Luna Midnight Sweets Mont Blanc

No, I didn't wait 3 months to try this. This is an older picture of the product.

Would you like to know what invention would make a person the wealthiest person in the world? Create a food that tastes like something almost universally loved and create an extremely low calorie or no calorie version. The person who could manage this would solve the biggest of first world problems, how to eat and eat and eat what you love without getting fat.

While no one has created this magical product, food companies keep trying to pander to this desire. This yogurt is one such product as it shows a richly piled chestnut paste sweet on the front as an empty promise of sweet, rich, fatty dessert for a handful of calories (and 100 yen/$1.30). I, at least, am dumb enough to keep hoping that some day I'll be able to enjoy things without paying the price is thigh expansion.

Anything which carries the "mont blanc" moniker has a very high bar to leap over in my opinion. I adore chestnut anything and this particular dessert is something I'm always tempted by when I pass by a patisserie. When I leave Japan, it is something I will absolutely miss. I can only hope that, during the 23 years I've been away, someone back home will have produced their version of this treat for the American market. No, I'm not holding my breath.

Peeling back to the foil reveals an encouraging sight. There are little bits of chestnut mixed into the yogurt. The flavor is definitely that of sweet yogurt, but there's also a good amount of chestnut flavor mixed in. It's not exactly like tucking into a pile of chestnut cream piped on top of a pastry, but it's still pretty satisfying. The yogurt is thin and I think the experience of eating it would be more impressive if it were thicker. Of course, the appeal of this line of sweets is that it's low calorie (65 calories for 110 grams, or a little over half a cup) so any thickness would likely be accomplished by adding artificial thickeners.

I enjoyed this, and I'm glad that it's spending a fair amount of time on the shelves of my local convenience stores. If you're a chestnut fan and aren't put off by very sweet yogurt (or artificial sweeteners), I'd definitely recommend this as a "dessert yogurt". You could do much, much worse, both nutritionally and in terms of the quality.

Luna Banana Nata de Coco Yogurt

While the plain yogurt offerings continue to be decimated on store shelves due to supply chain problems and (likely) panic-buying, small cartons of flavored yogurt tend to be left behind, at least in small quantities. In my area, I've noticed that low or no calorie options are less popular than regular versions during the current atmosphere of crisis. I guess if you're going to hoard, it's important to make sure you have stuff that will fatten you up as much as possible.

I found this Luna yogurt at the local Lawson's 100 convenience store (100 yen/$1.21), but I've seen it pretty much everywhere. Since I've had very good experiences with the other offerings in this low-calorie line (a mere 65 calories) that Luna is creating, I thought I'd take the risk on banana yogurt. When I say "risk", I mean that I was risking the heartbreak of fake banana flavor, which is always a possibility.

After sampling this, the phrase, "it's better to quit while you're ahead" came to mind. Sigh. The banana flavor is too intense, and fake. The nata de coco pieces are firmer and tougher than some and the sweet and sour balance is not very pleasant. It's as if intense yogurt sourness is purposefully being off-set by equally intense artificial sweetness.

Though this is only 65 calories and makes for a light snack, I wouldn't buy it again because the flavors just don't work well and the textures are disappointing. I think if the nata de coco had been nicer, I'd be more forgiving even of the fake flavoring and unpleasant sweet and sour. Sorry, Luna, we have just had our first bad date, but I'll give you another chance in the future.

Nighttime Sweets Strawberry Parfait

Packaging is a way of manipulating people into buying stuff they might not otherwise buy. Without the allure of packaging, people are pretty much going to be basing their purchases on three factors - appearance (if the food is actually visible), type of food, and price. I have to wonder what shopping was like back in the "Little House On the Prairie" days when "inventive packaging" was showing an illustration of a guy with a huge handlebar mustache on a jar of "Uncle Earwax's Super Hardening Mustache Paraffin". I'm guessing people pretty much just bought what they needed back in those days.

