This is an odd choice for reviews on this site. It’s odd because the base of these snacks is dried fruit, and some people (myself included) might not consider them candy. The reason I’ve decided to review them is because these are dried fruits attempting to imitate popular Thai desserts, so it feels like they’re leaning into the candy theme. The other odd thing about this review is that I’m going to review all 5 flavours in one review. I’ve only seen these sold in this 5 pack, so I figured I would review it as a 5 pack.

Let’s start with the Crispy Banana in Coconut Milk package. Since the goal of these snacks is to make them feel like popular Thai desserts, it feels like I can’t do anything buy compare them. Flavour wise these Crispy Bananas taste a lot like bananas in coconut milk, it’s almost eerie. They even have the slight sour flavour you get from coconut milk. The snack itself is dried bananas with some kind of white powder on them. I assume the powder is some kind of dried coconut milk, so it really makes sense that the flavour works. Texture wise it obviously doesn’t really match, and it feels a little weird having all of this powder everywhere. It also proved to be pretty messy.

The second treat I tried is the Crispy Black Bean Sticky Rice. As with the Bananas in Coconut Milk, this snack didn’t get the texture right at all. Not that I really wanted it to, because a bag of slimy beans and rice would not make for a good snack on the go. Flavour wise I didn’t feel like these matched the original desert very well either. It was just a little bit too bland. I did enjoy the fact that they used real dried beans, and I really enjoyed the fact that they substituted the rice with puffed rice. I didn’t even think of using puffed rice as a substitute.

The thrid is probably the one treat in this package that I was most worried about, Crispy Durian Sticky Rice. My fear is not simply the durian (since there are actually a few forms of durian that I’m okay with), however the most un-agreeable form of durian I’ve ever had is dried durian. The strange thing is when I took my large mouthful of this treat it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The coconut flakes, white milky powder and even the puffed rice all helped calm the durian flavour down... at first. After a while the durian flavour did creep up a lot, and even a few hours after eating it I still had a durian after taste as well as durian flavoured belches.

I don’t think I’ve ever had taro in coconut milk as a dessert, but I’ve had taro and coconut milk before, and I think it probably tastes pretty good. While some people might find it odd to have a root vegetable in a sweet setting, trust me it works. The dried version of this dessert also tastes pretty good, and pretty close to how I would imagine the dessert would taste. It’s sweet at first, but there is most certainly an earthy flavour to it as well. The only fault I have with this particularly crispy version of a normally wet dessert is that it was a little too dry. It required a few sips of water between handfuls to keep my mouth hydrated.

I have a confession, I’ve saved the flavour I’m most excited about for last. Mango sticky rice is my favourite Thai dessert, and probably even ranks as one of my favourite desserts anywhere in the world. So the idea of having mango sticky rice in a crunchy snack form got me kind of excited. The good news is that it lived up to the expectations. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s as good a serving of non-crunchy sticky rice, but it’s most certainly my favourite of all of the snacks in this package, and a fine quick, on the go substitution. There was puffed rice, dried mango and plenty of coconut flavour.

Not all of these desserts were equal, but I feel like they each did a good job at representing the dessert, but in crunchy form. I would probably rank my favourite to least favourite of these in the same order if they were the real dessert or the crunchy snack version. Just in case you’re wondering, my least favourite was the Crispy Durian Sticky Rice, followed by the Crispy Taro in Coconut Milk, then the Crispy Black Bean Sticky Rice, the Crispy Banana in Coconut Milk, with the Crispy Mango Sticky Rice being my favourite.