Yawataya Mini KitKat

When I was given wasabi KitKats, I remember having a discussion about chocolate with one of my students in which I mentioned that putting chili in chocolate was fairly common in America. She was shocked, and grossed out, at the idea of this combination. Of course, she thought that including wasabi was also pretty weird, but accepted it as something reasonable as a regional variation for novelty value. This is one of those rare cases when a combination is actually a bit stranger in Japan than in the West. I've been reading about American releases of chili paired with chocolate on other blogs for years.

If you look at the top of this box, you can see that there is an old-timey picture in sepia (because that's how we can tell it's "old-timey"). This is because this flavor is supposed to represent what was popular in the Shinshu area during the Edo period. The origin of the hot pepper that is used is thought to be the Amazon basin rather than Japan. It's a transplanted flavor that is commonly called "togarashi" in Japan. Apparently, we have Columbus to thank for spreading it all over the globe, first to Europe and then to Asia. I doubt that makes up for all of the stuff the Spanish did to indigenous peoples nor does it make up for the fact that he is seen as discovering something which was hard to miss and probably was located by many explorers before him, but, hey, credit where it is due. He spread some hot peppers for us all to enjoy, especially the folks in Nagano (formerly the Shinshu area).

I picked this box of 5 mini KitKats up at the airport on my way out of Japan. I don't remember what I paid, but the retail price according to Nestle Japan's web site is 350 yen ($4.38). As is so often the case with these types of KitKat, it represents significantly bad value for the quantity, but one does not buy these for the volume, but rather the novelty. Each KitKat is two mini fingers (about the size of one and a third regular KitKat fingers) and has 67 calories.

When I opened the packet on these, I smelled a very pleasant bittersweet chocolate smell. I deeply inhaled the scent of the bar to try and detect any spiciness or hint of the chili pepper, but there was really no hint. My first bite yielded a mild, slightly sweet bittersweet chocolate flavor with the usual crispy wafer freshness of a KitKat. Only after this did I get a bit of heat on the tongue. Each subsequent bite was the same. It was a one-two punch with each flavor hitting quite distinctly.

This is a pretty nice tasting KitKat, largely because it is a slightly dark, bittersweet flavor which is not too sweet and pairs well with the wafer's crunch. However, the spicy portion seems almost superfluous. It does not detract from the chocolate, but it seems to add nothing. It's like eating a candy bar and then a little hot pepper alternatively. 

I think this works best as what it is, a novelty. If you're in the area (or at the airport) and want to take something back for your friends to try which won't make them gag, but will surprise them, this ought to fit nicely. The heat isn't so intense that someone will have a burning mouth. You'd have to be extremely sensitive to hot pepper to suffer for sampling this. Though I'll finish this box (slowly), I don't think there would really be any reason to buy this again. 

Look Chocolat 18

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

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

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

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

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

Shiroi Fuusen Chocolate Cream Sembei

I've spoken before about how I'm rather dumb about packaging even though I really should know better. I'm about to reveal that I'm even stupider than people may suspect, though if you're thinking my I.Q. hovers around 80 or less, then perhaps not. Putting a picture of an enticing food on a package even though it isn't what I'm buying (like ice cream on a yogurt package) is one way to sucker me in. Another way is to put a pot of tea. As soon as the idea of consuming a sweet with tea is nearly irresistible to me. So, I bought this because of a piece of clip art that set off a food cue in my brain. Tea + sweet = buy!

Now that I have laid bare how easy it is to manipulate me into purchasing a product, I will try to mitigate that to some extent by saying that I probably would have tried these anyway because of their unusual look and composition. They are blindingly white crackers with a bittersweet chocolate filling. When I say, "blinding", I'm not kidding. When you die, this is the color of the light you're going to find yourself walking towards (unless you were "bad", then I have no idea what color light you'll be walking into).

I found these at Inageya supermarket for 168 yen for a bag of 21 individually wrapped crackers. Each is 16.7 calories, which is pretty good considering you're eating two crackers per serving with a smattering of filling. Note that "smatter" is not an exaggeration. There really isn't much, but that's okay.

When you remove the crackers and give them a sniff, you smell the chocolate filling. The crackers themselves are crispy and slightly salty but pretty much have no other flavor. The chocolate filling, when you encounter a higher concentration of it, is bittersweet and has a smooth, rich texture. However, there is so little of it and it sits largely in the center that only about one bite carries a significant chocolate impact. That bite is actually a very nice combination of salty and modestly sweet.

