FOOD FRIDAY 6

In addition to eating lots of local cuisine in the form of my family meals at lunch and dinner, I am also having fun exploring the different snacks available at boutiques, or little all-purpose corner stores.

I talked a little about boutiques in a previous Food Friday post, specifically about what you can buy in sachets.  These stores carry so much more than that, though!  Depending on the size of the store, you can buy yogurt, juice, butter, eggs, fruit, flour, sugar, cooking oil, onions, toothpaste, laundry soap, bike bungee cords, telephone credit, and so much more.

So today I’m going review a few of the snacking options in the first of what I’m calling: Boutique Food Reviews.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Item: Crax chips

Type: Puffs Fromage Oignon

Price: 50 CFA

Review: This is the snack for the times when you want something salty, but don’t want to spend the money on real chips like Pringles.  These are little crunchy pieces of air, kind of like a cheese ball, but with less flavor and less substance. It starts with the flavor of cheese and ends with a light onion sensation. The bag comes fully packed, which is a plus.  The packaging is adorable.

Origin: Senegal

 

Item: Magic Cracker Sandwich

Type: Butter Flavored Cream

Price: 100 CFA

Review: These crackers remind me of sandwich crackers from home, but instead have 3 crackers and 2 layers of filling.. The label of “butter flavored” put me off a little at first.  However  the crackers are slightly sweet, not like an artificial, buttery-popcorn taste stuffed between saltine crackers as I was expecting.  Instead it was like slightly sweet buttercream icing, which perhaps was the intention behind the product description.  They were on the dry side, but crunchy and the 2 layers of filling were a plus.  Magic crackers also come in Chocolate and Butter Cream and Strawberry Jam, both of which I have yet to try.

Origin: Thailand

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Item: Biskrem

Type: Cocoa

Price: 100 CFA

Review: These cookies have a crunchy outside cookie surrounding a creamy chocolate layer. The cocoa layer is rather small compared to the outside cookie, especially so compared to the image on the packaging. This cookie would be improved by an increase in the filling and an improvement on the flavor of the currently bland outside cookie.  All in all it satisfies a sweet craving, but could do a better job.

Origin: Turkey

 

 

 

 

 

 

Item: Bisko

Type: N/A

Price: 50 CFA

Review: This is one of my favorite boutique snacks. Bisko are little circular cookies the size of a nickel. They aren’t very sweet, but that is a good thing, especially in a country that loves sugar as much as Senegal does. I would describe these as a crunchier version of nilla wafers.  Many Senegalese eat them with milk. The bag is nice and full, making this snack  a good bang for your buck.

Origin: Senegal