Pocky Orange Peel

I was watching a video on "shows that should never have been made" and one of the abominations that was featured was a show that I had the faintest recollection of from my youth. That show was "Pink Lady (and Jeff)" and I personally never watched it, but saw it advertised. I've watched a little bit of it on YouTube. This is the sacrifice I make for my readers. I fall on the grenade so you don't have to.

It stuns me that any network attempted to sell Japanese pop stars to the American audience in 1980. If you watch the clips that I linked to, and keep in mind that it is #35 on the list of the 50 worst television shows of all time as chosen by "TV Guide" so consider yourself warned, you'll be treated to some incredibly culturally inappropriate material. If you've taught English, you'll also recognize immediately that the singers in Pink Lady can't actually speak English and learned their lines phonetically.

Though this was a disaster in all respects, it is important for people to have foreign cultures stuck in front of their noses on occasion. Small bits and pieces of information prime people to be more open to that culture in the future. In 1980, sushi was just raw fish to Americans. In the present day and age, it's something they're willing to fork over a lot of money for a bastardized version of in places as pedestrian as their local supermarket. That's some cultural infiltration.

When I returned to the U.S., I was stunned at how ubiquitous Pocky had become. I think the versions I see are from Korea for the most part and not the same as what I had in Japan, but the brand is recognized and consumed as a Japanese product. It started to be sold in Japan in 1966, and a U.S. division of Glico was established in 2003. November 11 is "Pocky" day and this year will be the 4th one that is celebrated in the United States. It took awhile, but it gained some traction. Pink Lady, apparently, was too early for the times.

I've not had as much Pocky as most in my career as a person who consumes food, but I can say that this is unique amount the few handfuls that I've tried. The main point about this is that the little bits of peel are chewy. They are clearly candied bits and they bring a nice, bright, authentic citrus flavor to each bite. The chocolate is milk bordering on semi-sweet. It has enough strength to be present, but not so much as to be bitter. The flavor combination is very well-balanced. I believe part of what helps this is that the organe peel bits appear to be coated in dark chocolate so they carry some of that flavor through as well. If you look at the sticks, you'll see they look more like Oreo cookie parts than orange peel, but orange peel they are indeed.

This snack came with advice to refrigerate it before consuming and I ignored that advice when I ate all but the last packet. So, it was only with my last experience that I had the most optimal one. The lesson here: Do what you are told blindly without question, at least when it comes to Pocky.

When not refrigerated, the coating is a bit too soft and the chewy peels feel as if they are in a slighly greasy chocolate in terms of the textural experience. It's still good, but it is a lot better when the coating is chilled and much firmer. The standard, bland, Pocky pretzel stick seems more orange in color to me on these than what I recall, but my memory could be going. I am getting on in years, after all.

I like the combination of orange and chocolate, but these seemed a tad rich for my tastes as well as having a cumulative sweetness that I found cloying by the 5th and final stick in a packet. I don't regret having these, but I wouldn't go out of my way to have them again. If you're interested, and I would act fast if you are because these are seasonal and likely to vanish at some point, the Asian Food Grocer is currently offering these for $3.58. Yummy Bazaar has them for $3.05 and Economy Candy has them for $2.99. I got mine from Bokksu as part of a premium box, but they are currently sold out. It wouldn't matter anyway since Bokksu was selling them for $4/box and would have pricier than the alternatives anyway.

Source: Part of the Bokksu premium summer citrus box

Random Picture #211

Pocky products on display that were eligible for the promotion - these are mostly variations on green tea.

In my post about Nijiya Japanese market, one of the things that I was told and forgot to mention was that the shop is often offered promotional items, but they are so small that they have no chance to display them. During a festival in San Jose, the Nikkei festival, they made an effort to get those items out where customers could see them.

If you look behind the blurred picture of my husband holding an inflated Pocky stick, you can see three enormous reproductions of boxes of Pocky and Glico's Pejoy. I hadn't even noticed those boxes until after I'd taken this picture as I was focusing on the sticks themselves. There was a sign at the check-out counter which said that you got "free Pocky swag" if you bought three or more boxes of Pocky. My husband is holding a sample of said swag.

Obviously, the swag are leftover inflated sticks from the display that you can see behind them. No, they weren't going to climb up and take a stick out of the display. There was a trash bag with the leftovers sitting next to a shelf with stock and in front of a refrigerator case. While hardly an elegant presentation, at least it made it easy fro them to tell us what the swag was. That made it all the easier for me to decide it wasn't worth buying three boxes of Pocky, particularly since I've never been the world's greatest Pocky fan anyway.

I'm curious about whether or not my readers would want this sort of collectible item. Would you buy three boxes of Pocky (at $1.69 each/about 170 yen) just to get one of these tubes?

Glico Pocky Snoopy Package and Cart (product information)

One of the quaint things about riding the Shinkansen is that people sometimes come by pushing a cart with food. I haven't ridden trains in the U.S., so it's possible that it happens here as well. The whole custom of doing so reminds me of old-style rail travel (especially in Europe/the U.K.) in which people used to eat food served in a similar style.

One thing which is not so old-fashioned is the idea of a Peanuts cart which sells Pocky - some of it in special packaging. It's a cute idea. I'm sure that the Pocky are the same as usual and that they can be purchased via other outlets, but it would be nifty to see one of these while actually on a shinkansen (bullet train).

