Look Hawaiian Chocolate

When I was a very young child, I had a puzzle which was a map of the United States. Each piece was a state and the point was to teach children the names of the states and their capitals. Since it would be very boring design to just have each state with words on it, they also put a picture or a few pictures of representative images for each place on the puzzle piece.

For some states, this was easy since they had very clear industries or famous places. California had Hollywood. Michigan had cars. Florida had oranges. Idaho had potatoes. My home state, Pennsylvania, had the Liberty Bell and coal. Some of the states were represented by rather silly things and those are the states that nobody remembers the position of on the map. Of course, Hawaii was easy. It had pineapples, coconuts, and hula girls. In fact, it also has a good deal more these days as we can also connect it with coffee, and macadamia nuts. In fact, I think more people know Hawaii as a stereotype than as an actual place to live (except the marvelous Marvo at The Impulsive Buy since he actually does live there).

I imagine that this offering from Fujiya for their Look line is based on favored stereotypical flavors. The box has all of the images that my old puzzle map used to have, including the hula dancer. Maybe one of their designers had that very same toy as a child.

Of course, there must be pineapple and there's also Kona coffee and macadamia, but the final flavor is pure Japan. That flavor is "blue Hawaii". My first experience with the "blue Hawaii" flavor was when considering a kakigori (shaved ice) treat for the first time. The syrup flavors included that non-descript flavor. We though that it might be blueberry at first, but it turned out to be some weird flavor that we could not figure out. Of all of the options in this box of Look chocolates, that one would absolutely be the biggest surprise as I had no idea what it was going to be.

pineapple: This was very subtle at first and I mainly tasted the bittersweet chocolate. The pineapple hit somewhere in the middle as an acidic burst and then faded away. I don't think chocolate and pineapple are a particularly good pairing in general and this did nothing to change my feeling about that.

macadamia: I had some expectations that this might work pretty well because, you know, nuts and chocolate, but it tasted strangely artificial and funky. It was if it had been contaminated by some bizarre artificial flavoring.There was only a modest nutty flavor mixed with the strange chemical taste.

Kona coffee: I figured this might be pretty good, but it also had a little of that odd flavor coupled with coconut. It had a rich, coffee finishing taste and was the best of the bunch. That is not to say it was fantastic, but it was complex and tasted closest to what one might expect.

blue Hawaii: This is where that strange chemical flavor came from. I wonder if the other flavors were "contaminated" in some fashion by the bubble gum-like flavor of this filling as that same essence is what I detected in the macadamia and Kona coffee to some extent. The pineapple is the furthest physically in the box from the blue Hawaii so it may not have been absorbing the scent/flavor as much. As much as I may feel that pineapple and chocolate are not a natural partnering, bubble gum and chocolate are about as mismatched as it gets.

None of these was terrible. I didn't exactly want to spit them back out, but that is more of a testimonial to how weak the fillings were and how serviceable the semi-sweet chocolate was. I can eat these, but I wouldn't say they'd be my first choice or even my second or third. If I was desperate for chocolate and this was all I had, I'd turn to it, but it's really not great. Maybe I got a bad box, or mine was older and sitting on the shelf caused flavors to coalesce into a mutant entity, but I wouldn't buy this again.

Fujiya Look Matcha Mousse Chocolates

This box of chocolates came to me courtesy of Skoshbox (gratis).

Fujiya would like to have tea with you. No, really. They're talking about a tea ceremony campaign linked to a pretty swanky-looking tea house in which you can spend 90 minutes experiencing tea culture. If you live in Kyoto, Nagoya, or Tokyo, or are willing to travel to these places, you and your offspring can enjoy yourself some high-falutin' tea, or, you can plant your ass on your sofa, watch some inane T.V., and open up a box of chocolates for a less swanky and elegant, but more comfortable experience. After all, who wants to sit seiza for an hour and a half while people painstakingly prepare tea?

Skoshbox sent me this pretty much on the cusp of the point at which hot weather would have wrecked it. EbiDebby at Snack Love also reviewed it, and her candy fared far worse than mine due to the heat. My box of chocolate suffered more from sitting on my counter during a West coast heat wave than from traveling from Skoshbox's hands to mine.

On the left is green tea and adzuki and on the right is green tea and milk. 

Look has actually been impressing me lately with their candy, and this was no exception. The matcha chocolate has a mild chocolate flavor mixed with a slightly more potent green tea flavor. It's not overbearing in any way and is lightly sweet. Rather than possessing flavor depth, they fuse together to create a single entity which is neither chocolate nor green tea, but a happy combination of both.

