Snack ninjas Jing Loh and Nancy Huynh show off snacks purveyed on a mission for their Omakase Box business. Keith Beaty/Toronto Star

 Published On Wed May 18, 2011

By Jennifer Bain Food Editor

Snack ninjas Nancy Huynh and Jing Loh are in their element during a covert mission to J-Town.

There are Baby Ball Cookies, Choco Waffles, mango-shaped chewies, grow-your-own miso soups and more to gawk at in the Japanese mini-mall’s snack section.

We giggle over the snappy display that explains how freeze-dried, all-in-one, instant miso soup is “Easy to make! Always fresh! Wherever you go!” Just place the cube in a cup, add hot water and stir.

Loh grabs another package of instant miso soup for comparison.

“That’s just the usual kind,” sniffs Huynh. “This is a cube that grows into a soup.”

The vegetarian MSG-free version of this quirky cube has a chance of making it into

http://www.omakasebox.com/ 

one of Huynh and Loh’s next Omakase Boxes. The fledgling food business is named for the Japanese term for asking the chef to choose your meal. (Neither is Japanese — his background is Malaysian Chinese, hers is Vietnamese Chinese and both grew up in Toronto eating Asian snacks.)

In omakase spirit, each month Huynh and Loh mail a surprise box of carefully curated “cool and unique” treats to subscribers.

Eighteen trailblazers got Omakase Box Volume One in late April. It was filled with Rosewood Estates Nutty Honey (Ontario honey with walnuts), Algonquin Tea Company’s “organic and ethically wildcrafted” Awakening Tea, lavender currant shortbreads from Toronto’s Tea Aura, chocolate-chip cookies from Frostines Edibles in Bowmanville and a matcha-flavoured Kit Kat or green tea Aero.

“I feel like we’re just out there trying to pick up new things and share them with other people,” explains Loh. “Really, it’s just about sharing our tasting experiences.”

He’s 27 and lives in Toronto. She’s 25 and lives in Hamilton. They became friends at Queen’s University while studying commerce. Their first foray into entrepreneurship, selling custom polo shirts, flopped.

“Food makes a lot more sense,” says Huynh.

“Yeah, because it’s our one passion,” chimes in Loh.

The Omakase Box evolved from a friend’s attempt to enlist their help with his online marketplace idea. They didn’t think people would be keen to try new foods that way, so came up with a tasting box.

Naturally, they’re using social media to spread the word, with a Facebook page, two Twitter accounts (@omakase_ninja and @soda_ninja), and a website, omakasebox.com.

They dubbed themselves ninjas because ninjas are always out on a search.

Huynh, who has “a pretty big soda addiction,” has a business card that shows her ninja avatar with a bottle of Italian lemon soda. Her title: Imagineer and Ninja by night.

Loh’s ninja avatar has a peach lollipop. His title is Sensei + Daily Trick-o-treater.

I invite myself along on a snack-finding mission. Right now the only thing they’ve green-lighted for an upcoming box is a jar of Goan khaldin coconut curry sauce from Eudora’s Fine Foods in Brampton.

We rendezvous at Union Station and head in Loh’s grey Toyota Corolla to Samosa King/Embassy Restaurant at Finch Ave. E. and Middlefield Rd. for samosas and Indian sweets. We take turns hogging a bag of spicy cassava chips mixed with curry leaves.

Next up is New Spiceland, a Sri Lankan supermarket at Steeles Ave. E. and Markham Rd. The ninjas pause over gaudy pink, white and green marshmallows.

“We try to stay away from MSG and very obtuse food colouring,” says Huynh. “But we don’t have any formal mandate.”

At J-Town, at Steeles Ave. E. at Victoria Park Ave., they reminisce about eating Baby Ball Cookies as kids. Says Huynh: “These are basically potato starch balls. You put them on your tongue and they pretty much melt.”

They scour labels and remind each other that they should be buying wholesale instead of retail. They figure the Omakase Box needs 100 members to work. It’s $74 for three months, and $1 from each box goes to Food Banks Canada.

“Even if this doesn’t work out for us financially, we’re going to love doing it,” vows Loh.

“I can’t wait to go home and grow my soup,” says Huynh as they drive away with their snack haul.

Later they email sad news that the miso soup cube was neat to watch growing for a few seconds, but the MSG-free broth wasn’t that flavourful.

Nostalgia and a short ingredient list have helped Baby Ball Cookies pass the preliminary tasting. Crisp Japanese cookies with creamy chocolate centres have earned a tentative nod because they “highlight a culture that favours delicate and bite-sized portions with complementary textures.”

Cassava chips, however, are the snack mission’s unequivocal hit.

“The experience of eating these introduces a root vegetable not too common in North America, and a new ‘herb’ — the curry leaf,” the ninjas write. “The spice factor was exciting. Each bite was utterly satisfying.”

jbain@thestar.ca

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Frostines Edibles Gourmet Gift Tubes 2010

 Frostines Edibles Peanut and Nut Free Gourmet Gift Tubes on there way out to a Department store.

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Boston Brownie
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In our flavour line of Cookies we have:

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Frostinesedibles’s Weblog

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Frostines Edibles Peanut & Nut Free Gourmet Treats