I'm slightly torn about these. I like them well enough when I get a solid combo of chocolate and lightly salted outer cracker and the textural mixture of the cool, creamy filling and crispy crackers is nice. There's also something a bit nifty about eating something that looks like an inverted Oreo cookie. Ultimately, I will finish the bag, but I can't see buying another. If there just were more filling so that the flavor was spread over more of the crackers, I think these would be a repeater.

Kabaya Hone Hone Saurus Chocolate

Every time I got to Seiyu supermarket, I peruse their ample kid's snacks section for anything new and interesting. One thing I have realized about these sections of cheap, small treats is that they don't see much updating when compared to more adult-size snacks. I guess the kids market isn't as fickle as the older set. Among the small packets of bubble gum, seaweed snacks, and cheap chocolates, the odd packaging of this Kabaya chocolate caught my eye. For 50 yen (60 cents), this 27-gram (about 1 oz.) bar was mine for sampling.

The name of this product translates essentially to "bonesaurus". It's the sort of name that a company could never give a product back home because of all of the snickering the idea might bring on from those for whom "bone" carries a certain hormonally-linked meaning. It would have been beyond awesome if someone had named this product in English instead of Japanese.

The bar is divided into three segments and each has a white chocolate representation of a dinosaur's head on top of a bittersweet shell that that hides a softer milk chocolate center. When you bite into it, you discover that there are also little crunchy bits in it. The combination of various chocolate flavors and textures creates a lovely sensation. The bittersweet chocolate intensity is stronger than most kid's candy bars, but not too strong. This is perhaps because it is tempered by the white chocolate and soft milk flavors.

This is an excellent little candy bar and I strongly recommend giving it a try if you have a chance. It's 157 calories for the entire bar and well worth it. I wouldn't  hesitate to have this again.

Note that this candy is related to a series of plastic toys that Kabaya sells. You can see those toys here.

Fujiya-Baskin Robbins Collaboration Chocolate

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

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

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

Strawberry cheesecake:

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

Jamoca coffee:

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

Orange sherbet:

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

Vanilla:

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

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

Tochoco Rice Chocolate

In our early years in Japan, my husband and I sampled a few bits of candy from local supermarkets, and I swear this tiny rice chocolate bar was one of those things we tried. It's about 8 cm (3.1 in.) long and 2.5 cm wide (.98 in.), and clearly marketed for kids. These sorts of candies are usually found in the sections of supermarkets with cheap candy in small packaging. This one sells for about 30 yen (33 cents).


As is so often the case with small companies, I spent an inordinate amount of time doing research and came up with little in the way of results. The maker, Tochoco, has no web site. However, I did find a 2007 "Confectionery Directory" which included a little information on the company such as the fact that they are located in Kanagawa prefecture and only have 70 employees. It's rather remarkable that they seem to have quite a lot of on-line outlets selling their candy (and this one in particular) given their small size. Besides this rice chocolate bar, they sell chocolate-covered corn snacks and a sort of puffed "cocoa ring" which resembles a chocolate Cheeto shaped like a flower without a center.



I think early sampling of this type of chocolate is why my husband and I sought out imported candy early on in our stay. While there are many very fine types of high quality consumer candy in Japan, there are also some pretty lackluster offerings. This bar represents some pretty low quality chocolate. The chocolate is gritty, grainy and super, super sweet. The flavor is bittersweet even though these are marketed as "mild chocolate". The rice puffs add some texture, but they are not crispy rice puffs. They're like puffed rice cereal that is relatively soft. The calorie count for this wisp of a bar, is given per 100 grams at 560 calories and the weight of the individual bar is not given. I'd guess this is about 50 calories though.

Everything about this bar screams "cheap". It's not just the price, the package design, and the poor quality chocolate (which does list cocoa butter as an ingredient, but you really can't detect it). There's also the fact that the bar itself looks very slap-dash in its presentation. This is rather unusual in Japan. The picture of the bar above may look like it has been damaged, but there were no fragments in the package so this is the way it came off the assembly line.

This was an interesting curiosity, and I did eat it all, but I wouldn't buy it again. If anything, this bar is worth sampling for some perspective about Japanese sweets. Based on my reviews and experiences with big brand bars, one might conclude that the consumer snack market is a paradise of high quality treats. That really isn't so. If you buy the "right" (or "wrong") products, you'll find that there is substandard fare out there as well.

