while the taro you barely tasted it since it has such a light flavor. The lemon cream ones, which I got this time, tasted very light too but it was there. It does have the cream taste but the lemon had a bit more of a zest flavor rather than the overpowering flavor you tend to taste in cake. The wafers added the slight airiness to the taste and I think I love these the most because I had another one due to how good they are. I will be buying more of these whenever we return since they’re delicious!

White Chocolate & Strawberry Yogurt Wafer Cookies: These were interesting to say the least. I wanted to find regular cookies but these were one other wafer cookie the store carried. These had more of a yogurt base with either white chocolate or regular chocolate but what caught my ears were the ones with white chocolate and strawberry and decided to try them out to see how they were. OMG! I was glad I did! These were individually wrapped and they were more of a square cookie and the yogurt was covering the wafer with a creamy consistency and the cream was solid. When I bit into it, you barely notice the white chocolate but the strawberry flavor is so real! Even more real than a pop tart! I highly recommend these!

Jelly Drink Pouches: Remember in anime where you see characters drinking something from a pouch that kind of make you want to find it? Well, that is how I felt about those! Ever since I got into Fooly Cooly in my high school days, I noticed how Naota and this one other girl in episode three which was the Puss & Boots episode and Naota brought them the drink pouches to have after dinner. I wondered, “I wonder if I could find those in real life?” I tried finding them at a lot of the Asian markets and couldn’t find them and figured you can only get them in Japan while the closest you can find to those were little jelly cups which were good but not what I was looking for. I did eventually found these pouches at this Asian market and happy that I could get them in real life! They are just like they are in Fooly Cooly and many other anime that featured these! I tried one today and it is pretty good! Not only you have the jelly but you also have fruit bits in it which makes it even more awesome! I am not sure if it is supposed to be grape jelly or something but it does taste very good for a jelly pouch! I know if I go back I may get another pack or two of these again and they don’t cost much either, just around $4 and you get around six or eight from what I felt in the packaging.

Instant Miso Soup Packet: Besides the snacks and the jelly drink, I did manage to get something more savory. I was hoping to find mocha since it has been a long time having that but did have something I hadn’t had in a major long time and that is instant miso soup. I had the one from Publix that comes in the cups they sell next to the sushi display and it was not that great in my opinion because if how much it was diluted after making it. This one, on the other hand, is the real stuff! Yes, you can dilute it if you wanted, but it basically asks for 2/3 cups of boiling water and that’s it! While having this despite how strong it tasted due to the amount of water it asked for, I felt like I was back at any of the restaurants I’ve been to enjoying miso soup! I was glad to get this and at the same time I wish I had gotten more of because they were around $2 each a packet. You get the usual seasonings, the stock, and everything else and you just pour the water on top and there you have it! I know there are other soups you can get and knowing your basic ramen, I may have to get more of these if I were to come back.

Mini Cat Bowl: I know, “Mari! You love cats too much!” I can’t help it! The thing is like I said above that this place has an entire aisle, or an entire aisles dedicated to cookery and serving plates and even utensils for traditional Asian families. In the cookery aisle, you have your serving plates, your tea sets, and of course your soy sauce trays for when you have sushi. One thing that got me to buying something was that there were little items with cats on it! You know me, I do love my kitties and good example are my little cats in bananas plush from Hot Topic. I got the bowl only to keep myself in control and plus I can come back if they still sell any of the cat items. One thing that got me wanting to come back is the tea kettle and matching cups! That has to wait a little bit. The bowl does hold pretty well for its size since I did go with the smaller size. A head’s up if you were to buy anything from the cookery aisle, make sure there are no cracks or any other blemishes on the bowls or glasses because it can’t be returned. Nice little friendly tip.

Chopsticks: One other thing that got me excited about this place was of course getting more chopsticks! Last year, I wasn’t able to get a pack since this place sells them in pretty awesome packs of a nice amount of them. Most of the time you tend to get chopsticks by the pair rather than a pack unless if you look further in dealer rooms at conventions. These were really good for a really good price and also I tested a pair and they are pretty sturdy too. It’s been a while since I picked up any chopsticks and this is a good place to get them at since you get more than one pair and of course they do have smaller ones if need be if you have smaller hands or starting to learn how to use them. And they do come in a variety of colors.

Sun Pearl Bakery: After shopping for snacks and other things, we did drop by the Sun Pearl Bakery since StellarNan told us about it and we do enjoy this place. This place has many desserts and some savory things on top of it, last year I had a very delicious pork bun and almost got it again but got three other items instead. At first I was hoping to get another taro Boston cream pie slice but they didn’t have it. Figured that it was closer to closing time, yeah we decided to meet up later than usual to get some rest especially Tobi with his long night shifts and me with waking up super early to catch my rides for Customer Service Training. I did get to enjoy three other things that the bakery had to offer and they were the bag of cream puffs in chocolate, the Princess Custard Bun, and the Taro Bun! These were all delicious! The cream puffs were like Oreos where the outer parts were more cookie and they were soft baked, the cream was a small dollop but they still melt in your mouth in one smooth taste. I may have to get more bags of these in the future because they taste better than the cream puffs you get at Barnes & Noble in my opinion and these are smaller and the cream is not so heavy. The Princess Custard one was a pretty big bun that had a bit of décor on top to match the “princess” parts but the custard was really creamy! You have to be careful in the end of eating this thing because the custard can end up on your hand which can be a huge mess. Wishing they had huge napkins or something to help with clean up even with kids since they can be messier than a blind person eating these things. The taro buns, yes there were more than one, were easier to eat because they were more a bread rather than a cream filled bun. I did have the taro cream one last year and that was also good but this I think I prefer a little bit more because you don’t have a cream coming out, you do have bits of taro baked in throughout it and the bread is baked to perfection! One other thing I wished to have was the Boba tea which has been a major fave ever since I went to some of the Boba places in town. My fave places for this tea are Chewy Boba in Oviedo and Chibi Boba near where Gondras works. They did open a Chibi Boba in Florida Mall, which I want to test Soundscape in but will have to test it in a different mall for a review first. Anyways, they were out of Boba and I was sad about that, there is always next time though!

Well, that is it for this snacks review and the haul! I definitely want to try and find some mocha in the store, I almost got these Fig Newton looking cakes at first but the flavors were a little meh and now looking back on it I may have to try them out next time I go. I definitely want to get more of those jelly drink pouches because I was really happy to find them in real life! I highly recommend anything jelly related that comes from Japan because they don’t taste as artificial as most jellies here in the States. I also recommend trying out the Blueberry & Black Current Preserves and the Lemon Curd Preserves from England because they’re also very natural! I’m glad to find more flavors of Hi-Chew since I missed those things for many months since we did go to Star Wars and had to put my Hi-Chew in Gondras’ car, not sure if it got lost in there or something! Anyways, glad to get these again and try new flavors. I will also be getting more of the miso soup and the lemon wafers because they are so delicious! All-in-all it was a pretty good haul and day!

What is next? Hoping to get more of the Omni Fandom Expo stuff up since we are still behind on that, we also had an interview with J. Michael Tatum and Brandon McInnis over Skype and we need to get the audio edited into a video so stay tuned for that, yes that was the special treat for you all, long story short it was to make up for not interviewing them during Holiday Matsuri so will see how that goes in the editing. And yes I will be trying out Soundscape in a mall, which is an app developed by Microsoft for IPhone users to find out where they are heading on foot or on bus and can’t wait to do that review! So stay tuned for more posts on here! Until next time!