Random Picture #218

It's becoming clear that cranberry is now a thing in Japan. I've been seeing more items containing cranberries including some chocolate-covered ones. I've done a bit of research and this sort of spread of cranberries isn't truly new to Japan, but it's definitely seeing a surge right now which I either didn't experience or notice during my 23 years in Japan. Since I love cranberries, and found them in short supply while I was in Tokyo, I hope I would have noticed if suddenly cookies and candies featuring them started popping up all over the place at the same time. However, I'm not so arrogant about my perceptual skills as to say it didn't fly right by me.

These "all cranberry" cookies are the latest in the long line of fruits that Tohato has dried out and sandwiched between two biscuits in their rip-off of Garibaldi biscuits. I've not been entirely impressed by the "all fruit" line in the past so I gave it a miss. I may be persuaded otherwise in the future, but I have more than enough snack review fodder lying around and don't need to toss another pack on the pile. 

Tohato All Lemon Salty Biscuits/Cookies

If you look at the design of the "All" on the "All (fruit)" line of cookies, you'll see that the "A" is pretty darn happy. The two "l's" seem to be distant cousins of "Hello Kitty" as they are mouth-less. One has to wonder why the designer came up with this style. Was drawing too little mouths on the "l's" going to make the top set of letters seem like too happy a family next to the expressionless words beneath? Did the designer not have enough ink to draw just a little more? Was he or she suddenly struck down with sadness after drawing the little curve on the "A"?

Personally, I'm not sure why anyone feels it's necessary to anthropomorphize letters and assign them human feelings. It just encourages deviant behavior. If people think letters possess emotions, there might be some ridiculous movement toward giving them human rights and they can refuse to work for us. I'll have to start giving their unions money in order to use them in my posts. If that happens, it's all over, people.

Getting to the cookies, like all of the "All (fruit)" line, there is supposed to be 10 cm. of fruit crammed between two cookie layers. I guess that they are compressed into a quantum singularity of fruit filling for your convenience. There's no fear of getting lockjaw after having to open your mouth wide to bite down on 10 cm. of fruit. Woohoo?

One of the points about the "All (fruit)" line that I like is the texture mix of the somewhat dry biscuit cookie base mixed with moist, sweet dried fruit. The fruit really brings moisture into the equation in most cases, but not in this one. Lemon is not exactly a soft fruit when dried because it has a low sugar content. That doesn't make this bad, but it does make them a bit dry and lower the quality of the experience of eating them.

This is unfortunate because I like the mild lemon flavor mixed with a hint of salt. The salt is very well-balanced from my perspective because it lies in wait until you've chewed the carby, floury cookie base and chewy lemon. It comes in most prominently at the end, but not so potently as to make this unpleasantly salty.

These are fine, but they could be better. There could be more sweetness to boost the overall flavor profile. Though I am not a fan of huge amounts of sugar, I think that it can add to more potent flavors and this can use it. Also, I truly wish the cookie and the filling were moister. If the cookie had a cakier feel, I think these would definite be worth repeating. They aren't though, so I wouldn't have these again.

Tohato All Azuki Cookies

I once said that I was on a quest to sample all of the "All (Fruit)" line of cookies and then I promptly forgot that this was one of my snack blog missions. In fact, I forgot that I had any missions of any sort, but perhaps all of the incessant commercials playing in Shinjuku station for the newest Mission Impossible movie sparked my memory. I must say that I wonder if it costs more to run ads in a station that about a million people walk through than it costs to run ads on television in Japan. That has nothing to do with these cookies unless Tom Cruise decides to appear in ads for them in the future. That's not outside of the realm of possibility, but I think that he's unlikely to smile and bite into cookies that smell a bit like mold or dirt, as these ones do.

That's right, these cookies smell pretty rank. Their unique bouquet reminded me very much of the dreaded oshiruko KitKat. Still, I'm nothing if not game to sample new foods, especially when I've already forked over my 100 yen ($1.24) to procure a bag of them and the only other option is to toss them and forfeit a review opportunity. I found these at Lawson 100, but you can find them pretty much anywhere that carries the All Fruit cookies. They are seasonal and will vanish after winter and reappear next autumn. So, if you want some cookies that smell like a zombie's armpit, act before it warms up.

All derogatory comments about the aroma of these cookies aside, they are actually quite enjoyable. The basic cookie used in the All Fruit line has a good flavor and texture. They are slightly flaky but soft. They're like a cross between a biscuit and a pie. Sandwiched between them are bits of moist sweetened azuki beans. There is also kinako  (toasted soybean powder) and black sugar syrup flavoring added, though the influence of these two ingredients are so subtle that you can barely detect them. They're like a voice in the next room that you can't make out, but they are nonetheless, present and contributing something to the overall taste. For all I know, they're also adding their own personal touch to the funk coming off of them as well. 

I'm not an enormous fan of red beans. The truth is that I like white bean sweets more than red, but I bought these believing that the moist nature of azuki would lend itself well to these cookies. That theory is supported by the taste, though there really should be more beans in them. It seems like Tohato continues to scale back the "fruit" portion of this line all of the time and you get more basic cookie and less of the filling then I recall in some of my previous reviews of these. Still, these are good and I recommend them. Just hold your nose when you open the bag and put the portion you want to eat on a plate so that the smell isn't so powerful.

Tohato All Apricot

I'm not sure what most people do when they buy a package of some food with the expectation that they're going to enjoy it and then discover that it's  not all that they'd hoped for. Do they feed it to the neighbor's dog? Do they eat it anyway because they don't want to waste food? Do they hurl it at pigeons as they grumpily make their way through the park to yet another soul-draining day at the office? Or, do they do what I do and eat one and then throw the rest in a plastic holding basket of snacks that need to be reviewed but are so boring that you don't want to do it yet?

The latter is where these apricot cookies have been languishing for several weeks now as I just couldn't work up the enthusiasm to review them. I've reviewed several of the "All (something)" line of cookies, and have been  pleased with what I've tried. Since apricot is one of my favorite flavors when it comes to jam, dried fruit, and cookies, I was really happy to see this in a local 100 yen ($1.20) shop/convenience store (Lawson's 100).

Everything about these cookies looked to be every bit as good as the usual compressed fruit between two biscuits of the "All (something)" line of snacks. Unfortunately, the fruit appears to have been skimped on in this particular variety. There was too much dry cookie and too little actual apricot. In fact, when I broke a cookie in half, instead of seeing the delights of dried apricot running like fruity sap through the cookies veins, I saw nothing but dry biscuit. The packaging claims these cookies compress 10 centimeters of fruit into a 1 cm. cookie, but it seems like they skimped a lot on the frequency of fruit.

Even at a  modest 29.5 calories per cookie, I couldn't see these as worth it on the "pleasure to fat cell size increase" scale that I apply to all snacks that I try. Sure, there's nothing at all wrong with these. The cookie is pleasant enough though it's a somewhat dry biscuit and there is at least a little apricot flavor there, but ultimately it's just not all that impressive. If I were seriously hungry or on a carb rage, and this was all I had in the apartment (not bloody likely, considering I'm a snack blog reviewer), I might tuck into these. Tohato made me wish I had a dog to feed these to, or at least some pigeons to walk by on the way to work.