The producers of boring food like yogurt rely on us being dumb enough to be fooled by misleading images of the flavor of the slightly sour, thin goo contained therein. Even someone who is fairly "savvy" (which is what we all think we are, which is part of our overall "stupid") can be suckered into seeing a lovely bit of strawberry ice cream with whipped cream, berries, and wafers and think that's what we're going to be tasting. Of course, they can't be really accused of misleading us because it says, "this is an image" under the parfait picture.

I didn't have high expectations of this when I saw it at Seiyu for 100 yen ($1.20), but I had a good experience with the previous entry in the "Nighttime Sweets" line, the apple pie yogurt. I figured that the line deserved my attention even if I'm not a fan of strawberry-flavored foods in general. To be clear, I love the fresh berries, but just dislike how they are incorporated into processed food.

Peeling back the foil, I was greeted with the scent of real pureed strawberries. Color me surprised. I was also shocked at the taste of this because it reminded me of strawberry shortcake. In fact, if you pureed a shortcake that is what it'd taste like. Seriously. Okay, if you took one of those small round yellow sponge cakes that are sold cheaply in local markets, piled on some berries, whipped cream, a little sugar, and then doused it in whole milk and then pureed it, that is what this tastes like.

I was truly blown away by this. The fine folks at Luna made yogurt that tastes very little like yogurt (again, their vanilla yogurt tastes like a tiny pot of heaven). There is definitely some cream flavoring in there and what looks, smells and tastes like real berries. There may also be essence of cake, for all I know. What is for certain is that this is only 69 calories and tastes great. I'll be sorry when this inevitably leaves the market, but I have some hopes now that this line is going to deliver again and again with each new offer.

Luna Winter Apple with lemon and ginger yogurt

The Japanese are big into seasonal anything, so I'm guessing there is some special significance to these being "winter apples". I doubt, however, that my taste buds will know the difference. They're not exactly the most refined papillae out there, after all, but I also doubt that a 100 yen ($1.20) carton of yogurt requires a greatly refined palate.

I found this yogurt at Lawson 100 shop, but I'm sure it can be found in supermarkets and other convenience stores. I'm not a huge fan of apple treats, or even relatively healthy things like yogurt, but the inclusion of ginger and lemon made the idea of this more attractive to me. I also liked the fact that it's only 69 calories for 120 grams (4.2 oz.). It also helps that it is made by Luna, maker of many delicious yogurt offerings in Japan.

The yogurt smells like apples, which is no surprise. There is a generous amount of small, nicely firm apple chunks and they are liberally seasoned with lemon and carry a nice hint of ginger as well. I liked the fact that the fruit was substantial enough that you could actually chew the little apple pieces, but not so big that you felt they hadn't cut them up enough. The yogurt is a little runny and also a bit sweeter than I'd like. I think that is because this uses Sucralose artificial sweetener and it can pack a harder punch. However, I'm sure it is what keeps the calories down.

I'm rather torn about this one because I thought it was fine, but I'm not sure that I'd buy it again. The main issues I have with it is that the lemon and ginger is a little too intense in a way which  makes it seem almost "perfumey" and it is a bit too sweet. That being said, as a run-of-the-mill fruit yogurt option, this is certainly fine. However, given a choice between this and the "Apple Pie" Night-time Sweets yogurt, I'd take the latter any day. It has a better sweetness balance, the cinnamon works well in it and has the same number of calories as this ginger and lemon apple yogurt.

Luna Apple Pie Midnight Sweets Yogurt

A long time ago, someone once said that they believed with the release of new products in Japan, I'd never run out of things to review. At the time, I agreed, but now, I'm starting to think that that assertion is both a little right and a little wrong. Certainly if I want to try regular chocolate Pocky, chocolate Pocky for men, thin chocolate Pocky, and double chocolate Pocky types of releases, then I will never run out. However, if I'm not looking for minor variations on themes (or revisiting seasonal reissues of old products in new packaging), the market isn't quite the cornucopia of variety I once imagined it to be.

