KFC Colonel Saunders for Children's Day (promotional information)

Image courtesy of KFC Japan. Click to load a larger version. 

May 5 was "children's day" in Japan. It is one of the holidays celebrated during "Golden Week" in Japan. As part of the celebration, KFC Japan dressed the Colonel statues in warrior garb at various locations. Given the range of costumes that I have seen on the statue, I have to wonder if there is a storage room in every branch which houses his wardrobe or if these things are rented for the day and then sent back. Between Santa and witches costumes and traditional Japanese holidays, old Colonel Saunders has a bigger wardrobe than I do.

Incidentally, if you have a thing for old Southern Colonels and you'd like to put one on your desktop, KFC has a couple of pictures you can make your computer background. You can get them here.

KFC's Colonel Pokota (game)

This isn't about a particular food or item from KFC Japan, but rather about a promotional item. I think there are a lot of absolutely adorable mascots in Japan. In fact, I think they have more cute cartoon mascots per capita than any country in the world (likely any civilization in the universe - there's no chance an alien culture has more). That being said, this thing is a creepy hybird of Colonel Saunders and a bunny. When I look at it, it's hard not to think of some sort of unnatural coupling that produced a result that is horribly wrong. It actually reminds me a bit of the ugly Nova usagi (which I always called the "beak bunny" because of its weird yellow nose) that was extremely popular. I guess rabbits are something that artist struggle to anthropomorphize.

At any rate, the point of this post is not to talk about the abomination, but the fact that it is used in a game that KFC is making available for free to promote its greasy poultry products. I have not downloaded the game, but their web site says you can "summon" this monstrosity by tapping on something called "friend's power". I don't know what happens once it arrives in your game, but you might want to have a can of pepper spray on hand.

Those who want to give it a go can get it from Apple's app store or Google Play. If you can't understand Japanese, you can enable automatic translation of the pages in your browser (at least you can in Chrome) and bumble your way through in broken English.

KFC and Hello Kitty lunch box set (product information)

Image from KFC Japan.

For New Year's KFC is offering a special stacking lunch box which features an adorable image of a cartoon of the Colonel hugging Hello Kitty. If your idea of lunch time giggles is a cross-species relationship, this is definitely going to be a deal you'll want to partake of. The set includes the food items pictured above (3 fries, 3 pieces of chicken and 3 tenders) for 2,200 yen (about $21 US). It may seem like poor value for a couple of plastic boxes and enough for 3 tiny servings, but those Sanrio licenses don't come cheap.

KFC Smile Set (product information)

Images courtesy of KFC Japan.

Anything in Japan can be "chibified". That is, it can be made cute and adorable like Rilakkuma or Hello Kitty. This includes deceased purveyors of greasy fried chicken who, heretofore, were mainly represented in statuary.

Making the colonel, who seemed to be born near-sighted, white-haired and with a goatee, into a little cutie-pie is one of the best ways to get kids interested in buying KFC's "smile set". If that's not enough, then they'll give away little prizes with the meal sets (shown at the top) as illustrated above. The top item is a "cooking board" which, near as I can tell, is about cutting straight (hence the measurement marks at the bottom). I'm guessing it is not anything as solid as a cutting board. The second item is a "hand towel". Those are usually the size and shape of a diminutive handkerchief and meant to be carried around for drying ones hands after using public restrooms that have neither towels nor electronic dryers. The third item is a "recipe memo", because kids are always writing down recipes. Finally, there is a "deco sheet" which you can use to decorate your cakes.

The strange thing about these to me is that they don't seem very "kid" oriented. While you can get your choice of one of these if you buy one of the two "smile sets", they definitely seem that they're for young women, not for kids. How many kids do you know who are decorating cakes using stencils?

At any rate, if you have found yourself in love with the crooked-nosed chibi Colonel and would like to adorn your desktop with his adorable little image, you can download a wallpaper of him here. 

