Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Down Chinese Snacks | Snacked
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- čas přidán 19. 05. 2024
- Jimmy O. Yang is a comedian and actor best known for his roles in Silicon Valley, Space Force, and Crazy Rich Asians. He also stars in the romantic comedy Love Hard with Nina Dobrev, available on Netflix now. But the Hong Kong-born comic also has an encyclopedic knowledge of snacks, drinks, and candies. On an all-new episode of Snacked, Jimmy breaks down some of China's most iconic treats-from White Rabbit candy and haw flakes to lychee coconut jelly and mooncakes-as well as his personal stash of animal crackers from Japan.
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First We Feast videos offer an iconoclastic view into the culinary world, taking you behind-the-scenes with some of the country’s best chefs and finding the unexpected places where food and pop culture intersect. - Zábava
Which of Jimmy's favorites are you most interested in trying?
Tried all of them already. White Rabbit is a must try if you’re on the fence.
HAW FLAKES. IVE BEEN LOOKING FOR THEM SINCE I WAS A KIDDDDDDD THANK JIMMYEH FOR ME
Nigga I’ve been looking for the Rabbit snaxx since 3rd GRADE AFTER SCHOOL
THANK U MS. Mercedes
Jelly
The lychee coconut jelly for sure, I can imagine the two flavors goes well together.
Holy shit ive had every single one of those growing up as an asian australian, this is probably the most nostalgic thing ive ever seen
Same! Didn't realised how many of the snacks were from Hong Kong
Same here in the states you can fine shelve section dedicated these snacks in the Asian groceries store.
Same! Chinese Canadian here
Same! Love them all
White Rabbit and Mooncakes are my favorite, especially the Chinatown Mooncakes
Saw a few folks who are complaining about lack of description. Here's the best I can do on short notice before heading off to work:
0:26 White rabbit candy tastes like condensed milk but has a texture like a tootsie roll, Starburst, mambas, sugas, now&later, airhead, taffy. It softens as it warms up. It is wrapped in a very thin rice paper that helps to keep it from sticking. It is edible rice paper, but doesn't add anything to the flavor. Still, kinda fun to play with before getting to the actual candy.
1:06 Haw flakes are compressed ground up hawthorn fruit and sugar. It is dry little disks that crumble in your mouth. Used to get it with Chinese medicine since the medicinal soups are very bitter. I'd say they taste sort of like cranberry. Sticks to the crevices of your teeth after you chew it. They are thin coin like disks, stacked and packaged. The top and bottom haw flake disk used to always be glued to the inner sleeve of thin white paper (For Westerners: it's like gift wrapping tissue paper. For asians: it's like the old school daily tear-away calendar paper with the Chinese fortune telling stuff that I'm sure most of us grew up with.) I'm not sure if they upgraded their packaging, but if you see a hawflake glued to thin white paper, unlike the white rabbit candy, this white paper IS NOT edible. We end up gnawing around the glued paper anyways when we've eaten the rest of the roll and want more...
1:42 Vita lemon tea is ... lemon flavored black tea. Not too different from Snapple or other brands. That straw sound has to do with a vacuum seal on the straw, so it pulls air back in, which gurgle. Not related to the tea, more to do with the tetrapack design.
I should add that he mentions trying Vitasoy. Chinese soy milk is very different from western soy milk, which tends to be a lot thicker, sweeter, and often flavored with vanilla. Chinese soy milk is really delicate and lite in comparison, and tastes like... soybeans. As opposed to vanilla. Vita makes a whole line of beverages. Off the top of my head.. they have VLT, soymilk, malted soymilk, chocolate soymilk, chrysanthemum tea, coconut, honeydew, hk milk tea, black sesame.
I like them all, but a particularly big fan of the coconut soymilk, and the chrysanthemum tea.
2:19 Lychee jelly used to be made with konjac, but kids and old people choked on them if they didn't chew well, so konrad versions are banned in the United States and many other countries. I think part of the issue was that they didn't dissolve readily if accidentally swallowed, so folks literally choked to death on the original version of these snacks. They changed the recipe, and the ones out now have a jello like texture with chewy chunks inside; the new version dissolve readily. While they come in other fruit flavors like mango and grape, these are Lychee flavor, which is sort of floral and sweet. They come in other flavors too. The konjac ones were waaaaaay better. If they still made them, I'd buy a bucket a week. Since the change to the new, safer recipe, I don't eat them very often. They are refreshing if refrigerated. In the summer, we used to freeze them and suck on them.
