I am a snacky person by nature. My pantry is always fully stocked with chips, cookies, and crackers; I am very much not a part of an “ingredient household.” As a food editor, a lot of different snacks come across my desk: There are bags of remixed Chex mixes, bars of chocolate, sour candies coated in plum powder, almond flour crackers. Although those are all well and good, only one thing has truly captured my attention as of late: Taokaenoi’s chicken larb-flavored seaweed chips.
Eating seaweed as a snack is not revolutionary by any means. It’s something I’ve been enjoying since childhood; my mom felt sheets of algae were a healthier option than bags of potato chips (sodium aside, she’s probably right). Seaweed is also a highly sustainable food source, which is a bonus.
But Taokaenoi makes their seaweed even better by coating the sheets in a tempura batter and frying it off, creating something crunchy enough to stand up to potato chips. I’m not going to purport that this version is healthier than other snack options, like chips, but I also will not deny that their ample crunch and salty, briny flavor has me hooked and unconcerned with their nutritional value.
What takes the chips up another notch is their larb seasoning. Taokaenoi is a product of Thailand, so you can trust that they nail the flavor of larb: the chips are slightly spicy and zippy with citric acid, and there’s even a nuttiness from toasted rice powder that is a signature component of larb. Paired with a frosty beer, a plate of them is heavensent.
I’ve been consuming the chips straight out of the bag with reckless abandon, but I imagine that crushing them over a plate of hot rice and fried eggs would be magical, like a DIY version of furikake. They’d also make a great topping for ramen, or a nice addition to a bowl of poké. The problem, for me, is that I’m eating them too fast to find out.
