I'm a snacker. I prefer to just munch on things continuously throughout the day, rather than eat big meals. Or even if I do eat meals like a normal person, I still like to snack all evening. Granted, this is probably a bad habit I should get out of sooner rather than later, but, alas, it provides me lots of material for review, as I'm constantly trying new snacks, particularly when I travel.
When I was in Munich visiting my office there, I of course did what I always do - I explored the snacks. Their little microkitchens were stocked with products from Bite Box, a company that seems to specialize in individually packaged snack foods for offices.
Their product line is huge, ranging from sweet to savory, healthy to decadent, fruity to chocolatey, and everything in between. This include all sorts of dried fruits, coated nuts, and trail mixes, savory crackers, sweet cookies, and chocolate coated nibbles. The products names are an amusing mix of English and non-English, like "Mac Daddy" (macadamia nuts), "Coffee To Go" (dark chocolate covered espresso beans and cappuccino almonds), and "Waasssup?!" (wasabi peanut), alongside "Asien Rundfahrt" (Asian rice cracker mix), "Holzfäller" (almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts), and "Kolbenresser"(corn nuts).
Since I didn't have Google translate built into my brain, for most of these, I tried them without knowing what they were, and only looked them up later.
I enjoyed my adventures into the unknown, and found a few I really liked.
When I was in Munich visiting my office there, I of course did what I always do - I explored the snacks. Their little microkitchens were stocked with products from Bite Box, a company that seems to specialize in individually packaged snack foods for offices.
Their product line is huge, ranging from sweet to savory, healthy to decadent, fruity to chocolatey, and everything in between. This include all sorts of dried fruits, coated nuts, and trail mixes, savory crackers, sweet cookies, and chocolate coated nibbles. The products names are an amusing mix of English and non-English, like "Mac Daddy" (macadamia nuts), "Coffee To Go" (dark chocolate covered espresso beans and cappuccino almonds), and "Waasssup?!" (wasabi peanut), alongside "Asien Rundfahrt" (Asian rice cracker mix), "Holzfäller" (almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts), and "Kolbenresser"(corn nuts).
Since I didn't have Google translate built into my brain, for most of these, I tried them without knowing what they were, and only looked them up later.
I enjoyed my adventures into the unknown, and found a few I really liked.
Tasty Mixes
This category was called "Tasty Mixes", which, the best I could tell, just meant it was the least healthy and most sweet items, mostly made up of assorted types of cookies (ranging from biscotti to stoopwafels), and chocolate coated items.
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| Coffee to Go. |
On my first day in Munich, I discovered these. The English name gave me a clue that this might be caffeinated, which sounded good to me.
Given my jetlag, this was a welcome first find, dark chocolate covered espresso beans and white chocolate cappuccino covered almonds, both of which gave me a bit of uplift.
Given my jetlag, this was a welcome first find, dark chocolate covered espresso beans and white chocolate cappuccino covered almonds, both of which gave me a bit of uplift.
I really loved the almonds, the creamy coating was quite enjoyable, and they had a nice crunch. The chocolate covered espresso beans were pretty standard, crunchy, bitter, fine. A handful of each was a nice mix, but, I really preferred the cappuccino almonds on their own.
My favorite of everything I tried.
These were adorable little mini stroopwafels. Except, I don't really like stroopwafels, like the locally made ones I totally failed at using properly by Rip Van Wafels or the "Award Winning" version by Lady Walton. But, I still tried these, hoping I'd finally find a stroopwafel I liked, as everyone else loves these things.
And? Yup, just stroopwafels. The cookie was sorta like a chewy graham cracker, and the filling was chewy caramel. Nothing particularly interesting here.
"Coconut Biscuits with Spelt Flour."
"Kokosnasen", aka, "Coconuts", were small little hard style coconut cookies. I liked them far more than I expected, given that they were 1) cookies 2) made with spelt flour. They were crunchy, but the coconut flavor was good, and I didn't taste spelt. I didn't really want to eat them plain, but I made mini ice cream sandwiches out of them with some snickerdoodle ice cream, and they were great that way.
