Mar 18, 2025 Metro Eats
Kia ora,
There is an exemplary dairy in the square next to Newmarket Train Station called Smiley Dairy. I’ve been a sporadic customer here since I was a teenager, returning with more frequency during periods where I’ve lived along a train line. I’m always happy to fill the stretches of time between trains by exploring its cluttered aisles of instant ramen rarities, kooky lolly selections and ever-surprising range of canned drinks. At the counter a crew of slushy machines, filled with boisterously coloured concoctions, whir. Out the front, customers often perch on plastic milk crates while feasting on pies and ice blocks. And yet it’s only rated a 3.5 on Google, which leaves me bewildered. How could anyone overlook these charming idiosyncrasies?
My most recent purchase here was a pack of Zappo sour watermelon flavour lollies (made in Korea, but apparently very popular in Australia) while waiting for the train home. They are great, by the way: deliciously sour, in that uniquely zany faux-watermelon kind of way, and as thoroughly chewy as a Hi-Chew. But they’ve also led to a personal mystery. Despite never having tried them before, each time I unwrap one of the squares and pop one in my mouth, I’m struck by an enormous sense of nostalgia — they taste exactly like a sweet I loved deeply as a child but I can’t for the life of me recall exactly. Which makes me wonder if there is something specifically nostalgia-inducing about artificial flavours. Perhaps that distance from the real and tangible engenders more proximity to memories, to longing, to the subconscious (?). I have two left in the packet, meaning I have two more chances to try and resolve this mystery — at least until I find myself waiting for another train from Newmarket.
As I’ve been thinking so much about snacks, I thought it was time for another instalment of a special snack edition of this newsletter. As usual, I’m defining ‘snack’ as something packaged, ready to eat, with no prep required.
Also, an important correction to last week’s newsletter. In the midst of my growing alarm over automation’s pervasiveness and robots stealing our jobs, I made the terrible (and embarrassing) mistake of describing the images of apples in this NZ Herald article as being AI generated. It turns out, I was wrong — there are no AI-generated apples in the piece, only delicious, crunchy, real ones. Sincerest apologies to New Zealand Herald’s Lifestyle section!
Hei konā mai,
Charlotte
What’s new?
If you are on the hunt for something new, there is a brand-new Nepalese supermarket at the Dominion-Rd-meets-Mt-Albert-Rd intersection called Hamro Mart which is filled with tasty-looking snacks: chips, sweets, canned drinks — most of which I’ve not seen before.
While these aren’t specifically new products, I can’t keep up with the ever-growing, kaleidoscopic range of remedial, healthful, wellness-minded tonics in the refrigerator section at the supermarket. There’s Seoul Tonic, Bobby, Sodaly, Good Herb Soda, Moodi, No Ugly, Ārepa — and on and on. Bottles of liquids infused with hemp extracts and adaptogens and neuroberries and botanical terpenes and pre- and probiotics. Elixirs to cure hangovers, to improve your gut, to uplift your mood, to promote a sense of calm, to put you to sleep, to boost your liver function, to mitigate stress and to enhance the functioning of your brain. The prospect of sipping yourself to good health is, admittedly, a tempting prospect but I can’t help but feel a little cynical about the idea of ‘wellness’ packaged up as something you can buy in the form of a trendy-looking bottle. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that in an era of public healthcare cuts, pseudo-science and ‘CRUNCHY MOMS’, that even our snacks are now captured by health individualism.
And so it begins: Easter egg displays have officially started popping up at my local supermarket. But also, the future of the chocolate egg (and life on this planet) is at risk: the climate crisis is driving a decline in cacao production, which is likely causing more expensive products. Oh and more bad news for chocolate fans, APPARENTLY CADBURY MINI EGGS SUCK NOW.
Three good snacks
Daim (two pack), $4.20 from Safka: I picked this Swedish chocolate bar up on a total whim, and now it is the only sweet thing I care about. The rather meh packaging conceals a thin snap of milk-chocolate-coated caramel that’s ever-so-slightly burnt, and very buttery with shards of almond. Note: Safka also sells Daim in other forms — small bars, big bars, little bite-sized nubs, shards of it suspended in larger chocolate blocks. Chocolate gold. 10/10
Monster Munch pickled onion flavour, $3.60 from British Food Imports: British chips (or ‘crisps’ as they call them) are often excellent. And these puffed-corn chips are no exception. Each one is huge and wonderfully awkward in shape (said to be in the form of monsters’ feet — yum) and dusted in a powder that’s all at once sharp, vinegary and intense with onion. Once you get chewing, they collapse into a stodgy mush that cements itself to your molars — which is totally fine because it only extends the fun of it all. This might be, with the exception of Cheetos, the best puffed corn chip I’ve ever had. 10/10
Chip Star consomme flavour, $6.10 from Japan Mart: This is the best flavour of the Japanese Chip Star range that I’ve tried so far. The cylindrical packaging is beautiful and the chips themselves are wonderfully savoury with a shocking amount of depth — they really did taste like consommé! 9/10
Three not-so-good snacks
Paldo Sweet Rice Punch, $1.25 from FromK: Admittedly, I have never much enjoyed foods that lean towards the realm of cloying sweetness. As a foundational flavour profile, sweetness is totally fine, but I like a little sourness, bitterness, spice or at least fruitiness to make an appearance too. So I kind of knew that this drink, which is a canned version of the Korean fermented malt and rice drink sikhye, wasn’t going to sweep me off my feet. Those with an affinity for the sugary will adore it, though. And on a positive note, the tiny, squat can is adorable and the textural intrigue of the spongy bits of rice which swirl around the liquid is a lot of fun. 5/10
Pringles Super Hot Chili Lemon Crab, from my mum: These are perfectly pleasant, but for a flavour which seems to hold so much promise of bold heat and seafood-y funk and zing, there is barely more than a whisper of personality to these chips. 4/10
Frozen Kitagawa Pon de Mochi donuts, $2.50 from Japan Mart: When I was last in Japan I developed an unhealthy obsession for the Mister Donut chain. And specifically their famously chewy “Pon de Ring” mochi donuts (I even transported a box back to Aotearoa in my carry-on). I find myself daydreaming about these donuts habitually, and so I was thrilled to find an off-brand, frozen version of the donuts at Japan Mart in Newmarket. I’d hoped that filling the donut-shaped hole in my heart would be as easy as a trip to Japan Mart and half an hour of thawing, but no — until Mister Donut opens an outlet in Auckland, at least, it will unfortunately still require a plane ride. 4/10
