1. Chocolate Monopoly
This is an awesome find for RM 59.95! It’s a licensed Monopoly board game but all the cards, game pieces and property are replaced with chocolate pieces. The rules are somewhat similar but it’s of the spinner variety (there is no Monopoly money) so I thought it’ll be a great game for us to play with the kids on Christmas coz you can eat the chocolate pieces afterwards.
2. Christmas crackers
An essential for the festive season, Christmas crackers are large pieces of cardboard with a snapper firecracker inside that explodes with a bang. The fun bit is that there’s miniature toys inside – usually tiny keepsakes that can range from a small compass to fart cushions. I bought a pack of six of the Tom Smith luxury version (RM 59.90) – one each for us and the kids plus two extra for my dear’s parents.
3. Snickers Slice n’ Share
This is a *gigantic* bar of Snickers! It’s not pre-cut so it’s a solid block of candy that weighs 453.6 grams. You have to slice it into pieces yourself, thus the name. I’ve never seen this format before. I think it’s specially made for the 2014 festive season since it fits well with the large family dinner and sharing theme. This solid 1 pound (!!!) block of Snickers costs a staggering RM 68.95.
4. Porky Salt
Haha! This is made by Garam Haram which literally translates to Forbidden Salt (and it rhymes too). It’s a play on the fact that pork is forbidden (haram) to Muslims and this is literally bacon infused salt. Porky Salt is a local artisanal product that’s just RM 15 and I can think of many ways to use it this Christmas dinner, whether we roast a traditional turkey like last year or go Asian.
5. Panettone
What is Christmas without panettone? This brioche like edible is a Christmas staple in Milan and I’ve only seen it suddenly appear on the market in the last few years. I went to an Italian restaurant and had a wonderful “tiramisu” made with panettone in 2012 and I thought it was lovely. We also bought one last year for our Christmas celebrations. It’s tastier than the rock solid fruitcake that we’re used to eating before panettone started to flood the market as an alternative.
6. Giant Juicy Fruit
Yup, this classic by Wrigley’s is supersized for the holidays! 
I loved chewing on these when I was in high school – so much so that my Physics teacher in Christchurch called me “Eater”. Needless to say, I wasn’t a model student but I quite liked that nickname. You can eat in most classes in New Zealand (they’re not as strict as over here) but that particular educator didn’t like anyone doing so.
7. Huge roll of Life Savers
This classic sweet has put on some weight for the festive season too. The plus sized roll of Lifesavers is now 30 times as large as a regular roll! I used to eat this in high school too, it was cheap and I’m particular to the Musk flavored ones but you can’t find that flavor outside of Australia and New Zealand for some reason. Musk is not a popular flavor except down under.
8. White Cheddar Popcorn
You know how some people decorate their Christmas trees with popcorn? Well, not us, we prefer to *eat* popcorn. Especially if it’s this expensive! This bag of savory popcorn costs RM 21.90 and it’s made in the US by Angie’s. This is the White Cheddar flavor and they use all natural organic ingredients. It also checks all the healthy tick-boxes by being gluten-free, low trans fat, and whole grain.
9. Crème Brûlée
I accidentally bought this RM 12.50 packet of crème brûlée, thinking it was crème caramel. I love the latter, have eaten heaps of them as a kid (my mom used to make them) but it seems like they dropped off the face of the Earth! Since the advent of crème brûlée, the preparation without the blow-torched hard crack top seems to have disappeared. It used to be served in coffee-shops and I’ve been missing crème caramel since.
10. Christmas hampers
‘Tis the season to be giving! I bought a RM 280 Christmas hamper for my better half so we could open it on Christmas Eve. I was torn between the one inside the sleigh and the one that’s in a large tube wooden reusable box (there’s only a RM 20 price difference) and after much consideration, chose the former. The retail assistant told me they both contain the same thing, it’s the wooden sleigh that’s more expensive due to craftsmanship.
11. Valrhona chocolates
It hurts my brain to even see this. Haha! We had gotten Valrhona chocolates from France – they have really good single origin Grand Crus and it’s the chocolate of choice for many high end Parisian fine dining restaurants. It’s very expensive to source your own Grand Crus from small gourmet purveyors like what Michelin starred restaurants do so this is the next best thing. I found it while shopping at BIG in Publika – I didn’t even know Malaysia stocks this.
12. Eggnog
You can’t have Christmas without eggnog. I have tried making my own but it’s a time consuming process if you have a turkey and other sides to take care of and store bought tastes just as good. They even have eggnog with alcohol included (mixture of brandy, whisky and rum for 14.75% alcohol) for RM 85.90 for 1.75 litres but if you have your own spirits, you can just get the regular 1 quart (946 ml) Grade A Eggnog for RM 23.90 and add your own to taste.