The Pocky that is contained in the special Peanuts packages is largely the same flavors as standard Pocky issues. There's a "cookie crunch" version (on the right) which I hadn't seen before, but it doesn't sound like a particularly inspiring flavor. If you're a Peanuts fan, these are going to make a pretty cool collectible, though not as cool as the cart (which would be a lot harder to get your hands on).

Pocky New Year's cards download

Image from Glico.

The folks are Pocky are a little late in the game in promoting this, but I thought I'd put it out there for anyone who is doing 11th hour New Year's cards and would like to use them. Next year will be the year of the horse on the Chinese calendar and Pocky has some pretty nice designs on offer (both of horses and some beautiful traditional Japanese designs -scroll down to the bottom of the page to find those). You can download them here. Of course, even if you don't send New Year's cards, you may want to use these if you're a fan of horses!

To retrieve a card, click the one you like then right-click and choose to save the image from your browser.

Glico Tropical Pocky

Recently, I was looking through a copy of "Elle" magazine. No, I'm not a fashion aficionado. It was free and I was on a sociological "expedition" within the confines of my home. I was looking at it not for the articles, which was fortunate since there are probably fewer than I can count on one hand, but for the ads. For those who have never taken a look at this particular periodical, it is pretty much all advertising for fashion-related items, especially clothes.

The point of scrutinizing the ads was to note certain aspects of them. What was the ethnic balance of models, where did certain products tend to be advertised (the front of back of the magazine), what products were advertised, etc. Though not scientific, I do believe that I learned a few things about how advertisers try to reach their markets and who they are focusing on. For instance, I noted that anti-aging products - so-called "serums" - did not include a model at all, but simply showed a big bottle of the product. Food was rarely advertised, but when it was, it was clearly marketed for the calorie conscious and toward the back of the magazine.

What is my point in all of this? My point is that we are marketed to in specific ways. There are a lot more conclusions I reached, which I won't bore you with here, but I am very aware that I believe I'm making choices when I am not. There may be 25 different types of Oreos in the store, but I'm still not in control of the choices I make. Whatever those 25 types are, I didn't choose them. Some marketing person decided on what would appeal to the broadest customer base and packaged them to make that base want them more. Products are positioned, choices are narrower than we believe, and we are not in control even when advertisers offer the illusion that we are.

If you think about this for a second, you'll see what I mean more clearly. If you wanted to eat a pumpkin-flavored Oreo with a yellow cookie, and I would want to eat such a cookie, could you? That's the choice I'd like to have, but it's not there on the shelf. It sounds like a fine holiday option, but it is not available. I'm given what I'm given, and can only choose from those options.

This leads me to the Tropical Pocky, of which mango is an integral component (pineapple is the other part). Mango started to explode in popularity a few years before I left Japan. Suddenly, I started seeing packets of dried mango everywhere then that was followed by various snacks being offered in mango flavor (including sembei/rice crackers). I'm pretty sure this all started with news that mango was going to cure you of cancer, wrinkles, or male pattern baldness. Once that news got out (if such news existed, which it probably did in some form or another), people started eating the fruit and once they developed a taste for it, everyone started to flavor food with it.

Japanese people didn't choose mango. Someone on a news program, a T.V. show, or another media outlet chose to highlight it and then everyone decided this was a bandwagon to jump on. So, I experience a plethora of mango-flavored snacks from a fad that started at some point in the not so distant past and continues to slog onward into the future. Mango could be the "tiramisu" of the future - a fad that started the integration of a flavor into the collective tastes of the country and never got old. Or it could just fade away over time.

This is not "mango", though it is listed as one of the ingredients and I have to imagine that there is a reason that it is listed as a copilot with pineapple and that it is listed first. It's the same reason that "Brad Pitt" is listed before "Matt Damon". Sure, we recognize both of them, but which is going to have a greater likelihood of drawing viewers?

At any rate, despite the billing of mango and pineapple, this is dominated by the pineapple and is far too sweet for my tastes. It reminds me of an overly sweet fruit punch, but the type that is made with real flavors rather than artificial ones. It has some verisimilitude to the real deal, but is too concentrated. If this were a drink instead of a Pocky stick, I'd be adding ice or water to it to water the flavor down. If you've ever felt that 100% fruit juice was just too much for you then you'll see what I mean.

This isn't an awful Pocky, but it's far from the greatest in my opinion. I won't throw the rest away, but it'll be a slow road to finishing the box - a stick here, a stick there, and eventually it'll be gone. I wouldn't buy it again, however, and I'm inclined to avoid other fruit-flavored Pocky after this experience.

Glico Rare Cheesecake Pocky

When I did a product information post on the summer Pocky releases, I didn't really expect to find myself sampling them. However, my husband and I recently moved to a new place - and note that this is our sixth move since returning to the U.S. and I can say with experience now that moving is absolute hell - we found a place within walking distance of a Korean market that has the lowest prices I've ever seen on these types of limited edition Pocky. When I saw this for $1.99, I figured that there was no reason not to try it despite my reservations about the flavor.

