Japanese snacks are wonderful. I often go into shops like Aji Ichiban and Okashi Land to see if they have any delicious new products. Aji Ichiban has a more extensive selection of meat jerky, dried plums and other dried fruit - all of which you can buy by the pound, as well as a variety of pre-packaged rice crackers, prawn crackers and other snacks. I love the dried cranberries, dried apricots and candy-coated chocolate-covered sunflower seeds (great sprinkled on ice-cream). At Okashi Land, they don't sell their products loose, but they still have a lot of interesting foods - and weird merchandising.
On my most recent visit there, I found Men's Pocky Chocolate - those chocolate-dipped pretzel sticks. There's no explanation on the box why these Pocky sticks are specifically for men, although the dark green and black box is, I suppose, more 'traditionally' masculine than the red and pastel-coloured boxes of the other varieties of Pocky. The sticks of Men's Pocky look the same as the other dark chocolate kind, and they taste the same - but oddly, an 82-gram box is $2 cheaper at $10 instead of $12.
I also came across all kinds of Hello Kitty products - chewing gum, strawberry-dipped pretzels that look like Pocky but aren't, fruit jellies, prawn crackers . . . all licensed by the Sanrio Company. My six-year-old niece - and many grown-up women (not me, I hasten to add) - will be pleased.
While those packages are quirky, some packaging on Japanese snacks is wasteful. Sometimes each cookie or cracker is individually wrapped. I found some delicious chocolates called Meltykiss - 'gently melts in your mouth like a snowflake' - and each one was in its own cellophane wrapper. I even came across individually wrapped cashew nuts! I suppose that's good if you're on a diet - it's a bit of a nuisance to unwrap each nut before you eat it - but it's not very good for the environment. What do they do with their rubbish in Japan - do they have enormous landfills that consist mostly of plastic wrappers from snack products?
Supatra on Ice House Street in Central has just re-opened as Heartbeat Thai Restaurant By Supatra. The grand opening was on Tuesday. Namesake Supatra Farber is now business partner with general manager Gordon MacKenzie, who was previously involved with Wyndham Thai. The restaurant had closed six months ago, with the owners planning to renovate it to take up two storeys, but after problems with the Building Department, those plans had to be modified. The owners have lowered prices on dishes, and starters are now under $100, in a bid to attract a trendier crowd to the 'contemporary Thai' restaurant. New dishes include seafood and seaweed in chicken broth, prawn-stuffed chicken breast with Penang curry, and seared sirloin with honey sauce. A chef from Bangkok is being recruited. Heartbeat Thai Restaurant By Supatra is at 33-38 Ice House Street, Central, Tel: 2522 5073.