It is well known that Americans love a lot of junk food. They love it so much, that they have to share their love to food with other countries around the world. I have to let you know that you are about to see many snacks that you have never seen before. So buckle up and get ready for some of the weirdest junk food you have ever seen or heard about.
1. Starbucks Sweet Potato Frappuccino
Sweet potatoes for many Americans remind Thanksgiving. But for across East Asia, they use sweet potatoes as a flavor for many (even too much) varieties of foods. Starbucks launched in 2019 in Japan a seasonal drink that literally contain sweet potatoes in it and that is named Sweet Potato Gold Frappuccino.
This drink contains small touches of candied sweet potato along with a honey and sweet potato sauce. People that tasted this interesting drink report the flavor of the drink is quite interesting and they could feel the the sweet potatoes taste with strong taste of espresso.
2. Hot Wing and Wasabi Flavored Oreos
Oreo is a special sandwich cookie snack that contain 2 wafers and sweet crème between them. I love this snake and I love to take it for traveling, to work or just at home. Well, if you are in china and you want an Oreo cookie, you will be surprised what you will find. In 2018, cookie manufacturer Mondelez released 2 weird Oreo flavors.
Oreo with wasabi and Oreo with hot wing. In the wasabi cookie, the crème is green and mimics the flavor of spicy wasabi. While in the hot wing cookie, the crème is orange and mimics the flavor of the traditional hot wing sauce. Those 2 flavors drove social media apps crazy.
3. Yogurt Banana Fanta Soda
Let’s be honest here, most of the soda drinks such as Coca-Cola, Sprite and many more are not healthy at all. Well surprisingly, Fanta created a special healthy drink that contain yogurt in banana flavor for the Japanese market.
Well, for Japanese this is not an unusual thing because it is popular to have yogurt in soda drink.
4. McDonald’s Tabasco Infused Spicy Hot Sundae
Many people loves spicy food and snacks, but have you ever heard about spicy drinks? As part of collaboration between Tabasco an American hot sauce company and McDonald in Honk Kong, in 2017, they released a limited addition of hot (VERY HOT) chocolate drink with tabasco.
When the dessert came out people were shocked that the collaboration wasn’t about hamburger or fires but an actually a Sundae. The brave ones among them that tasted the spicy drink said it wasn’t special and even people there who were fans of spicy food were disappointed because that drink lacked some more spicy sauce.
5. Green Curry and Shrimp Tom Yum Flavor Lays Chips
Lays is known as one of the favorite chip snack company across America with many interesting flavors form onion to BBQ. Well, there are more other flavors, for example in 2019 Lays released a variety of limited edition flavors in Thailand.
Lays took inspiration from 2 favorite Thai’s foods – green curry and shrimp tom yum , and add them to chips. I am not going to lie, chips with shrimp flavor sound interesting. The reviews for the chips were mixed, but the majority of the bloggers agreed it was a hard challenge to get these high complex flavors into chips.
6. Sweet Potato Kit Kat
This is another use of sweet potatoes in weird places. While sweet potatoes originally came from America, they became important part of the Asian diet and especially in Japan. At first, it was a replacement for rice when the country got low with rice and then slowly became one of the most important ingredients in the Japanese kitchen.
Kit Kats got inspired by the one of the most popular sweet potatoes dishes, Daigaku Imo and developed Kit Kats with sweet potatoes which won rave reviews.
7. Durian Flavor McFlurry
McFlurry is a brand of flavored ice cream distributed by McDonald over many regions with different unique flavors. Recently, McDonald offered in Asia one of their most popular fruits, the Durian.
McFlurry with Durian was first launched in Malaysia and then in the rest of Asia and became big hit across Southeast Asia. Funny note, this fruit is known by having strong smell which is why it became banned from hotels and public close areas.
8. Spicy Mango Munchkins
If you want donuts you probably will go immediately to Dunkin’ Donuts to munch them there. It comes in many flavors such as Bavarian cream and jelly filled. In Indonesia, however things started getting hot when they decided to introduce two special flavors, spicy mango and spicy pineapple.
The idea of combining spicy flavors and fruit is actually popular in Indonesia. Indonesian customers who already fans of spicy mango responded positively to the new spicy doughy treats.
9. Spicy Fish Egg Flavored Pringles
The Pringles is a potato chips snack brand the use the slogan “Once you pop, you just cant’s stop”. Many people tasted Pringles different flavors and confirmed the slogan. But this flavor surprised many people – a few years ago Pringles released an unfamiliar spicy flavor to the Japanese market.
The flavor we are talking about is known as mentaiko, flavor that was created by harvesting eggs form fish. Mentaiko’s popularity hasn’t stayed just in Japan but spread as well to Singapore.
10. Shrimp Mayo Pizza Doritos
Since the 60’s, Doritos became one of the popular snacks in America and Japan. Doritos came in varieties of flavors from sweet to salty and even spicy. But one flavor was managed to divide the Doritos community.
Doritos joined forces with Pizza-La, Japan’s largest chain of pizza restaurants, and created the Doritos with flavor of shrimp mayonnaise pizza. While some bloggers compared the taste to “fish food”, others praised the taste of the slightly sweet umami-rich.