Ojan also almost liked them, but proclaimed that they were "like coconut macaroons, but, not as good".
Many of the mixes had English names, but, alas, this one did not. What was it? I had no clue, besides that it seemed to be dehydrated fruits.
My favorite of everything I tried.
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| Ka Rammel. |
And? Yup, just stroopwafels. The cookie was sorta like a chewy graham cracker, and the filling was chewy caramel. Nothing particularly interesting here.
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| Kokosnasen. |
"Kokosnasen", aka, "Coconuts", were small little hard style coconut cookies. I liked them far more than I expected, given that they were 1) cookies 2) made with spelt flour. They were crunchy, but the coconut flavor was good, and I didn't taste spelt. I didn't really want to eat them plain, but I made mini ice cream sandwiches out of them with some snickerdoodle ice cream, and they were great that way.
Ojan also almost liked them, but proclaimed that they were "like coconut macaroons, but, not as good".
Dried Fruit
The dried fruit category includes everything from single dried fruits (mango, apricots, pineapple) to mixes (strawberry and pineapple, apple and cranberry, raisins and bananas). Some of these were quite tasty.
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| Strandperlen. |
I easily identified the big chunks of dehydrated pineapple, and little chunks of apple, but I had no idea what the other objects were. I kinda thought they were dehydrated figs, but, that didn't seem quite right.
When I looked it up online after, the ingredients said "Physalis". That still didn't help me. A few internet searches later, and I learned that I know them as Cape gooseberries, you know, the little yellow-orange tomato things with the strange wrapper around them?
Anyway, the apple chunks I didn't care for since I don't like apple, and I wished they didn't make up 50% of the mix. I liked the size of the pineapple chunks, and they were pretty sweet. But I loved the physalis. Super crunchy, just the right amount of sweet. I'd gladly just eat a big box of those.
Overall, a decent mix for fruit, and, the dehydration was nicely done, more enjoyable that standard dried fruit.
Dried kiwi ... with lime?
I didn't like this.
The kiwi was super chewy, more like jerky than crunchy dried fruit. That was fine actually, but what wasn't fine was the lime. The result was crazy tart, way too tart for my liking.
Next I went for something savory, rice crackers, coated in soy sauce and black pepper.
The crackers were pretty standard rice crackers, crunchy, good to snack on. The soy sauce was also pretty standard for asian style rice crackers. But the black pepper gave it some kick. I'm not sure I wanted that kind of kick, but, it was interesting at least.
Overall though, uh, a bit too peppery for me, not quite the flavor I was looking for.
The "Asien Rundfahrt", "Asian Tour", was another asian inspired rice cracker mix, this time with coated peanuts and seaweed elements mixed in.
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| Pure Lime - Kiwischeiben. |
I didn't like this.
The kiwi was super chewy, more like jerky than crunchy dried fruit. That was fine actually, but what wasn't fine was the lime. The result was crazy tart, way too tart for my liking.
Hearty
Bite Box dubs this category "Hearty", but I didn't think they were especially hearty, just, that they are savory. Included in this range is asian rice cracker mixes, coated corn nuts, wasabi peanuts, and veggie chips, among a few others. I tried several of the asian mixes, when I was looking for something not sweet.
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| Black Pepper. |
The crackers were pretty standard rice crackers, crunchy, good to snack on. The soy sauce was also pretty standard for asian style rice crackers. But the black pepper gave it some kick. I'm not sure I wanted that kind of kick, but, it was interesting at least.
Overall though, uh, a bit too peppery for me, not quite the flavor I was looking for.
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| Asien Rundfahrt. |
It was a pretty standard mix of Asian rice crackers, most with a slightly sweet soy sauce coating. I liked the coated peanuts the best, but, my "Tour" only included 2 in the box.
Overall, fine to munch on, but not particularly exciting.
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