Fortunately, there are ways to branch out that don't include reviewing every minute variation on a theme, and that's to turn to other product types. This is why this yogurt is being reviewed. It's not because I'm focusing more on healthy snacks (perish the thought), but because this is a rich vein of largely untapped varieties for me. Of course, inevitably, I'll go through enough varieties that I'll have to find myself a new well to tap, but I'm not going to worry about that for now.

After perusing the wasteland of Seiyu's snack aisle, populated by Crunky "Nude" balls (sound more interesting than they look), imported Goldfish crackers, and rice crackers I've largely already reviewed, I wandered over to the dairy section to buy cream for my husband's coffee. Being a man and having a masculine metabolism, he can afford to dump pure molecules of fat into his morning brew without suffering dire fatty consequences. As I approached the check-out, I gave the yogurt section a quick scan and the wedge of apple pie on the cover of this small (110 gram/3.9 oz.) carton of yogurt caught my eye. Of course, I'm not stupid. I don't think it's going to contain actual chunks of apple pie crust since it's only 63 calories, but I am just dumb enough to be suckered in by the idea that it might taste like pie.

This is made by the company that makes the bestest vanilla yogurt in the universe, Luna. I like the fact that this is marketed as "Midnight Sweets" and has a design meant to elicit images of dark creepiness. The advertising blurb says that this is good for bed or bath time and has fiber to fill you up and no calories from fat. It also mentions that a portion of the money from sales goes toward a breast cancer awareness and screening charity. This is the first product in Japan I've seen with the ubiquitous (back home) pink ribbon. For the record, Japan has socialized medicine, but mammograms are not covered by it.

The carton size is a little deceptive because it's only about 2/3 full. The yogurt also is on the thinner side, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing. After peeling back the foil, I gave it a sniff and it smelled of apples and cinnamon. This yogurt is quite sweet, but it has a good mixture of cinnamon, apple and yogurt. The yogurt is mellow and smooth and the little chunks of apple are firm but easy to bite into.

I wouldn't say this tastes like "apple pie", but I would say it is a pretty tasty yogurt that makes a good snack. The prominent cinnamon and apple flavors were satisfying and well-balanced. The yogurt wasn't too sour. I'd definitely go for this again, though likely not as a late night sort of thing.

Luna Salt and Caramel Yogurt

Though I've never reviewed a Luna product before, I have mentioned their vanilla yogurt in a post of a Tirol candy based on their signature yogurt, a sublime and fabulously delicious vanilla yogurt. Living up to the awesomeness of their vanilla yogurt is a pretty tall order, and I didn't expect that this salt and caramel flavor would be up to the task. That being said, I still had hopes that it'd be quite enjoyable. My friend Shawn, however, remarked that yogurt, salt, and caramel would never be three flavors that he'd try to combine and was skeptical when I mentioned this find to him.

Note that this "salty caramel" fad seems to be growing wings in Japan. It has been around for awhile, but this is the second salt and caramel flavored product that I've reviewed in the recent past. The most recent was the KitKat salt and caramel big bar, but there have been scads of other products (primarily cookies and chocolates) that I've passed on. I decided to go for this particular offering because it is a Luna yogurt product and because it was so cheap. I found this at Lawson 100, a 100-yen ($1.17) shop. Each little pot is 100 grams (3.5 grams), so it's a small portion, but at only 50-yen per serving, it's a bargain.

This smells like, well, yogurt. The caramel flavor doesn't convey much of a scent. The flavors of the salt and caramel are quite subtle. The little bit of caramel hits you first followed by the salt. The caramel lingers more as the mildest of burnt caramel flavor. Like all Luna yogurts, this is super smooth, high in fat, and decadent. It's also not very sour, which is another hallmark of the Luna brand of what I'd call "dessert yogurt".

This would have been very easy to screw up because of the combination of potentially clashing flavors, but the subtlety of the caramel and salt coupled with a very low sourness level of the yogurt worked well. I can't say that this is for everyone, but it was nice and I'd give it another whirl if I was in the mood.