Short mention:
I used my credit card to purchase this Christmas hamper that I got my better half. I wanted to get my dear something nice and this beautiful reindeer sleigh contains all her favorites – hot chocolate, cookies, Turkish Delight. There’s even some marshmallows for the kids and a stuffed toy that looks suspiciously like Olaf from Frozen. I’ve been using my Maybank credit card for *everything* since I can get my purchases for free with their I LOVE 100% Cashback campaign! Just spend with your Maybank cards from now until 31st January 2015 and get your expenses paid off!
Check it out – there’s nothing better than getting your festive season spending paid off with a 100% cashback to spread some festive cheer! 🙂
Oooh, a chocolate Monopoly! That’s interesting; there won’t be any wastage at all, right? The Christmas crackers first caught my eye when I was in Cold Storage some weeks ago because I’ve never seen it in the Malaysian market before… but I won’t be surprised if I end up creeping into Myers or David Jones and purchase the item for next year’s Christmas tree. =D
Here’s to a wonderful Christmas with Yee Ling, HB! =)
Yeah, I thought it was awesome too! 🙂
It’ll be great to put on party hats from the Christmas crackers, pull the Christmas crackers, have a turkey (or capon) dinner and play with Chocolate Monopoly while sipping eggnog after!
We saw Christmas crackers at BIG in Publika last year too but unfortunately wasn’t in time to buy it. I didn’t get it the first time I saw it and when I went the day before Christmas eve to pick up my frozen turkey, they were sold out (either that or they’ve put it back into storage) so we couldn’t get it last year.
I’ve seen it here and there as well – Christmas crackers were sold on the tiny “gourmet fine foods purveyors” small shop near Bangsar too, that was back in 2010 I think, but it’s not very common over here. It’s getting more prevalent though, coz it’s a fun way to add some Christmas cheer.
Nice! Thanks for the well wishes Ciana, hope you have an awesome Christmas too!
Porky salt! How special. Does the salt really have the porky taste?
Speaking of eggnog, my friend always ask me to bring back Warninks Advocaat (
a traditional Dutch alcoholic beverage made from eggs, sugar and brandy) from UK for her to make eggnog.
I am looking forward to Christmas to read about what is in the hamper you got for Yee Ling and yourself for Christmas!
Merry Christmas to both of you!
Yeah, the salt has bacon bits and other stuff inside! 🙂
It’s served in an IV ampoule too (at least that’s what I call them – these are either small bottles with sterile water + medication inside or powder – also sterile – where you can inject sterile water *into* the glass bottles to formulate your own injection, seen this in Switzerland where their groundbreaking heroin maintenance program for drug users are in ampoules like this and you can very rarely find them at a super ridiculous premium on the black market).
Advocaat! I’ve had that in Amsterdam too, it’s quite nice. I’ll like to make mine with single malt whisky, although it’s not the traditional recipe (think people use spiced rum generally).
Thanks Mun! I’ll write about it after our celebrations. Merry Christmas to you and your family too!
Wowwwwwwww!!!!! Dazzling!!! All the lovely stuff. Chocolate Monopoly! What happens if a player eats a piece? Go to jail! LOL!!!
I had really nice creme brulee last night – new place in town. We’ll go there the next time you come back, ‘k?
Yeah, the kids are looking forward to playing with the Chocolate Monopoly! 🙂
Haha! Actually I read there is a rule about the Jail in Monopoly – in Chocolate Monopoly, the first person that lands on the “Go to Jail” spinner would forfeit their chocolate pieces on the board e.g. the player chocolate pieces or property chocolate pieces and another person gets it.
Cool! I’m looking for a good creme caramel place, that’s the dessert I have really been craving for. My dad loves it too. Last time he came to KL, we (me, him and my better half) went for dinner and we found a creme caramel dish at a coffee shop in PJ! We both had it and he liked it very much. It’s hard to find nowadays.
Okay, will catch up with you when I’m back buddy!
Wow! I never had a Xmas list before. This year for 1st time I wrote a Xmas menu.
Lovely purchases. I like to have panettone and that pork salt too.
Nice! That sounds awesome Rose! 🙂
I don’t have a list per se, unless I’m planning to cook something – there are just some things I would ALWAYS buy for Christmas e.g. panettone. I like this brioche like Christmas cake from Milan.
We also got pandoro yesterday! This Italian Christmas cake is a speciality of Verona although I first ate it in Venice – it’s popular there too.
