Reaction: Vitasoy Red Bean

The human senses have psychological expectations due to our previous experiences. And when those expectations are fooled, we tend to react in two ways: shock... and maybe disgust.

I don't know what I was thinking when I purchased a 6-pack of Red Bean soy bean drink. I've been a huge fan of Vitasoy ever since I was little. It's a fine-filtered soy-milk - more filtered that western soy milk so it doesn't have that "grit" texture. It is, indeed, much like drinking normal cow's milk.

So that's the first built-in expectation... a Vitasoy product should taste... well, relatively bland and just a hint of sweetness.

I also know that Red Bean is supposed to be sweet and have a certain pasty texture (because... well, the Chinese name for red-bean dessert translates literally as "red bean sand."). So the sensation of tasting such a taste but in fluid form is a little strange.

But finally, there is an ultimately disturbing shock to the system: The packaging for Red Bean soy Bean Drink is a cheerful red and pink on white motif. And western life has taught me many things: one of which is that anything in red should taste sour-sweet like strawberries. This is doubly true if it is a milk-product - a milk-like product packaged in red should be a strawberry shake!

The end result, I will allow my brother's knee-jerk reaction to speak in concise summary: "Gah! Disgusting!" (he later thought it tasted alright once he got over the initial shock).

All at once, one's expectations of a red-white boxed drink with a milk-like content is suddenly confronted with such an incongruous taste. It's just too weird for words. There is nothing else on the face of this planet that can describe the feeling. It would be like biting in a piece of fried chicken and finding out it tastes like chocolate... and had the consistency of cheese.

But for the taste itself... Red Bean Soy Bean Drink actually does taste like Red Bean. This is probably because there really is authentic red bean powder in the mixture. But the presentation of the product is just so unusual that it's still unnerving even after I've finished off the 6-pack.

Game Night December 2007

This is a 2-for-1 post. First, last night we (my buddies and I) held a LAN party - and considering the nature of PC gaming (installing games, version compatibility, hardware setups), I'm amazed we had as few troubles as we did. Of course, it helped that we tried to stick with a game we all knew we could run: Unreal Tournament 2004... old enough that I acutally found a used copy at a local Value Village (aka: "Savers" in the USA).

Hi-lists and lo-lites:
- While figuring out how to plug in the various PCs that everyone bought, I accidentally kicked a power bar's toggle switch, killing the juice to both my PC and to Weirdguy's PC. We don't know if it's related, but for some reason we couldn't get his machine to stabilize afterwards - it would reboot itself for no apparent reason from time to time. And then after a while, it went back to normal.

- Once all 8 players were in place and all the PC's plugged in, the power went out. We didn't throw the main breaker because the hall light could be turned on. Heh.

- Only 1 out of 8 PC would refuse to connect to the others. We spent all night taking turns at the problematic machine trying to debug it while the other 7 would play. We never did figure it out.

- Took a break for a pizza supper. As anyone can guess, there was bound to be a round butting heads over toppings. I drank two cans of "energy drink" during the party... one Tab Energie and one Sobe Arush. I wouldn't fall asleep until about 4:30am!

- broke out the old SNES to play Super Bomber Man 2 by 2AM. It was also awesome. I complained that the game wasn't particularly realistic.

Now for PART 2...
I was just reading in Running Room Magazine an article about caffeine. For the longest time I've been wondering just how "extreme" are these so-called energy drinks. Well, Toronto nutritionist Tara Postnikoff reports that Health Canada recommend no more than 400mg of caffeine daily for an adult. And that an 8oz cup of coffee has about 150mg... so... wait, that would mean a typical 250ml can of Red Bull with 80mg of caffeine is about half a cup of coffee. Of course, that doesn't take into account all the sugars and other stimulants in an energy drink.

