Tohato Pai Cro Butter Sugar

I've been seeing Pai Cro at Japanese markets for some time, but I was unwilling to fork over the cash they were charging to give them a try. Much to my surprise, I found this bag at Daiso Japan for a mere $1.50. In fact, it seems that Daiso is upping its food game as of late. They've added in more name brand snacks and diversified their line of chocolates to include more varieties. Of course, I haven't been super impressed by their chocolate so far, but hope springs eternal and the price is right (almost all of the products at Daiso are $1.50).

I snapped up the Pai Cro as well as Country Ma'am cookies (another new item) last time that I was at Daiso. I also got a shoehorn, because they have these super long ones that allow lazy people to more easily put their shoes on without bending down much, but this isn't a review of cheap items blog. That being said, at one point, I considered starting a new blog dedicated to 100-yen-shop finds. When I left Japan, the idea died. It could be revived now that I'm living close to a Daiso. The main impediment is my limited need for plastic junk. It's hard to keep buying stuff you don't need just to be sure that you have something to write about. Also, I'm writing eight posts a week already. What do you people think I am, a machine? ;-)

When we made our way to the cashier, an extremely enthusiastic and gregarious young woman, she told us that everyone in the shop was super excited when the Pai Cro was re-stocked as everyone loves it. This increased my interest in what this was going to taste like. However, my tastes don't necessarily match those of peppy women in their early 20's. After all, they like their men muscular with all of their chest hair waxed off and I like my men on the hairy and meaty side. I can't necessarily conclude that our tastes in other areas will overlap when they don't in this crucial area.

There were two flavors of Pai Cro - butter sugar and apple something or other (custard? caramel?). Since I don't remember the apple one, you may guess correctly that I opted for "butter sugar". Also, the title of this post is a tip-off about which variety is getting reviewed. Attentive readers may have noted that already. Inattentive ones have just looked at the pictures in the post and skipped to the rating anyway and aren't even reading all of this blathering.

Getting to the Pai Cro, as soon as you open the bag, you smell margarine and bread crumbs. Though there is some butter in this, it's pretty far down on the ingredients list. There is a lot of oil though - three vegetable oils (palm, coconut, and rice), butter, and "butter oil". I'm pretty sure the crispness of these comes from their being fried like a potato chip. These are pretty caloric as the nutrition information for 2.47 oz./70 grams says one bag is 2.3 servings at 151 calories per serving.

These are super crispy and light. They have a real sense of being like a sweet buttered crouton, but they're finer than that in texture and much less tough to chew. They shatter apart rather appealingly, but there is definitely a strong flavor of "bread" to them. The bread flavor is not good quality bread, but rather like the crust on common white bread that has been toasted. It really does not bring a croissant to mind, at least not to my taste buds.

This is a very "junky" snack which has both qualities of being appealing (crispy, sweet, buttery), but also tastes "cheap" (tasting like cheap bread and margarine/oil). This is a blog about junk food, however, so it is to be expected that such things would come up from time to time. This is tasty junk, but I think those who are used to eating a lot of processed food (and I'm not, despite my blogging about Japanese snacks) will find this more appealing than I did. I will slowly finish the bag, and I'm interested enough to try another flavor, but I wouldn't buy this one again.

Korovka Butter and Cream Cookies

Cream is in blue and butter is in yellow, as suits the color of butter.

Back when I first started learning to use computers, I felt completely overwhelmed by the volume of things that I did not know how to accomplish. It may seem inconceivable to people who could use a PC before they could make potty somewhere other than their pants, but I didn't even know how to change the sound. In fact, I recall taking my new black and white Powerbook 145b to work and having a Star Trek screen saver installed that kept making sounds. I went into a pure panic when I couldn't work out how to stop the noises that might alert my Japanese coworkers to the fact that I had my own computer there and that it was playing the equivalent of little sci-fi cartoons when it as idle.

Being confronted with a new language or writing system is a very similar experience. The first sense you get is of being overwhelmed and like you have no footing from which to start working things out. When I first went to Japan, this was the space I lived in and it was daunting. The truth is that it's still daunting given how many kanji (Chinese characters) there are, but I muddled through. Now, I can manage dealing with researching and writing about Japanese snack foods. I'm far from perfect, and some critics might even say far from even "adequate" at it, but I feel like I can stumble around and figure most things out.

Dealing with food that is of a completely different origin puts me back at square one. If I review a Korean snack, I have a sense of flailing around in foreign waters without a life preserver. I know zero about Korean and the same is so about Russian. I don't even know if this is Russian for certain. It may be some other Eastern European language which looks similar, but is totally different. At any rate, I'm trying to swim here, but don't be surprised if I end up failing to even doggy paddle my way through this review. It may end up being the equivalent of "mmm, cookies" and little else given my illiteracy in the language of this product.

