Fantianwa Food – Tong Xin Bang Latiao

Salty: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰

Sour/Tangy: ⭐⭐✰✰✰

Sweet: ⭐⭐✰✰✰

Umami: ⭐⭐⭐⭐✰

Heat: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰✰✰✰✰✰

Quick Flavor Notes: Chiles, oil, roasty, savory,

Texture: Spongy, chewy, and oily

Recommended: Yes

Ingredients: What Flour, Edible Vegetable Oil, Drinking Water, Salt, Glycerin, Sugar, Chili Pepper, Spices, Sesame Seeds, MSG, Mono and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids, Sucrose Fatty Acid Esters, Food Flavors, Disodium Glutamate, Calcium Carbonate, Red Paprika, Monascus Red, Sucralose, Tertiary Butylhydroquinone, Neotame, Ascorbic Acid

I’ve recently developed an interest in trying out more authentic Asian snacks. Thankfully there are a number from China’s Sichuan and Hunan provinces that are not only delicious, but pack some nice heat. Starting out with some that are fairly accessible in flavor to the western palate I’ve previously reviewed 50Hertz Tingly Peanuts and Huang Fei’s Spicy Crispy Peanuts.

This product, made by Fantianwa Foods, is an example of Latiao, sometimes written as La Tiao (La, meaning spicy, and Tiao, meaning stick, for Spicy Stick). Latiao came about after major flooding in the Hunan region of China which was a major soybean producer. Popular soybean-based snacks were no longer available so enterprising businessmen created a version using wheat gluten, long a popular ingredient in Chinese hot pots and noodle dishes, which was soaked in chili oil and spices. People loved the flavors and chewy spongy texture and its popularity quickly spread from Hunan province to rest of China, becoming an over 8 billion dollar industry.

Chinese languages are notoriously difficult for auto-translate, but from what I can tell this company makes two other flavors of Latiao – Yuan Qi Bang, which is a sweet and spicy flavor, and Fan Tian Bang, which is an even spicier flavor. This one, their Tong Xin Bang, seems to be their flagship product. Some of the ingredients used are commonplace and wholesome – wheat flower, vegetable oil, chili peppers, salt, water, and sesame seeds for instance. Others are a bit more head-scratching and I’m not sure if they’re a result of poor machine translation or if they’re common in Chinese snacks. Entertainingly the Google image translation of the ad copy towards the upper right on the back of the bag translates to “Grit your teeth at work, Make a scene after get off work”. Maybe a Chinese equivalent of “work hard, play hard”.

Fantianwa Tong Xin Bang Latiao have a savory aroma, you can smell the roasted chiles and some of the spices such as cumin and pepper. In texture they’re both spongy and chewy. If you’ve had wheat gluten at a hot pot restaurant you’ll be familiar with it, otherwise imagine something similar to slices of pizza crust soaked in chili oil. The flavor is savory and just a little bit sweet. There’s the natural taste of the wheat gluten, bready and mild, combined with flavors very similar to Lao Gan Ma’s chili crisp in the oil that saturates the sticks. The roasted chiles are earthy and fruity at the same time and there’s a nice amount of heat that builds, I believe being oil based it tends to stick to the tongue and mouth better. Other spices I can pick out are cumin and black pepper, and I’m sure there are others but I’m not particularly strong on specific Chinese spice identification yet. One thing these don’t seem to have much (or any) of is Sichuan peppercorn. Being from the neighboring Hunan province that particular ingredient isn’t as often used.

Latiao are a unique snack that while super popular in China hasn’t gained much momentum yet in the USA. I was able to find these on Amazon and I do highly recommend checking them out if you’re in the mood for a spicy snack with a great flavor and an interesting texture.