Cornery Popcorn Gallery: Collin's Take on Gourmet Popcorn

Popcorn, buttery fluff of popped corn usually associated with movie theaters and couch potatoes watching a rented DVD / Blu-Ray movie on a Friday night. Now,  now, I know many of you must be thinking...

BORING!What can be so interesting about a bunch of fluffy stuff that vaguely taste like corn!? I mean it can't be made into a proper meal! Heck, it can't even be PART of a proper meal! Have anyone heard of popcorn as a side dish for your steak? No? That's what I thought.

However, as insignificant as the humble popcorn may be today, it's history is far from insignificant. The word "Corn" itself is actually used to refer to the most-used grain of a specific place. So in the biblical account of "corn" stored in the pyramids of Egypt was actually barley, in England "corn" was wheat, in Scotland and Ireland "corn" was oats and since maize was the common American "corn", it took the name and it stuck to this day. Popcorn was also an important food for the Aztecs, who used popcorn as decoration for ceremonial headdresses, necklaces and ornaments on statues of their gods, including Tlaloc, the god of rain and fertility. In the not too distant past, during the Depression, popcorn at 5 or 10 cents a bag was one of the few luxuries down-and-out families could afford.

About Conery

Not too shabby for a snack eh? So, why write about popcorn you ask?

Recently, Cornery, a company whose name is derived from the word Popcorn and Gallery, invited us to review their merchandise. They first debuted on 28th May 2008 in Singapore with a mission to change people's perception on popcorn and bring a new trend of consuming popcorn outside the halls of movie theaters. How are they going to accomplish this? Well Cornery have an army of popcorn artists to create an array of interesting and mouth watering gourmet flavors. To date, they have 21 gourmet flavors in their arsenal (10 candied/sweet flavors, 10 savory flavors and the original buttersalt flavor). Flavors that caught my attention are butterscotch, banana, green tea, black sesame, chocolate,  curry, tom yam, seaweed, cheddar cheese, sour cream & onion and wasabi.

Got your attention yet?

According to their website (http://www.cornery.com), when you visit their retail outlet you can:

1. Watch popcorn being made.
2. Sample, pick and choose your favorite flavor.
3. Have your popcorn packed upon confirmation of order.

So lets put these to the test shall we? 

Store & Customer Experience

I first visited their newest outlet at KL Festival City

New Cornery retail outlet in KL Festival City.

and was greeted with a big warm "Welcome!" from the staff when I walked up to the counter. They guided me on how to make an order. An order of popcorn comes in 3 sizes, Grab, Regular and Large and it will cost you RM 5 (my memory is a little fuzzy for the price of Grab. It could be RM 7), RM 10 and RM 20 respectively. You can have a total of 2 flavors for Regular and a total of 3 flavors for Large but an additional RM 1 is charge if you want to mix flavors. So with this many options you can imagine how indecisive I was. Good thing I was allowed to sample some before making an order.

The choices for the day. Flavors are rotated every month. Call to check if they have your favorite in stock.

When I finally decided, they proceeded to pack my order. In this store, I bought banana and butterscotch.

Being the busy body that I am, I went around the store to see if I can see their popcorn being made. Here are the account of what I saw.

The popcorn poppers! Corn kernels popped with hot air.

The popcorn first started out as a corn kernel and is pop into shape with the 3 white thing-a-ma-gig you see in the picture above. These contraptions uses hot air to pop the corn kernel and this is why your fingers don't feel oily when you touch the popcorn. The popped corn comes out from the thing-a-ma-gig's funnel into the basin below.

Coating the popcorn with flavor. This was the chocolate batch.

Next, the coating material or the popcorn's flavor is made in a big tin like contraption and the popcorn is coated with its flavor in the tin contraption itself. Once coated, the popcorn is poured out into another basin and left to cool. This is also why your fingers do not feel sticky after touching the popcorn. Although, your fingers will feel a little sticky if the popcorn is touched with moist hands / fingers. I also notice that they kept stirring the popcorn while they cool. I can only guess that it's to avoid the popcorn from sticking together after being coated.

I see no issues with cleanliness as the staff wore proper head gears and gloves when preparing the popcorn. The staff that coats the popcorn with flavor is even wearing a face mask. The store itself is also kept neat and clean.

Anyways, with my order firmly in my hands, I'm ready to head to their next branch in Low Yat Plaza.

Order of banana and butterscotch packed and ready to go!

First ever Cornery branch @ Low Yat Plaza

The experience is pretty consistent in this store as well except that I wasn't greeted with a big warm "Welcome!" when I walked up the counter. Although this is not a major deterrent, it would have been better if the greeting stayed consistent in all outlets as it makes Conery's customer service experience a cut above the rest. In this store I purchased the black sesame and green tea flavor.

The Meat & Potatoes

Several hours have passed since I bought the popcorn, so it's time to go into couch potato mode and enjoy a movie while chowing on popcorn. The popcorn was still crispy as the packaging keeps out ambient air as stated in Cornery's website.

Another plus is that there were no popcorn stuck together and most of the corn kernels were popped well. In a bag, I have only bitten into 1 or 2 popcorn which still had the hard texture of the corn kernel. The color of the popcorn also looked natural so I guess there is no coloring (or not much coloring is used) for the flavors that I choose.

A closer look at the popcorn.

As for the taste, fortunately it is not overly sweet. It's just sweet enough to cover the buttery taste of the popped corn. Although I wouldn't recommend finishing a pack of candied flavored popcorn on a daily basis.

I could not finish a Regular pack all on my own so I had to enjoy my popcorn on another day. The package is actually a zip lock bag so you can conveniently seal your unfinished bag of popcorn and store it for another time / movie. Even after a few days have passed the popcorn still remained crispy.

Conclusion

Cornery have definitely put in a lot of thought and effort into every pack of popcorn. From preparation to packaging, everything is carefully thought out to provide you with the best popcorn eating experience. So the next time you have a hankering for your usual junk food snacks, I would recommend you to spend that money on a pack of Cornery popcorn. Although it may not be the healthiest snack but it's definitely a healthier alternative. Compared to your bag of potato chips, Cheetos, etc, a pack of Cornery popcorn provides you with dietary fiber and it doesn't contain much fats because it is made without oil.

My perception of popcorn have definitely changed. How about yours?

You can find Cornery at the following locations:

Plaza Low Yat
Lot LG-032B
No. 7 Jalan Bintang, Off Jalan Bukit Bintang
Bukit Bintang Central
55100 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia
Tel: (603) 2110 6010
Open Daily: 10:00am – 10:00pm

KL Festival City 

Lot GK-08, Ground Floor

No. 67 Jalan Taman Ibu Kota

Taman Danau Kota, Setapak

53300 Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia

Tel: (603) 4144 3010

Open Daily: 10:00am – 10:00pm

Coming soon to Cheras:

Cheras Sentral (Opening Soon!)
Lot 700-BF-35, Basement Level
B-2-17 (Phoenix Business Park)
Jalan 2/142A
Off Jalan Cheras, KM10
56000 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia
Tel: TBA
Open Daily: 10:00am – 10:00pm