What reservations are those? Well, they are the ones which say that this is going to taste like bad dairy or powdered milk at best and some sort of savory cheese like Gouda or Cheddar at worst. That was my initial concern when I wrote the product information post. There's something rather cool about making such a prediction and seeing whether or not it comes true.

"Rare" cheesecake means that this should taste like cream cheese. It should not be especially pungent or have the sharpness of an aged cheese and should possess a delicate sweetness and a rich undertone of fattiness. Yeah, I'm expecting a lot out of a psuedo-chocolate goo coated pretzel stick.

After opening the packet, I gave it a whiff and it smelled funky. My husband said that "it's a fine line between rare and bad cheese". This is definitely treading the line. It smells like milk that is going off, but isn't quite at the scary level yet. You could probably get away with keeping it for one more day and using it in your coffee or tea, but you're not going to want to drink it straight.

Pocky does not live or die on scent alone. In fact, I'm guessing most people don't even notice the aroma. The first bite tasted a bit "cheesy" to me in a not so good way, but subsequent bites allowed my tongue to acclimate and it wasn't so bad. In fact, there is definitely a progression when you eat these. The first bite is "too much" pungent dairy. The second is mellow sweet somewhat milky, but slightly cheesey in a good way flavor and the third has a nice lemon kick to it.

This is not the greatest Pocky on the face of the planet, but it is unique and kind of tasty once you get paste the first hit of strong "cheese powder" flavoring. It's has that sort of quality that you find in which a food becomes better as you eat more and it encourages you to chow down on the whole package at once. In this case, it at least helps you avoid the slightly unpleasant sense of that initial bite if you eat a whole package (170 calories) at once.

Since coming home, Pocky has been growing on me. I didn't care much for it in Japan, but I do like the pretzel goodness more than I used to. I'm not sure if that is because I no longer have access to certain other types of snacks or if I'm just more inclined to give it a chance. Whatever the case may be, I liked this, but perhaps only enough to try it about once a year. If I had a rating between "indifferent" and "happy", this would get it. In all fairness though, I did enjoy it, so it gets a smiling sumo wrestler.

Rare Cheesecake Pocky and summer Pocky releases (product information)

Image from Glico.

It seems that, for summer, Glico has finally come around to my way of thinking. Part of their marketing for the "rare cheesecake" Pocky includes the idea that it tastes great chilled. As attentive readers with good memories may recall, the only way I really like Pocky is cold.

"Rare cheesecake" in Japan means the type with is creamy and closer to cream cheese than "cake". It's a version of New York cheesecake without the intense heft. At any of the dainty little cake shops in Japan, you can choose between "rare" and baked. One is usually white or off-white and the other is closer to yellow or tan. I'm guessing that these will have a pretty nice flavor which is slightly tangy and not the usual "cheese" flavor in Japan. That is, it won't taste like cheddar or Gouda or some other pungent cheese mixed with sugar.

Besides this summer offering, and this is being advertised as a limited edition summer flavor, Glico is positioning the coconut Pocky and a "tropical" flavor which is mango and pineapple. The coconut flavor has been around for ages, but I guess pairing it with the tropical flavor helps conjure up images of beaches and cool blue oceans. I'm not bothering to include an image, but the coconut box has an image of a blue ocean to counterbalance the hot-looking sunset on the mango and pineapple box.

If I run across it, I may indeed pop for the cheesecake version because I'm a sucker for "rare cheesecake" flavors, but I'll probably pass on the tropical flavors. If my readers try these out, let me know how they are and if they took you out of your daily grind and filled your head with images of relaxing beaches while on summer vacation or just made you think about chocolate-coated pretzel sticks.

Glico Almond Crush Pocky

When I first returned to the U.S., I bought things which I had old memories of in order to see if they still tasted like I expected them to be. One of the first things I tried was a bag of Hershey's Kisses. I wanted to see if they were different than those sold in Japan. I came back to the place we were staying and put them in the refrigerator. My father-in-law, who had picked us up and the airport and was spending a week with us while we tried to get our "sea legs" for living in the U.S. (something we desperately needed his support with), said that he found that chocolate tastes better when it's not too cold. I believe that is true, but not for cheap chocolate.

When I tried Pocky Midi, I liked it a lot better while cold, but I expected that I'd feel differently about this Almond Crush version. I figured the softness of the former was caused by the white chocolate base used in the strawberry. Well, not so much... I think I figured out why I have never been a big fan of Pocky and that's because the coating is too soft for my tastes. As I mentioned before, I like chocolate with snap. What is more, I like nuts with crunch and this had neither, until I got it cold. Then, all was right with the world again.

I like the general concept of Pocky since I am a fan of chocolate and pretzels, though certainly one of my issues is that Pocky's pretzel sticks are not actually salted. I think the flavor profile would be better if the sticks were adding depth to the flavor profile rather than simply being a delivery mechanism for the coating. Nonetheless, this coating is one that did strike my fancy. I'm an enormous fan of almonds. They are second only to hazelnuts as my favored nut of choice to party with chocolate in a sweet, and that's only because I'm an incredible Nutella whore.

The coating on these is very typically Japanese in that the chocolate isn't overly sweet, has just a few more bittersweet notes, and is super smooth and fatty (hence the softness). The nuts add more flavor than crunch, but they do add some textural interest as well. The flavor depth is pretty good with the chocolate hitting first, the basic mix of both coming second, and the almonds coming on strong at the end.

