Chimasu

‘Chimasu.com delivers an assortment of your favourite Asian snacks on a monthly subscription basis. Once signed up, you will be given the opportunity to tell us about your favourite snacks. We listen carefully, and handpick a box for you each month from the hundreds of snacks we have to offer.’

Prices:

1 month: £18 p/m

3 months: £55 prepay (£17 p/m)

6 months: £99 prepay (£16.50 p/m)

12 months: £192 prepay (£16 p/m)

When you sign up you can indicate your snack preferences. You can choose from categories such as crisps, candy, noodles etc., and say whether you’d like Love, Like, or No Thanks.

The box arrives in a mailing bag, which I’m not showing because it’s not very interesting. Instead, this is what’s inside.

Nice box design!

I was expecting the leaflet on top to be a list of the contents, but of course if you can choose your preferences this is not really possible.

However it does show this month’s featured snacks, which I assume everybody gets.

There are also some random fun facts about Korea, which really are pretty interesting.

I was excited that the box contains a Black Thunder bar and the Koala cookies – I’ve had both these before and they are AMAZING.

Anyway, once I got over not having a list, I decided to dive in.

These are Rolling Bite Seaweed in Spicy Flavour. They are as they sound, a rolled seaweed snack with added chilies. Salty and spicy.

These Dream Animals are fun. I first thought they were animal crackers, but then I saw ‘vegetable biscuits’ on the package. They are nice little savory crackers, and apparently they do contain actual vegetables. Perhaps a fun way of getting more veggies into the kids? Plus bonus cute packaging.

These Shin Ramyum Noodle Soup is the first of two packages of noodles. This is a classic Asian noodle package, with envelopes of soup, noodles, and vegetables. You add everything to water and boil it up in just a few minutes. Talk about an easy supper!

Here’s the Black Thunder bar. These are amazing, a chocolate bar with biscuit bits in it. It doesn’t sound wildly interesting, but believe me, these are awesome.

Sesame Crispy Pastry is a bit like an individually-wrapped biscuit with sesame seeds. They’re crunchy and savory, and would probably make a pretty nice snack to go with beer.

Kopiko are little coffee hard candies. I have to say I don’t go a bundle on coffee candy, I’m sure they will find a happy home somewhere!

OK, so pretty much everyone is familiar with Wasabi Peas. I love these things. So spicy and crunchy!

Teabags are another thing you can choose whether or not to have in your Chimasu box. Here I have two Jasmine Tea bags and one of Pu-Erh tea. Pu-Erh tea is a Chinese traditional fermented tea.

These are Kameda Seika Soy Sauce Rice Crackers. They are like the tiny rice crackers you buy in bags, but much bigger. If you like soy sauce you are guaranteed to enjoy these. Salty and delicious.

These are the Koala Biscuits mentioned in the leaflet. They are absolutely gorgeous, not to to mention adorable. Each biscuit has a little picture of a koala on it, and they are filled with something yummy. I’ve tasted the strawberry and chocolate versions, and these Mango koalas were equally delicious!

The other noodles! Soon Veggie Ramen is similar to the spicy noodle soup above, but, well, not spicy. This version is called Gourmet Mild. The process is similar: packages that you add to hot water and boil.

I’ve had something similar to these Oishi Pea Snack before. It’s one of these things that looks and sounds incredibly bizarre, but tastes delicious. Not only are they peapod shaped, they really do taste like peas! Or at least they do if peapods were crunchy and salted. But regardless, these are fab.

Yummy Flakes Shrimp Flavour are the one thing in this box I can’t eat. That is because I’m allergic to shellfish. However I will make sure these go to an appreciative home.

So cute! Kabaya Milk Chocolate Biscuit in the shape of Pandas! They are basically like sandwich cookies with the top cookie cut out to make the panda face. Yum.

Finally, a couple more candies. Hi-Chew (also featured this month) are very well-known Japanese candies. They are chewy candies, a bit like Starburst or Chewits, but more interesting flavours.

Well, this was my first-ever Chimasu box, and I’m very impressed.

I’ve tried an awful lot of Japanese snacks, but almost all of these were new to me. And the ones I know were all ones I love, so I’m always glad to have more!

Because this is a review box I’ve been sent a general mix of items; I didn’t give any preferences, so I thik this will reflect the range of items they offer.

I think the ability to tailor your box to your preferences is an excellent one. Given the choice I would have requested no shellfish (this is an option) because a lot of Asian snacks can contain shellfish, but in the event there was only one snack which contained shellfish, and it’s a tiny one.

Every item is labelled with the name and ingredients in English. This is extremely useful because almost all Asian snacks have little or no English on them (because why would they?!) and if you’re checking ingredients, as I do, googling everything can be somewhat time-consuming!

I love that my selection is mostly savory. Of my fifteen snacks (I count the doubles as one) nine were savory. Having two full meals in there (noodles) is really nice. Those will definitely come in handy evenings when I can’t face cooking!

I’m less fussed about the teabags, but again, they reflect what they offer. For someone who likes their tea, they would be a welcome addition, especially as it gives you the opportunity to try something new without buying a whole box.

As to value with all these things the value is better the longer the subscription. For a box delivered right to your door, full of snacks plus a couple of meals, I think the value is pretty good. If you happen to live close to a large Asian supermarket, you could probably find an awful lot of these things. When I lived in London I shopped in Chinatown all the time. But now the closest place I could find this stuff is nearly forty miles away, and I suspect this is the case for an awful lot of people!

So this is a very handy way of getting your Asian snack fix, or extending your tastes and trying new flavours. You’re sure to find something new and interesting to nibble on!