Jun Hit Choco Ice Milk Bar

It's amazing how easily suckered in we are by packaging. The same product that we have overlooked a hundred times may go into the shopping basket if it is swaddled in new wrapping. A product that we might overlook draws out attention because of the way the label is designed. I think this "Jun Hit Choco" ice milk bar suckered me in both with the silly name ("Jun Hit"? It sounds like a pop star... ) and the large blocks of chocolate all over it.

Hyphenation clearly is a bit of a challenge.

The label also promises me that they have used only "the finest quality chocolate". I'm sure that that's the truth. After all, it's not like a snack food manufacturer would lie to a consumer about the quality of the ingredients in order to entice her to purchase it.

I picked this up for 100 yen ($1.09) at a local 7-11. It's an 80 ml. (2.7 oz.) bar and only 120 calories. The size is on the generous side, particularly for the caloric impact. The company that makes this is called Andeico, and this is my first review of one of their products. They make frozen treats as well as chilled baked items like chou cream (french pastry shells filled with custard or whipped cream) and puddings and yogurt. Their forte appears to be cold treats. The company was established in 1946 and their motto is something along the lines of, "we will never produce non-quality items." It's a rather small company with only 346 employees, and that may be one of the reasons I have never seen any of their products before. It's hard for smaller companies to get shelf space compared to bigger ones.

When I removed the bar from the package, I smelled nothing and a closer sniff also didn't yield much olfactory pleasure. The bar is very, very dark in color. My immediate sense was that it was going to be like a Fudgesicle, but I've been fooled before by Japanese ice milk bars with hard outer shells and surprises lurking within. It turns out that this actually is a "Fudgesicle-like" bar that is the same texture and substance through and through. It's easy to lick or suck on and doesn't melt too quickly. It softens and gets pleasantly easier to draw into your mouth.

The taste was very strong. It is intense, deep dark chocolate with bittersweet undertones with the right level of sweetness to make it palatable. One of the ingredients is coffee and, though you can't detect it in the bar, it likely helps develop and enhance the chocolate flavor. This was immensely flavorful in a way that was deeply satisfying for me, though it may be off-putting for people who dislike dark or bittersweet chocolate.

If you want something which is chocolate and has flavor "teeth", I can't recommend this bar enough. It's strong, but good. This bar lives up to Andeico's motto about quality. If you're the type who only enjoys milky chocolate or muted chocolate, this is going to be a bit much for you, but I favor milk chocolate and still loved this. I'll definitely buy it again if it remains in the freezer case at 7-11.

KitKat Bitter Almond

This KitKat has to be one of the weirdest cross-promotions I've ever witnessed in Japan. The bar is TBC, Tokyo Beauty Clinic, crossed with a KitKat. I'm not sure what KitKats have to do with beauty. I'd think they'd be more closely linked to weight gain and pimples than beauty.  Somehow though, we're supposed to see a link between a place that gives facials, removes body hair, and does body shaping and a candy bar. The advertising blurb for this indicates that this flavor combination is supposed to appeal to women, though it isn't calorie-reduced as many products marketed toward them are. It's 99 calories for one two-finger packet which is average for a regular size KitKat. Note that there is a mini bar which is flavored with aloe and yogurt that is also a part of this campaign. I'll be reviewing that bar in the near future.

This smells quite good. There's a stronger cocoa element to the aroma because of the dark chocolate. As promised in the name, this is bittersweet chocolate, which a heavier emphasis on the "bitter". The almonds are rather faint and tend not to be very present in terms of flavor. They do seem to have a bit of a mitigating effect on the bitterness and there is a little bit of a nut butter flavor in the filling between the wafers.

The box says that this bar is 44% cacao, so it has an intense flavor, but it's not as oppressive as some dark chocolate can be. It's not very sweet either. I enjoyed it, but I'm a big fan of almonds and wish that they had played a much bigger role in the taste. That being said, if you don't like overly sweet bars and also do not like very bitter dark chocolate, this could be the bar for you. It's tasty and the texture is enhanced both by the wafers and the almonds pieces. This bar was released on May 31, so it should be around for awhile. You can get it for the( higher than usual for a KitKat) price of 130 yen ($1.41) at most big name convenience stores now.

Kameda Yaki Choco Snack

Every time I go to Seiyu supermarket, I find that there is a whole world of goodies that I can't find anywhere else. Their selection is bigger, but they also seem to carry a different assortment than other markets. One of the things about snack blogging is that you keep finding every shop is a little treasure trove of unexpected finds. Even when the shops all look the same, the stock is different to some extent.