This is pretty much a no-brainer for anyone who likes Pocky, almonds, and chocolate. For me, I really did like them, and those lovely almonds that rough up the chocolate landscape are a siren song to me. These came to me courtesy of the fine folks at Candysan, who are carrying this for only a $1.73/170 yen a box. If I were making an order, I may not order this alone, but I'd surely toss a box into an order for more exotic things like the previously reviewed green tea Oreo chocolates.

Sadly, this completes my review of the box of goodies sent to me by Candysan, but there are always more things to be found and reviewed.

Glico Strawberry Pocky Midi

This entry continues my sampling the treasure trove of snacks I received gratis from Candy-san. I must say that I didn't expect a chance to try Pocky Midi when I wrote about the product awhile back. That wasn't because I didn't think I'd be able to get my hands on it, but rather because I wasn't sure I'd choose to buy it if I had a chance due to my somewhat ambivalent feelings about Pocky.

I'll also be honest and say that I'm not the biggest fan of strawberry chocolate. Though the quality of it tends to be better in Japan (less artificial taste, more of a sense of the real deal), the fact that it usually has a white chocolate base does not help. Usually, white chocolate is too soft and sweet for my tastes.

So, with these considerations in mind, I tried to give this Pocky a fair shake. Eating one at room temperature didn't impress me as it is incredibly soft and melts on the tongue in a way that I didn't care for. The flavor felt like it turned to sweet mush in my mouth. While the box description says that it has three components, the biscuit, "whip" chocolate, and a fruity coating, I couldn't really distinguish them as separate components when it was around 75 degrees. 

I like my chocolate to have some snap, so I hit upon a "brilliant" idea and put the package in the refrigerator. I'm sure that no one in the history of mankind has ever put chocolate in the fridge, right?  This instantly upped the game as it made it gave the chocolate coating some heft and allowed the flavors to take some time to unfold on my tongue. It is sweet, no doubt about that, but the strawberry flavor has a little bit of a bite as an end note. There is also a richness to the "whip" portion that much more gradually blends in when you have it cold. The coating is thicker than strictly necessary and that makes it sweeter than I'd like. If I ate one stick, I was in pleasure-land (for adults only). Two and it was bordering on cloying. One can look at this as incentive for portion control, or an indication that this is a bit much.

It's hard to give this a proper rating because I conditionally enjoyed this. If it is cold and I eat one stick, I'm happy to have it again. If it is room temperature and I eat more than one, then I'm not really keen at all. If you're a fan of Pocky, strawberry white chocolate, and fairly sweet things, you're going to enjoy this. If you're not, then you'll want to give it a miss. Candy-san is offering this for 210 yen or $2.13 on their web site if you'd like to sample it. Each box has 3 packages of 4 sticks at 113 calories per package. 

I'm giving it a provisional happy rating, and suggesting you consider having it cold as well.

Glico Baton D'or

"Baton d'or" means "golden stick" in French. Naming any product in French instantly improves its cache. Instead of being a repackaged Pocky stick, with it's snappy name and Japanese pop cultural tones, it's a sophisticated pastry. The package designs make me think about diet foods with their attempts to emulate a slender, curvy feminine figure, but that is not what is on the minds of the folks at Glico. The thing that makes this stick "golden" is butter, lots and lots of butter. With that fact, it seems unlikely that this will do much to trim the waistline.

This brand has actually been around since around the middle of last year, but is being beefed up with new flavors and stripped of its chocolate coating. The pedestrian flavors (milk, white, strawberry, green tea, coffee) above are being supplanted at a grand release at Hankyu department store with butter sugar, cinnamon sugar, maple sugar, strawberry sugar, and green tea sugar. Though it may seem that sugar is the big deal with these high class pretzel sticks, the real selling point is that they are dipped in clarified butter after they're baked (and then dipped in sugar). If I were still in Japan, I would totally want to buy one of these, especially the cinnamon one since cinnamon snacks are relatively rare there, but Hankyu department store is in Osaka and that's a long way to go for a designer pretzel. It would take a magic stick made of real gold to get me to fork over the price of a Shinkansen ticket (over $100).

These will be available from June 12, 2013. I'm guessing that distribution will expand beyond Osaka eventually, but that information isn't clearly provided at this time.

Meiji Lucky Stick Cappucino

I've read that the name "Pocky" came as a result of the sound that is made with the stick is snapped. I'm guessing that Meiji named this "Lucky" because it was close in sound to "Pocky" (sharing the basic "vowel+cky" sound), but wasn't going to get them sued by Glico. In Japan, I don't recall seeing "Lucky" sticks, though this is clearly identified as being a Meiji product and therefore released by a Japanese company. The box says these are made in Indonesia for Meiji Japan and are to be marketed to Canada and Singapore. I'm not sure how they end up in America, but I found them at Daiso Japan for $1.50 (147 yen). They are incredibly international for such a simple thing as is evidenced by their multi-country origins and the presence of 3 languages (French, Japanese, and English) on the box.

