South Korea is one of the leaders in the world when it comes to technology and innovation, and it shows not just in the swift development of their major cities but also down to their food. With new machines now allowing for a mind-blowing number of creations and the extrusion of any shape of snack food available we found convenience stores and supermarkets in Korea to be the gateway of a whole new world of eats.

Yoghurt Almonds

Korea is in an almond craze thanks to the release of Tom’s Farm Honey Butter Almonds a few years ago. The scope of flavours have expanded, and as have the copycats. Here we have yoghurt almonds, flavoured after probiotic “yoghurt” drinks like Yakult and Biofeel – more of a juice, it has a thin consistency, translucent peachy colour, and a tangy flavour thanks to the lactic acid. The almonds had a dusting of sugar coating with a shockingly similar texture, it only left us regretting the ₩1,500 (US$1.30) price tag.

Lychee-Flavoured Lexus Sandwich Biscuits

Lexus is a famous brand of crackers and sandwich crackers in Asia with a variety of flavours such as cheese, vegetable, or chocolate. While this particular product was made in Malaysia, convenience store GS25 seemed to have a collaborative promotion which saw the creation of lychee cream sandwich crackers, which we didn’t hesitate to buy. While the smell was perfectly accurate, there was little other flavour, and the dryness that coats the mouth afterwards leaves it a little lacking in the satisfaction.

Milk Drink Cheese Flavour

Koreans have an indisputable obsession with cheese, and not of the European varieties. They use a cheap, bland mozzarella for its melting qualities which makes for impressive stretch shots or to tone down the spiciness of their fiery dishes. Still, we didn’t expect it to end up as a drink flavour of all things, but that made it all the more curious. The thickened milk drink turned out to be a yoghurt drink with typical sweetness and some of the yoghurt sourness, though also was slightly salted supposedly to imitate the cheese. It was a little expensive, but mostly we were sad that it wasn’t cheesier.

Banana Almonds

Tom’s Farm is back, this time with banana-flavoured almonds. As expected, it tastes like the typical artificial banana flavouring used for anything banana-flavoured. Having nabbed this for only ₩1,000 (US$0.85) at a discount store, we didn’t regret this one at all.

Honey Butter Chips Cherry Blossom Flavour

Honey butter rises again in this cult-hit chips by Haitai (해태). We never understood the popularity of the original – it’s predominantly bland with the slightest breath of sweet-salty. We hoped the cherry blossom flavour would make for a better eat but it didn’t. It was pretty regretful.

Green Tea-Flavoured Cheese Cubes

This, to put best, is a gelatinous cube of cream cheese flavoured with a bad rendition of green tea that it tastes slightly vegetable-like. There were many regrets with this one.

Sweet Mayo Cheese Pringles

Mayonnaise isn’t new in terms of chip flavourings, and cheese is definitely not either. However, Pringles was really off-the-mark with this product, the flavour predominantly of fake cheese and not of mayo at all. At ₩3,300 (US$2.75) it was a bit pricey. There were too many problems for it to be enjoyable.

Sweetcorn Milk Ice Cream

Corn as a sweet ingredient is not an uncommon concept in Asia. It’s used to top shaved ice, or squeezed into juice. Our unaccustomed palates just had to try sweetcorn ice cream. We hadn’t expected pieces of corn, but besides that it was enjoyable as a frozen dessert. There were no regrets.

Yoghurt Ice Bar

Once more, the probiotic yoghurt drink makes its appearance in another snack. This bar was possibly a bit old, as it had an off-taste besides the main sweet-sour flavour of the drink. That was the one regret for us.

Cheese Choco Pie

Choco Pies are everywhere in Korea. It comprises of a sandwich of two discs of soft cake and either a marshmallow or cream filling, the whole thing coated in a chocolate shell. Thanks to its popularity, we expected a variety of flavours and we weren’t disappointed. The cream was delightful and the cake soft, but there was no flavour of cheese, likely as it was expired already. Besides that, it was tasty.

