Variety Friday: Poll results and the snack selection process

Thanks to everyone who took the time to voice their opinion in the poll about future review priorities. It seems the vast majority of those who care enough to vote are satisfied with the status quo. I appreciate the vote of confidence! Several people commented on my poll saying that I should not worry about what other people want and just choose the snacks that I want to review. I appreciate that attitude very much, but I thought I'd talk a bit about how I make my choices to help my kind readers understand why I decided to go with a poll to help direct my future.

When I started this blog, I mainly chose what I was most interested in sampling based on my tastes. Anything which featured chocolate, cheese, coconut, wafers, mont blanc, orange, black pepper, spicy heat, or kinako got bumped up higher on the list than other treats. After awhile, however, I've found that I've sampled the vast majority of items that easily fall withing the range of my favored flavors. For variety, I also review things that my husband likes, but I generally don't care for. This includes items featuring banana, strawberry, and caramel flavors and chewy candies (like Hi-Chew) and caramels.

These days, the selection process has gotten increasingly selective. Now, on top of flavor, I prioritize the size of the serving and the cost of the item. If I have to buy a big bag of something, I'm far less likely to try it than before. You won't see me doing a comparison of huge bags of Country Ma'am cookies and TopValu cookies as I did previously. I also won't be sampling any KitKats which are only sold in large bags of Mini bars like the black sugar kinako variety, though I will endeavor to buy minis that are sold as individual bars at 7-11. This is mainly because I'm trying to avoid throwing away a bunch of stuff I don't like, but it's also because I don't want to eat vast quantities of junk that I do like.

Yes, I realize the irony of writing a snack blog and not wanting to eat too much junk. Fortunately, the fact that I can get so many things in small portions makes this easier. That being said, I have a certain number of calories that I'm willing to devote to such types of food each day (no more than 150 - preferably around 100). That means it sometimes takes me two or three days to finish something if my husband isn't sharing it with me. This is one of the reasons why I'm not doing more than 4 reviews a week. My apologies to those who would like to see more reviews. Four reviews are pretty much the most I can manage without having food sit around for a month or going into the bin. Also, frankly, this blog can be very time-consuming and, despite the fact that there are ads on this site, I haven't made a penny from it and it's hard to justify sinking more time into it at the moment.

You'll note that I mentioned price as a consideration up there in the previous paragraph. Sometimes people e-mail me and ask me how reviewers get free stuff for review, but the truth is that I don't get anything for free. This could be because I review Japanese items in English or it may be that the Japanese manufacturers don't go around giving out freebies to bloggers or simply that my readership (which continues to slowly grow) is not yet large enough. I'm not sure. At any rate, just for the record, I'm afraid I can't help anyone score free stuff since I can't even accomplish it for myself. I buy everything that is reviewed.

One thing I took away from comments is that at least a few people would like to see more beverages reviews. I absolutely plan on doing more of these, at least until I run out of interesting drinks! I'll also try to do more ice cream reviews, but frankly, Japanese ice cream is pretty boring. A lot of what's out there is relatively similar to Western brands (Haagen Daas is big here, as is Lady Borden to a lesser extent). Much of the rest is low quality ice milk product or a variation on Popsicles. However, you can expect to see at least the occasional ice cream review.

Thanks to everyone who reads and comments. Your continued support is very much appreciated and assures that this blog will continue.

Apologies for the Mispost!

I accidentally posted a message stating my private blogging was going to end to this blog. Please be assured this blog is going to continue unabated and that I'll be more careful to keep my blogs straight in the future! Sorry, kind readers!

I've deleted the misplaced post from this site, but it's still going to go out to the RSS feeds, so I have to post something to clarify the situation to those who got the feed. I don't want anyone to unsubscribe thinking I'm ending this blog! I'm not. :-)

Dars Affogato Chocolates

Sometimes you buy something in Japan based on the pictures because you can't read the characters. This is a rare situation where I can read what the Japanese says, but I still have to judge by the picture because prior to doing a bit of research, I didn't know what affogato meant. When I purchased this, I thought it was supposed to taste like an ice cream sundae. Of course, if I'd turned the box around, I'd have known that this is flavored with espresso, but there's no time for that when you're a busy snack reviewer.