The green tea with adzuki is a slightly different experience. The green tea is more prominent. There's something about the adzuki which  makes it emerge. I tried both o these chocolates cold and at room temperature. The cold version of the adzuki was subdued. The room temperature one was much, much stronger and had the strong earthy tones of red bean soup. I, frankly, preferred it cold.

Both of these are nice chocolates. The matcha milk one is more accessible, but both are interesting without being overbearing. I'm not sure if someone who is not a fan of matcha or adzuki would enjoy them, but someone who is should be pleased. I'd certainly have them again.

I don't know if these are still available from Skoshbox as part of their current box because the weather may have become prohibitively hot, but you might be able to get one while they last.

Look Amaou Strawberry Cream Parfait Chocolate

One of the things which has become clear to me since returning to the U.S. is that the market here for snack foods is dramatically different than that in Japan. One of these days, I want to write a comprehensive post about it, but the American market appears to favor enormous slabs of rich cake covered in frosting and the Japanese one prefers delicate little pieces with bits of fruit and whipped cream. A lot of people will attach some sort of character judgement to this tidbit of information, but I know that people like what they are given because they are given it, not because of some inherent personality issue.

What I mean by that is that the Japanese favor their twee little cakes with their light, fatty enhancements and fruit because that's what they've grown up with. I happen to like those, too, but that is because I have a long-standing love affair with whipped cream. Those of you with filthy minds, and I salute you, can use your febrile imaginations to make that fact far more interesting than the actual reality.

At any rate, one thing that informs the types of sweets that are produced in Japan is the backbone of their flavor preferences. This "Look" offering attempts to imitate a strawberry parfait with vanilla whipped cream. To get this effect, they offer a "vanilla whipped cream" base made with "fresh cream" (whipping cream) with strawberry sauce on top and covered in chocolate.

If you pause and pay attention while you eat these types of chocolates, you can discover whether or not they have succeeded in something that consumer level chocolates frequently do poorly and that is, offer flavor depth. When this type of attempt at sophistication succeeds, you'll get hit with a variety of flavors impacting different parts of your taste buds. You'll get the round, woody sense of vanilla, the tartness of the berry, and the slightly bitter chocolate with sugar to balance it all out and fatty richness to add heft to the experience. That's a lot to expect of one tiny little bit of chocolate, and it's not quite up to the task.

That is in no way saying that this is a failure. It actually is a very good chocolate with the chocolate dominating and the strawberry coming up behind it and mixing in a nice tart, berry flavor. The main way in which it doesn't come across is in the vanilla notes. There is a creaminess to the texture, but the amount of vanilla cream is too small to bring in much of a flavor punch. This is probably better than the alternative, and that would be too much fake vanilla flavor.

This is a very good consumer-level chocolate and if you like chocolate with berry, I'd definitely say give this a try. I don't even like strawberry chocolate and I liked this. It's available in the U.S. at Nijiya, as well as other Japanese markets.

Incidentally, the name of this confused me because I had never heard of "amaou" before and my efforts to find a translation online were not very fruitful. I turned to Facebook and asked my Japanese friends. Surprisingly, only one of them knew what it meant and that was because she is a chef and is familiar with this idea when it comes to food. She said that "a" was for "akai" or "red", "ma" was for "marui" or "round", "o" is for "ookii" or "big" and "u" was for "umai" or "tasty" (though in English, "umai" often means "savory", it has a more flexible meaning in Japanese). So, this is supposed to be made with big, round, red, tasty berries. I'm sure it was. ;-)

Look Green Tea Dessert Chocolate

Occasionally, I like to get off my lazy behind and act like I'm a journalist rather than a slacktacular blogger. To that end, I tried to track down why "LOOK" chocolate carries its particular moniker. Sometimes, there really isn't a reason for a product to have an English name. More often than not, I simply can't find it.

I did discover that the box and logo were originally designed by a famous French-born industrial designer named Raymond Loewy. He emphasized simplicity, hence the "look" of "LOOK". I also learned that the first incarnation of LOOK included coffee, strawberry, banana, and caramel flavors. I guess that rules out each letter of the name representing a flavor in the box (or it'd be named CSBC). If any reader knows why these are called LOOK, please clue me in.

I found these near the check-out counter at Nijiya market. I think it cost around $2.00 (156 yen), which is actually a very reasonable price considering these tended to cost 100 yen in Japan ($1.27). You can get them for nearly the same price that I paid via the Asian Food Grocer. Though at the time that I wrote this post, they were out of stock, my guess is that they will get them back in or at least you can inquire about availability.

You may guess that the brown one on the right is the red bean version.