Roast Sweet Potato Latte Ice Cream

Roast sweet potato lattes were a bit of a deal some time ago in Korea, so this ice cream likely arose after jumping onto the trend. Sweet potatoes are often considered sweet flavours in Asian countries, and is a common cake flavour in Korea, thanks to its mild and fragrant sweetness. This ice cream bar was pretty accurate to the flavour of a milky, toasty sweet potato, though also a little frosty. While tasty, it was probably too predictable for us to have needed to eat the ice cream at all.

Banana Choco Pie

This Choco Pie used marshmallow instead of cream. Besides the essence of banana flavour in the filling, it was pretty underwhelming. Despite the general quality of the cake it wasn’t so bad. Perhaps a little disappointing.

Cheese & Strawberry Choco Pie

The cake had specks of dried strawberries, and the marshmallow pink, but there was no discernible cheese component. It was inaccurate and as such dissatisfying, but otherwise not a bad snack.

Strawberry Mochi Kit Kat

Strawberry mochi is a popular dessert in Korea often found in night markets. A whole strawberry is wrapped in smooth, sweetened red bean paste and then a layer of mochi glutinous rice cake, a soft, chewy, translucent dough often associated with Japan. The white chocolate Kit Kat had an immediate fragrance of nutty red bean. We aren’t surprised that we can’t pick out the mochi in there as it’s mostly a texture, but the strawberry was probably drowned out by the red bean. For that, we knocked off points for the accuracy, and also for the price.

Camembert Cheese & Fish Snack (Candy Type)

“Candy type”, as we learned throughout Korea and Japan, likely refers to individually-wrapping bite-sized snacks like you would for candy. The snack is exactly as it sounds – some cheese sandwiched between two strips of dried fish jerky. It was salty, but very savoury and enjoyable, probably great with some beer if you drink it. It wasn’t a cheap snack, but it was delicious.

YukGaeJang Spicy Beef Stew Potato Chips

This brand of Yukgaejang spicy beef stew instant noodles is found all over Korea, though not as famous as its brother, Nongshim brand’s infamous Shin Ramyeon. It isn’t spicy, but the combination of the flavour of red pepper, MSG, and general seasonings is similar to the smell of the sachet of a Shin Ramyeon packet. Having not eaten the Yukgaejang instant noodles for a good long while we can’t say how accurate it is, but it wasn’t bad at all.

Fig & Berry Choco Pie

This Choco Pie had cream and a fig jam, but it was shockingly delicious. While we aren’t confident we know what fig tastes like the flavour of the jam, the fresh cream, the fluffy cake, and the dark chocolate shell made for a moreish dessert that we would happily buy again.

Orange Chocolate Chip Choco Pie

Though a little drier than other Choco Pies, the mild orange went well with the dark chocolate. We didn’t care much for the marshmallow filling. Another hit for us.

Hoddeok Korean Nuts & Seed Pancake Flavour Rice Crackers

Hoddeok is a famous Korean pancake consisting of a chewy dough filled with sugar, cinnamon, seeds, and nuts. Unfortunately, these huge rice crackers ended up being bland and dry. Jos could tolerate it. Noms wasn’t so keen.

Chapaghetti Jajang Black Bean Sauce Noodle Crackers

Chapaghetti has gained recent fame from the Academy Award-winning Korean film Parasite. This instant noodle is based off the Chinese-Korean dish jjajangmyeon, which consists of chewy noodles coated in a thick, black sauce of savoury, salty-sweet fermented beans. These little cakes of noodles were dusted in a jajang flavour. It was a little salty, and mildly regrettable, but we did end up bringing some home to share around.

Cherry Blossom Chocolate-Covered Pretzels

A couple of wacky flavours of a similar product were circulating Korea around the time we went, and we suspect that the Spring season called for cherry blossom flavours. We’re not too sure what cherry blossoms taste like but these pretzels sure were similar to strawberry-flavoured snacks. It was a miss for us.

While we can’t guarantee any of these snacks will remain on the market in Korea once each of their respective trends and seasons die down, it doesn’t need to be said that there’s a whole world of processed food out there that goes beyond expectations. While some may not be satisfactory, and others plain gross, it’s always fun to have a try of what you can find.