3:16 Sachima is a Chinese rice crispy treat. It tastes like a funnel cake squished into a square with sticky sweet syrup. That's what holds it together instead of marshmallows. Similar to rice krispies, but the texture is more airy and it's a lot stickier from the sugar syrup. Some add raisins, some sprinkle sesame on it. Basically oily fried puffy dough held with a sweet sugar syrup. Probably the first thing you notice is the higher taste of oil, and if you pinch the dough, oil will come out too. Which is why I compare it to funnel cakes more than rice krispies. It's like a rice krispie treat on steroids. I should clarify that it is not made from rice, but from fried wheat based noodles soaked in a sweet sticky syrup to hold it together. Most Americans will thing that is functionally similar to a Rice Krispies treat - which is why I use it for comparison.
4:11 Animal crackers come in different flavors, like seaweed, or butter. There's at least one other one, but I forget. Texture similar to animal crackers, but flavored, which makes em better.
5:04 Want want rice crackers, crispy and airy, with a sugar glaze sprinkled on em. They are toasty rice cracker taste, and the glaze is similar to icing / glazed donut taste. The rice crackers also come in savory or spicy flavors.
5:53 As for the moon cakes, they come in different varieties. The one he showed has lotus seed paste filling with a salted egg. The paste is very soft, dense, and sweet, similar to white bean paste in mochi. The egg yolk is firm but crumbly, and is a bit salty. The crust itself isn't very crust like, more like a thin layer of brownie skin, if you know what I mean when it comes to texture. For flavor.. sweet, maybe a little egg from the egg wash used to make it glossy. The egg yolk supposedly represents the full moon. It's a nice hit of salt as a counterpoint to the lotus seed paste. They can be pricy, but you can probably find tins of 4 around 20 to 25 bucks at your local Chinatown bakery during autumn moon festivals. The ones with multiple yolks or other fillings cost more. You can always go to a Chinese bakery year round and just buy 1 for a few bucks if you are curious. They also come in mini sizes. Old school Chinese bakeries will have these. The fancy upscale bakeries focus more on cakes and buns and might not have these year round, so go to the bakery that's been there a few decades instead of the fancy new ones for a higher chance of finding them.
Hope that helped.
Yeah, this checks out
Yes thank you.
Thanks!
This is all 100% facts yall should pin this comment
Man you are a legend for this proper description. I have had the Haw flakes and White Rabbit sweets from childhood days and still eat them now when I can find them.
Will try and find the others from local shops.
We need jimmy on hot ones
Oh shit he hasn't. I didn't know that
guaranteed lots of swearing
YEEEEEEEEEEES
Haw ones
Sean Evans? Dis a your mother. You ah not ah my baby.
Mooncake was so sacred he couldnt bring himself to open it
Dude I noticed that
I may be wrong but I think it’s considered very bad luck to eat them at the wrong times
Tbh I just thought it was so heavy that he didn't want to eat it after having so much in 1 sitting already. Like even a portion of 1/8 or 1/12 is kind of a lot after the other stuff he ate
Even just one of those things is super heavy and literally like 800 calories.
Probably wasn't down to finish one right there and then, lol.
@@iczyg Actually this. If you eat a lot of sweets beforehand, and you see a legit mooncake waiting for you (the pricey full-on ones especially), take a pause and do an appetite check. That is a heavy calorie and sugar bomb. It's rich.
Also if you eat a mooncake, bet you'll want a hot cup of tea beside you to sip in between bites.
Oh man, Jimmy ate through my entire childhood. I can still hear my aunt scolding my little sister for eating half the container of jellies but it was actually me.
Poor sister
Not Chinese but the coconut lychee jelly was the stuff I got when I did good at tutoring. Jimmy's right in that it's gold.
Forgot about saying you can put it in the freezer too
For those who don’t get the passion from other people talking about these snacks.
These are all so nostalgic for so many people because they are so unique from a lot of the stuff you get in other regions. To anyone who hasn’t tried these, I couldn’t recommend them enough. Go to a small local asian store and you will probably find most of these. Alternatively you can find them online but they can be a bit more expensive.