The matcha parfait smells only of chocolate, but when you slip it into your mouth and allow the softish chocolate to melt, it reveals both creamy notes and a nicely sweetened green tea flavor. I've said before that I'm relatively ambivalent about green tea. I've craved it more since leaving Japan, but it's not something I'm over the moon about. I believe that this is definitely an accessible green tea chocolate for those in my position and I really enjoyed the subtle but present matcha notes coupled with a rich, creamy sense.

The matcha adzuki is even more impressive in regards to the depth of flavor. It hits chocolate, red bean, and green tea notes with the tea coming in "last" in the flavor profile and the others holding their own on equal footing. It manages to insert an anko (red bean pastes) flavor without seeming a bit too earthy or gamey (as is sometimes the case with such sweets, like some of the red bean KitKats).

I liked both of these flavors a lot and was really happy to have bought this. LOOK is a chocolate I tended to, well, overlook (no pun intended, but it is duly noted) when I was in Japan. It wasn't as glamorous and often I just felt that the flavor combinations held too many options that didn't seem varied enough or had varieties that I did not like. If you're looking for something approachable to introduce people to green tea sweets, this might work. If you already like them, this might not be bitter enough for you. If you're like me, then you're going to enjoy this.

Look Peach Nectar Chocolate

Donkey's years ago... actually, I don't know what a donkey's year is, but it was actually three years ago, I reviewed Fujiya's Peach Nectar beverage. It was delicious and I deemed it worthy of being called "nectar". Because the drink was so tasty, I was delighted to discover that there is a current "explosion"... okay, more of a tiny blast... of treats fusing the drink's sensibilities with their own. One of them is Country Ma'am cookies and another is this Look chocolate. I've not had the greatest experiences with that line of cookies so I'll either skip them or leave them for later review, but I was very keen on this chocolate... okay, not actually "very keen." The truth is that I have some reservations about fruit and chocolate mixes. It's not that they can't be good, but more the case that they can easily go wrong. 

One of the things about Look is that it seems to either go very well or to be completely unimpressive. The verdict on this is that things "went pretty well". The filling is soft and has an excellent texture and has some pretty intense peach notes. It's more like a puree than a peach-flavored cream, though it is delightfully creamy and light in texture. There's a bit of a citric acid bite to it, but not so much as to spoil the sweetness or chocolate flavor. It's a much nicer consumer level release than I would have expected, though I think it helps that it is extremely fresh. I think the texture may suffer as the candy ages.

All of that being said, I can imagine this may not be to everyone's tastes despite the high quality feel of the flavors. Peach and chocolate aren't as natural a pairing as orange, lemon or banana. If you are a fan of the Nectar drink or the idea of peaches with chocolate doesn't strike you as odd, I'd definitely say give this a try. Keep in mind that the fruit flavor is not muted so you'll have to deal with stronger flavors. Currently, these are on offer everywhere I go from supermarkets to discount shops to convenience stores. I paid only 79 yen ($1.00) for mine at Okashi no Marche snack shop, but a more usual price is 100 yen ($1.27). Chances are they won't be around for more than 4 months or so and probably will not make a return to the market in the near future (if ever). 

Personally, I liked this quite a bit, but it's definitely something I'd only consume occasionally. Given the choice, I'd always choose a real peach and after that, the Fujiya Peach Nectar drink. This is more of a palate challenger and I'd tend for pure chocolate over something like this, but it was certainly enjoyable and I in no way regret buying a box.

Look Chocolat 18

As someone who reviews food in an ersatz "professional" way, I've found out a thing or two about tasting food. One thing is that you never want to eat all of your supply at once. In fact, if you can string out the tasting through two or three different experiences, it's all the better. This is because your ability to perceive flavors is not always the same, and something which is pretty so-so in the morning might be very tasty at tea time.

In addition to when you sample, it's also important to consider what you ate before hand. The cleanliness of your palate has a profound effect on how you perceive the taste of something. This is particularly true if you have consumed a Lawson VL pizza with yuzu koshoo sauce just before eating chocolate. It's bound to leave a less than favorable impression. So, remember kids, a clean palate is an accurate palate!

So, since first sampling of these chocolates was tainted by my occasional penchant for bad pizza, I decided that I needed to give them a second chance. Fortunately, with 18 very tiny chocolates in this 47 gram (1.6 oz.) box, I had plenty of opportunities. When I snapped this up at Okashi no Marche discount snacks, I didn't really pay attention to anything other than the "Look" brand and the reduced price of 79 yen (98 cents). Usually, these come in boxes of 12 for 100 yen ($1.24). I've had good experiences with the Look chocolates that have various flavors in their soft fillings and I figured that these had a chance of being rather tasty.