"Affogato-style" means that espresso is used to top a dessert either by itself or in conjunction with another type of sauce like chocolate. This explains why this chocolate has a white center (to represent ice cream) and a chocolate shell.


Incidentally, "Dars" is a well-known brand of chocolates made by Morinaga. Though you may not guess it, "dars" is actually short for "dozen" and refers to the fact that there are 12 chocolates in the package. There are several varieties of it on offer at any given time (milk, dark, and white) and the occasional special flavor like this affogato version. It's a very rich and fatty chocolate which is designed to melt in your mouth. The texture is super smooth and the texture is very fine for a mass-produced chocolate. I've been a fan of the milk chocolate Dars for a long time, though I rarely indulge in it because it's very high calorie. Each small piece is 22 calories (the entire box is 275 calories for 44 grams (1.5 oz.).

This version of Dars has all of the same texture high points of the other varieties of Dars. It also has the same tendency to start melting in your fingers if you handle it too much at room temperature. If you buy any type of Dars, it's better to keep them refrigerated and then eat them by melting them slowly in your mouth. This particular variety smells like mild chocolate despite the fact that it is coffee flavored. In fact, this tastes a lot like a soft center premium candy (like those from See's) with a coffee filling. There are milk chocolate notes, but mainly it has a pretty nice, rich coffee flavor. The part of this which is supposed to be like vanilla ice cream is very subdued. It comes across mainly as an aftertaste of vanilla beans.

This is a nice chocolate. My rating may mislead you to believe that I dislike it, but I don't. The main problem is that I'm not sufficiently enamored of coffee chocolates to want to revisit even a very good one. If you're a big fan of coffee candy, this is definitely worth a try, but if you like things which are more chocolate than coffee, then I'd say give this a pass.

Note: The character in red on the box cover is "winter" which indicates this is seasonal. I bought this in spring and the expiration date is July 2009, so it's available outside of the winter season dates. Also, I still see these on sale at the local discount snack shop.

Fanta Zero Cider

My husband has been a fan of Fanta flavors since before he came to Japan. I, however, grew up too poor to buy the fancy Fanta fruit flavored drinks. My family always bought the sort of store brand sodas that you could find for about a dime or less a can. When Fanta flavors started showing up in Japan, my husband got excited and I just sort of shrugged my shoulders.

At present, Fanta grape is stocked in most stores as is the odd orange. Neither of these come in the "Zero" calorie-free variety. Recently, a lemon zero -calorie flavor showed up which my husband has become a big fan of and I think is pretty good, but it's not the sort of thing I really crave. Since we had good experiences with the lemon flavor, I decided to try out this zero variety of "cider".


I should make one point clear, however. I did not expect this "cider" to be actual "cider". In fact, I had a suspicion based on the bottle design that this was going to be one of the ramune flavors that makes the rounds every summer. The fact that the soda is completely clear is a bit of a tip-off to the fact that there are no apples in it.

When I gave the open bottle a sniff, it smelled like bubble gum. In fact, it was very much like the ramune KitKat from an olfactory viewpoint. The first taste was actually pretty good. It tasted like bubblegum-flavored candy in liquid form. There was a bit of a weird aftertaste though. Unfortunately, the aftertaste grew in strength the more I drank. By the end of half a bottle of it, I was finding it hard to ignore what I believe is the erythritol flavor. Since this is the first ingredient, that's not much of a surprise.

I went from having a "happy sumo" rating in mind after the first sip to an "indifferent" one by the end because of the artificial sweetener aftertaste. I wanted to like this more than I did. In fact, I wanted to find it appealing enough to revisit it since there are so few zero calorie sodas in Japan. While the bubblegum flavor is nice, the aftertaste kills it.

