Luna Midnight Sweets Mont Blanc

No, I didn't wait 3 months to try this. This is an older picture of the product.

Would you like to know what invention would make a person the wealthiest person in the world? Create a food that tastes like something almost universally loved and create an extremely low calorie or no calorie version. The person who could manage this would solve the biggest of first world problems, how to eat and eat and eat what you love without getting fat.

While no one has created this magical product, food companies keep trying to pander to this desire. This yogurt is one such product as it shows a richly piled chestnut paste sweet on the front as an empty promise of sweet, rich, fatty dessert for a handful of calories (and 100 yen/$1.30). I, at least, am dumb enough to keep hoping that some day I'll be able to enjoy things without paying the price is thigh expansion.

Anything which carries the "mont blanc" moniker has a very high bar to leap over in my opinion. I adore chestnut anything and this particular dessert is something I'm always tempted by when I pass by a patisserie. When I leave Japan, it is something I will absolutely miss. I can only hope that, during the 23 years I've been away, someone back home will have produced their version of this treat for the American market. No, I'm not holding my breath.

Peeling back to the foil reveals an encouraging sight. There are little bits of chestnut mixed into the yogurt. The flavor is definitely that of sweet yogurt, but there's also a good amount of chestnut flavor mixed in. It's not exactly like tucking into a pile of chestnut cream piped on top of a pastry, but it's still pretty satisfying. The yogurt is thin and I think the experience of eating it would be more impressive if it were thicker. Of course, the appeal of this line of sweets is that it's low calorie (65 calories for 110 grams, or a little over half a cup) so any thickness would likely be accomplished by adding artificial thickeners.

I enjoyed this, and I'm glad that it's spending a fair amount of time on the shelves of my local convenience stores. If you're a chestnut fan and aren't put off by very sweet yogurt (or artificial sweeteners), I'd definitely recommend this as a "dessert yogurt". You could do much, much worse, both nutritionally and in terms of the quality.