I found these cookies at a cool shop that is called "Crossroads Specialty Foods" in Palo Alto, CA. I was walking around the area near the dealership that was servicing our car, which was having its fluids drained, replaced, or topped off in celebration of its first birthday, when I saw their sign along the street. The sign is kind of weird and not like what it appears to be on the Yelp page that I linked to. It used to have "World Market" written in the middle in big letters and that was simply painted over so there's a big blank in the middle. Also, from outward appearances, it just looks strange because it doesn't have the feel of a market, but rather of a supply store. I approached with caution because I didn't want to walk in and be asked if I wanted help buying 100 lbs. of basmati rice or a drum of olive oil.

That's "cream" on the left and "butter" on the right, but then you could tell by looking, right?

At any rate, after a careful peek through the door revealed shelves full of cookies and candy, I walked in and was greeted to an excellent selection of European and Middle Eastern food and snacks. The selection included a ton of British chocolate as well as Russian cookies and sweets and things like halvah and marzipan. The prices ranged from cheap to reasonable. Since I'm not especially reasonable and quite cheap, I picked up these Russian cookies for a mere 89 cents per 6.3 oz./180 g. packet.

I was intrigued by the fact that the cookies looked absolutely identical, but supposedly were different flavors. Also, I wondered what "cream" flavor was supposed to taste like and if the "butter" flavor would actually taste more buttery. To test this out, I had my husband do a blind taste test to see if he could tell and he could. This was pretty impressive since he doesn't have as keen a sense of taste as I do.

There is a very distinct difference between these cookies, but they are both very good. The butter one has a very discernible butter flavor. In fact, I think it's a fake flavoring since "margarine" is listed as an ingredient, but butter is not. The "cream" version has a cleaner taste, but has a nice plain butter cookie flavor to it overall. Both are "good", but I preferred the cream one.

With all types of plain cookies like these, it's as much about the texture as the taste. These have a great flaky, slightly crumbly texture and they pair extremely well with coffee or tea. They're the type of cookie that is good to have around for guests or times when you just want a little crispy cookie around that's not too sweet.

I really liked these, but I do like butter cookies and fairly simple tasting things that aren't too sweet. Texture is paramount and what I mainly hope for in a cheap consumer-level cookie like this is that it not resemble a cracker. This is absolutely a proper cookie which has a European feel. Is it the end-all and be-all of cookies? It is not, but it's still a pretty nice cookie and I'd definitely buy it again, especially at the price they are currently available.

I checked online for sources of these cookies, and I couldn't find the exact ones online, but there's an interesting online place for Russian food that sells a variety of these as well as many other products.

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.

Hato Sable

When I visited Kamakura, home of the big Buddha, I saw loads of people walking around with shopping bags with the design on the front of the Hato Sable (pigeon/dove cookies). I didn't understand why they were so popular, and I wasn't planning on finding out at that time. I was in Kamakura, for Pete's sake! I was going to try something traditional food, not what looked like a Western-style butter cookie! Of course, my dedication to all things Japanese on a trip to the land of the giant Buddha would have seemed a bit less hypocritical if my husband and I hadn't gone to an authentic German restaurant by the sea ran by two authentic German people (the food was great, incidentally).

The web site for these cookies says that the hato sable was "born" in Kamakura, so I guess that is why they were sold in abundance there. However, you can get them at many outlets around Tokyo as well as order them online from the company's web site. A box of 10 large cookies is 1050 yen (about $13). When I say "large", I mean that these cookies wouldn't be out of place in an American bakery. They're jumbo by Japanese standards, but then I guess miniature pigeons wouldn't really do now, would they?

"Sable" means "sandy" and it is used in French to mean a cookie crispy, sugary, tender, and maybe even a little salty. These were introduced in the Meiji era in Japan when European culture was being welcomed with open arms by the Emperor. The ingredients list is very simple: flour, sugar, butter, eggs, and baking powder. There is nothing surprising in there, but the result is a perfectly crispy cookie with a rich buttery flavor and an amazing texture. They are neither too sweet nor too bland and have a very fine sense that separates them from commercially available butter cookies such as those that are sold in shelf stable packaging in markets.

I've been told that these cookies are extremely popular in Japan (especially as of the time I'm writing this). I'm not sure why after so many years of making them that they should be more popular now than ever. Maybe it's marketing and ramping up their distribution such that they are more readily available outside of Kamakura. Perhaps it's more complicated than that and people crave something simple yet high quality that carries a sense of richness in times of prolonged hard times. All I can say is that these are very well-made cookies that are not terribly expensive. If you see the distinctive bird design on the sunny yellow box, buy them and enjoy one with a cup of tea or coffee. Unless you're the type of person who needs heaping helpings of sugar in your sweets, there's every chance you're going to really appreciate these.

