Here's my review of nian gao. It's a glutinous rice cake normally eaten during Chinese New Year. My mom gave me a package of them. She said she can't eat them because they're problematic for her stomach. My guess is that someone gave them to her and she passed them off to me.
I like chewy squishy stuff like gummy candy, gummy vitamins, and mochi, etc. So I thought these would be good too. However, they are not. I do not like them.
In any case, so that we remember for next time, or for curious readers - here's my detailed review.
This is the kind that I received - Joy Luck Palace Lunar New Year Cakes - Glutinous Rice Cakes. Joy! Luck! Palace! It's customary to string together an assortment of positive sounding words for names of companies and businesses. This is often seen in Chinese restaurant names. Meanwhile, red and gold are auspicious colors.
There are 3 individually wrapped cakes inside the box. Two are plain and one has red beans in it. I decided to go with the plain one since that's the more common one. I don't remember ever having the red bean version. My parents used to fry the plain ones with egg. I remember having versions with sweet potato or yam too. Those cakes were much sweeter than this one. Maybe my parents added lots more sugar when making them from scratch.
This one was really stuck in the plastic packaging. I used a sharp knife and my powerful strength to dislodge it from the wrapper.
This is how it looks after cutting up some of the pieces (less than half of the circle). I microwaved them for a minute but they were still hard, so I added another minute. Nobody else around me wanted to try any. That's probably a good thing because then there'd be more people with questionable stomachs surrounding me.
They get softer and squishy after heating. As fun as it is to poke them and all, it's not a good idea to have too much of these. I tried googling to find out how much is too much. Some sources say 2 small pieces. I say just don't have any. Do they solidify in the stomach and intestines and then get stuck? I don't know - let's hope they did not this time.
I asked someone why they didn't want any. They said it looks bad - like a stopper. I asked why they thought it'd be bad for digestion. Their response was, "I mean, f*king look at it." LOLLLLL
Oh, and it didn't taste so great either. It tasted like squishy plastic, very faintly sweet. Perhaps it was residue from being encased in packaging so tightly and for so long. I thought that it'd be sweeter since it was so brown, like brown sugar. Alas, I was wrong. Do not recommend.