Japanese rice crackers and Japanese prawn crackers are pretty common these days, but I found Amanoya's combination of amaebi (sweet shrimp) with their shoyu glazed gourmet rice crackers an interesting experience, because you don't normally get the two together. Their Zuimu series in particular is the same size and shape as Ogura Sanso's premium rice crackers sold in Kyoto department stores. (Packaging shown in image further below.)
As you can see from the image, the middle is a faint salmon pink, and the prawn used was substantial enough to be comparable to premium prawn cracker brands such as Bankaku sold in department stores.
It was a very hearty and savoury prawn flavor.Overlay that with a bold shoyu glaze, and it's a totally addictive winner in the snack world. The shoyu is thick and complex, reminding me of Ogura Sanso's shoyu rice crackers, which is a premium traditional Kyoto rice cracker brand using top quality gourmet brewed shoyu.
Think of the umami of prawn combining with the complexity of fermented shoyu flavor, like in hotpot soups or prawn sushi, and it becomes clearer why this totally hit the spot.
Furthermore, these gourmet versions have an excellent crunch. I felt the Ogura Sanso texture was just a tad crisper and better, as was Amanoya's Yuzu flavour in this Zuimu series, but this was still extremely enjoyable to crunch.
This is the packaging - very pretty and presentable, I thought.
Apart from this, I also tried
their Yuzu and Shoyu flavours. Between the two, the Yuzu was particularly nice,
once again on par with Ogura Sanso IMO. The tangy and herby bitter taste of the
yuzu was a perfect complex complement to the shoyu. I thought it was a bit more
common as a flavour, however, so I didn't take pictures.
The amazing thing is that it's a lot more accessible than Ogura Sanso, as I found it in FairPrice, Don Don Donki and other Japanese supermarts such as Iroha Mart. I believe it was around S$6 for a packet of 6. It also comes individually wrapped, which means they are great as pantry snacks, for distributing to friends or for road trips.
Ingredients
This is the ingredients list for
reference. They used Japanese rice (uruchi mai) as the first ingredient as
expected. What follows are, to my understanding, vegetable oil, sugar, shoyu,
amaebi (sweet shrimp), syrup, flavouring extract, salt, sorbitol, flavouring,
beni koji (red yeast) colouring and caramel colouring.
If you can't find these in stores, you could try getting it from Shopee, such as from this store which has a lot of sales. (Please check the merchant reviews on your own to ensure that they are reliable.)
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