Look Italian Dolce

"Look" brand chocolates by Fujiya are something that I largely ignored up until I was given the Baskin Robbins chocolates and found them surprisingly good. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I avoided them, but I think it was because they have the typical Fujiya candies look of pretty much all of their chocolates. That is, a chocolate shell with a creamy filling. I think seeing so many of them with the Fujiya girl's big head and protruding tongue  on a plethora of sweets packages turned me off to anything offered by Fujiya, but I'm softening on the maker whose mascot is a  mutant girl with perpetually dry lips. 

So, instead of waiting for someone to give me this particular release, I forked over my own 100 yen coin ($1.20) for these selection of Italian sweets based chocolates. As with all Look brand chocolates, there are 3 very small pieces (think about half of a bite size) of each of 4 flavors and there is a slightly bittersweet chocolate shell encasing a soft flavored filling. Each candy is 21 calories, but so small that to really get a good sense of the flavors, you need to let it rest on your tongue and melt a bit.

From left: tiramisu, marron cream, espresso, limone

Tiramisu: This was like mild coffee and chocolate, with none of the mascarpone cheese flavor of tiramisu. That doesn't detract from the pleasantness of the flavor, however. I enjoyed this because it didn't carry the sense of acidity that real strong coffee can carry.

Marron cream: This was nice, though it felt more like a well-rounded milk chocolate with a mild coffee-like undertone than a chestnut one. I think the chestnut boosted the chocolate flavor rather than shone through strongly on its own. Still, quite enjoyable and you can detect the chestnut flavoring to some extent.

Espresso cream: This had a much stronger coffee flavor with a real sense of instant coffee powder than the tiramisu one. It is the weakest of the bunch, but not "bad". I was indifferent to it. It wasn't really espresso in that none of the dark-roasted notes came through. If you like Nescafe coffee, then this might float your boat.

Delicia Limone: This was the most distinctive one with some strong, slightly tart lemon flavors, and incredibly tiny bits of cookie in the cream filling to add texture. I usually don't go for lemon and chocolate, but I did like this.

I liked these just fine, but was less "wow'ed" by the combination of flavors than I was with the Baskin Robbins Look chocolates. I think I would have been happier with a whole box of Delicia Limone rather than 3 variations which each really came off a lot like variations on coffee. Still, they are nice textures and flavors, and I enjoyed them. I could see buying another box in the future, but only if there isn't something newer and more interesting to catch my eye.

CC Lemon Zero

C.C. Lemon is one of those drinks that I've had an interest in for quite some time because it is packed with Vitamin C and who doesn't enjoy a good lemon beverage? My former boss used to drink it on occasion and some of my students swear by it as a way of keeping colds at bay.

I don't like to drink my calories and I particularly don't like to drink sugary acidic sodas because they have a bad effect on the teeth. This is what has kept me from sampling C.C. Lemon for all these years. I especially wanted to try it around the time that the Simpsons were used heavily in their promotions as there were some nifty bits of swag available at that time. Unfortunately for me, the Simpsons aren't being used now when a zero calorie version is available.

I investigated the name "C.C. Lemon", but didn't come up with any explanation of what the "C.C." stands for besides the fact that it's supposed to be packed with a lot of Vitamin C. The American Wikipedia page says that there has been some controversy about whether or not the advertised amount of C is really as claimed, but the Japanese page doesn't mention anything about it. The weird thing is that they don't mention the amount of Vitamin C in terms of usual measures, but as the number of lemons worth of C. A 500 ml. bottle of C.C. Lemon zero supposedly contains 70 lemons worth.


The soda smells pleasantly lemony and you can tell it's lightly carbonated when you open the lid since it makes less of a "pop" noise than other fizzy beverages. The lemon flavor is pronounced, but not overwhelming. The sweetness level is just a tiny bit higher than I'd personally prefer and you can detect the fact that this is made with a cocktail of artificial sweeteners, but it's far less obvious than some of the other diet beverages I've sampled. After the first several sips, the artificial sweetener taste tends to mute (but not disappear) a bit as your tongue grows accustomed to it.

This was a very refreshing lemon drink with a good balance of flavors and a very mild citrus bite. It's flawed because I wish it had a little less of an artificial sweetener flavor, a little more carbonation, and a little more citrus bite and less sweetness, but it's pretty good for a diet version of a beverage. My feeling is that diet soda beggars can't be too choosy, but this is pretty good regardless. I will definitely revisit this if it doesn't end up vanishing as so many zero-calorie drinks in Japan seem to do.

Suntory's web site for C.C. Lemon is currently sporting a strange space ship made from a drink bottle motif. It includes a little Flash-based game, but you have to read Japanese to play it and some desktop pictures and a screen save that can be downloaded. Among the desktop pictures, I find the diagram of the internal structure of the imaginary spaceship rather amusing because of all of the lemon-shaped furnishings.