Bakauke Wasabi Sembei

When I was a kid, my parents used to go on and on about horseradish and how much they loved it. They'd keep jars of white pasty gunk in the refrigerator which smelled awful to me and tasted so overwhelmingly hot that I couldn't bear it.

After growing up, I grew to love really hot food, but I've lived in Japan for 20 years and have never eaten anything with Japanese horseradish (wasabi). I'm guessing part of the reason for this is that I haven't eaten much sushi and another part is that my husband can't bear super hot foods so anything we eat together can't be likely to leave scorch marks on his tongue.


This may come as a shock to many out there, but I just sort of forgot about the existence of wasabi in Japan. It's sold in root form or paste form here, but I am not big on condiments and I never notice the actual roots in produce sections (or they're not there). When I saw this packet of sembei at my local Family Mart, I remembered that 1) wasabi exists 2) I like hot foods and 3) I might like wasabi if I tried it.

This is a relatively small bag at 27 grams (.95 oz.). It has 122 calories and contains a nice amount of smallish (5.5 cm/2 in. x 2 cm./.8 in.) rice crackers liberally studded with wasabi. The portion is just about right for snacking without eating too many calories. I paid about 130 yen ($1.25) for it.

The first bite was intensely hot. The heat really seemed to hit near the front of my tongue. This is rather different from eating salsa which seems to affect the back, sides and center of my tongue. The heat mellows rather rapidly. It doesn't have the tendency to build up like capsicum-based heat does. It hits and passes. There's a hint of the vegetable flavor of wasabi root. It's hard to describe, but it's just the barest sense of chlorophyll or grassiness. It adds depth to the flavor along with the familiar taste of rice crackers.

The crackers themselves are fresh, crispy, and don't have the roasted or overcooked taste that some sembei does. These taste lighter. I ate the first half bag of these without a drink and it started to send the heat up the back of my nose. Once I started drinking between bites, that effect mellowed out. By the way, they're supposedly banana-shaped in order to make them easy to eat with one hand, though I've never had sembei which was so huge that I had to use both hands to eat it.

I really enjoyed these, and I wouldn't hesitate to have them again. They're quite hot, but that's to be expected. If you like wasabi, I wholeheartedly recommend trying these. If you just like hot foods, I think they're worth a one-time sample at the very least.

Incidentally, the two characters at the top of the bag that serve as the mascots are supposed to be a female named "Valine" (in red) and a male named "Borine" (in blue). The company's web site has peculiarly detailed bios for each character including hobbies, birth dates, dislikes, and family structure. Valine is a Virgo born on September 10 and Borine is an Aries born on April 15. I now know more about these characters's lives than I know about some of my friends.

American Cherry Hi-Chew

What is the difference between an American cherry and a Japanese cherry? I'd say about 500 yen (about 5 dollars) per 4 oz. (about 118 grams). Nyuk, nyuk. That may be a lame joke, but it's the painful truth. Japanese cherries are sold in small plastic compacts that hold about 12 cherries for $4 or $5 (between about 400-500 yen). American cherries are sold at Costco in freakishly huge honking plastic boxes for about 1000 yen ($10) for about 4 lbs. (about 2 kg.).

The kind of person who can consume Japanese cherries on a regular basis.

As far as I know, there is no predictable difference in taste between a Japanese cherry and an American one. As was said on Seinfeld, fruit is a gamble and there is always variation in both so there is no uniform difference in sweetness, texture, or acidity that I've discerned. That being said, I'm not wealthy enough to eat Japanese cherries on a regular basis. They are clearly for the monocle and sash-wearing set.