"Taiwan - Another Place in Asia" nice move.
Damn i didnt catch that 😂😂😂😂 honestly kinda sad
Best low key part of the whole episode. Instantly banned from China forever!
His Social Credit Score has been lowered.
@@qetiogusliriope7436 probably not he said place not country hehehe
@@thelonggonekong8015 Wrong. He said Taiwan not Chinese Taipei. He's just been banned from visiting the mainland now.
The white rabbits are so addictive
Does the white rabbit candy contain pork ??
@@user-zg2st9qj7f nah. It's basically a tootsie roll that tastes like sweet milk. Sorta like a condensed milk flavored tootsie roll. If u don't know what that is, then I'd say the texture is similar to starburst/mambas/now&laters.
*EDIT*
SHOOT! I looked up the ingredient list and it does list glycerol monostearate, which can be derived from vegetable or animal fat. Nothing more specific than that, so I don't know what the odds are that it is derived from pork fat VA cow or vegetable oil sources.. That said, it looks like it is NOT HALAL.
Or at least it wasn't back in September 2019.
Speculation is that the gelatin used in the recipe may be sourced from Cows or Pigs.
I was thinking you were asking if pig meat was in the candy, didn't realize the question was one about HALAL/HARAM.
Sounds like drugs, out of context
Condensed milk tootsie roll? That sounds fucking awesome
@@Kwijiboi i often to ate it when i was kid
It's so impressive that he can read Chinese soooooo well in Mandarin, Cantonese and Shanghai dialect lol
He does speak all three dialects perfectly.
HKer with grand parents who spoke a dialect tends to pick some up from them, all my grandparents spoke Cantonese though so I never knew other forms of Chinese
it's common for a chinese or a hker knows both mandarin and cantonese
He moved to 🇺🇲 when he was 12.
@@msqunhua Wrong. When he was 15
But we all know the REAL Chinese snack here is Jimmy🔥.
YESSSSS SISTER YESSSS! He’s the snack 😍😍😍
dude I thought I was the only one 😭 he's fine haha
Amen! Haha
For real, if Pete Davidson can get it, so can Jimmy. He's so much cuter! 😍
Agree
These snacks are my childhood in a nutshell. And now that I earn my own paychecks, I've gotta go out and buy a ton of those lychee jellies to make up for all the ones my mom didn't let me eat as a kid.
careful to not choke on them, wasnt there a kid who chokedon them in the 90s :(
be careful, those things are like diabetes in a form of a jello shot
@@rustydomino bro, I appreciate the warning, but Imma give myself diabetes from lychee jelly and I'm gonna be happy about it.
@@ot7stan207 Yolo, my dude. If I die, lychee jelly is not a bad way to go.
Wait, actually, I'm not gonna choke on those jellies because if I die, I can't keep eating jellies. Point taken.
The true purpose of adulting
about time Jimmy made it onto First we feast lmfao
Goddamn right.
Had them all as a kid in Hong Kong. They’re all delicious!
really happy to see that there are videos like these who help to share about the asian culture. also it shows when you've done your homework as all the names and food included are not just correct, they are iconic and have a cultural influence. Good job to the First We Feast team! :)
What homework? He was sharing his favorite childhood snacks. Of course he gets the name right!
So nostalgic, I've had all of these as a kid. Side note, I've never heard of this guy but he's funny af
Check out his stand up.
Protect Jimmy O. Yang at all costs
Is he in danger?
Who the fuck is he?
protect us from jimmy o yang
Hearing Jimmy pronounce it as LAI-CHEE is breathtaking. FINALLY.
the lychee jelly one is so relatable and on point, like we ALWAYS do that (leave them for like years, and then use it to put little sutff) 😂😂
I've eaten *ALL* of these in my childhood in Hong Kong and I continue to eat some of these to this day even after I've moved to the UK. There's nothing better than enjoying childhood snacks, reminiscing about how things were more simple back then.
I'm old enough to remember the ORIGINAL Lychee jellies. They used to use konjac jelly that had a way better chewy texture. It got discontinued because people choked to death on them. What I wouldn't pay to get my hands on some of the old stuff.