I don't recall seeing a product by Meiji called "Lucky Stick" in Japan. Their Pocky rip-off over there (as far as I personally noticed) is "Fran". Fran tends to have more sophisticated offerings than this simple cappucino "cream" on a stick version. The types available at present include macadamia cheese and macadamia chocolate. The cheese one would scare me and I'd never buy it, and the chocolate one would be too boring to sample. Also, I was never intrigued by a product that seemed to be named for a particularly bossy aunt. No, I didn't have an Aunt Fran, but it just sounds like the type of aunt who'd leave a big lipstick smudge on your cheek when she kissed you hello, talked too loud, and probably drank bad coffee and smoked cigarettes.

Getting to the matter at hand, which are the "lucky" sticks and not Aunt Fran's cancer sticks... If you take a moment to smell these, they smell like instant latte powder. I know this because I was given a free box of Nescafe latte instant coffee at Safeway and it was 140 calories of disappointment. These sticks are very reminiscent of that very coffee, though they do have some advantages. They are sweet, but not overly so (unlike that instant latte powder) and they have an excellent crunch factor. The coffee part of this is extremely subdued and comes across more as an aftertaste of coffee than true coffee bitterness. The milkier elements, which taste like fairly decent non-dairy creamer come through more strongly, so these might be a nice alternative if you are a coffee wuss. The biscuit stick itself is very bland, but if you eat the small part which is not coated, it has a floury taste which reminds you of very bland, dry cookies. I actually rather like that flavor, but it comes across poorly to most people.

These are not bad at all, but I can't personally get past the fact that it is so reminiscent of non-dairy creamer and instant coffee. I ate the whole box over time (probably a few sticks here and there over 5 days), which means that I spread the 220 calories over about 5 days. It also means that I wasn't so drawn to these that I scarfed them down or had to stop myself from eating them. While I'm not the world's biggest fan of these coated stick snacks to begin with, this definitely rates lower than even standard Pocky and absolutely pales in comparison to things like "Winter Pocky". I wouldn't buy them again, and, unless you're a fan of powdered coffee-like beverages, I wouldn't recommend them.

Pocky Midi (product information)

All images from Glico's web site.

On March 19, Glico released a new version of Pocky called "Midi". It is a shorter, stubbier version of the bread stick with sweet candy-ish coating that people inexplicably go crazy for. They seem to resemble a club or bat with their growth-inhibited appearance. The reason they're so fat is that there is whipped chocolate in the center which is then coated with a more normal Pocky chocolate coating. The "midi" probably stands for "middle".

There are two flavors of Midi, both rather boring. That is to say strawberry and chocolate. Glico, like Nestle Japan, seems to be doing fewer esoteric flavors for its signature products. One of the weirdest options that is not a strange flavor is "Pocky Bran". I guess it's the Japanese equivalent of a Fiber One brownie.

Other than the bran Pocky, the flavor offerings are pretty normal. The full listing is: regular chocolate, thin Pocky (50 sticks per box), matcha (green tea) cream, "pebbly" (tsubu tsubu) strawberry, almond crush (chocolate with almond pieces for texture), cookie crush/crunch (chocolate with cookie pieces for texture), (milk) cocoa, strawberry (smooth), and Panda Pocky (cookies & cream). All of these are pretty pedestrian flavors that have been around for quite awhile. Note that there are other flavors out there, but they are not being promoted in the Japanese market. Some of the more exotic flavors are in other Asian countries and may or may not show up in Japan. I can say that the flavors I've listed are the only ones on the web site, but I've seen coconut Pocky, "milk", and other flavors in Asian markets around me.

It may look like he's holding up a pregnancy tester, but that's supposed to be a Pocky stick. 

Currently, Glico is marketing Pocky with the slogan "Let's Share! Pocky!" I'm guessing there were tons of people who were hoarding it and refusing to let anyone have any, or something. On a brighter side, there are a whole host of nifty downloads. There's some panda papercraft that you can download and fold. An application for iPad, iPod, etc. A New Year's card, which I'm mentioning rather late, but there are no years attached to most of the designs so you can  be really early for next year or rather late for this one. And, of course a whole bunch of wallpapers.

Winter Kuchidoke Pocky

For an interview on Japanese snacks that I did quite some time ago, I was asked about seasonal variations in Japan. At that time, I had a bit less of a handle on it than I do now, but there are certain very predictable offerings based on the time of year. In spring, the cherry flavors come out to play as a way of saying, "cherry blossoms are coming, so please enjoy them with this fake-flavored confectionary." In autumn, sweet potato and chestnut offer their warm and toasty joys. In summer, we usually get lemon parading as something "cool" though I generally fail to see why "sour" equals "cool". In a similar vein, I don't know why winter is the season for chocolate aside from the fact that it's the best time of year for manufacturers to ship it without fear of melting. If so, there is something very disheartening about the notion that flavor offerings are tied the ability to properly air condition vehicles and shops.

Fortunately, regardless of the time of year, many of the chocolate offerings in winter are rich and deep. In the past, there has been a kuchidoke KitKat that was quite the tasty offering. For those who don't go back and read the explanation on that old post, "kuchidoke" means "melt in your mouth". I'm not sure how you're supposed to achieve that with a Pocky stick, unless you suck on it like a lollipop instead of bite off the bland pretzel stick pieces and chew them up, but I can say that these are somewhat more heavily coated sticks than the basic Pocky. They are reminiscent of "Dessert Pocky", but not quite that overloaded with sweet swaddling.

