If you’ve eaten these 16 snacks in Singapore, kids call you Uncle or Auntie now

I was born in the 80s and pretty much ate all these snacks as a kid in the 90s. Some of these snacks can still be found in Singapore, while others are well, extinct already.

If like me you have eaten any of these childhood snacks before, chances are that kids today are calling you ‘uncle’ or ‘auntie’ already. I know that’s what they call me.

1. Iced gem/ Ais gem biscuit

Ais Gem biscuits singapore
Ais Gem biscuits singapore

A hit for generations, a coloured meringue icing sits atop this simple iced gem biscuit. Most famously manufactured by Khong Guan biscuits locally, but is actually popular in many parts of the world.

2. Tutu Kueh

Credit
Credit

Credit

This old school tutu kueh packed with shredded coconut or peanut took forever to make as it’s steamed upon order, but it was always worth the wait.

3. Retro Buttercream Cake

Credit
Credit

Credit

They used to sell buttercream cake at every neighborhood bakery before the likes of Breadtalk and atas cakes took over.

4. White Rabbit Candy 大白兔奶糖

white-rabbit-sweet
white-rabbit-sweet

Credit

Yes, that creamy milk candy with the edible wrapper (made from sticky rice). Marketed as “Seven white rabbit candies are equivalent to one glass of milk”, a whole generation hence grow up on eating sweets for calcium.

5. Haw Flakes

Credit
Credit

Credit

This Chinese sweet is made from the Chinese Hawthorn and packed into cylinder paper wrappings. Haw flake candy was given to children as it was traditionally thought to be able to deworm digestive parasites.

6. Tora / Ding dang chocolate

tora-ding-dang
tora-ding-dang

Credit

This pseudo Doraemon ripoff of a chocolate got us more excited because of the little toy inside rather than the actual chocolate balls.

7. Hiro Chocolate Cake

Credit

Hiro moist sponge cake with a chocolate coating was a most coveted treat for many of us growing up.

8. Chewing Gum Tattoo

tattoo bubble gum
tattoo bubble gum

Credit

Us current ‘uncles’ loved pretending to have cool tattoos by slapping on these fake water activated temporary ones that always came with this brand of bubble gum. Some were harder to wash off than others.

9. Frozen ice lollies

frozen ice lollies
frozen ice lollies

Credit

These frozen sugary ice lollies used to go for just 10 cents a pop in school. Perfect for beating the tropical heat in sunny Singapore.

10. Colored Jelly

water-jelly-2
water-jelly-2

Credit

Each colored jelly supposedly had its own flavour, but now that I think about it as an adult, all the jellies probably tasted the same.

11. Potato Wheel / Spin Cracker

potato-wheel
potato-wheel

Credit

Cute potato starch wheels (probably more starch than potato) that we loved to snack on as kids.

12. Biscuit Piring Wafer

biscuit piring wafer
biscuit piring wafer

Credit

Light, colorful and oh so easy to crumble to pieces like my broken dreams. These thin wafers just melt in your mouth upon contact (and ‘lao hong’ very easily).

13. Hacks

hacks sweet
hacks sweet

Credit

In Singapore, we mostly saw the Regular and Honey Lemon flavour Hacks which we ate to sooth our sore throats.

14. Ring pops/Push pops

push-pop-ring-pop
push-pop-ring-pop

Credit

“Don’t push me, push a push pop!”

The commercial slogan still sticks in my head after all these years. Childhood trauma?

15. Egg ball Snack (Tamago Boro)

tamago boro
tamago boro

Credit

These small addictive egg balls melt into a puddle of heaven. You don’t just stop at one.

16. Apollo Chocolate Wafer

apollo chocolate
apollo chocolate

Credit

Before we even knew what gourmet chocolates were, there existed Apollo chocolate wafers from Malaysia in small red packets of joy.

17. Spectacle Chocolate

spectacle-chocolate
spectacle-chocolate

Credit

The poor Asian boy’s version of M&Ms which kinda tasted like the real thing anyway. Normally comes in a figure eight pack.

18. Choki Chocolate Stick

choki chocolate stick
choki chocolate stick

Credit

Choki is supposed to be a chocolate spread for bread, but I find the same pleasure in just squeezing this delicious chocolate straight into my mouth. Then perhaps some bread on the side.

The post If you’ve eaten these 16 snacks in Singapore, kids call you Uncle or Auntie now appeared first on SETHLUI.com.