Inside Exotic Snacks LI in East Islip
Japanese Doritos, Faygo sodas, white peach oolong Oreos from China, Ding Dong-flavored iced lattes, Canadian chocolate bars, pumpkin spice Cup Noodles — this is what you see on the shelves at Exotic Snacks LI in East Islip.
The small shop's meticulously curated collection is the result of round-the-clock internet scouring by its owner, Rafael Bonilla. And while Rappy, as he is known, wasn’t there the first day I visited, this was: a sense of a man of ambition and mission, a man determined to prove that no foodstuff is too weird, too distant, too much a commercial misfire to ignore. Rappy was scrappy.
At home that night, I ripped into a bright green bag of mieng kham-flavored Lay’s, and if the chips didn’t actually whisk me off to a buzzy Bangkok cafe with lightning-fast download speeds — their spicing barely hints at the city’s popular betel leaf-wrapped street snack — the bag was empty in minutes anyway, thanks to the Four Horsemen of the Apoca-lips: sweet, limey, salty and spicy. A candy bar from chocolate drink company Yoo-hoo, a wholly unnecessary attempt at product expansion, sent me tumbling back to childhood, when innocence and American exceptionalism persuaded a nation that Yoo-hoo was actually good for you. Rippled chips with vague hints of grilled unagi stoked vivid memories of eel sushi at Tokyo’s Tsukiji Market; black sesame and chia seed-flavored yam chips from China — another Frito-Lay effort — catalyzed a hysterical, late-night run for store-bought crab dip; and Icee-branded sandwich cookies, their centers as fizzy as slushies, made me laugh out loud..
A few minutes into obesogenic bingeing, I marveled at the power on junky snacks, how a single swig or square of something can instantly recast the mind, however briefly. And thanks to Bonilla’s store, I also felt at one with people like me, who expect so much from sweet-salty-crunchy snacks on the daily, i.e., little escapes, rewards for surviving this or that, sudden excitement amid the humdrum.
Lay's potato chips sold at Exotic Snacks LI in East Islip. Credit: Randee Daddona
On impulse, I visited the Exotic Snacks LI website, plunking down 60 bucks for one of Bonilla’s bestselling items, a medium-sized mystery box of snacks. I couldn’t wait for it to arrive, or to meet the electric force behind Exotic Snacks LI. He sounded excited too, at least initially, before ghosting me, messaging me a few days later and then ghosting me again, this time for a week, at which point I realized that Bonilla didn’t just sell mystery boxes, he was one.
“I didn’t want to talk to you,” the 37-year-old Brentwood native admitted when I finally reached him by phone. He’d just come down with the flu, he said. “I don’t like talking to no one. I strive to keep myself busy, to not focus on my loss.” His depression is chronic, he said, and dates to the fall of 2018, after two of Bonilla’s closest friends lost control of their car and crashed into a Sunoco gas pump in Commack. Both were young fathers. A few months later, yet another close friend commited suicide in jail.
Rafael "Rappy" Bonilla, 37, owner of Exotic Snacks LI in East Islip. Credit: Randee Daddona
“It’s weird. I’m usually the most joyful person. I can light up a room and everyone loves me,” he said. “But my life hasn’t been the same since they passed away.”
That was in June of 2020. Bonilla was newly unemployed courtesy of a pandemic layoff -—and captivated by a friend’s Instagram posts of unusual treats he’d bought from shops in the city. After surfing the web, procuring some snacks, and talking up his idea at Bay Shore’s Major League Barbers, the owner agreed to let Bonilla install a small display. “I started Exotic Snacks LI 24 hours later, in a barber shop.”
He didn’t really like the name, but sales were brisk and soon he was stuck with it. Bonilla opened satellite operations in other shops, some barber, some not, in Huntington Station, Deer Park, St. James. And then, he went brick-and-mortar himself, opening the first Exotic Snacks LI store in East Islip. A second location, at Broadway Commons in Hicksville, debuted in August, although Bonilla recently decided to close it and focus on his custom chips business.
For a man with depression, not to mention running an entire business by himself, Bonilla has new ideas every minute and finds energy for most of them. He has even begun producing his own snacks, drawing on contacts from his early years as a music promoter.
“My first collaboration was with Ghostface Killah from the Wu-Tang Clan,” he said of Exotic Snacks’ limited-edition bags of jalapeño potato chips printed with the rapper’s likeness. Bonilla has a salt-and-vinegar chip honoring another rapper as well, the late Big Pun, whose name is tattooed on his arm, and worked with Puerto Rican reggaeton artist Don Chezina on a cheddar-sour cream collaboration. Altogether, he’s sold 30,000 bags of his chips just in the past year -—not bad for a one-man operation -— and Bonilla has hopes of eventually opening his own manufacturing facility. “I have a lot of big offers on the table with artists. Everybody wants their own potato chips, their own juice, their own water.”
Salt-and-vinegar chips honor the late rapper Big Pun. Credit: Randee Daddona
The mystery box did not disappoint, jam-packed as it was with beef-flavored Japanese Cheetos, elderflower Fanta from Bosnia, Froot Loops cereal straws, black truffle chips from China and lots, lots more. It all offered the promise of a fun, Tums-chased afternoon, not to mention a fascinating glimpse into the batty global snacks industry. Still, I found my mind drifting back to thoughts of Bonilla. I wondered if his mission -— bringing little pieces of joy to people’s lives, offering brief escapes from what burdened them -— had somehow lessened his own burden, had brought him joy and escape for a piece.
“It’s given me some happiness, I guess, after my friends not being here, but it’s been a hard time,” he told me. Then, a moment later, his voice rose. “This business has been like everything. If I didn’t have it, I don’t know where I’d be.”
Exotic Snacks LI is at 80 Carleton Ave. in East Islip, exoticsnacksli.com.
Newsday writer and restaurant critic Scott Vogel aims for a refreshing, gimlet-eyed take on the Long Island food scene, often while drinking a refreshing gimlet.
