I eat a lot of nori, the Japanese word for dried sheets of seaweed. Those that eat sushi or onigiri (rice balls) will know what it is because it's the sheets of seaweed wrapped around your rice. Since i eat a LOT of rice balls each week and throughout the year, i go through a lot of nori, and the place i buy it is the semi-local Korean grocery store. (As an aside, i love that store. It's as big as a Walmart and has anything and everything Asian that you could possibly want to eat. Going there is like what it must be like to die and go to heaven.)
I have, for a decade, at least, always bought the same Japanese branded nori. It's good so why bother changing. Last fall, i decided to be brave because the store had some Korean nori on sale, and "sale" usually trumps taste with my current budget.
I can't read a word of Korean, so here's a picture:
(Click to enlarge if you want to read the packaging)
The nori that i first bought in November was the small package on the left. Because of the packaging i think i ended up with about 30 of these. Each package comes with about a dozen smallish sheets of nori. I went back a month later and bought several packs of the larger size that i can cut down to any size i want. The small one's will only fit very small onigiri, so when i make larger ones to take out on my bike i have to use the larger sheets.
I don't know what it is about the taste, but these are the absolute best nori i have ever eaten. Ever. I actually look forward to the nori more than the onigiri anymore. There is a different taste from my previous brand, but i don't know what it is. Are they just fresher? Dried differently? Are they a little more salty? Maybe, but if so only faintly and i can't be sure, but since i never use salt for anything except cooking sphagetti noodles even a very faint taste makes my tongue perk up.
If you find these in a store near you, buy some. They are delicious.
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