Kameida Seika Barbecue Sembei

Any time I get in the mood for some new and interesting sembei, I head down to the local Family Mart. If you're in Japan and want to have the best access to short-lived, but tasty sembei, that's your "go to" place. By the way, that's, a statement I never thought I'd be making in my life as I never thought one got in the mood for sembei if one was not raised in Japan or by parents of Japanese decent. Ah, how my horizons have broadened due to this blog.


"Piri" (ピリ) in Japanese means spicy in a heat-related way, as opposed to spicy in a non-hot way. Putting these two characters on a bag of any salted snack treat greatly increases the likelihood that I'll buy the food, and they're on this bag of rice crackers. Of course, the maker of these crackers, Kameida Seika, is also my favorite when it comes to sembei.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, "barbecue" flavor in Japan means barbecued meat or vegetables cooked on a grill so it's not like what it is in the States (a sort of ketchup or tomato flavor which is similar to sauce rather than the grilled foods). These sembei, which are about 32 calories per large cracker, are an extremely satisfying melange of savory flavors including garlic, onion, chicken, paprika, pepper, and tomato. They have a small bit of heat, but nothing too strong. I don't know if they'd do for a chili wuss, but they also don't require a flame-retardant stomach or an asbestos-coated tongue. The texture is the "soft" type which is crispy and puffier rather than the "hard" type which is thin, brittle and potato-chip-like.

I loved these, and I think it's unfortunate that they aren't likely to be around past the end of autumn as they have a 4-month run (and were introduced in August). I highly recommend getting them while you can. Remember, they are only sold at convenience stores!

Nabisco Spicy Barbeque "Potato Crisps"

The Onion has an AV Club feature called "Taste Test". For the most part, they tend to cover things which they expect to be pretty bad. I've found that doing a food review blog sort of encourages this sort of perverse seeking out of the sort of food stuffs that most sensible people would avoid. Though one might assume that those who have a chance to taste a lot of different things may seek out more exotic experiences, I don't think this has anything to do with boredom. I believe it has everything to do with the fact that you get a lot more mileage out of bad food than good food when you're writing.

In the spirit of buying something which I expected to be bad, I picked up the bag of "potato crisps" pictured above for 99 yen ($1.00). Two points about it drew my attention. First of all, it is made by Nabisco and I rarely see or buy their products in Japan. Though they are well known in the United States, they don't have nearly such an expansive product line-up here. I believe their best known item is the Picola cookie which is a thin rolled up sugar cookie filled with various types of "cream".

The second point that caught my attention was the name of the product. Since the Japanese use "potato chips" in Japanese, there is no reason to name these "crisps" unless one is British or these aren't real chips. If they're not real chips, then whatever processed concoction they turn out to be may be more interesting (though probably less tasty) than an actual chip.

When I opened the bag, I was greeted by carefully processed "crisps". They are different shapes and sizes and they're ridged just like a normal ridge cut potato chip might be. However, they are bumpy all over in a way you don't see from frying, but rather from uniform baking and rising. Sure enough, these are Pringles-style processed chips without the orderliness or the can.

The smell when you open the bag is intensely spicy. There's a melange of flavors so it's hard to identify any one scent. There is a hint of tomato in the smell, but not in the ingredients list. The primary ingredient is "potato flakes" and the flavorings include pork extract powder, soy sauce, and "sauce" powders. My guess is that the vague "sauce" is where the tomato comes from and it's meant to be generic barbeque sauce flavoring.

The first bite is spicy and salty and a bit overwhelming. As you eat a few more, you get a strong sense of a meaty flavor and with a ketchup chaser. The chips are very crispy and light, though they are still very fattening. One bag is 65 grams (2.2 oz.) and 348 calories. There's a slight artificial aftertaste, but it's not nearly as strong as you get from Pringles processed chips.

I liked these just fine. If my options were limited and I wanted a salted snack, this would certainly come out ahead of a lot of other contenders. If I wanted a spicy chip, I'd take this over a better plain potato chip and I'd certainly put it near the top of the processed chips I've tried, but I'd still opt for Lay's or another big brand barbeque over these.

Scon Japanese Barbecue flavor

I'm not a fan of Japanese salted snack foods because many of them are bland (consommé) or come in flavors I don't care for (like seaweed). Barbecue salted snacks are not what you'd expect because "barbecue" in the U.S. usually means some sort of super spicy tomato or ketchup-flavored potato chip. In Japan, it tends to mean the snack is meant to resemble barbecued meat.

The ugly granny mascot for Karamucho chips. She may scare you off, but they do make pretty good chili snacks. Image pinched from the Karamucho web site.

If you learn one thing about "Japanese tastes", it's that there is a general tendency to prefer mild flavors over intense ones. Therefore, it's rare to find a new product which is exceptionally spicy when you see the words "barbecue" (or in this case "バーベーキュー"). This isn't universal, however, as there are some super spicy treats out there like habanero rings and Karamucho (カラムチーチョ) hot chili chips and potato sticks. Karamucho, by the way, has what I believe to be one of the ugliest cartoon mascots ever. "Chili" and "barbecue" are worlds apart usually in terms of overall punch in spiciness with the former saltily beating up your tongue and the latter passively lying down and surrendering.

The same company that makes the Karamucho-brand chips, Koikeya (コイケヤ), makes the Scon snacks I'm reviewing today so I had hopes that they'd be strong enough for my American palate. I've seen corn snacks named "Scon" (pronounced close to "scone" with a long "o" as many Americans pronounce it) for decades and never bought them because the I couldn't work out why they'd be called "Scon" instead of, well, "corn". What was that silly "s" for? Was this going to be related to British tea time fare? At any rate, a look at the ingredients list reveals the "s" stands for "sweet" as in "sweet corn", which is the first ingredient. That fact that sweet corn is the first ingredient is encouraging, the fact the the second one is animal fat is far less so. The seasonings are not all spelled out, but, unsurprisingly, meat flavoring is one of them as is soy sauce. Stevia (a natural low-calorie sweetener) is also on of them.


The corn twists in the bag are very similar to Cheetos in appearance, but they're a bit lighter and airier in texture. To me, this is a good thing as Cheetos are a bit too hard for my tastes. The first whiff doesn't betray much. These have the same light scent of a non-descript bouillon cube as many Japanese barbecue-flavored snacks. The first bite has a bit of a chemical edge to it which is hard to pin down. This disappears after the second bite which leaves you with an intense, savory flavor. These are very spicy without heat. The flavor is meaty, though it doesn't taste like meat. It's also quite salty, and after you eat them for awhile, the sense of how salty they seem starts to pile up on the tongue. I can see where a beer-drinking sort might find these a really good accompaniment to imbibing.

I really liked these and have actually bought and consumed three bags of them in the past month. This is quite a bad thing as an 80 gram bag (2.82 ounces) has 446 calories and it's easy to eat half a bag at one sitting. That's a lot of empty calories to put away. Also, honestly, even though I like these because they're strongly-flavored, by the third bag the novelty was wearing down a bit and I was thinking that I had burnt out on them and probably wouldn't be tempted anymore. The sense of salt and soy sauce felt stronger the longer I ate them. Nonetheless, I'd still heartily recommend giving them a try if you're in the mood for something salty and tired of the "blander" salted snacks on offer in Japanese stores.