ZenPop Sweets Box February 2019 unboxing (Cheese!)

When I was a child, I remember a commercial which showed a gorilla tossing around Samsonite luggage as a way of demonstrating how tough it was. Though I doubt gorillas tossed my ZenPop box around, it did encounter some sort of trauma in shipping. The boxes themselves are quite sturdy and this is the first time I've ever received one which took on any damage at all. Perhaps a gorilla did get to it to do such damage.

Whether or not the box is a beat up is not the question. The question is how the contents fared despite the hard knocks it took. Fortunately, not one item in the box was harmed despite the licking it took. It may have helped that many of the items were cheese-related and in puffy bags with air.

I am especially delighted with this box since the theme is cheese. I once told my husband that, if I had to eat one type of food and only one type of food for the rest of my life, it would be cheese. He even got me a cheese of the month club membership for Christmas. While not everything in the box is cheese themed, the overwhelming majority is.

There are more savory items, of course, because that's what one would expect from cheese.

Savory:

Super Kari-Kari Cheese Pretz: This is supposed to be super crunchy because it's very thin.

Bourbon Petit Cheese Crackers: These are like tiny Ritz-style crackers with a cheese filling. They're a little like the Lance sandwich crackers that are so common in vending machines, except they are tiny.

Umai-Wa Cheese (corn snack rings): This is a ring version of the famous "umai bo" sticks. I'm guessing this will be little different than the sticks, but it'll likely be less messy.

Ura-Caramel Corn Double Cheese (corn snack curls): The information in the ZenPop box says these aren't "caramel" at all despite the name. Caramel corn is a brand in Japan as much as a flavor so I'm guessing that's why there is a misleading name.

Cheese Rice Crackers: These are small, hard crunchy rice snacks called "arare" (which I think means "hail", but it's been awhile and my Japanese is fading away). I loved this style of snack in Japan, though the did tend to be the least healthy version of sembei.

Horo Buono Cheddar Cheese (balls): I've never heard of anything like these, but they sound and look a lot like Planter's cheese balls.

Calbee Black Pepper and Cheese Potato Chips: Calbee makes the thinnest and crisipiest chips so I think these are going to be amazing.

Dagashi Cheese Snack: This is the funniest little thing because it is so tiny. It's supposed to be Camembert-flavored cheese with fish paste, but I'll have to take the tiniest of bites to get a sense of it considering it's smaller than the top half of my pinky finger.

Sweet:

Crunky Baked Cheese Tart: This is a weird one because it's a chocolate bar which is made with gouda. Most sweets that are made with cheese in America are made with cream cheese. This is a little like the baked KitKat though and is can be toasted to bring out a unique experience.

Asahi Cheese Tart Bar: This is a "healthy" bar fortified with vitamins. It is supposed to be a dough/cheesecake type of center with a cookie wrapped around it (much like a tart with cheese filling).

Choco-ball Chocolate Banana Flavor: This is supposed to be a chocolate biscuit covered with banana-flavored chocolate. It sounds terrible actually because banana-flavored anything tends to be disappointing.

Strawberry Chocolate: These are dagashi, or kid's snacks. They're strawberry chocolates on a stick (like a lollipop). I'm guessing these will be super sweet and artificially flavored.

Pikachu Ramune Candy: This is another dagashi with a ball that is strawberry outside and melon inside. Despite the name, it doesn't seem from the description like there is any ramune (Japanese soda) flavor.

Anpanman Ball Chocolate: The center of this is a cookie and the outside is chocolate. It's like a malted milk ball with a cookie center instead of malted milk.

Tirol Kinako Mochi Chocolate: This is the only item that I've reviewed before and it is super tasty. Previously, I reviewed the "premium" version (larger piece) and this appears to be  the smaller version, but it tastes the same.

I've said before that I believe that ZenPop's package has the best value for a snack pack and this box continues to convince me of that. There is a decent mix of sweet and savory as well as dagashi (children's snacks) and snacks designed for adults. If you'd like to consider ZenPop's box, you can buy one or subscribe by going to their site. Note that I was given this box for review at no cost. Hopefully, I'll do better reviewing the contents than I did with the previous box. ;-) 

ZenPop Sweets Pack August 2018 unboxing

It may seem these days that the only Japanese snacks that I review come from ZenPop. Well, that's because that's the case. They provide the best value box for the money and they also send me free boxes. If I had to pay, I'd buy from them, but I'm just as happy not to pay.