These cherry Hi-chew candies are part of Morinaga's "world fruit" series. The other type is a type of Peruvian cherry called "camucamu". Morinaga is holding a campaign where purchasers of the two Hi-Chew flavors can win some sort of kewpie doll trinket which shows it's oh-so-cute face and hands stuck in some colored plastic balls meant to resemble fruit. If you need more plastic junk in your life, you can send in part of the label and hope for the best.

Yes, it actually looks rather purple rather than red or pinkish as one might expect a cherry-flavored candy to look.

The Hi-Chew itself is pretty much par for the course. The texture is chewy, gum-like and a bit like latex. The chew is long-lasting and flavorful throughout. The flavor is somewhat tart cherry with a good balance of sweetness and cherry bite. To me, it doesn't smell particularly good. It smells a bit chemical-like and reminds me of cherry Kool-aid or Pixie Stix. Fortunately, huffing Hi-Chew isn't really necessary so one can enjoy the candy and ignore the smell.

This is a nice Hi-Chew, and a definite repeater if you're a fan of this type of candy and cherry flavor. I like cherry a lot and would certainly consider this again if I were in the right mood. I'm just not big on the Hi-Chew experience overall.

Variety Friday: Deconstructing Vending Machine KitKats

In America, candy and junk food of various stripes is frequently sold in vending machines. Japan has a plethora of vending machines, but very few (or none) that sell candy. Because of this, selling KitKats in vending machines requires the Japanese to package it rather differently. The picture at the top of this post was taken by my husband while he was out on a sojourn in a shopping district of Tokyo. I have never actually seen a vending machine that carries KitKats with my own eyes.

When he brought back this picture, I wished he had bought one of these vending machine KitKats so I could see what the deal was. The information on the machine says that there are 6 mini KitKat bars for 190 yen ($1.80). This represents adequate value for the cost. A regular KitKat is 100 yen (about a dollar) and it takes about 3 minis to make one regular bar.


I still haven't seen a KitKat sold in a vending machine, but the local 99 yen shop was carrying these jars of KitKats which are obviously designed to be sold in vending machines. Since the vending machines are specialized for beverages, the only way to distribute candy bars is to put them in a container which is about the size and shape of a beverage can. My guess is these jars were stock that hadn't sold or that the coming of summer heat means they believe people won't be buying chocolate from vending machines because it'll melt too quickly when it is carried around after purchase.

The vending machine pictured above has just standard bars, but this jar carries both regular and caramel purin KitKats. I don't need to review the bars themselves because I already reviewed the caramel purin mini and I don't need to talk about a milk chocolate version. I paid only 100 yen (about a dollar) for this. That makes it nearly half the price of what they'd be if I bought them from a vending machine, but this is actually a lesser value than the 6 minis for 190 yen above. This is essentially a regular KitKat plus 2 minis (about one and two-thirds KitKats for the price of one bar).


There's a perforated tab at the top for you to grab and easily tear off the plastic wrapper, but mine splintered off after a pull. The perforation goes all the way down the side. I just gave the rest of it a yank until it fell off. The perforation isn't hard to rip, but the plastic is so tight against the can that the shearing force is in a spiral around the can, not straight down.


The bars are packed in a glass jar with a replaceable plastic lid that easily pops on and off. I find it curious that they chose glass since it's a little heavy and trash cans aren't exactly everywhere in Tokyo. Though recycling bins for drinking bottles and cans are often right next to beverage vending machines, the chances that someone will buy one of these, open it up and deal with it right in front of the machine is relatively low.


The jar's ability to be resealed and relatively convenient size (same size as a 12 oz./350 ml. can of soda) means you might be able to put it to some sort of use for storage. I don't know if it'd be safe for food, but certainly for some sort of office, craft, or tool-related supplies, it'd be handy. At any rate, now my curiosity about how they put together the vending machine versions of these has been satisfied and I'm unlikely to be buying one again. It's cool how they packaged something which wouldn't normally be sold in a vending machine in Japan such that it can easily be distributed without changes to the machine. However, it is rather wasteful.