Kameda Seika Yakibuta (Roast Pork) Snack

I've been having problems finding new and interesting sembei at the market. There's a ton of new stuff around, but none of it really seems truly new. There's still the remaining dribble of the wasabi-flavored sembei fad. There are also nori and soy flavors, and black bean varieties. I've had the last two before, and they were fine, but I was looking for something new and more interesting.

I figured that Family Mart convenience store always has something interesting on hand, and the two appealing options (both from Kameda Seika) were umeboshi (sour pickled plum) and roast pork. I was in the mood for something more savory and less likely to make me pucker, so I bought the pork sembei snack for 105 yen (about a dollar).


These smell like a mixture of pork and soy sauce and a sweet smell which is difficult to pin down. Each component carries a different element of the roast pork. The puffs taste like Kix cereal, if Kix puffs were sweeter, tasted nutty, and carried a hint of bacon. The flat chips resemble spicy, very well-cooked bacon with added soy sauce. In fact, the flat chips by themselves are great and I could have done without the sweet puffs. That being said, when you eat them together, you do have an approximation of a glazed roast pork with a bit of hot red pepper tossed in.

These were on the borderline between indifferent and happy ratings. It's not that I didn't like them or happily consume all 178 calories of the 42 gram (1.5 oz.) bag all at one time. I just found the sweetness too much. If Kameda Seika sold a bag of only the spicy, flat bacon-flavored chips, I'd likely have given this a very happy rating rather than a grudging "happy" rating.