There are 6 each of three flavors, ganache cream, truffle cream, and chocolate mousse. This is a nice way of saying, "chocolate, chocolate, and chocolate" of varying intensities and bitterness. That's not a bad thing in theory though. Who doesn't love chocolate except for sugar-eschewing freaks and mutant monkey men? In practice, however, I was a little disappointed. The "ganache" flavor is a bittersweet chocolate while "truffle cream" is a milky one with the telltale Fujiya aftertaste. I've mentioned this in previous reviews, but there's a distinctive flavor that comes along with all Fujiya chocolates of all brand types that isn't necessarily bad, but it really doesn't belong there. The final flavor, "chocolate mousse", is halfway between the somewhat intense bittersweet of the other two.

I don't think these are bad chocolates, but I also don't think they are great ones. Keep in mind that all of my opinions about food in Japan are relative to other food in Japan, not in comparison to foreign candy. I think these are actually better than a lot of consumer-level chocolates in the U.S. They certainly aren't as good as the more flavorful and varied Look varieties I've sampled before and if I could buy a box of Dars (which are similar consumer-level chocolates with soft cream fillings) for 100 yen or these for 79 yen, I'd go for the Dars every time. On their own, these are fine, though I really can do without that Fujiya aftertaste, and the serving size at only 14 calories per bite is pretty appealing for portion control. However, compared to other options that are easily available, I'd go for something else.

Look Strawberry French Dessert Assortment

Though I've been late to the Look assorted chocolate collections, I've become a fan. They're firm chocolate shells encasing soft, varied flavorings. I get the feeling that the flavors are very carefully crafted to closely resemble the food they are emulating in a subtle way. I'm guessing that formulating these small bits of chocolate in such a fashion involves elves. Or, possibly fairies. I'm thinking chubby fairies with a refined palate and a sweet tooth who can't lift themselves with their delicate little wings so they are happy to spend their days laboring in Fujiya's chocolate formulation kitchen.

This crop of candies is currently available pretty much everywhere - hundred yen shops, supermarkets, convenience stores, snack shops. They cost me 100 yen ($1.21) for a 43 gram (1.5 oz.) box with 12 small pieces. Each piece is about 20 calories.

Each chocolate is based on strawberry, which is slightly disappointing as more variety, such as could be had in the Italian Dolce collection, would have been nicer, but it's not like the name of the candy wasn't a tip-off of what was to come. The basic construction for every variety is a chocolate shell and a soft center with a strawberry sauce on top of it.

Strawberry Mille-feuille:
There is a sharp, tart hit of strawberry and the tiniest bits of crunchy things in this to simulate the puff pastry aspect of mille-feuille. The chocolate is slightly bittersweet and makes for a very good contrast with the strawberry flavor, which resembles extremely intense jam.

Strawberry mousse:
The same strawberry flavored sauce is on top of the "mousse" interior of the chocolate. It's not quite as intense and there is definitely a bit of lightness to the filling and a dairy flavor which is reminiscent of mousse. Adding in this noticeable textural element that simulates the light sense of eating a mousse in such a tiny chocolate is pretty impressive.

Strawberry cheesecake:
Like the mousse, this has a light filling, but it's marginally denser. It also has the familiar tang of cream cheese. It is well-complimented by the small amount of strawberry sauce and larger looming chocolate flavor.

Strawberry champagne dessert:
I knew this was going to be my least liked variety and I was right. There's really nothing wrong with the chocolate itself. I'm simply  not a fan of boozey flavors in chocolates. The "champagne" part tastes to me like cheap white whine, though as these types of chocolate go, this wasn't bad at all. The strawberry flavor paired well with the wine flavor and the finish on the tongue was of chocolate.

This is another very nice international flavor collection of "Look". If you have a particular fondness for strawberry chocolates, don't hesitate to give this a try. It's good quality and the strawberry, while not real, is not overbearing or offensive. The chocolate remains the main star and it is fine quality consumer chocolate with a good flavor and texture that is accented by the strawberry and other flavors. I would definitely buy this again, and will be sampling future Look flavor collections based on my positive experiences so far.

Fujiya Look Crispy Chocolate Snack Assort

When I was a child, I used to anthropomorphize everything. To those who didn't study General Psychology, or washed it all out of their brain with beer after taking the final exam, that means I used to assign human feelings and attributes to inanimate objects. To that end, I'd feel sad for things which were not popular or unwanted. I'd feel guilty when a toy didn't get played with, and this was before "Toy Story" put the notion into people's heads that toys lead animated and interesting lives when their owner isn't around.