There are four packets of 6 sticks in a box. I'm not sure what the retail price is because my husband won these for me in a UFO Catcher machine, but I'd guess they're around 160 yen ($2.07) based on the average price of a non-basic box of Pocky. Each packet has 125 calories so it's a pretty economical snack option if you limit yourself.

I'm not a giant fan of Pocky in general, as I've mentioned before. As a matter of fact, this review mainly exists as a testimonial to my husband's spirt of competition when it comes to gaming machines and his good eye-hand coordination. It's not that I dislike them, but just there are other things that are generally more attractive to me (like Pucca, which is like an inverted Pocky). That doesn't mean that they aren't tasty snacks, but just that tastes vary and if you're faced with a row of corn chips, potato chips, tortilla chips and rice crackers, one of them is going to be your first option even though each one of them has its appeal. 

All of that being said, these are some damn fine Pocky. The flavor hit is two-fold with a mild chocolate flavor up front and a fudgey, deep chocolate bottom that hits you at the end of a bite. If I didn't know what "kuchidoke" actually meant, I'd believe it meant, delicious, intense, non-dark chocolate as that does appear to be how it is presented. The box shows you that the outside of each stick is coated with cocoa powder, but I don't believe that is where these get their flavor punch from. I think it's from coffee powder being put in the mix to boost the intensity.

If I were a Pocky fan, these would definitely get a "very happy" rating and I'd be stocking up on extra boxes to enjoy some when they disappear as a seasonal release. Since I'm not a Pocky nut, these will get a "happy" rating. When my husband won these, he got three boxes taped together and I have no regrets about having so many to eat, but I'm not sure that these will make it into my steady rotation. That's simply because they're Pocky, not because they aren't excellent Pocky.

Glico Pocky Mint

Not too long ago, I said in comments that the flavors that are exotic-sounding to foreigners like green tea, sweet potato, chestnut, sakura (cherry blossom), etc. aren't really a sign of Japan's adventurous nature with flavors, but a reflection of the fact that they have different flavor norms. Back home, we have cinnamon, mint, and peanut butter as our flavor norms. Note that I chose those three flavors because they are relatively rare finds in sweets in Japan. As if to make a liar out of me, Pocky came out with this mint flavor. I'd like to say very loudly for all Japanese snack makers to hear that they don't combine chocolate and peanut butter very often. Please make a liar out of me again.

I found these mint Pocky at 7-11 around at various other places including markets, snack shops, and other "konbini". I can't remember what they cost exactly, but for some reason the figure 127 ($1.56) sticks in my mind. There are two packs with eleven sticks in them each. Eating an entire pack (1/2 the box) will set you back 126 calories or 11.5 calories per pretzel stick.

When you open the package, you are greeted with the familiar smell of mint mingled with chocolate. The first bite is stronger on the mint than the chocolate. The bittersweet chocolate flavor only starts to settle in around the third stick and the mint cools your tongue. The pretzels are a little on the soft side, but still add a nice textural element. They do nothing, however, for the flavor. Unlike Pucca, which add a nice rye flavor to whatever they are combined with, Pocky pretzels tend to be more of a bland vehicle for the coating.

I liked these quite well, though I really could have done with a little salt on the pretzel and a stronger chocolate component. If you're thinking Girl Scout "Thin Mints" or even "After Eight" mints, think again, but if you're looking for something mild with a nice crispy texture, these will nicely fill the bill. Pocky fanatics should be delighted. As someone who is all well and good with the Pocky concept, but not really on board with any sort of aggressive relationship with them, I was happy to sample these, but I'd probably go for something more intense to get my mint on in the future.

Tiramisu Dessert Pocky

Well over a decade ago, there was a big tiramisu fad in Japan. It was popular enough to become a regular flavor in various limited edition sweets. You can also pick up a cheap knock-off version of "real" tiramisu in most markets and convenience stores. It's sold in little plastic containers for far too high a price and the quality is very dubious, but it does tend to be some sort of cake saturated with coffee, topped with something resembling mascarpone cheese, and topped with chocolate.

Being a fan of textures, I love tiramisu, but more so because the saturated cake, creamy cheese, and chocolate make a very nice feeling in your mouth when you eat tiramisu. I should have remembered that when I decided to try out this variety of Pocky. It can have the taste, but it can't have the texture.

Like all Dessert Pocky, this box contains four packs with three sticks in each for about 160 yen (about $1.55). Each pack has 97 calories which is really not too bad for the satisfaction of three of these thickly coated sticks.


This Pocky smells like liquor, which is an immediate turn-off for me as I don't like alcohol added into processed foods. I don't mind it cooked into real food, but it always seems overdone in snacks, as if they have to saturate it to make sure the flavor stands out. The strange thing is that I didn't notice any alcohol in the ingredients so I'm guessing this is something which is buried in "flavoring".

The first bite of this carries a lot of coffee flavor with alcohol. Subsequent bites reveal a hint of mascarpone and a bit of chocolate and then there's that liquor flavor. The liquor part tastes and smells increasingly artificial as you eat more. On the bright side, the sweetness balance is spot on and there is no lingering bitter aftertaste from the coffee or chocolate.