Anyway, beyond this, I've also decided that Tab Energie sucks. I mean, it does what it's advertised to do but it also tastes terrible, if you ask me. Firstly, I hate diet drinks - artificial sweeteners have this chemical aftertaste that remind me of cough syrup. Well, Tab Energie suffers on two counts:

First, it has a really really strong "diet" taste. And secondly, it's a cherry flavour drink. Whereas Red Bull and Arush taste more like cherry cola, Tab actually tastes like a cherry drink - like those Crush or Minute Maid fruit-flavour soft-drinks. But of course, a being a chemical-tasting cherry drink, it tastes more like bad coough syrup. I'll take an Arush over this any day.

To close up, however, can somebody out there tell me if this is the same "Tab" drink Americans have and we don't?

Game Night Drinking

The weather's sucked lately and I'm always wanting to sleep... So when Saturday night rolled around, I decided to juice up a little with a Red Bull. Problem is I kind of dislike Red Bull.

So I try something else: Sobe Arush.
Here's the thing, there's two things I dislike about Red Bull. I get a wicked caffeine crash about 2 hours after drinking one. And second, it has a kind of chemical after-taste I don't like... it's like a diet drink or something.

What's Arush? It's the same sort of thing... but the taste is a little more "natural" (think cherry-cola). According to the can, it's actually quite similar to Red Bull but it's only 76mg of caffeine per can instead of 80mg like in the more well-known competitor. Does that make a difference? Probably not. As weirdguy was saying the other day - it's more or less like drinking two cups of coffee in a row.

Being a little less well-known has another side-effect: it's a bit cheaper. In real-world terms, a can of Red Bull will cost about $3 in a typical corner-store. A can of Arush will cost $2.50, but a grocery store is where the best deal is had. A 4-pack of Red Bull retails about $11 or so but Arush will cost about $8 - sweet!

As for the game tonight... could've gone better. We played mostly co-op and even tried turning up the difficulty level. Then ended the night with a Free-for-all (where I got eliminated rather early on). The AI came at me pretty early and left me scrambling but mrbabou moved in for the kill... fair... but not so much fun to go out like a punk.

Chrysanthemum: Instant

I'll be honest with you up front... I'm not particularly experienced with traditional Chinese drinks. I like them enough but don't ask me for advice - I'm no medicine man. But I have been told by those wiser than myself that chrysanthemum tea is supposed to be good for me and has anti-biotic properties. Is this true? I don't know... but it does soothe my sore throat in the winter time. At least, this instant variety does.

Presented in a typical silvery foil packet, this is a single serve product that makes a decent sized mug of warm tea (although, it would also have you believe that you could serve it cold). Logic would dictate however, that hot water desolves any drink mix better than cold water would.

The content of the foil packet is sweetly scented; so far so good – the ingredients seem rather straight-forward. It listed simply chrysanthemum then sugar and honey. And yes, it does smell very real. But like I said before: I'm not big on genuine Chinese herbal drinks so I'd be hard pressed to tell you if that's really chrysanthemum extract I'm drinking.

It's enough to say that I'll take their word for it. It does taste and smell like a sweet flowered tea (a little bit like jasmine). In any case, I can't get over how good it feels. I have a feeling this'll easily replace my taste for hot chocolate on a cold day.

Essence of Chicken - is it soup?

I just took a swig of the what could be the weirdest Asian product I've EVER tried. Apparently it's "perfect for gift giving" if one were to believe what my mother tells me (and in fact, the bottles she gave me to try were regifted from my Japanese aunt)... if anything this is not just a Chinese thing then.

The packaging would have you know that this is all-natural and is made of the best quality chicken ever (KFC, this is NOT). This "essence of chicken" come in a small bottle of only a few of ounces - just as well as they also mention that once opened, it stays fresh in your refrigerator for only 24 hours or so.

One cool thing tho is that the stuff comes in a pretty snazzy unresealable container. It's glass but instead of a twist off cap, it's a metal ring that holds a seal in place - then you use the ring itself to give yourself leverage to pull off the cap. Weird.