Thanks Rose! Italy actually has six (!!!) different traditional cakes they eat for Christmas, it differs according to the region. Panettone from Milan is most popular around the world and over here in KL but there are others too e.g. the 1 kg pandoro from Verona we bought on Saturday.
I’ve also seen pangiallo here too! Oh, and there’s different kinds of panettone – the classic, and the newer recipes which contains nougat or cream or chocolate. I never get sick of eating panettone (or pandoro) – can easily eat 500 grams over two nights for dessert myself.
Love the stuff that you’ve bought! But not bad they are not too wallet-friendly >_<
It’s only once a year though! 🙂
Christmas is a time I don’t mind to splurge – Chinese New Year too, I’ll spend thousands on fireworks alone. It’s fun for the entire family.
Wow…you’re really celebrating the 12 days of Christmas (like Ellen is doing on her show….except yours are not giveaways….kekeke!!) Chocolate monopoly sounds like fun (even more so when you can eat it). Would love some of that forbidden salt…anything forbidden is good!! 😀 😀
Haha! Yeah, I was thinking about the song. 🙂
Yup, it’s a lot of fun but the kids decided they want to keep the pieces and not eat the chocolate so I let them keep it so we can play it again in the future. There’s too much candy at home anyway.
The Porky Salt isn’t too bad but we both tried it and thought that regular salt with bacon bits which you do yourself would taste better. It is more convenient though.
70 bucks for a snickers bar?!? what so special about it? besides being humongous? not sure i’ll pay for it but i’ll eat it to see what the fuss is. or at least see while you open it. lol.
It actually retails for USD 9.99 in the United States! 🙂
I’m not sure why it’s marked up so high over here since it’s USD 7.99 on special and distributor prices would be much lower for them to make a profit. It might be related to the oil crisis and current USD high but I don’t think so coz BIG in Publika is very fair with their pricing.
We got the Borden Eggnog for RM 23.90 per quart, which is *CHEAPER* than if I had bought it in the United States! It’s delicious too, we just had our Christmas Eve dinner last night, most of the things we bought are from Ben’s.
you’ve put me and my non-existent christmas shopping to absolute shame! 🙂 these are some sweet treats indeed. i think i like number 1 and number 12 best … and i wouldn’t mind a gigantic mars bar instead of snickers (i’ve always preferred mars!) 😀
They have a gigantic Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup too! 🙂
It’s 1/2 pound per cup for a 1 pound pack of 2 cups. It’s also around the same price as the huge Snickers. I also prefer Mars to Snickers but there’s no ultra huge Mars. My favorite candy bar is actually Twix.
No worries, there’s still plenty of time for Christmas shopping! We just did it early coz we celebrated Christmas Eve dinner early.
wow…what lovely treat. Hmm…not only kids. Adults would love the Monopoly Choc too
Yeah, but the kids wanted to keep them forever! 🙂
Haha! I thought that was cute and I told them it’ll expire but they said it’s okay and it’s better to keep them so they can play with it next time. It’s okay, we have plenty of candy at home so even if it expires, we can still play the game.
You are such a brilliant shopping queen! You never failed to impress me with all your loots to make everyone happy. I really like that edible Monopoly set plus it’s so cheap.
Thanks mate! 🙂
Yup, it’s a great deal since I expected it to be much more expensive. BIG in Publika often has good deals and their pricing is very fair e.g. the Borden Eggnog I got is cheaper at Ben’s than it is if I had bought it in the United States. It tastes really good too.
where can we get chocolate monopoly?? looks great to play with the hub.. hahaha..
i haven’t bought anything for christmas 🙁
I got it at BIG in Publika! 🙂
It’s called Ben’s Independent Grocer and they import their own stuff so I doubt you can find it anywhere else. I love the place, I do most of my shopping there – got our Christmas turkey there, wanted to get the capon too, eggnog, Christmas crackers, cornbread stuffing, demi-glace, everything down to the celery was bought at Ben’s.
No, I’m not affiliated with them in any way, I just think it’s awesome that there’s a place like this. I wouldn’t mind if they called and wanted to offer me a discount for being so loyal to the place though. Haha.
BTW, there’s another place you can shop in Kuching! Ta Kiong! They import their own goods too – everything from the United States to Netherlands. They have a lot of containers coming in now, I actually met with the boss of Ta Kiong when I was in Sibu and went shopping there with my dad.
He’s a very nice guy, and he’ll throw in something for you at festive seasons e.g. Christmas and Chinese New Year if he knows you’re a regular.