One thing I'll note is that I usually don't have Pocky around for very long, but I kept this box around for about a month. I guess that is an indication of a lack of enthusiasm for it, but it did teach me something about the way Pocky keeps in a non-temperature controlled environment. While it hasn't been higher than 76 degrees F. (24 degrees C.) in Tokyo in the past month, the last packet of Pocky in this box seemed to have lost its freshness. The pretzel portion wasn't as crispy or fresh as I'm accustomed to and seemed to have absorbed a bit of the moisture from the coating. This is in spite of the fact that the expiration date on the box is November of this year.

I think these are pretty well done and someone who doesn't mind that fake alcohol flavor would really enjoy them. However, I just don't care for this particular Dessert Pocky and I wouldn't buy them again, though I eventually finished off the box.

This was also reviewed at Snack Love.

Hard Stick Vanilla Pretzel Snack

There are so many rip-offs of the Pocky concept on Japanese shop shelves that it would be impossible to try them all unless one were to go on an all pretzel-based diet. Usually, I give the "stick" aisle a passing glance and waltz on by, but this box caught my eye mainly because of the inelegant name. How can I resist biting into a "hard stick"?

These are made by a company called Kabaya which started doing business in 1946. They make a variety of candy and cookies, but they also sell small toys with incidental bits of candy. Most of the toys are cute trinkets in the 200-300 yen ($2.13-$3.20) range and are keychain-size items made of plastic or cloth. The name of the company, oddly enough, relates to hippos (which is "kaba" in Japanese). It's a little like a confectioner naming his business "pig shop" in English and expecting the customers not to draw any conclusions about the effects of consuming their treats on their bodies. Some things work in Japan that would never work in Western cultures.


Kabaya has released three varieties of this "hard stick". My local shop had strawberry and vanilla in stock, but there is also a chocolate version. I chose the vanilla in part because of the promise of German alps rock salt in the mix. Salty and sweet can often be mixed to yield pleasing results.

There are two packets of about 15 sticks in the box, which is really too many in one packet. The entire box has 328 calories, so each stick is around 11 calories. The packets, once opened, are hard to re-seal and I'm guessing they won't be great if they're stale. The sticks are fairly slender. They are not as thick as the average Pocky so the coating to pretzel ratio is bigger.

When you open the packet, it smells of vanilla and sweetness. The first bite is immensely sweet and strongly vanilla. In fact, the vanilla is so overwhelming that it's easy to conclude it's artificial, but there are real vanilla beans in it. If you took a salt-less pretzel and dipped it in vanilla powdered sugar, it'd taste like these. Around the third stick (which is where I stopped eating), your tongue gets used to the sweetness and it seems less overbearing.

These are not bad at all, but they are so cloyingly sweet that I find it hard to enjoy them. They reminded me a lot of canned Betty Crocker vanilla frosting that is sold in the U.S. I was most disappointed in the fact that the salt element appears to be so subdued as to be essentially absent. Still, if you're a fan of strong, sweet vanilla, these might float your boat.

"Ringside" (Kaburitsuki) Giant Kinako Pocky

The word "sale" has very little meaning in Japan. Oh sure, they have sales, but usually the discounts are pretty paltry. There are tables of discount food items at most of the big markets, but most of the items are marked down by between 3 and 20 yen (that's about a nickel to 25 cents). This is unlike the U.S. where you can buy a nearly expired packet of cookies for a dime. Because the items are not very popular (and therefore are likely not very desirable) and the discounts so lame, I have never bought one of those items, until today when I ran across this kinako giant Pocky. The discount on it, by the way, was a whopping 16 yen (about 14 cents).

I've seen giant Pocky before and I figured I'd get around to sampling one sooner or later, but it was the kinako (toasted soy flour) that drew me to this. With visions of quasi-peanut butter flavored Pocky dancing in my head, I tossed it into the shopping basket.

When I checked Glico's site and their current assortment of Pocky brands, these did not show up. After searching a bit more creatively, I found a press release site which ties the release of these to setsubun (the day before a season changes, in this case, from winter to spring) though these were released on December 17, 2008, far earlier than the changeover from winter to spring. I believe that these are kinako flavored because toasted soy beans are used in setsubun activities. One interesting point on the press release page is that they specifically state that the target demographic for this product are males and females ages 10-20 and housewives.

Though "kaburitsuki" translates to "ringside" (something that came to mind from the days when we were sumo fans), I'm not confident that that is the proper word because it makes so sense. Are we to consume these from or "ringside" seats as we watch the seasons change? I'm sure that someone in the know will offer more information if I'm translating incorrectly here.

"Giant" in Pocky terms is 22 cm (8.6 inches) and about 1 cm in diameter (.4 inches). There are three individually-wrapped sticks in a box that could easily accommodate four of them if Glico weren't so stingy. Each stick is 60 calories and weighs 12.4 grams (.4 oz.). This box retails for 160 yen ($1.74), which doesn't represent the best value for the volume.

The sticks are very heavy on the pretzel and light on the coating, particularly for their size. When you compare the amount of coating to something like the Dessert Pocky series with its lavish coating on small sticks, it seems very stingy indeed. However, perhaps they didn't want these to be too sweet or fattening for young people.