These "yaki" (grilled) chocolate snack chips grabbed my attention because they aren't fried. That usually is a cue for lower calories, though I can't say that is always the case in Japan. I can't remember what I paid for them, but I think it was something in the vicinity of 130 yen ($1.40). They are made by Kameida Seika, a company which I favor for their sembei.

These chips don't smell like much, and at first, scent and taste match one another. There is a cocoa flavor there, but it's not carried to the taste buds by much. They really need more salt and some sort of sweetener. It doesn't have to be sugar, but maybe a little more Sucralose (which is one of the ingredients already). Cumulatively, the chocolate flavor starts to build up a bit, but not in the way one is accustomed to chocolate flavor as it is delivered with copious amounts of fat and sugar. It's more of a diluted flavor reminiscent of cocoa nibs at about 10% of their power.

These chips are designed as much for their wonderfully crunchy texture and low calorie nature as anything else. The entire bag is 45 grams (1.6 oz.) is only 198 calories. You could sit down with a cup of coffee and eat the whole thing with limited guilt. As is often the case with Japanese chocolate products, they're designed more toward the bitter end than the creamy, sweet experience you get with a lot of Western chocolate.

I liked these. They reminded me of diet food back home, but in a good way. I'm not sure that they would be as appealing to others as they are to me, but texture is half the battle when for a food becoming a part of my diet. If you don't judge these by their distance from a chocolate bar, and think of them more as a much, much milder chip version of an Oreo cookie's non-creamy part, you may enjoy them as well.

KitKat Semisweet

My readers may (or may not) have noticed that I haven't reviewed many Japanese KitKats as of late. There are two reasons for this. One is that Nestle Japan has slowed down their release rate a bit now that the peak studying season is over and parents might be less inclined to buy KitKats as forms of encouragement for students prepping for exams. The other is that I believe I have come down with Japanese KitKat Fatigue Syndrome (JKFS). That's when you sample so many of these bars that they all sort of run together.



It doesn't help that Nestle is starting to recycle flavors at a record pace. When my husband brought home this latest bar and plonked it on my desk, my first thought was of the Okashi no Machioka special "mild bitter" bar. That bar was a dark chocolate bar, as is this one, and was mild bittersweet chocolate. It was fine, but nothing to write home about... not that I ever actually write home anymore since I have Skype, and not that I'd ever write about KitKats. I've got other boring details of life to put my family to sleep with.

Incidentally, I love the bold design of this bar's box. At first, I thought it might be some Grand Prix-related release because the checkerboard pattern reminds me of car racing, but I didn't read about any connection between this bar and racing on the KitKat web site. There may be one, but I've missed it if that is so.


Fortunately, this bar has bigger flavor teeth than the mild bitter mini bars that I reviewed before. It has a stronger dark chocolate flavor tempered with sweetness. It smells very good in a way that shouts "chocolate" more loudly than a regular bar. It's missing the usual milkiness, but has a similar sweetness level to the regular KitKat bar. The chocolate is also slightly firmer than usual as one might expect from a bar with less milk. These are 97 calories for 2 fingers, which puts them a few calories lower than most conventional KitKats.

If you like dark chocolate, but don't like it as strongly on the bitter side, this may be very appealing to you. These bars were released on March 15, so they'll probably be around for awhile and you can get them at any of the major convenience stores for 100 yen ($1.11). I can't say that this is a "don't miss" type of bar, but it really is quite good as a variation on the standard milk chocolate KitKat. It doesn't stand as a novelty Japanese KitKat, but works well simply as a semisweet chocolate candy bar.

Meiji Fran Whipps - Hazelnut and Bitter Chocolate

One of my friends told me that Pocky taste like stale pretzels dipped in chocolate. While I don't quite have his low estimation for the exceedingly popular stick-based sweets, I'm not over the moon for them either. It takes a fairly enticing looking flavor and the promise of a more generous coating on the stick to get me to toss a box of Pocky (or Pocky-like) sweets in my basket and pry my hard-earned yen out of my hand. That's why Pocky is perhaps under-represented on this blog. If you are looking for more Pocky than I am offering, I recommend adding Pocky Watch to your reading list (if you haven't already), which by its very nature is going to give you more pretzel stick love as well as other reviews of many interesting things.

Fran is Meiji's take on Glico's popular Pocky. I rarely take note of Fran in the shops because the flavors don't tend to grab me. However, anything with hazelnuts is like a magnet for this talking flower. I believe that Nutella is the food of the gods, after all. So, when I found this at the local 99 yen ($1.12) shop, I tossed it in the basket. It helps that each serving is only 89 calories so I can snack sensibly.