When I lived in the Bay Area (of California), I was lucky to have access to shops that sold Japanese food at seriously inflated prices. There is one Asian market about an hour away from where I presently live, but its selection is weak and the prices are even higher than those I'd previously paid. That has dampened my enthusiasm for seeking out new snacks as it's frankly depressing seeing the same bags of KiKat matcha mini bars for $12 and little else during every visit. These boxes are a spirit lifter when they show up with an assortment of things I haven't seen for many years now.

This box includes a mix of salty and sweet with an emphasis on things which won't melt in the heat of summer. Since I'm currently living in a place where temperatures at their highest can reach 100 degrees, this is something I'm grateful for. There are a few chocolates in the box and I'll be curious to see how they fared on the trip when I get tto reviewing them.

As always, there is a pamphlet inside which details all of the items in English with some descriptions and I'll be talking more about each item when I post the individual reviews. Here is the breakdown:

Salty:
Don Tacos grilled corn chips, Calbee "conomme punch" chips, "salad" sembei, karu jaga umashio (crispy rolled potato snacks, salt flavored)

Sweet:
Pineapple hi-chew, "Soda" puchitto (candy balls), ramune in a plastic bottle, mini home pies (a flaky French-style "cookie"), Juice-C color balls (soda flavored), coconut pies, orange marble gum, caramel corn chocolate mint flavored (a puffy corn snack), Hello kitty peach lollipop, lemon "fettucine" gummies, unchoco (milk chocolates shaped like poop)

In terms of what I'm excited about, the first thing is the chocolate mint caramel corn. The regular caramel corn is already one of the most enjoyable snacks you can get from Japan (and overlooked in favor of the flashier, but often less enjoyable KitKats) and a variation on the flavor has great potential. This isn't like other corn puff snacks. It's light, crispy and almost melt-in-your-mouth.

I am also quite interested in fettucine gummies and seeing how they differ from regular ones in texture. Japanese gummies, in general tend to be more flavorful, less sweet, and have a better chew than American ones. The shape may also lend a different experience to them.

Of course, because I became a sembei fan late in my time in Japan, I'm looking forward tot he "salad" sembei. "Salad" is a funny flavor in Japan. It doesn't seem to mean anything related to what we'd call salad and my experience with it has meant a more "salad dressing" (vinegrette) type of experience. We'll see how this one tastes.

In terms of things I'm fairly indifferent to in this box, that would be the kid's stuff and the orange marble gum in particular. It's not that the gum isn't tasty. It actually is, but I've had it before and the flavor lasts about a minute then it's just plain jaw exercise. I think the dagashi (kid's) snacks are more appealing to people who haven't lived in Japan for a long time compared to me. They are the most colorful and often the most unique, but they also have the simplest flavor profile. Still, I will be reviewing them with an eye toward their intended market and as novelties and not through my very narrow lens.

Luna plush box for September

If you'd like to get your own sweets box, the September box is available for ordering at ZenPop and it has a nice bonus compared to the one I'm reviewing. There's a "Luna" plush which is adorable that is included with that box (at the same price as regular boxes). It's a pretty good deal in general, but it's even better in the coming month.

I'll be back very soon with a flurry of reviews of the contents of this box.

ZenPop "Peach Festa Pack" box unboxing

I didn't expect to be doing two Zenpop "unboxing" posts in a row. In fact, I expected to review the items in the previous box. I have a good excuse. No, really, I do. If you don't think what I have to say is a sufficient reason, then you haven't had my misfortune. My excuse is, in three little words, "grand jury duty."

If you've never been selected for this honor, then let me say that I was fortunate that my term is shorter than some, and it's still longer than regular jury duty by far. I'm on the hook for random service for three months and each day that I do it is like an exhausting day on the job with no down time because there's no taking a break to look at your cell phone (not that I have one of those, I don't) or browse the web.