Kameda Oyatsu Cafe Butter Sweet Sembei

Note the design motif - they're supposed to be for tea time, hence the tea cup.

Butter flavored sweets may be becoming a bit of a fad. First, there were the buttered toast Country Ma'am cookies and now this sembei. Honestly, this has been around for a few months and it has taken me some time to get to writing a review. There are 17 crackers in the bag, and each is 8 cm x 3.5 cm. (3.15 in. x 1.4 in.), and it takes me a long time to eat a whole bag of this size. It only encourages me to procrastinate in doing the review.

These are available in most supermarkets in Japan as well as drug stores that carry food. I paid about 160 yen ($1.84) for them. Given the large quantity, this is pretty good value. It'll take awhile to get through such a big bag unless you're pigging out on a regular basis.

These don't smell like much other than a faint soy sauce flavor and the usual "baked rice" scent that comes along with sembei. They're light, crispy, and have a great texture. The flavor is hard to pin down because it's a mixture of elements that you wouldn't expect. Mainly, it's an oily, fake butter with light soy sauce flavoring and salt. They're also a little sweet. The ingredients reflect all of these flavors - mochi rice, vegetable oil, butter oil, soy sauce, sugar.

Though these sound strange, somehow all of these flavors come together and are tasty. I wouldn't say they're the best thing I've ever put in my mouth (it's not that kind of blog) and I can't even say that they are at the top of my sembei experience, but they're good. I'd pick up another bag some time.

Chiisana Butter Cookies

Butter is an amazing thing. It adds tenderness to baked goods, flavor to meat when it's cooked in it, and flakiness to pastry. It also transforms toast from dry bread to sublime treat. More butter has to be better than less, right?

These cookies boast 10.2% butter and claim to be handmade. The strange thing is that they look very much like they've been mass manufactured with a mass cookie press. They were amazingly cheap, 97 yen ($1.07) for a box of 16 tiny cookies (about the size of a quarter or 100 yen coin), at Seiyu supermarket. If someone handmade them, I pity them for the poor wages they must be getting.



The smell of these cookies strongly reminds me of shortbread made with butter. When I removed the first cookie from its packet, lots of crumbs came with it. You can easily eat it all in one bite, but I decided to try and savor all 27 calories of it with 2 nibbles. I love the portion size since it'd be nice to have two of these with a cup of afternoon tea, but I cringe at the wastefulness of the packaging. These cookies would be better packaged in a long plastic sleeve than in individual packets.

The flavor is somewhat buttery, but I strongly tasted margarine as well. I looked at the ingredients and these "butter" cookies have a second ingredient of "margarine". "Flour" is first and "butter" is third. There's also something to it which reminds me of cookies that have been baked on a cookie sheet that was used again and again and not washed between new batches. The texture is super crumbly, but not as fine as good shortbread cookies.

These cookies were okay, but the problem with this type of shortbread-style cookie is that the flavor profile is very shallow. They fail or succeed on the butter flavor since there are no other significant flavorings. Since there is more margarine than butter, these are very mediocre cookies. If you are desperate for a butter cookie and have no other options, these would probably do in a pinch, but I can't recommend them and wouldn't buy them again.

Garlic Butter Sembei

Thanks to the experimentation that this blog has encouraged me to do, I've changed from being indifferent to sembei to being quite the fan of it. In fact, I can safely say that it's something I'm going to miss when I eventually return to the U.S.

While this change of heart on the minor topic of sembei has been great for me, it's not been so good for my husband. He hates the smell of sembei and my occasional indulgence in a cracker or two puts him out. The solution, of course, is to not eat any sembei in front of him. That being said, I believe I have found a sembei that even a sembei hater might like.


I found this small (30 gram/1 oz.) bag for about 150 yen ($1.45) at FamilyMart. I've struck gold several times at FamilyMart while searching for sembei-based snacks in atypical flavors. A few of my favorites from there include the corn potage and wasabi sembei.

These rice crackers smell just like garlic bread and taste almost as good as the real deal. They don't even carry the telltale scent of baked rice cracker that you usually get with sembei. The flavor is a well-balanced blend of garlic with butter, salt and parsley. The crackers are about half the size of your average sembei, but they're light and the whole bag only has 145 calories.

I loved these and would recommend them over something like a potato chip any day. They're a limited edition from Kameida Seika which will be in shops for only about 4 months so you need to get out and sample them now while you have a chance. Even my husband, who dislikes sembei, liked these.