From time to time, we will highlight some new and interesting products to our readers. Our focus will centre around what we think our readers will be interested in. More specifically, we will give preference to Asian groceries and food products from Japan, Korea, China and Asean countires for example.
In this issue, we found two interesting beverage products from Korea. Both have rice as its base ingredient.
Rice has always been an integral part of the Asian identity, being an essential part of it staple diet. What is interesting about these two products is that rice is used as a key base ingredient in the manufacture of drinks. We started the hunt for such products when one of our staff were offered a rice based drink in a Korean restaurant based in Malaysia. The drink had rice sediments at the bottom and he described the drink as sweet and cooling.
We finally found two ready to eat products in a Korean supermarket in Korean Town (yes, there is such a place in the Klang Valley).
One is called Morning Rice by Woongjin of Korea. Made of brown rice and milky in colour, it taste like soya milk. Being made of rice it is an alternative to soya milk and of course dairy milk. For those who are lactose intolerant, they now have an alternative to dairy milk beside soya bean based milk.
The product is imported from Korea and comes in 1.5 litre plastic containers. However the price is steep - RM12.00.
The taste is sweet but has a slight burnt taste. However if you are interested in the exotic and are health conscious, you might want to give this a try. We were unable to determine the ingredients from the label, so we just have to take their word and presume it really is healthy. We have not seen this product in any other place except at PhillMart in Korea Town.
What our staff tried at the Korean restaurant is probably a variant of Shikhye. "Shikhye" is a traditional Korean sweet rice punch. We found a ready to drink version from Yakult and according to the label, it says "Nolstalgic Drink, Shikhye since 1994". Must be pretty good.
The ingredients in this canned Shikhye includes malt, rice and ginger. Since I am not a fan of ginger, I didn't quite like the taste as much. But it's quite intersting to have rice floating about the drink!
Again we found the drink in PhillMart, Korea Town and retails for RM1.70 per can. Phill Mart is located in Jalan Ampang Utama
1/1 (corner). Click Here for a map with directions to PhillMart
If you know of any interesting food products, you can either review it and send it to us to share with other readers or tell us about it so we can do a review. Just drop us an email at editor@foodvenue.com Meanwhile, we wish you happy shopping!