The sticks smell nicely of toasted soy flour and have almost impossible to see flecks of brown rice puffs in them. The illustration shows them more clearly than the actual sticks do. (Click on the images in this post to see larger versions.) The taste is lightly sweet and pleasant and the texture is crunchy. They are thick, but not hard to bite through. Though the kinako taste is definitely there, it is largely overwhelmed by the pretzel stick portion. What is more, only about 2/3 of the stick even has a coating. A large portion at the bottom is just a thick, plain, unsalted pretzel.


The bottom line is that the proportions are such that they taste a lot more like a kinako breadstick than Pocky or even a pretzel. Since I enjoy breadsticks, I liked these. However, I think that they will be far less satisfying for Pocky fans. If you see these in an import shop for an inflated price, I wouldn't recommend buying them unless you're a huge lover of breadsticks. If you see them in Japan and are bonkers for kinako, they're worth picking up for to sample, but probably not for repeat snacking.

Chocolat Framboise Marble Pocky

For those who don't live in Japan, I'll give the shortest possible explanation of how Valentine's Day works in this country. Women buy men chocolates. Men don't buy women anything. I'm sure that every Western man who ever felt pressure to find the perfect Valentine's gift is dialing up an Asian dating service and putting in an order for a Japanese girl right now.

I should note that a lot of women are obliged to give chocolates to men they don't even like. They also give to men who they are friends and acquaintances with. It's not about romance. That means that there is a whopping great marketing opportunity for confectioners to sell a ton of low rent candy and chocolate-based items to women who have to give their bosses and coworkers token gifts on February 14. Most companies rise to the occasion and get out there with themed items which feature the color red and hearts, though they don't always overtly state "Valentine's candy" so that the items can be bought any time by anyone.

This leads us nicely to this Chocolat Framboise Pocky. It's clearly been released for the Valentine's Day crowd (note the hearts on the box). There are three sleeves with 4 sticks each inside the box and each package has hearts all over it as well. Red fruit like strawberry, cherry, and raspberry are particularly popular inclusions for these treats, and liquor-infused candy is also readily available. I guess that men are supposed to enjoy boozy chocolates. Framboise is a sort of raspberry beer, so these sticks are three great Valentine's Day concepts fused into one - chocolate, liquor, and red fruit. How can it lose as a marketing concept?


These sticks smell very good. They smell both of chocolate and raspberry. The coating is relatively generous and the flavor is quite strong. Note that the raspberry flavor is pretty intense so you have to really like raspberry to enjoy these.The first bite tastes of dark chocolate and the second brings the raspberry more heavily into play. The coating is pretty much the usual for Pocky, a little soft and easy to bite into, and the sticks are crunchy and fresh. The sweetness is just about right and the fruit flavor doesn't taste artificial or perfume-like. The quality level is really surprising for such a "common" snack. These have cocoa butter, butter, and raspberry powder. I really liked these and I'd definitely buy them again if they were to be available after the Valentine's season ends.

Though I haven't been a fan of Pocky throughout most of my time in Japan, I have not been disappointed in the flavors I have tried. Considering that the calorie count on these is so modest, 4 sticks at 93 calories, I think that these are a very good choice as a sweet treat for anyone.

Mont Blanc Dessert Pocky

If you're not familiar with Mont Blanc, it is a dessert made of pureed chestnuts and whipped cream. You can find many permutations of it in most Japanese convenience stores, markets and patisseries. The original dessert is Italian and is named after a mountain in the alps. Mont blanc (the dessert, not the Pocky) has a pile of chestnut with whipped cream on top and vaguely resembles a snow-topped mountain in appearance.

Mont blanc is one of my favorite desserts so I was very pleased to see this version of Pocky in the stores. In fact, as fall arrives, many chestnut and mont blanc sweets start to appear on the shelves of Japanese stores. It's just one more reason to be happy that summer is over, as if the stifling heat and humidity ending and the cockroaches packing up and leaving Tokyo weren't good enough reasons. The popularity of chestnut sweets at this time of year is linked to the habit of consuming chestnuts in Japan at this time of year less so than to mont blanc desserts, popular as they may be.


Like the previously reviewed orange dessert Pocky, the Mont Blanc Pocky is sweeter and has a thicker coating than regular Pocky. They are also a little more expensive and each individual packet contains fewer sticks. Run-of-the-mill Pocky gives you 5 sticks with a puny coating. Dessert Pocky offers 3 decadently coated sticks. When you open the packet and give it a sniff, it smells pleasantly of chestnuts. The sticks mimic the appearance of the dessert by having a brown "chestnut" colored coating and a white drizzle representing the whipped cream.


The coating is sweet, but carries good chestnut notes, particularly at the end of chewing. I've complained about too sweet desserts before, but it isn't the sweetness that I object to so much as the fact that it's difficult to detect any other flavor behind all that sweetness. The chestnut dessert Pocky does a great job of keeping the flavor despite being pretty sweet without being overwhelming or artificial tasting. This is a balancing act Glico, the company which makes Pocky, did well with on the orange dessert Pocky as well.

Unsurprisingly, the ingredients are very similar to the orange dessert Pocky, including artificial sweeteners to keep the calories down. Three very satisfying sticks only set you back 97 calories. If you like chestnut and are in the mood for something with a hint of decadence, these are really a splendid option. If I allowed myself to buy another box, I think they also might be interesting to try after a quick dip in hot coffee.