Walking around the closest convenience store and its quake-induced-panic-buying decimated shelves, I looked at the sad sacks of unpurchased snacks and felt a little of that old sense of anthropomorphism. I felt bad for the Hello Kitty chocolate-covered puffs that resembled Styrofoam in the cutaway image, and for these bags of Look chocolates. What did they do to be left out of the disaster-induced-hoarding love? Meiji chocolate bars are definitely the teacher's pet of earthquake shoppers. Perhaps Fujiya doesn't inspire notions of soundness and shelf stability. I blame the Fujiya Girl with her lolling tongue and somewhat goggly eyes. Nobody wants to see that in a crisis.

Honestly, I don't know why these were left behind as I'd actually bought a package of the chocolate wafers that make up half of the bag before and liked them. For 100 yen ($1.24), this was a nice portion (18 pieces about the size of an American dime or one-yen coin) of candy for the price and, hey, chocolate! Each is individually wrapped and about a bite unless you're me and then it's two bites because you need a picture of the inside of the candy for your blog.

The main selling point for these is that they've got crispy innards under their layers of milk chocolate, and they do live up to that. The flavor of Fujiya chocolates is rather unique compared to other Japanese chocolates and one that I've come to recognize after sampling other offerings. It's hard to explain what that flavor is, but it's just a hint of a floral chemical taste. It's not offensive, but it is distinctive.

Yes, I had to bite them in half for a cutaway. The chocolate is too thick to cut through them with a knife. It makes for bad pictures, but tasty chocolates!

The candies themselves are pretty run of the mill decent quality consumer level chocolate covered wafer offerings in two varieties: "crepe" (22 calories) and "wafer" (24 calories). In terms of taste, the wafers, which have a tiny sugar wafer inside, have a little more sweetness because of the cream filling. The wafers themselves have a somewhat wheaty and earthy flavor which adds some distinction between the two candies. The "crepe" version has a mild waffle cone flavor going on. Both are mainly about the milk chocolate though.

I am not doing handsprings over these, but I liked them because I adore chocolate-covered crispy things and wafers in particular. I also love milk chocolate. This is not a unique offering or something for connoisseurs who want something that challenges or enlivens the palate. They are a decent pedestrian candy though, and I'd buy them again even if the shelves weren't picked over by quake panic shoppers.

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.

Fujiya-Baskin Robbins Collaboration Chocolate

I haven't lived in America for quite some time, but I don't recall there being as many cross-company collaborations as I tend to see in Japan. I'm sure there are some, but they seem to be a bigger deal here. "Look" chocolates by Fujiya are something that I haven't covered in this blog before, but they're a filled chocolate which usually has just one flavor represented. Because this is supposed to be a mix of Baskin Robbins ice cream flavors, this box has a mix.

I have been seeing these around for a long time, and did want to buy one eventually and review it, but one of my husband's students gave him this and spared me the 100 yen ($1.11). I still see them at various shops including some 100 yen stores, drug stores (which often carry snacks), and Okashi no Machioka discount snack shops. There are 12 small bits, about 3 cm x 2 cm (1.1 in. x .8 in.), of chocolate in the box and four flavors - strawberry cheesecake, jamoca coffee, orange sherbet, and vanilla. Each candy is 19 calories and the whole box is 229.

Each of these had a soft, creamy filling and a bittersweet chocolate shell. The chocolate melted easily in my mouth despite having been refrigerated

Strawberry cheesecake:

This had a nice, slightly tart strawberry flavor, but it was quite weak and tended to fade away in the bittersweet chocolate's intensity. For someone like me who isn't a big fan of strawberry chocolates, this was fine, but it will disappoint someone who likes to taste strawberry more potently in their candies.

Jamoca coffee:

The coffee notes of this definitely competed better with the bittersweet shell. I could taste the bitterness of the coffee and the smoother milky flavor. I enjoyed this one, and would consider it the best addition to the box.

Orange sherbet:

As a big fan of orange sherbet, I was looking forward to this one the most. The surprising thing is that the filling really did taste an awful lot like Baskin Robbins orange sherbet. I was blown away by the verisimilitude. This was also nice, but I think that it didn't match the chocolate flavor as well as the Jamoca coffee flavor.

Vanilla:

This one mainly tasted like smooth, milky chocolate. The vanilla flavor really didn't show much of itself but rather muted the strong bittersweet notes. This was surely a nice enough chocolate. It just wasn't very distinctive.

This entire collection is pretty nice. The chocolates contain fresh cream and butter and have a decadent feel on the tongue. For a consumer level candy, they are rather rich and I would recommend them for anyone who likes bittersweet chocolate. If you're a milk chocolate fan though, you may want to give them a pass because the bittersweet nature really does dominate a fair amount.