KFC Corn Potage Fritter (product announcement)

Images courtesy of KFC Japan.

KFC Japan is starting to sell a "corn potage" fritter today. It is the closest I've seen in Japan to someone deep-frying a liquid a la deep fried beer or Coke as are often sold at fairs and festivals in the U.S. The outside is supposed to be crispy. The inside is likely going to be some sort of flavored mashed potato with corn kernels. It'll be a carb-o-rama, but I bet it'll be good in a bad way.

As an addendum to this KFC-related announcement, I noticed recently that the biscuits in Japan are different than they are here. They come with a hole in the center like a donut. They also are sold with honey-maple syrup, which I'm not sure you get packets of here in the U.S. I think this is a little reflection of a cultural difference because the biscuits here are seen as a bland accompaniment to the meal whereas they're almost considered a dessert in Japan. Certainly they are tender and flaky enough in Japan to qualify. One of my former Australian colleagues refused to call it a "biscuit" and insisted that it was a scone. Arguments that it was called a "biscuit" in the food's country of origin as well as in katakana Japanese fell on deaf ears. 

Random Picture #137

Click this picture to load a bigger one. Picture courtesy of BlogD (used with permission).

Americans are always whining about the Christmas creep, and I have literally seen it as Halloween approaches. At the local Walgreens drug store, the Halloween candy is literally framed by large quantities of Christmas candy and decorations that seem to waiting for the moment when they can drop down like red and green ninjas into the space vacated by ghost-, vampire-, pumpkin- and witch-themed bags of treats. It looks like they literally cannot stand the wait.

The picture above, if you can read a bit of Japanese, makes it clear that America isn't the only place that gets ahead of the game on such things. If you look in the lower right hand corner of the window, you can see a poster of a model in a Santa hat holding a bucket of Christmas fried foodstuffs. This picture was taken in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, on October 21 by my brother-in-law. 

Though I personally am not troubled by Christmas creep, I think this one is a more defensible one even among those who find it annoying. KFC has to fulfill a lot of orders for the Japanese traditional dinner experience and the earlier they know what to expect the better. What is more, their ability to fill them in a timely fashion is limited and customers may actually appreciate the chance to get in at the head of the line as early as possible. 

Variety Friday: Japanese KFC Christmas

The barrel was quite huge, about the volume of a 5 gallon bucket. 

Despite living in Japan for over 20 years, my husband and I have never taken part in the traditional fried chicken and Christmas cake rituals that have somehow become a part of the Japanese Christmas tradition. I'm not certain of how this tradition began, but I would be surprised if it weren't the devil spawn of the KFC marketing department. They are the kings of this ritual, though a wide variety of other outlets, including convenience stores and other fast food places, have jumped on the fried chicken bandwagon around this time of year.

The reservation schedule posted at our local KFC. The top shows the menu options for Christmas packs/barrels. The yellow tags indicate limited availability of chicken during those hours and the orange tags are hours in which no original recipe chicken will be on offer. You can see that 3:00 pm - 9:00 pm on the 24th is the busiest. (Click this to see a bigger version.)

While it may seem that having KFC for Christmas is just a simple matter of strolling on over to the local greasy chicken outlet and picking up a bucket, it's a bit more complicated than that because of the popularity of getting chicken during "the 3 days of Christmas" in Japan. At least in Tokyo, you have to make an effort to sign up early in order to pick your grub up around dinner time on the 23rd, 24th or 25th. If you don't, you risk getting shut out entirely as they can run out of original recipe chicken. Also, there can be huge mobs of people on the 25th and it's hard to get what you want by mere luck.

My husband and I signed up a few weeks before the date, but even then we were too late to hit any of the sweet spots for dinner on Christmas Eve or Day. We had to settle for the 23rd, which happens to be a national holiday (the Emperor's birthday) in Japan. You choose a time to pick up your chicken at 10-minute intervals. Ours was between 6:30-6:40. If you're late, you still get your chicken, but it will have sat around for awhile. Since you have to pay when you make your reservation, they don't care if you show up or not.