I hope to do better reviewing the items in this box, but I can barely cook my own dinner when I'm on duty, let alone ponder writing things. Still, my fingers are crossed and I'm going to push harder to squeeze in some reviews because I was pretty damn excited about this box when I saw what was inside.

As I've said before, I consider ZenPop to be one of the best value snack boxes out there for Japanese goodies. They packed this one super full and even managed to include two drink options which was suprising and welcome. Of course, the way to my heart was swiftly found with the inclusion of kinako wafers. I literally cuddled them to my chest when I found the package.

Click this image to load a larger one.

In terms of the contents, it's detailed in the included packaging, but I'll briefly talk about them in groups by type here:

Kids snacks (dagashi):

Anpanman choco: While this looks like a lollipop, it's really chocolate on a stick featuring the familiar face of Anpanman. In the U.S., we would call him "Bread Head," and he'd be a candidate for a villain in the old Tick animated series.

Long Marshmallow: I've already got my speculation about how this is going to taste. Japanese marshmallows are quite different from American ones both in texture and in taste. They tend to be more "gummy" and chewy rather than soft and pillowy.

Dorayaki Choco: This is a shelf-stable, kid's sized version of the venerable Japanese snack which is like two pancakes with filling. Usually, these are filled with red beans, but these have chocolate which I'm betting will make them a bit sweeter.

Choco Stick: I reviewed several things called "Choco Stick" before and this one comes closest to this one. However, it doesn't look like it's actually a corn snack dipped in chocolate, but rather a corn snack made from the ground up with chocolate.

Peach gum: The description of this recommends putting all three pieces in your mouth at once and trying to blow a big bubble. I'm saying right now that that is what I'm going to do, but not because I do what I'm told. I'm going to do it because gum is too tiny these days and you need at least two pieces to satisfy my big mouth and there's no point in leaving that one little bit an orphan.

Drinks:

Konjac Jelly Peach: Technically, this isn't a drink, but a liquid jelly that you suck out through a spout in the top. I'm guessing this is what Japanese astronauts eat in spring.

Peach Drink: This is technically a "dagashi" (kid's snack) and I do recall seeing this type of thing sold in Japan, especially in summer, but I never tried one during all of my years there.

Salty Snacks:

Poteko Cherry Blossom salt flavor: Poteko are super crunchy potato rings and I reviewed the regular (salt) flavor before. I have no idea how you flavor salt with cherry blossom, but I guess I'll find out.

Curry Arare Sembei: These are an old-fashioned type of rice crackers that are easy to find in most stores in Japan. While this is also mentioned as dagashi, I think this is also within the range of otsumami, or snacks to be eaten with alcoholic drinks. I'm guessing this will be more about the crunch than the flavor. If these are dagashi, they won't have as strong flavors as adult-oriented rice crackers.

Edamame Sticks: This is a bona fide otsumami snack which looks like it's a version of the same pretzels that are used on things like Pocky.

Otsumami Mix (mixed rice crackers): After the kinako wafers, this was the item I was happiest to see, but I'm a sucker for sembei.

Natural Calbee Sea Salt Chips: Though these have a relatively common flavor, they're supposed to be thicker than usual chips. That would make them similar to some Kettle brand chips. I'm guessing that they will be one of the less unique and underwhelming experiences in the box. Japanese chips usually have a fresh flavor compared to Western ones, but they aren't likely to be so different.

Sweets:

Petit Kinako Wafers: I've reviewed this product before and loved it to pieces. The Bourbon brand of petit snacks is often carried at Japanese markets and import stores in the U.S., but these have never been there when I've patronized one. So, they're one of those flavors that someone seems to have decided aren't going to sell in America, much to my chagrine. And, yes, I tried these already (again) and they are nearly the same as I remember except that they are less messy. Unfortunately, the exterior isn't coated in kinako powder so it takes longer for the flavor profile of the toasted soy bean to hit your tongue. Still, they're very tasty.

Gelee Pure Peach gummies: I've had a lot of Pure gummies and they are really hit or miss. The best ones are amazing. The worst ones are gross and hard to finish. We'll see how these are.

Peach Gummy Candy: This is Meiji's version of gummies (the previous ones are made by Kanro). I have less experience with these. I hope to review these two snacks mano a mano.

