Befco Camembert Cheese Kakimochi

Camembert cheese is one of the  most popular and common types of non-processed cheese in Japan. You can often buy it in little boxes for between 350-500 yen ($4.33-$6.17). In the most common offering, there's a little circular plastic tray protecting a small (100 gram/3.5 oz.) round of softish Camembert. You can buy these pretty much everywhere, including convenience stores. For foreign folks who find processed cheese to be the spawn of the devil, it's often the only option.

It's my best guess that Camembert is a popular "real" cheese because it's mild and fatty, two food attributes that are popular in Japan. I've read that pizza was originally unpopular in Japan because the cheese was too stringy, stinky and pungent. The fact that mature cheddar is much harder to find and more expensive would seem to support the notion that strong cheeses, though much more common than before, are still less favored than mild ones.

This sembei seeks to transfer a flavor which is incredibly mild to begin with to the exterior of a 24-calorie salted snack. The crackers are nicely crispy and the way they are scored gives them some convenient breaking points and provides a nice visual sense. The powder on the outside isn't voluminous, but it's still enough to have you rubbing your fingers to get it off. They smell slightly of pungent cheese, but the first bite is really more buttery than cheesy. Only toward the end of one cracker do you start to detect a cheesier flavor. It obviously needs to build up on the tongue and get some momentum before it takes on enough critical flavor mass to matter. The saltiness level also seems to take a few crackers to kick in. If you're a fan of pigging out, you're probably going to find these a lot more appealing than me, but I generally stop at two.

These were fine, and I'd even buy them again if they were a mere 69 yen (85 cents) for 12 decently sized crackers. I got these for that paltry sum at a discount snack shop along with the previously reviewed soy sauce flavor of the same type of cracker. However, the decision to buy them in that case would be based merely on the fact that these are serviceable salty snacks and not because the flavor really blew me away.

Sanko Seika Camembert Sembei

Like all people who review things in their blogs, I often find that  my ratings system has shortcomings. The main shortcoming is with the "indifferent" rating because it means that I will eat what I have, but I won't buy that product again. I'm concerned that that will make people think that I don't actually enjoy products with such a rating. I want to say that that is not true. I can enjoy something, but not want to have it again because the threshold for buying it again isn't quite cleared. Note that this is a bigger issue for me as a reviewer than for the average person. I'm always trying to slot new things into my daily consumption and something has to be pretty freaking good to be bought again.

This Camembert cheese sembei falls into the category of "things I enjoyed, but wouldn't buy again." It's not that it wasn't adequately tasty. For the most part, it was. The problem was that it was just "good",  not "very good", or "makes-me-want-to run-out-and-stock-up-before-it-goes-off-the-shelves good".

There are two types of sembei in each little single serving bag (99 calories per bag). One is a little ball with red flecks which is supposed to be black-pepper-shrimp-flavored, but just tasted weirdly sweet and rather smoky to me. The rods are the part with Camembert cheese. The bag claims they are 10% cheese, but it's still relatively subtle because Camembert is a mild cheese. It's pleasantly salty and cheesy, but you taste the cheese better if you don't eat the little shrimp balls. The two together make for an interesting mix but the balls are too sweet on their own. I think the little Camembert rods would be good on their own.

I think that I would have given these a better rating had I reviewed them in the early days of my blog. I think these are nice enough, but the competition for my snack affection is pretty intense and these don't make the cut. If you're interested in sampling them (and I think they are worth a try if you like crunchy sembei with a bit of cheese flavor), they're available for about 170 yen ($1.82) for six 23-gram (.8 oz.) bags at Okashi no Machioka snack shops and a variety of supermarkets.

Grilled Cheese Sembei (Camembert)

Sometimes I feel like I'm cheating doing a snack review blog and eating things which are flavored with cheese. My readers might expect that I'll review weird or exotic items because I'm in Japan, land of the weird (and to some "exotic"). Cheese is about as safe a flavor as one can choose. Still, could anyone who likes cheese (and what sort of dairy heretic doesn't like cheese?) resist a grilled cheese rice cracker? Even if you could resist, I couldn't as cheese just so happens to be the boss of me. That's right, I'm a dairy bitch.

I found this small (1.1 oz./32 grams) bag of yaki cheese sen (grilled cheese rice crackers) at a 7-11 convenience store for 105 yen ($1.12). This particular 7-11 was far afield for me. It never ceases to surprise me that shops which are part of the same chain stock different items and that a snack I can find at the 7-11 30 minutes from my apartment aren't stocked in the one 5 minutes from it.

The big wedge of melty Camembert on the front of the package leads you to think this might be a mild cheese experience, but it's actually quite savory and on the strong side. The cheese is concentrated on one side of the crackers, but it's still immensely flavorful. The crackers themselves are what is called "soft" sembei, which means that they're slightly airy and puffy, but still quite crispy. This particular style is my preferred type.

Some of the cheese sembei I've had before has had a bit of a "burnt" cheese flavor to it, but this has been avoided in this case. These are pungent and nicely cheesy with a developed taste. This is probably aided by the various flavorings including soy sauce, pork and chicken, and fish powder. Note that none of these flavors is strong or profound, but I think they boost the savory nature and deepen the flavor. 


This is another winner from Kameda Seika, a company which makes some of the best rice crackers in Japan. I would definitely buy these again. I not only like the sembei, but I think the serving size is very good at 146 calories for a single serving with about 11 medium-size (about 6 cm./2.4 in.) crackers. This is a great treat to have on hand with a soda or, if you're the imbibing type, beer.