The current range of Lychee jellies are way to soft and jello like. Those konjac versions were a revelation. Too bad they're gone.
Didn’t know the formula had changed! We used to buy them all the time in the 90s in Saudi Arabia and I loved them. Picked some up in Chinatown a few months ago and was like this can’t be the same thing… just like boring Jell-O shots
@@zerocraic3966 they had Chinese snacks in Saudi Arabia ?
@@eVerProductions1 they even had taco bell when I moved in 94. We had scouts, baseball, and yes Chinese snacks :)
People pretend it’s the end of civilization but my upbringing was closer to a Houston suburb than a Bedouin desert
@@zerocraic3966 yeah. I didn't know they were banned, but one day, I was walking around Chinatown and didn't see a single shop with them. I asked one of the ladies and she asked in hushed tones how many bags I wanted. They came in bags too back then.
I forgot if I said 1 or 2, but she grabbed it from a bin underneath some flattened cardboard. I now realized they were banned but she was selling the rest of her inventory. Had I known, I would have bought her out.
The new ones suck. When they had the konjac version, it had a really satisfying chewy texture.
@@Kwijiboi that’s awesome you got some down low still! Yea the Konjac ones have a great bite. I want my jelly candy to “bite back” 😂 it’s why I love konjac noodles but a lot of people don’t. I like the resistance.
oh my goddd when he said the lychee jellies have probably been there for like 10 years😭😭😭😭 that is soooo true
Those coconut jelly's are dangerous!! I grew up next to an Asian family, from Taiwan, and we would DEVOUR those!!!! Oh man I miss them. Had a Vietnamese family across the street as well and they had some damn good candy too. I need to do some shopping down memory lane.
I had a dream about them last night! Honest to god. Had to come back to mention that.
Oh man those jellies are the bomb!!! Saved up my allowance to buy them in the little provision shops around our estate.
Have you tried Mamee noodle snack before?
@@DerpyFaery dont think so. The 2 Asian families I grew up around Ive tried a few things but probably wouldn't remember the names it was that long ago.
My favorite one of this series! Jimmy O Yang is the GOAT!
I had a Chinese classmate in elementary school whose family owned a restaurant. Apart from hooking it up with the food on those special days, her mom was so nice that she also hooked it up with the candy goody bags. I have pretty fond memories of those candies, including the unnamed candies that were either wrapped in strawberry-printed wrapper (but didn't taste like strawberry), or those pink swirled ones with a flavor I still can't figure out. Some kinda quasi-fruity-milky thing.
Also solving the mystery of what Haw flakes are is so satisfying. They always looked like wafers to me and I wanted them to be light and crispy, but instead they were like fruity sticky chips. I loved them.
Lastly, all Asians should hopefully know, it ain't childhood without some form of jelly in your house. That shit straight from the fridge was divine. I have that exact tub of lychee jelly in my kitchen right now. The old jelly container has been holding my brown sugar for the last 3 years. No beating it.
Those snacks are my literal childhood right there. 😭
This guy is so normal, I love him
Brings back memories seeing those candies, my chinese teacher would always bring in snacks for class when we all scored high in our tests
we got teh bin bin crackers
This was something I didn’t know I needed. So nostalgic seeing all of my snacks growing up I forgot about. Might need to take a trip to the Asian grocery store this week.
I loved when he opens the lychee jar the surprise about the film lol the best 💖
Crazy how Chinese cuisine have influenced the Philippines cause a lot of those snacks Jimmy showed are also popular here in the Philippines. Part of my childhood too!
Jimmy could totally host. I would be interested if he ever does a travel one.
Haw Flakes were extremely popular when I was a child. The nickname we used to call them was 'Chinese Communion'.
Love these snack videos! Keep em coming! I've had those White Rabbits before. Definitely interesting that you can eat the rice paper in there lol.
these snacks were a huge part of my childhood, I loved them and I still do!
