I’m a fruity candy over chocolate kind of person, both of which I’ve had limited to no access to here. Some common meal conversation here revolves around discussing what we wish we were actually eating, food we miss from home, and how nice it would be to eat something crunchy or sweet or cold or crispy rather than more white rice. We got on the topic of candy and agreed that the next person to make a trip to the mainland would take our pooled money and buy as much candy as he or she could fit in a backpack.
My Malaysian girl Syafa took one for the team and headed to Semporna by boat with a backpack and 60 ringgit in hand ($15). She returned with over a dozen bags of candy, chocolate bars, chips and back pain a few hours later. We laid everything out and decided to do a candy review. In retrospect I didn’t need to try 20 pieces of candy in one sitting and rationing it to last me throughout the rest of my stay would have been smarter, but hindsight is 20/20.
Fruit Plus Chewy Candy: Comes in green apple, mango, strawberry, and lychee. They have the consistency of Laffy Taffy but are about half the size. The green apple was my favorite, followed by the strawberry. Mango was alright but not very sweet and the lychee had a bitter aftertaste. 6.7/10
Dynamite: These had a hard minty exterior like a regular stripe mint, but as they melt there is a hard chocolate in the center. I would compare it to the small chocolate mints found at fancy steak houses. 7.2/10 for a mint, 3.3/10 for a candy
Sour Plus Mango Gummy: I was extremely disappointed in this one. I love mango flavoring usually, but the exterior was bitter and almost salty and the gummy was way too soft and not sweet enough. 2.4/10
Lot 100 Variety Gummies: Probably my favorite sampling of the group, this variety pack of gummies was similar to Welch’s fruit snacks. With unique flavors like black currant, pineapple, green apple and mango, each were pretty good. 8.1/10
Rinna Strawberry: Tastes similar to a cream saver, it was not tart like I expected to be but rather had a strawberry milkshake taste. Kind of resembled a cough drop. 7.9 as a cough drop, 4.2 as a candy
Iced Tea Hard Candy: I thought this would be my favorite, and while it tastes exactly like iced tea, I’ve realized that I don’t want to enjoy iced tea in a solid form. 6.6/10
Mentos: Old faithful. I used to eat the tropical rolls all the time when I was little and the mint ones are alright. These get a bump in score just due to reliability and familiarity. Tropical 8.5/10, mint 6.8/10
Cadbury Bars: Having giant Cadbury chocolate bars here is like being a kid in elementary school having Dunk-a-Roos- everyone wants some and you ain’t sharing. They’re so valuable that they aren’t even sold in the regular candy aisle, but rather from a glass case behind the tobacco kiosk. It’s hard to beat any of these here, 9.6/10
So overall I’ll probably still be a Starburst and Skittles kind of girl, but these were not bad. Can’t hate on paying $5 for a month supply of candy either.
Half-Seas Over 