VanFoodies.com

Do you sometimes get this giddy feeling when you come across something new and unique, knowing that you’re among the firsts to know about it, and you can’t wait to tell people? I get that when I try a new restaurant, or spot a new product at grocery stores. And I just had a moment like this when I attended a food and beverage product trade show at the Indonesian Trade Promotion Centre in Gastown.

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Named “A Flavourful Journey to Indonesia”, the purpose of the event was to provide Canadian businesses with a glimpse of the food and beverage products Indonesia offers, thus bringing these products to Canada and making them available at local retail stores. So naturally, many products I saw at this event are not yet available in Canada, but I had the opportunity to sample them and I seriously hope they will be available here soon.

Here are a few that got me really excited:

TYU Chewy Fruit Snacks

Fruit chips and snacks are not uncommon, but TYU fruit chips have a chewy texture that I’ve found rather unique. And it’s 100% fruit with nothing else! They have typical fruit chips such as mango and pineapple, but they also have these pink dragon fruit chips that were really good. Dragon fruit tends to have a very subtle, almost undetectable flavour, but I could definitely taste it in these fruit chips.

Zanana Chips

I must confess, I’m not a huge banana person, so I was very skeptical about the Zanana banana chips. However, wouldn’t you be intrigued to see flavours such as creamy milk, chocolate and green thai tea? I was sold!

Pipiltin Cocoa

Pipiltin Cocoa creates their chocolates from bean to bar, using cocoa beans sourced all across Indonesia. Cocoa beans from different regions of Indonesia bring different taste to the chocolate. While you will find single origin chocolate bars, they also have interesting flavours such as potato chips, and drinking chocolate mix.

Lemonilo Instant Noodles

A healthier alternative to your typical instant noodles! Some of us are familiar with Indomie, a popular Indonesian brand of Mi Goreng instant noodles available locally. Lemonilo is healthier in that the noodles are not fried, and they also mix spinach or turmeric powder in their noodles for extra health benefits. Furthermore, they have added cassava flour to the noodles, so the texture is bouncier than others with a nice chew to it. I saw a live demo at the event, and the noodles were easy to prepare and very tasty.

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Archipelago

Archipelago recently established its presence in Canada late last year. From coffee and tea, to spices and baking supplies, to snacks and cookies, they carry a wide range of products from different small producers in Indonesia. I have tried a number of products from them, and my favourites are their Tempeh Chips and Cassava Crepe Wafer Cookies. They also sell gluten-free cassava flour that has worked wonders in our crepes and batters.

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Rostcas Roasted Cashew

Crunchy and flavourful, these roasted cashews were addictive! I’ve tried mayo, black pepper, wasabi and garlic, and they were all very good.

Its Me Time Brownie Cookies

What makes these award-winning brownie cookies special is the use of glutinous rice flour. It’s light and airy, not overly sweet and rich, but it definitely gives you the decadence of a chocolate cookie. It’s almost guilt free eating a lot of these.

Final Thoughts

I was very impressed by the diversity of the products available at this event, and personally I think many of them would do well in the Canadian market and add to the vibrant food culture of Vancouver, British Columbia, or even Canada. While I was excited to be among the firsts to try these out, I was sad that many of them are not available in Canada yet so I wouldn’t be able to buy more of them and share with others. I hope the Indonesian Trade Promotion Centre had a successful trade show that garnered a lot of interest from local buyers, so we would be able to see these at a local store soon.

P.S. Did you know that if enough of us enquire about a particular product, it may attract the attention of the store and they might look into stocking them on their shelves? Just a parting thought for you 😉

Disclosure: I was invited to this event as food media. However, opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own.