If you want to dive deep into the heart of weird snacks in Japan, I recommend you raid the kid's section. That's what I did to find most of what I'm offering during my weeks of weird. Most of those snacks are not only a little strange, but they're also very cheap. This packet of 6 long, thin cookies (about the width of a pencil and about 2/3 the length of one) was only 28 yen (33 cents) at a convenience store.
The manufacturer is Ginbis, and I've never reviewed anything made by them before, but I've seen some of their snacks on sale. Mostly, they make cookies, but they also offer a few salted snacks. Their web site says that this is their longest seller and has been on offer for 40 years and mentions that these small packages offer great portion control.
These smell like crackers in a rather generic way. They are not made of or with asparagus, but are merely meant to resemble it. They're made with some not so great fats including palm oil and "shortening". Other than that, they're made with your usual selection of cookie material - flour, sugar, yeast, etc. You can see that they are studded with sesame seeds. Though they don't look it, the outside of the crackers becomes very oily when you touch them with your warm fingers. It's a very odd situation. The main good point of them is that they are super crispy. The texture is quite appealing. Other than that, the only thing to recommend them is the fact that they are fortified with Calcium, but only 31 mg.
The taste is like a not so sweet, very strongly baked animal cracker. The main flavor is black sesame with a generic biscuit/cookie flavor. These are actually pretty decent tasting, but nothing to get excited about. The black sesame flavor could be stronger, and they have a little bit of an overcooked flavor.
I finished the packet and enjoyed it, but this isn't the sort of thing which strongly appeals to me. If you like sesame and animal crackers, you might want to give them a try. Otherwise, I'd not bother.
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8 comments:
I think these would probably be more fun if they really had asparagus in them . . .
I love Asparagus Biscuits! I'm totally addicted and have my family send me packages of them. I've also gotten my co-workers addicted as well.
Thanks to both of you for commenting!
I think I would have liked these more if they weren't so heavily baked and didn't have a weird oily thing going on. I do like black sesame!
I love these things. I grew up on Guam and these asparagus biscuits are found everywhere on the island. They are great because they aren't too sweet. I prefer these over animal cookies any day. But be careful. You can easily finish the package without noticing. ^_^
Hi, my husband and I went searching for a supermarket just last night looking for these biscuits. OMG we ran into stores where the where closed, and others which called themselves "Oriental" but catered more to the latino ethnic...Please help. I live in the Maryland area but will travel not more than 20mi to get some of these biscuits, and some of the other japaneese junk food. bg_shotglass@hotmail
Hi, bg, and thank you for reading my blog!
I have no experience obtaining items outside of Japan, but I did find that there is an online shop that sells these Ginbis cookies.
The cookies are here:
http://guamsownstuff.com/product/?prod_id=66
The Guam's Own Stuff site carries several Japanese snack products in the "kid's stuff" and a few others in the "food stuff" section.
If you order from them successfully, please let me know as I'd love to hear about your experiences buying in this way. I don't need to do that now, but I may need/want to in the future if I leave Japan.
Oh, you can get them from another source in Guam here:
http://paylessmarkets.com/shop/index.php?productID=179
Nice informative article! Buy biscuits online from our grocery store to ensure its always fully stocked.
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