As my job stands, I am now expected in the office more often than before, which is inconvenient in two ways: one, because it means I have to wear actual clothing and not just gym leggings and baggy jumpers every day, and two, it means I have to find more exciting lunches because otherwise the flavour fatigue will be real. And if there is one thing no one should have to deal with, it’s me when I am hangry. Or grumpy.
Squeaky Bean is usually my go to for quick and easy sandwich bits, as seen in the smoked salmon review. However I saw that they have expanded the range slightly with a new small collection of snack pieces to add to their current deli offerings. So far all of their products have been consistently good, and their macros are also very good so I was excited to try these.
In all honesty, they are very much what they say on the box: hoisin duck bites. My favourite meal before going vegetarian used to be duck spring pancakes, so these really take me back. It was actually the duck pancakes which caused me to make the connection between the animal on my plate and the animal that was living. I loved ducks – my first word as a baby was actually Duck – and the realisation that the duck in my pancake was the same duck as the one I had fed at the park earlier was the realisation I needed to never eat duck pancakes again. I may have absolutely loved duck pancakes, but I loved the living creature more. So I am very excited to finally have something that can take me back to that moment, and to see just how far not only I have come in my food journey, but just how far food technology in general has come.
Now I will preface this with the fact that I stopped eating duck when I was about 7, so my memory of what it tastes like is probably very flaky. So just keep that in mind. With that said though, I do not think that these bites are necessarily very ‘duck like’ in flavour nor texture. They are balls coated in bread crumbs, with the hoisin sauce in the middle. I would say that the hoisin is quite an overpowering taste so if you like the taste of hoisin then you’ll probably love these. There isn’t much taste otherwise. The texture is pleasant, in that it has a slight toughness to it as you would expect with a meat-like product, but only so far as it helps the ball hold its structure: It doesn’t crumble as soon as you bite into it, but it also isn’t super tough to bite into. Now I do have these cold, but the box does state that you can warm them up. I am therefore not sure if the texture may change slightly if the product is warmed up first. If anyone does try them hot, let me know what you think!
Despite their small size, they are surprisingly filing. I find two or three is more than enough to satisfy me as a snack. Anymore and they do start to feel a bit too heavy, but they’re also just too moreish to only have the one. I take two or three with me whilst I am in the office and these are a great little mid-afternoon pick me up when that 3pm slump hits. I also find that even if not refrigerated, they do last very well. I have sometimes taken them with me to snack on for long train journeys and they still hold their consistency and texture when not at a fridge temperature.
A packet costs ÂŁ3 and you get around 9 balls per packet. I have found that this varies though – sometimes I will have 10, sometimes I have 8, so there isn’t much consistency in that regard. I am currently in the office 2-3 times a week, so I find that one packet of these a week will easily last me the whole week. I tend to save them for my office days, as like I say they do make a really easy snack for the office, so for ÂŁ3 I think that is reasonable. I would also note though that where I buy them (Tesco) they do come on Clubcard offer quite often, so I can get them in either a 3 for 2 offer, or at a discount rate, which obviously makes them more reasonably priced too. In general though, I think ÂŁ3 is a reasonable price: anything more than ÂŁ3 is a bit cheeky, as whilst they are good they will only last about 3-4 meals so for me I wouldn’t want to pay more than ÂŁ1 per portion.
Taylor Talks Vegan 