Crown Prince Natural Smoked Oysters with Red Chili Pepper, 3 Oz Cans (Pack Of 18)

I love these oysters! Big with random heat levels from the pepper so one never knows. Nice, smokey flavor too.

These oysters are absolutely delicious. Absolutely. Best oysters I've ever eaten, by far. Once you've tried them, you'll never go back. And you should try them. They are a real treat. My family gets them for special occasions a few times a year. That said, I have some caveats: 1. They seem awfully expensive. Way too expensive. I don't know how much they cost to produce and ship. It does seem to me as though the company might be able to sell a lot more if they charged less. We would certainly buy a lot more if they cost a lot less. 2. There are not nearly enough in one can to be satisfying so we always have two each, and we are not big eaters. Eating two cans each means they really are even more expensive than they initially appear. 3. I think this next thing is because these oysters are an ocean food that is relatively fresh, and it's worth it for the flavor, but be forewarned: In my opinion, these oyster cans *really* need to be disposed of carefully or they stink. When I open them, I do so in the sink, I wash the empty tins, I wash everything up well before disposing of the tins, and the oil the oysters were sitting in gets poured down the toilet. This routine is because I discoved that if I just rinse the cans well and throw them away, they become truly rancid, stinking up the yard and/or house and the space 15-20 feet around them.

This product is well packed—only about a teaspoon of oil can be drained out of the package—and it isn't too oily. I decided to try the one with chili peppers in it because I love hot spice. However, the amount of spice in each tin seems to vary rather dramatically. With one I had to reach to taste any spice at all, and with another all I could taste was spice. Each tin does contain at least one chili pepper. They appear to be red cayenne peppers, which seems consistent with the flavor since it is not a particularly flavorful pepper. It is just spice, really. That's fine, though, not really expecting anything fancy, but I feel like if I want spicy oysters I would be better off seasoning them myself with better peppers, which would come out more consistent. The regular flavor is really where it's at. Very light flavoring if any at all, but not bland. Perfect to absorb whatever other flavors I want to add to it while still tasting like smoked oysters. Another thing I noticed is that they are far less gritty than the spicy ones. Maybe that has more to do with the batches I received, but I definitely preferred the less gritty oysters. I'll just be ordering the regular flavor from now on.

I usually get these at Whole Foods. I can't find the ones with the chili pepper anywhere but there. They are very pricey but on Amazon they really are a steal. Once I discovered these I can't stop eating them. They are the perfect snack out of the can. I can't believe I actually found these on Amazon and now Im only going to order these from Amazon. As far as why I found and ordered them on Amazon: Well, I went to Whole Foods to get them and they were out of them. 3 Whole Foods were out of them. I placed an order for a case and they have been on backorder for 3 weeks. I jump on here and to my disbelief here they were. I ordered a case and they arrived in 3 days. AWESOME. As for the brand. Crown Prince is clearly the best smoked oysters you can buy period. These are addictive. Some cans the oysters are big, others big and medium, which is all good because you know your getting the real deal, not just a bunch of tiny unappealing ones like the big name brands which claim to be the best but are just awful. I used to get these without the chili pepper which were far cheaper. Then I would put hot sauce on them. That was great accept when I found these I didn't want to ever get the plain ones again. I just love these things.

as far as canned oysters go, these are the best I've tried of at least ones that don't contain seed oils and they've been impossible to find anywhere in regular stores. Sprouts used to sell them but they stopped and started selling some under their store brand that are TERRIBLE.