Fujiya Heart Peanuts

Back when I was working in an office, my boss used to buy packets of 100 yen ($1.20) "peanuts choco". For foreign folks who want to indulge in something which is "safe", chocolate-covered nuts of any sort are the bee's knees. In fact, there are some incredibly good chocolate covered almonds that I was addicted to when I was working. Unsurprisingly, I was fatter when I worked in an office.

I haven't reviewed any chocolate covered nuts because they're hard to mess up. This bag of heart-shaped peanut chocolates from Fujiya is being reviewed because it came with one of my three fukubukuro. I'm betting my readers are getting tired of hearing that. Yeah, well get used to it. I'm not even halfway done with what I got.

There are 15 little medallions in the bag, each individually wrapped and with the words "have a heart" imprinted on them and providing you with 45 calories. Though these look like they're a Valentine's release, they're always available.  For reasons I'm not sure of, Fujiya felt it was important to say that these were manufactured at their Hiratsuka plant. That means nothing to my readers who don't live in Japan, and problem means little to those who do. I only know it as this place which is really far from my apartment that my husband and I once ventured to to look at a second-hand record shop. We were looking for rare records. I don't remember smelling peanuts or chocolate when I was there, but maybe they hermetically sealed the emissions in efficient Japanese fashion.

There really isn't much to say a about these. They smell like peanuts and chocolate. The nuts are very lightly roasted and plentiful, and the milk chocolate is fairly smooth and lacks the bad aftertaste that some Japanese chocolate has. They're good, but they're pricier (more or less 200 yen/$2.40 per bag) than the bags of peanuts choco my boss used to buy. The main difference is that the chocolate on these is smoother and has a finer texture and have bigger peanuts. Also, the packages of peanuts choco are not wrapped individually, but just tossed into a plastic tray so they buffet one another and lack the pristine appearance and gloss of this Fujiya offering. The Fujiya ones also are fortified with Vitamin E so that you can feel good about eating them. At least that's the only reason I can think of to include it.

These are good, but they're not outstanding compared to other similar offerings. If I were in the mood for chocolate-covered peanuts, I'd buy the cheaper hundred-yen shop versions of "peanuts choco". They have less packaging, are cheaper and taste pretty much the same. I'm giving them a happy rating because they taste good, but I wouldn't buy them again for the aforementioned reasons.