The box contains 4 foil packets with 3 sticks in each. The sticks are cocoa flavored and double-coated with white and somewhat bittersweet chocolate with a few pieces of hazelnut embedded in them. I should note that Fran sticks seem more like cookies than pretzels to my taste and texture senses. They smell pretty much like cocoa powder. When I first bit into it, I had a profound feeling of disappointment. It seemed to mainly taste like cheap chocolate and had a bit of a taste which I associate with preservatives. By the time I reached the second stick, other flavors started to come out. Primarily, there was a whipped cream flavor from the white coating that started to really bloom. Unfortunately, the hazelnut flavor was so weak as to nearly be absent.

While I was disappointed in the lack of hazelnut flavor, I'm as much a fan of whipped cream as those particular nuts so I really liked this once the taste of cheap chocolate vanished and the mixture of bittersweet chocolate and heavy cream took over. One of the many things I've learned about tasting from snack blogging is that your tongue grows acclimated to flavors or takes awhile to warm up to them so you have to give things a bit of a chance to develop before you reach a conclusion. This was definitely one of those experiences where my initial sense of the product was bad, but it seriously grew on me.

If your patience and tastes run similar to mine, you might enjoy this. That being said, I can't say this was a slam dunk "happy" rating. It came a little close to indifferent because having to eat 1/3 of a packet before I could really enjoy the rest is somewhat of a sacrifice. Nonetheless, I could see myself buying these again.

Fujiya Sweets Torte Mille-Fueille Chocolate

Part of me wonders if I should reject sweets that try and imitate foophy (I made that word up) French pastries like mille-fueille. Then I remember that I like such things and just abandon all pretext at rejecting class consciousness when it comes to food and buy the damn chocolate. Besides, how foophy can something be if it is sold in a supermarket for 150 yen (about $1.45)?


The dessert these chocolates are trying to imitate is made up of layers of pastry and pastry cream topped with chocolate. There are supposed to be many different types of mille-fueille, but the most common appears to be the type I just described. You often see this type of pastry on sale in Japanese cake shops, though they look far less decadent than the ones pictured on the Wikipedia page that I've linked to or the one shown on the front of this box of chocolates.

(the color has been lightened to show the texture on the chocolate)

There were actually several new chocolates of interest on display when I bought these, but this one won because my husband said it was the one he was most interested in sharing with me. I always prefer to reduce the calories I might consume by hoping to fob some off on him. These aren't too bad for you though at 41 calories apiece. Each is about the size of a quarter (or 100 yen coin) and about a centimeter tall.


To imitate the multiple flavors of the mille-fueille pastry, there are three parts to this chocolate. First, there is a bittersweet chocolate shell (which detaches easily from the next layer). Then there is a "custard" chocolate shell and finally some crispy "pie" center. The pie center actually tastes like puff pastry and the bittersweet chocolate is very high quality and offsets the sweetness of the custard layer well. If a complaint can be made, I'd say it's that the custard flavor is very weak because the bittersweet chocolate is so strong. Nonetheless, you do get a hint of the custard taste as well.

I really enjoyed this and felt it was a high quality consumer level product. I'm not even a fan of bittersweet chocolate, but it somehow all came together for me in this sweet. I'd definitely recommend sampling this, and wouldn't mind having these on hand for something which has the texture of a wafer, but a bit more interesting taste profile.

Japanese Christmas Cake

Earlier this week, I was remarking to my husband that we have lived in Japan for 20 years, and never once purchased a Christmas cake. For those who are not aware of what it is, the Japanese have carved out their own unique way of celebrating the holiday in a secular manner which involves the purchasing of a birthday-cake-style cake and eating it on Christmas Eve or Day. The history of this cake is not clearly known, but the idea seems to have come from a combination of buche de noel cakes from France with their whipped cream decorations and sponge cake and the British Christmas cake shape and style.

Of course, the cakes also have been modified to suit Japanese people's tastes. In general, that includes the use of whipped cream frosting and fresh strawberries. There are some beautiful pictures of the most common type of Christmas cake on the Shibuya 246 site. There are a vast number of cake types though, and you can get nearly any type you like.

Getting back to my Christmas cake, my husband said that he'd like to, "just once", go the KFC chicken route for Christmas (fried chicken is the other half of the traditional Japanese Christmas custom) and I said we should try a cake as well. Fortunately for me, my little wish came true without my having to ponder whether I'd reached an alarming degree of cultural assimilation by diving in and buying a Christmas cake. One of my students gave me a beautiful chocolate cake last night as a gift.