 The bucket contents unpacked.

There are a few different options, but we opted for the "party barrel A" for 3,880 yen ($47) because you get a commemorative plate in addition to a "Christmas salad", Christmas cake, and 8 pieces of original recipe chicken. The other options include the "party barrel B" (4 pieces of chicken, 6 tenders, a salad, a cake and the plate for the same price as "A"), and "Christmas Packs" which include only various types of chicken (tenders, nuggets, and pieces), no salad, no cake, and no plate. My husband wanted to get the plate as part of the deal as a memento of our first "Japanese-style" Christmas meal, but we also figured that this would save us having to arrange for a separate cake.

The whole lot served up, save the cake. That's our rice. It doesn't come with your barrel.

Except for the cake, nothing much was going to be a surprise. Everyone knows what original recipe KFC tastes like. The "Christmas salad" was nothing more than a smallish bit of salad with a Caesar salad kit on the side. What was worse was that the salad was mostly iceberg lettuce. Again, this was no great shock, but it would have been nice if they had done a little better by those buying expensive Christmas barrels. The salad kit had dressing, croutons, bacon bits, Parmesan cheese, and 4 plastic forks. The salad portion was barely adequate for 2. If you had 4 people, it would have been obscenely tiny.

The cake was very soft and I had a little trouble getting it out of the package without denting up the soft chocolate topping. When my husband smelled it, he said it was very reminiscent of something and asked me what I thought. My first thought was chocolate pudding, and that was his thought as well. The cake looks like your usual Japanese Christmas cake in that it has little flecks of real gold in the center to add a touch of elegance.

The cake was largely whipped cream based. The super soft outer layer was slightly bittersweet and where most of the flavor lay. The texture was pretty nice, but I would have liked a bit more heft both in terms of the flavor and density of the cake. The cake itself nearly vanished in a melty cloud of cream. It wasn't bad, but wasn't nearly as good as the cake I was given last year, not by a long shot. On the bright side, the cake was about 8 inches (20 cm) in diameter and provided 4 large pieces or 8 small ones. My husband and I each had 1/8, and that weighed in at a mere 90 calories per serving.

This was an interesting experience, but mainly for going through the process of reserving it, picking it up, and seeing what the surprises might be. All in all though, it wasn't a very good meal, but I'm not a fan of fast food in general and KFC in particular. I ate one piece of the chicken only and the rest my husband will have to slowly eat by himself. If you love KFC and want a plate as a souvenir to remember your time in Japan by, this may be worthwhile, but I wouldn't do this again.

I have to ponder why this is so popular in Japan despite being a decidedly so-so experience on the food front. It's certainly not cheap. In fact, you could probably buy all of the components separately and end up with more money left in your pocket. The plate isn't really even a free bonus and you could definitely get a nicer cake, even from a convenience store. I think that this ultimately is like a lot of Western traditions in that we don't do them because they are good but simply because they are familiar and following this custom puts one in the proper spirit for  the holiday. Many Japanese people eat bad fried chicken for Christmas for the same reason that we still give fruitcakes. It's just what is done by everyone and we try not to think too deeply about why we do it.

Merry Christmas to all of my readers!

Random Picture 31

Last month my husband attended the Koenji Awaodori festival and took some pictures including this shot of the Colonel in a hapi coat for the festivities. He's like a big Ken doll for the Japanese as they dress him differently depending on the occasion. The Koenji Awaodori festival has over a million visitors in 2 days and features folks doing traditional harvest dancing as well as, of course, food. The KFC people sold their usual dreck, but also had a big cooler full of overpriced drinks.

Summer has finally exited, and posting this picture of the Colonel in this uniquely Japanese (and common summer) attire is my way of telling it not to let the door hit it on the ass on the way out. This past summer was long, intense, and excruciating, and I'm glad it's finally over.