I'm just so glad we have the same childhood, like every one of them is in my core memory
Love Hard was awesome. Can't wait to try some more of these snacks!
damn everyone of these is so damn iconic! also glad he didn’t open that moon cake. double yolk lotus paste is super sweet and no one person should eat more than a quarter of it in a sitting
gotta eat tiny slivers with a cup of tea n share it with folks too. i cringe when isee non chinese pplt rying it eating it lk ea cupcake lol
@@ot7stan207 fr
Ngl i dont like the yolks
@@ot7stan207 yikes someone should actually tell them not to do that. mooncakes are made of glutinous rice flour which is harder to digest, and the filling can be very sweet too. definitely not something to finish alone in one sitting
Watched "Love Hard" a few months ago - loved it! Great job on the snack video!
I used to eat these things *all the time.* They're absolutely delicious, honestly, although I've eaten so much haw flakes that I'm sick of it now.
Never sick of haw flakes.
Those lychee jellies are awesome. I had a Korean roommate for a while in college and he always had those around. He also introduced me to Bacchus-Ds, super tasty energy shots, and Milkis.
I think Jimmy O. Yang is 😍. I absolutely loved that movie on Netflix. I watched it so many times. Its a good watch! 💜💜
It’s been two, three years since I’ve had most of these snacks, and this video just gave me so much nostalgia.
I loved this video! As a Chinese teenager, I have pretty much tried all of these snacks except for the Vita lemon tea. Some of these I still eat to this day! Asian snacks are the best!
I remember all this stuff fondly but it’s been years since I’ve had any of it and I totally forgot about moon cake. I went out yesterday and bought as much as I could find and a bit more. I went to two different big Asian grocery stores and got most of these treats, but they both didn’t have the white rabbit candies (did find a similar one, but not the exact brand) and I could only find mini moon cakes. Chomping back into these treats years later really brought back the memories 🥰
Im Indo-American but lived in Shanghai for 2 years back in elementary school. Man, everything he mentioned I've had back there, super nostalgic to see em again. Time to go to the nearest asian supermarket.
Fascinating! Would love to track some of these down.
I’ve tried most of these, and my favorite would have to be the White Rabbit candies (grew up eating them - Korean American household) and the Haw Flakes. White Rabbit is basically a nougat that tastes like sweetened condensed milk, and the Haw Flakes taste a lot like apples. So think of something the shape and size of a Necco wafer that tastes like sweetened dehydrated apples but with a better texture.
i used to sit on my grandpas couch as a kid and just eat lychee jellies straight out the jar while watching my cartoons, he use to work at an asian/dominican supermarket and would bring those for me! my family has a home movie on a vhs of me in my element just eating jellies when i was 4 on the couch watching pokemon, great times!
This brings back sooo many memories of my childhood! 😂 Many of them I haven't had since I was a kid but I do remember them being delish
Love Jimmy O. Yang. He’s hilarious.
Great episode!!! Hopefully yang gets to be on the actual show next time.
Vitasoy Chocolate Peppermint soy milk is SO AMAZING. Just came out this season and I’ve been guzzling it down lol. These are all the snacks I grew up with too. Nostalgic.
What?? Where are you? Wonder if I can get that flavor here?
So fascinated by foods from different country. Thank you!
Such a ride into my childhood, remembering having these with my grandparents when I was younger...
Jimmy coming thru with the legitimate Chinese snax 💯💯🔥🔥
The way I grew up eating a good handful of these🥺 s/o to my friends putting me on to different cultures at such a young age.
Love people who talk with the mouth full of food! Feel you, bro!
I like Love Hard. Just finished it on Netflix. Thumbs Up Jimmy!
When he spoke Shanghainese I legit got shook. I grew up eating Sachima 😩
Ayeeeee the homie Jimmy o yang never disappoints. Stay you Jimmy!
He's super chill and always hilarious
This is such fun info! There's a new Asian snack shop in my neighborhood, and now I have a list of things to look for
I'm addicted to snow rice cakes. Especially the ones that are sweet and salty at the same time.
I remember my friends giving me some of these at school!
Yessss I love all of these. That mooncakes looks 🔥
Of all of these my favorite is definitely the lychee coconut jellies with white rabbit being a close second.
When I went to China in 2018, I went to a white rabbit store. They had a red bean flavour
I ate like 2 boxes on the plane back bc the plane food made me yip
Whaaaa there’s a red bean flavor? I gotta get my hands on some
They also have matcha flavor.
