Poison Study, Soto and Hazel Tea's Taro Milk Tea with red beans

Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder has been on my reading backlog for a while. Shortly after I finished reading Insurgent, I started reading this. As of this post, I'm onto the next of that world's series called Storm Glass. So I read all of Poison Study, Assassin Study, Magic Study and Fire Study and am halfway through Storm Glass in about five? days. That really goes to show how much I enjoyed this series.

Poison Study
Apparently this is the YA cover. Its defs not a YA book

I figured to save myself time from now on out, I would just review the first book in a series and leave it up to the reader to figure out if they wanted to continue. I mean if you liked the first book, you're sure to read the second and third and fourth, am I right? So this review is primarily about Poison Study, however I will take generally about the entire book series as a whole.

Very nice.

Poison Study is about Yelena, a girl who was convicted of murder and openly admitted to killing her victim, the only son of General Brazell of Ixia, a man known for his kindness in taking in orphans and raising them. On the day of her execution, she is visited by Valek, the magician killer, a master assassin who runs the Commander's spy networks and is offered a final chance, to become the Commander's food taster for poisons or to die.

If you google "no choice"
A lot of naked people appear in Google images = /

The story is fast paced, and always relevant, world building is thick and fast and the plot continues to actively develop with every chapter. Ixia, is a country run in an almost communistic way, years ago, the corrupt king of Ixia and his power hungry magicians were overtaken by Commander Ambrose and Valek. The Commander abides by a strict code of behaviour, that even he is subject to as is his country, still Ixia, but now know under their military district. Very Hunger Games. Every man, woman and child has their role to play in society, there is no form of currency as the governing is done by the Generals and everyone is provided for. Anyone can rise up by merit alone, but the law is strict, with uniforms for districts and permits required even to leave the military districts, get married or travel around, and the punishment even worse. The Southern nation of Sitia, is another issue though but you learn all about it as the series unfolds.

The characters are strong, vibrant and well written with everyone having a distinct flavour. Its not hard at all to keep track of who is who, what they do and how they would act, as they are all marvellously well written. Yelena is a strong female lead, with a sharp intelligence and great common sense. She is decisive and I really like her, she understands what needs to be done even at risk to herself. Valek, I'd like to hit like a bass drum if you know what I mean and I can't really say anything else cause it would ruin the story but the Power Twins are a hoot and a half.

All in all, I would strongly recommend reading this series, it can be a bit gory at times. So Yassminator, read fast through those bits :)

I went shopping today with my sister and we dropped off a massive shopping trolley worth of unwanted books. We ended up at Sunnybank Hills shopping centre. After minutes of agonising whether I should include weird Asian snacks as a yet another thing to add to my list of reviews, books, food and games, my sister, the helpful VGirl, bluntly pointed out snacks are food. So I've added them to my list of things to review. Its a fair enough call, since I frequently go shopping in Asian food stores, always have some change handy and am fairly adventurous in buying weird foods and drinks. I really wanted a weird Asian drink but instead opted to let VGirl pay for my drink at Hazel Tea, a mistake I would soon come to regret.

Words aren't even needed.

Anyway, I picked out this little delight, Soto. I picked it over the other snacks that I couldn't read purely for the cuttlefish that looks excited to be eaten. On the packet it is referred to as a "cuttlefish flavoured snack." Whilst the corner says it is oriental, the writing below is undeniably Arabic in nature, and above the words Soto, is written stuff in Malay? According to a quick google search, its a Malaysian made food with Oriental being the actual brand. The more you know.

Why so happy to be eaten little guy?

I mightily struggled to open the packet at all, and ended up shredding it down the middle. The pictures as always, look much better than the actual product. With the photo on the front, they look like pork rinds a bit, or golden brown diamond scored squid pieces. What I actually pull out resembles, for the most part, indistinct pale blobs of different shapes and sizes with maybe one or two actually resembling the picture.

Close enough

That being said, they are sort of tasty? They have that very distinctive dried cuttlefish taste, a very sorta fishy taste that is only in the pieces themselves, not in the actual powder that most Western chips would have. They have a nice little crunch and have a weird aftertaste. I'm pretty sure the aftertaste is the flavouring they used, which according to the packet is, "Cuttlefish seasoning, contains permitted flavour enhancer (monosodium glutamate)", good ol' MSG. All in all, I've had worse, I've eaten a packet of fried chicken flavoured corn snacks from an Asian supermarket and drank an expired can of orange pulp water when I was a lot younger. So for $1.10 and no eventual food poisoning, it wasn't bad.

Borat is great for expressing emotions

On the other hand, I've never been much of a fan of Hazel Tea. I never find they have anything particularly standout in their tea selection, with the usual syrups, sugar shots and toppings that all the other tea brands have. I did find a really fantastic strawberry and lychee combo at some stores, but I might be confusing that with Tea Etc or EasyWay who knows. My sister has always liked Hazel Tea, cause it panders to uni students by allowing them to linger out of the cold, and play board games as long as they buy a drink. Sorta like reverse hobos. She also says their pearls are one of the best out of the chain shops, chewy, firm and they don't tend to disintegrate while being eaten or left for too long.

She ordered her usual apple green tea and pearls with half strength sugar. She ordered on my behalf off their new winter menu, taro milk tea with red beans, also with half strength sugar. The tea was acceptable, nothing crash hot but the red beans are possibly the worst I've ever had ever. But firstly, a little history on red beans, for any Westerners reading.

Not malena. Actually tasty red beans.
Might have ruined red beans for Dr. H

Red beans, like taro, are frequently sweetened in most Asian cultures and used for a variety of sweet snacks. The beans are normally cooked in a sugary water until soft and mashed before being used. In Chinese culture, a common free dessert finisher to meals would be a sweet red bean soup and used in moon cakes as the sweet paste inside. Japanese culture would make dango, a rice flour and red bean paste dumpling on a stick or even taiyaki, a fish shaped pastry stuffed with red bean paste. Vietnamese culture shares a lot with Chinese culture, so we often use it as a topping for che ba mau, literally three coloured dessert, different sweet toppings like edible seaweed, red beans, kidney beans, sweet corn, jelly, cendol noodles, coconut milk and ice.

Che ba mao

Disgusting mooncakes.

TAIYAKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

So for Asians, sweet red beans are totally normal, I really can't think of too many Western dishes where they would utilise a bean for both a sweet and a savoury dish. To me at least, lentils, kidney beans, chickpeas and all those fun pulses are strictly savoury food, which may be why white people look at me weird when I say taro milk tea is delicious with red beans. Anyway, therein lies the problem.

These beans were terrible because they were cooked until slightly soft and were completely unsweetened. It was a shock, I'll tell you that much. I have no idea if this was an omission, or if this was normal for Hazel Tea or just a weird once off, cause VGirl bought it for me as half strength sugar. Either way I drank all the tea and discarded the beans when I got home, THE BEST PART WASTED ;w;

Lastly, after a heated conversation on FB and IRL. Vgirl told me JGirl really wanted G. as a nickname on my blog. Unfortunately single letters have thus far been used for all my work friends, which JGirl is not. Sorry JGirl ): Shishi discovered my blog and my FB food reviews. He has volunteered to be my chauffeur and fellow food adventurer, which is fantastic cause my other food adventurer friends all seem to have dietary annoyances like eating halal, being vegetarians, being on diets or being coeliacs. Shishi eats as much as I do, loves meat and understands why paying extra for good food warrants paying extra. Great success.

Also VGirl and I saw this on the way home. We loled. Its like someone with a lisp swore at me.