I think this is a pretty respectable assortment with something to offer everyone and a good focus on the seasonal flavor of peach. I can't promise to review them all, but I do promise to get to some of them despite jury duty. :-p Thanks for your patience!

ZenPop Sweets "Red and White" Box (Unboxing)

In the first few years after I returned to the U.S., I took my sister-in-law to the "Daiso Japan" shops in the Bay Area. The Daiso is a hundred yen (dollar) store in Japan and other parts of Asia, but most things are a $1.50 in the U.S. When my sister-in-law remarked on Facebook that it was so cheap and had a lot of interesting items, someone who had lived in Japan for a long time scoffed and remarked that those things where 50% less in Japan. The implication was that that was no deal.

My feeling about this response was, "Are you new?" This person had lived in Japan for longer than me and should have known better. You can't compare prices in one country in which a product is originally distributed to those in a country that they're exported to. We believed we were very lucky if we could get goods from the U.S. at Costco Japan or the Foreign Buyer's Club for a mere 50% mark-up. If it was less than that, it was a rare and enormously special deal. Usually, we were just glad that something from home was available at all.

If you are looking for Japanese snacks, the main thing you want is to get things that you can't get locally, and, yes, there will be a mark-up to pay the people who do this business for their time. This is my second unboxing of a ZenPop box. In my first, I focussed on the service itself and it's value in a very granular way. You can see that overview here. The bottom line is that I think their contents represent one of the best values in subscription boxes that you can get at present and that the mark-up on items to pay for their efforts is likely between 40-50% (I'm not including shipping and packaging costs in that estimate). It's not nearly as cheap as if you lived in Japan and could buy these things for yourself, but, if you need someone to go to the trouble of shopping, assembling, packing, and mailing it to you, you can't really do better.

Click these smaller images to load a bigger one that you can read.

Since I already did a lengthy post about the service, I see no reason to repeat that here and am going to just focus on the contents. The box is called the "kouhaku" (red and white) box because the snacks follow a theme in terms of the colors of the items. This is quite appropriate for this time of year in Japan because it's nearly Valentine's Day and winter and spring are popular times for strawberry-flavored snacks to make their appearance. It'll also straddle the companion holiday for Valentine's Day in Japan ("White Day") which comes in March.

Keep in mind that you don't need me to explain these things. There is a color page with explanations in the box, but I can at least add some context and my own subjective feelings about these products in thumbnail format. I will be reviewing some of these items on their own in future posts.

In the box, we have a good selection of both the red and the white. There is also one small "wild card" item which is really not in alignment with either of these which I'll get to last. I'll start with the longer list which includes the red:

Tyrant Habanero Savory Bacon Flavor - I'm a huge fan of the "Tyrant Habanero" line of products because of their strong heat and savory notes. This one is, oddly, not listed on the Tohato web site at present, but that makes it no less welcome. You can always tell this product line because of the evil hot-pepper-o-lantern on the bag. The five peppers reveal that this is one of the hotter products in their line-up. I've reviewed these items no small number of times in the past.

Ichimi Sembei - I am a sucker for the old-fashioned enormous rice crackers that you can get as souvenirs in Japan. I'll admit that even though this isn't as flashy or as approachable to Western palates as the rest of the box, this is the thing I was happiest to see included. This has togarashi, a spicy capsicum which is often ground and placed on tables in Japanese restaurants which offer dishes that can benefit from their addition. It's similar to the way red pepper flakes show up in Italian restaurants or pizza places in the U.S.

Harvest Choco Sand Strawberry Milk - In the last box that I received from ZenPop, I got the mont blanc flavor of this snack and was disappointed because there was a coconut back-drop that dominated. I'm hoping these will be better, but I'm pessimisstic. The Harvest biscuit line always has a strong coconut flavor and I can only hope that it pairs better with strawberry filling than the fake-tasting mont blanc of the previous offering.

Nissin Crisp Choco Strawberry - I know Nissin mainly for it's savory meal offers including instant noodles. I used to see these snacks, which I regard as sort of a "Choco Flake" pie/pizza, but never bought one due to the larger footprint. I always liked "Choco Flake", which is chocolate-covered cornflakes, so I'm looking forward to trying this.

