Soo Singapore Jerky

I don't usually eat a lot of beef jerky (except when I ask for a blue-rare steak at Boston Pizza and they overcook it).  The common brands that I see in supermarkets most of the time are "Oh Boy! Oberto" or "Jack Links".  They're great if you've never had anything else, but I have.

I wasn't a big fan of beef jerky until a friend of mine introduced me to Asian-style Beef Jerky.  We were on a flight to Hong Kong and my buddy Kenny breaks out this huge-honking bag of meat.  He tells me there's about 5 pounds of beef jerky and since we're not allowed to import meat into Hong Kong, we have to eat it all before the plane lands.  Great.  Well, we figured the flights over 10 hrs, so we crack open the bag.  To my surprise, it wasn't dry and over-peppered like the typical beef jerky I've had in the past.  I bit into it and found a sweet taste to it, and the meat was more like, well, meat, rather than dried leather.   The suff was magic, and we plowed through that 5lb bag with relative ease. 

Unfortunately, there was no lable on the bag (so for all I knew, it could have been anything but beef).  I had no idea what the brand was and Kenny wasn't entirely sure either.  I failed to ask him where he got this mysterious bag of meat, so I never got a chance to buy any of the stuff.  It's been over 10 years since then, and I never forgot how awesome beef jerky could be.

I knew there were Asian style beef jerky available in most of the Chinese supermarkets, but it was mostly marketed for tourists so I never bothered.  The other day, I had some strange craving for old times and Beef Jerky was starting me in the face at T & T Supermarket.  Here's a shot of some stuff I found recently that has a taste and texture pretty close to whatever I had onboard that fateful flight to Hong Kong.

If you like shoe leather seasoned shoe leather, then keep eating the North American stuff, if you like meat that makes the corners of your mouth tingle, try some of this Soo Singapore Jerky.  The name doesn't do anything for me, but it's awesome.