The cake is quite small (but perfect for 4 satisfying, but not diet-killing, servings) and I'm sure cost an insane amount of money. It's got 6 layers. From top to bottom, it is: bittersweet chocolate syrup, chocolate mousse, dark chocolate sponge cake, whipped cream, crunchy chocolate ganache (possibly mixed with corn flakes?), light chocolate sponge cake. This was fantastic. Most of the cake you get in Japan is fatty, but not sweet enough to enhance the chocolate flavor (or uses too little chocolate). This one had high quality ingredients and great flavor. It was also very light. The mix of textures and flavors was impressive.

Wherever you are, I hope you're having a great holiday and enjoying whatever Christmas goodies your culture has to offer. Thank you for reading!

Fuwa Fuwa Cake Chocolate Marshmallow

The Fuwa Fuwa cake marshmallows seem to be getting increased market penetration. They're showing up in more convenience stores and in greater varieties. Personally, I'm waiting for the day when the 10 packs of the original yellow bean filled ones show up. For now, I'll have to content myself with fishing the individual ones out of boxes by the cash register as an impulse buy at the last minute.

I have no idea why these are called "Fuwa Fuwa Cake" when they have nothing in common with a cake. The only reason I use that in my post's title is that that is the name it is given in Japanese on the package. We found these chocolate marshmallows at Natural Lawson's convenience store. Like the other varieties, it cost 53 yen (about 60 cents). The big difference between this one and the others that I have sampled is that nutritional information has been added to the back of the package. This one is 94 calories and has 2.4 grams of fat.


This smelled very mildly of cocoa powder before I cut it open for picture taking. The filling, which is like pudding, releases a much more intense scent. Upon tasting it, I discovered there's a good reason for this. The chocolate marshmallow has the same weak, unimpressive flavor that most flavored marshmallows have. The filling is where all of the "oomph" is in this. It is intense, high quality bittersweet chocolate. And don't underestimate the word "intense" here. It's powerfully chocolaty.

The marshmallow was fresh and had a good texture and was bland enough to encase the filling nicely. If you like strong bittersweet chocolate, you'll likely love this. If you're more of a milk chocolate fan, this may be a bit much for you. The quality can't be beat, and I think this is well worth trying again, if not visiting again.

Careme Cacao Time Quattro Orange

When I was a kid, we only received three television channel's signals - ABC, CBS, and NBC. We were located in the boonies and our old wire antenna was too far away from the Pittsburgh transmitting station to get the PBS channel or the really cool channel that showed re-runs of Star Trek (TOS) and the best repeats of old shows. Occasionally, we'd get a grainy PBS show, but that was usually just Mr. Rogers. Due to my television deprivation, I didn't grow up with Sesame Street. Being deprived of that seminal show means that I wasn't exposed to the Cookie Monster.


While I haven't done a psychological study on the emotional impact of being deprived of the Cookie Monster during ones formative years, I speculate that my general lack of enthusiasm for cookies relative to other types of sweets is a result of not being able to get PBS on the tube when I was growing up. My husband certainly is a lot crazier for cookies than me, and he grew up in Silicon Valley with all sorts of television viewing options.

Despite this lack of indoctrination into the way of the cookie, I was intrigued when I saw this box of orange chocolate cookies at the local 99 yen shop. The main thing that dissuaded me upon first viewing is that each cookie is 57 calories and they're quite small at 5 cm (2 in.) x 3 cm (1.2 in.). This makes them more candy than cookie. That doesn't have to be a bad thing, of course.


Thee are three layers to the cookie - a bland, crunchy little butter-cookie type biscuit, orange-flavored chocolate, and bittersweet chocolate. There's also an orange "sauce" in the middle of the chocolate layer. You can smell both the orange and chocolate when you give it a sniff. The bittersweet chocolate and orange flavors are intense and blend very well together. The cookie portion is mainly there for texture and is a fairly hard. One of the big points about these cookies is that they are made with Valencia oranges, and the flavor does taste real.

I really liked this and would definitely go for them again. That being said, the strong flavors might be off-putting to some, especially if you favor milk chocolate. I love strong flavors when they are in good quality ingredients, and both the chocolate and orange appear to be so.

Kabaya, which makes the Careme brand, offers these in other flavors and shapes as well. The other two types listed on the web site are caramel and chocolate and bitter chocolate and white chocolate. Oddly, the orange chocolate version is not listed on their web site. If you'd like to download a wallpaper of their mascot, you can find a few choices here.