Bourbon Petit Strawberry Langues de Chat - Langues de Chat are like a Milano cookie on a diet - thing, crispy, delicate cookies with a candy-like choclate filling. Bourbon's version in these long tube-like packages is a baby version of the slimmed down Milano.

Meito Puku Puku Tai Strawberry - This is one of a handful of kid's snacks in the box. "Puku puku" means bubbling or puffy (among other things) and refers to the foamy, whipped center of the cake-cone-style "fish's" filling. The outer shell, a monaka, is generally pretty tasteless and mainly lends texture. I'm expecting this to be more of a textural delight than a flavor one. Chances are the filling will be pretty sweet and the shell quite bland so it should be interesting to try.

Chocolate Veil Strawberry - These are a new product to me in terms of the brand name, and it looks very interesting in terms of the construction. The outside looks like a thing, crispy shell and has a softer, whipped-looking filling. I don't know if this is new or if it's just that I haven't lived in Japan for six years now, but I am looking forward to something different.

Cororo Strawberry Gummy - The picture of these on the package is odd. They look really round and slightly puckered and bring to mind umeboshi. The description in ZenPop's flyer says they are like grapes. This would be something new as I don't recall ever seeing this type of gummy when I lived in Japan before.

White Items:

Alfort Vanilla White candy/cookies - Alfort occupies an interesting space in the Japanese snack world. It looks like a candy on the front with a solid slab of chocolate and a cookie on the back with a full tiny biscuit perfectly embedded in it. In the past, I reviewed the green tea version and really liked them. I've already sampled these and they are like cookies and cream in the overall flavor profile. The white chocolate is much better balanced than most as it is not cloyingly sweet. They are delicious. It's too bad that the Alfort brand isn't available in the U.S. as it's a more elegant sort of candy and is in individual pieces for good portion control.

Blanchul Hokkaido Milk cookies - These look like langue de chat by another name to me. I reviewed a mont blanc (chestnut) version of these previously and loved them.

Baby Star Shio (Salt) and Baby Star Chicken (2 separate packets) - I have to admit that these are the two things I'm the least interested in. Though I have reviewed Baby Star ramen snacks before, and at least liked them a bit, I have to say that I've never felt that I was eatier junkier junk food than when I tried ramen salted snacks. They tend toward being very salty, crunchy, and carby in a way that makes me feel even guiltier than if I were eating corn or potato snacks.

Yogurt-flavored White Caburi-Chew - This one is completely new to me in that I not only have never tried this brand, but I've never seen it. We'll see if I get to keep my fillings. I am happy for a yogurt-flavored item in the mix though. It's a flavor that is less commonly represented in snack boxes.

Sapporo Potato Vegetable - Though I wasn't disappointed to find this included, it's also one of the easiest imports that you can locate in Asian and import markets. Also, my previous experience with a "pebbly" (tsubu tsubu) variety was not encouraging so I'll have to see if this is better.

Nori Okaki & Peanuts - Along with the big, spicy sembei cracker, this was something else I was delighted to have included. It's produced by my favorite rice cracker manufacturer in Japan - and, yes, I know it's weird to have a favorite sembei brand - so I have high expectations.

And, the wild card is: Mikan Mochi. It's included in the "White" section because mochi is usually white, but these are tiny little orange blobs that you poke with a toothpick to pick up and eat. This is also a new item to me (and a kid's snack) so it should be interesting.

I'll be reviewing as much of these items as I can, though I do have a tendency to eat them up faster than I can write reviews.

I have to say that I'm pleased with the overall mix of salty and sweet as well as the textural variations and the "modern" (e.g., chocolates and cookies) and the "traditional" (e.g., sembei). Though I can't say this would be the mix I'd perfectly pick if I was buying for my tastes and mine alone, I think it's a good sampler pack for someone who isn't me (and I'm not narcissistic enough to think everything should revolve around my tastes.

I'll note that I got an e-mail yesterday and ZenPop is offering a discount if you'd like to give their service a try. This is the graphic that was included in the message I received which details the promotion and the code you can use:

Note: I am not promoting ZenPop, though they did provide me with a free sample box for review purposes.