I was born in a village in the UK called althorne, meaning off all the thorns. Lots and lots of hawthorns everywhere!!! I never knew there were candies made of them that's so cool I'm going to find some thanks
Hawthorn candies are a whole category! So many different shapes and textures- hard candy, flakes, gummies, jellies, fruit leathers. The sour ones are the best. Have fun trying them all!
Hawflakes are awesome. I don’t even know what to compare them too. The texture and flavour makes it unique.
I’m excited to see the movie, I like the energy of this guy ✨
Support your local Asian grocery store, it'll open up your world to so many more snacks!
OMG. I love this. All of these are legit! I grew up eating all of these snacks and I'm Filpino who grew up in L.A.! Except the Moon cake, that's not a snack, we only get that once a year for Harvest Moon.
I say it every time, but...I love this series!
Always check the expiration date, great advice
I’ve tasted everything except for the seaweed-flavored animal biscuits. It’s true what he said, even here in the PH, a lot of snacks here are also imported from our Asian neighbors. And they’re realllyyyy good!
Yep, I like how Jimmy referred to a mooncake as a meal. It won't have all the nutrients in a balanced meal, but it has the calories of one! A snack portion is only 1/4 of the cake. But I've seen mini bite-size cakes that are about 1/4 of a normal one too.
There was one I grew up with that also had the rice paper that you could eat, but it looked like a small rectangle of caramel and nuts. Maybe they have them in different shapes now, since I have not seen it in years.
EDIT: I think it was jujube with walnuts candy
What funny timing. Received rice cakes and the milky candy from a friend just today, then got this in recommended. They are both amazing. 10/10 would recommend.
I grew up on so many of these snacks. So nostalgic!
I grew up on haw flakes especially, but all of these snacks are my childhood.
I would have included shrimp chips - the ones shaped like sticks that have grooves on them. Different companies make them, so they may actually count as Japanese snacks. I would have swapped out moon cake for them. As soon as he held it up, I said "that doesn't count as a snack" and then Jimmy said the same thing right away, so I gave it a pass because even if the producers don't know what they are doing, he did, haha.
we need more Jimmy O Yang!!
Jimmy.. you are amazing.
Luckily I live in a very diverse part of California. My favorite Chinese candy is white rabbit, had it since I was kid, it is a close competitor to sesame honey candy.
I remember eating a moon cake that was in a metal lunchbox thing when i was young. it was a 4 pieces, comes with fork and knife and i thought how looks expensive it was (it was a gift). I ate like 2 out of 4 and when my mom learned about it, well you know... asian parents lol
Dudee those mooncakes are like 2x heavier than any meal yet still delicious asl
@@myfartstinks i agree, it was really heavy and delicious especially those came from local chinatown
Jimmy is the best. Love that guy.
I think I have had every single one of these snacks. I brought white rabbits home for Christmas several years ago and my niece and nephews loved them .
I'm not Chinese, but where I live, we get jellies similar to the lychee coconut jelly, the only difference being that we get it in other flavors like mango, strawberry and orange. I've never really seen a lychee flavor but damn that looks good
Having hung out a lot at my asian friend's house after school, these bring back a lot of memories. Just grew up in a very asian community. Love chinese, taiwanese indian and Japanese cooking
I say cooking as well since I've had parents of those ethnicity's food.
Solid list, Jimmy! 💯
Jimmy O. is relatable. Check his stand-up out on Netflix.
The old school lychee jellies were so good but I almost choked on a few over the years lol
Haw flakes remind me of my grandma 👵🏼 she would keep them in her cardigan vest pocket and give to to us when we visited- they were so warm that all stuck to together. ❤️
Thank you so much! I love to shop at the Hong Kong store here in Houston :-)
Hands up if you have eaten all of these. ✋
Brings back so many childhood memories.
Yo, a candy with an edible wrapper is some next level snack innovation
as a kid we wasted some time peeling them off until someone told me it was just rice paper lol
Taste better without the edible wrapper
An Aussie Chinese also had Kopi coffee candy, cigarette candy, belly button biscuit, dried preserved plum in the collection.
They used to give out the Kopi candy out at swimming carnivals in our aus school. kids would be jumping off the walls.
Vancouver BC another cool place to get all your savory chinese snacks. Everything you showed and more. And Dim Sum
Hey Jimmy,
We need another comedy special.