Taste test: taro chips

I'm a huge taro fan. Taro bubble tea, taro-filled dumpling buns and especially ube spongecake--an essential ingredient to any Filipino birthday party.

Taro chips, though, are another story. I recall a purchase of a bag of taro chips in Vietnam which, upon tasting, were shoved down the side of a bus seat with an accompanying shudder. Cut like shoe-string chips, they tasted like taro cardboard but left a lingering film of palm oil on the tongue. It was all just wrong wrong wrong. Jackfruit chips good. Taro chips bad.

And then I discovered these taro babies at Thai Kee the other day. Right next to the banana rolls. And those rolls were gooood.....



So I paid my $2.80 (and picked up another box of banana rolls whilst I was in the neighbourhood, you know) for a camera-snapping taste test.



Oh what cute waffle-like shapes! Flecks of dark purple. Golden brown. Delicate yet manly. Oh yes, they're in touch with their feminine side, but they're still tough enough to be shoved in by the handful.



The taste?

Like sweet deep-fried cardboard with palm oil residue.

Oh no. Deja vu. Not the palm oil residue! Me no likey. Nothing worse than a cold McDonalds limp french fry with an overcoat of solidified grease (and yes, I know, apparently Macca's are all like vegetable oil these days, not chub-a-lub lard anymore).

I was devastated. I really wanted to like you. But I think I've figured it out. It's like I have a sugar crowd of friends, and I have my savoury mates. I think you're a sugar friend.

It's not you. It's me.

We'll just hang out with sucrose and dairy ok?