Anyway, as for the drink itself... it taste exactly like what you'd think something called "essence of chicken" might taste like: sort of like an unseasoned chicken soup... I'm told they sort of boil chicken - bones and all until all the solids are completely liquified. Well, that sounds just about like making a soup to me. The only thing particularly strange is that this particular brand (called "Brand's" by the way; kind of the reverse of NoName brand, don't you think?) also added lingzhi... which, if you'd believe a Chinese medicine man, would pretty much infuse you with invulnerability or perhaps even render you immortal or something. Unfortunately, it also gives the concoction a bitter taste (like every herbal additive). Just as well, I didn't drink the whole thing and I'll polish it off tomorrow.

Maybe Super Mario was onto something after all, what with all those Mushroom power-ups. I don't recall him ever boiling whole chickens before in the games though.

pocari sweat

I just wanted to quickly mention (in spite of my personal crisis of faith - as usual, check the other blog for my long-winded dissertation on the matter) that I finally downed the rest of my bottle of Pocari Sweat.

"Japanophiles" will recognize this funny-named sports drink. It's a white sodium-filled solution that came out in Japan around the same time as Gatorade became popular (let's say 1980s) - and was quite possibly the first ever entry on Engrish.com - a more serious article on it is found at Wikipedia.org as usual.

What did I think? Like all Japanese foods, it rapidly turned my stomache at first. I remember my first time having a plate of chicken terriyaki on rice and the sauce was so light it felt as though it slid down into my belly and wanted to float its way back up. It was a weird feeling. Of course, I grew to like it. And I think I'll grow to like Pocari Sweat too... but come on, with Gatorade readily available when I go for a run outside, as if I'm going to go out of my way to purchase a bottle of Pocari Sweat (probably a Taiwanese distribution at that; like I'll actually ever find an authentic Japanese edition bottle).

And on top of that, a large glass of orange Gatorade doesn't make my insides feel like they want to do somersaults either. That's really too bad because I really wanted to like this drink right off the bat.

Reaction: Propel "fitness water"

So I found this stuff for 99cents per 700ml bottle at the supermarket... "From the makers of Gatorade" it said on the bottle. What's there to lose? I mean, I like Gatorade - it does what it's marketted to do ("The Thirst Quencher" they say) when I'm working out and sweating heavily.

Well, I grabbed an "orange" flavour and tried it - a little before the run and the rest after the half-hour run. I won't talk about the actual content because you can look that stuff on up anywhere, but I will say what it was like from a thoroughly uninformed point of view: it was kinda disgusting.

It tasted a bit like when I have a glass of orange juice, then forget to wash out the glass, and fill it with water a little while later and have a gulp. That's what "flavoured water" tastes like. It's not flavourful like juice would be, nor is it anything like the watered-down taste of Gatorade. But that said, it's actually kinda realistic, then... I mean it really tasted like there was a trace of real OJ in the bottle.

Did it feel particularly good? Well, there was a slight burning sensation in my throat. At first I was a little worried - the bottle label mentions all sorts of CYA "consult a physician" business. But "burning throat" was not one of the symptoms listed so I figure it's probably just me being sensitive to the acidity in it... after all, almost all the vitamin content advertised is in the form of some acid.

Will I buy this stuff again? Probably not. Will I try other similar products? Maybe - I hear Coca Cola LTD just released some sort of "fitness water" under their PowerADE brand called "Option" and I'm told it's not as acid so if the price is right, I'll give that a go.

Sangaria Ramune?

Not sure why I thought to post this now - some 4 days after the fact. But I had my first bottle of Ramune on Saturday - I found it at an ethnic supermarket while visiting my brother in Montreal. And that should tip you off that I didn't find it particularly memorable in terms of soda pop to drink.

For those of you who've never heard of it, it's a soda that comes in a glass bottle featuring an air-tight seal using a glass marble. You use this little plastic plunger thingie and pop the marble into the bottle to unseal it. Yes, Ramune is known for it's bottle more than for the actual content... and I'll tell you why.

Ramune is more or less cream soda. Well, the "Sangaria" type was cream soda - I'm told the other ones are more like Sprite or 7Up... I accept why lots of people say that it's over-priced (it is). I mean, it was good though, but hardly worth more than a buck or two for a soda in a novelty bottle.