Lambertz Dominos Cakes

Yes, I forgot to take a picture before I opened the package....

There are people in my life, exclusively American actually, who are very rigid in their dietary habits. They not only will consume those foods which they are confident they will enjoy, but also stick as closely as possible to specific brands. This level of fussiness is pretty extreme, and is largely demonstrated by older people who I guess have decided to embody the notion of "set in their ways" that we often associate with the elderly.

At any rate, I endeavor to be the opposite of such people and to pick up something new and unknown for the chance of finding something that I may enjoy. This little packet of cakes is the fruit of such efforts. This is a German-made confection that I had never encountered before. I found it on sale at an import market which simply calls itself "Specialty Foods". I've been there before and bought Russian cookies there. It's a cornucopia of selections from Russia, the Ukraine, Italy, Germany, France, and England. I only paid $1.39 (about 140 yen) for this. From online resources, this is rather more expensive.

When I first sampled one of these little cakes, which I believe resembles a petit four, I had no idea what the individual components were made up of. The company's web site is of no help in figuring it out so I had to do some cake dissection to figure it out. By selectively consuming each layer, I figured out that the top layer is very soft marzipan. If my readers recall my fondness for almond paste, they can likely guess how happy that makes me.

The second layer appears to be raspberry jam or some sort of fruit jelly. It's soft and easy to bite into, but not runny so I'm guessing it is some sort of fruit paste that is between a gummy and a jam. The bottom layer appears to be a gingerbread-style cake base. It's a bit coarse and dry, but pairs well with the much moister and softer top two layers.

I liked this quite a bit. The combination of flavors was unique, but had a certain harmony. I especially felt that the chocolate paired well with the fruity jam. That being said, the marzipan layer, when eaten as part of the whole, seemed to vanish into the mix and the cake base seemed mainly to offer a stable platform and textural contrast to the pastes on top rather than bringing much flavor to the whole.

I think this was definitely worth what little I paid for it, and I do enjoy eating them. I think that it suffers a bit from being shelf stable, and it likely was not at its freshest. I do not regret buying it in the least and look forward to eating it little by little. I can't say that I'd buy it again, but it is certainly not outside of the realm of possibility. I'm giving it a "happy sumo", but it's a somewhat reserved one. It is enjoyable, but probably not a repeater.

Bourbon Puchi Cake Kurogoma Milk

One of my enduring disappointments since returning to the U.S. is that, though Asian markets often stock Bourbon products, but they never have the kinako wafers that were my favorite of their line in Japan. Most of the time, they sell pretty boring stuff like little langue du chat (cat's tongue) sugar cookies, tiny chocolate chip cookies, mini pretzels, or potato chips.

I never understand why they sell Japanese versions of the same type of things you can get in the American market rather than more unique and novel snacks. It's like they expect you to buy tinier chocolate chip cookies for a higher price just because they're Japanese. Yes, it is true that they aren't quite the same, but they're also not different enough to really light any fires.

Fortunately, occasionally, a more unique item will sneak through whatever trade barriers keep out more Japanese snacks and this cake sneaked through. I found this at Nijiya Japanese market for $1.49. It has 6 of the most "petit" bits of cake you could ever imagine. Each is about as big as the tip of your thumb. There are 6 tiny little pieces and each is 29 calories.

The part of this which holds the most potential is the "kurogoma" or "black sesame" component. The "milk" portion is just the cream center, which is pretty average stuff. It's fatty and adds a good textural component, but not much taste. Most of that comes from the sesame topping which mixes well with the mild flavor of the cake and cream. The cake is very moist, almost too moist and a little mushy. That could be because the cream leeches into the surrounding cake over time and this probably spent some time on a boat making its way to the New World.

I liked this. I can't say that I "loved" it. The sesame is a nice addition which adds some flavor depth and I like the cream, but ultimately, the cake itself, which makes up the lion's share of the snack, is below average. I have to say that they are superior to Lotte's "choco pie" snacks and similar knock-offs, as those are greasy and dry at the same time, but it's not great. I'm not unhappy that I bought it, but I wouldn't buy it again.

Random Picture #170

The rather unremarkable package of cakes shown here brought back many memories of Japan, and not only because it was made by a Japanese manufacturer and sold in a Japanese store. They're a typical pastry in Japan - a light fluffy cake filled with a light creamy filling, neither of which has much in the way of sweetness or strong taste. It was the saying on the package that brought along a sense of nostalgia.

There are two things that will always remind me of Japan even when I'm reading the words in English. One thing is being told to "enjoy" or "have a good time" with something in a way which is strangely lacking in pushiness. The other thing is when the word "type" is used unnecessarily, especially with the word "new". This is a translation issue, of course, and it's not a big deal or the worst English every. It is quaint and endearing to me when I read such things.

Starbucks Japan Wants to Fatten You Up

Images from Starbucks Japan.

Starbucks Japan would like you to get your tiramisu on in liquid form, because you get your calorie bombs far too slowly if you have to pause long enough to masticate them. Yesterday, Starbucks Japan started selling a very decadent looking coffee with little chunks of what appear to be bits of cake floating on top of a frappucino base. This is the sort of thing I wouldn't buy, but I'd probably go to the local Starbucks in Asagaya and buy a coffee and hope they'd give me a sample of this while I occupied their precious space and took advantage of their Wi-fi.

They also rolling out three types of cake based on various sugary coffee beverages. Each variety if chock full of sugary "chunks" and sauces:

• Caramel macchiato - cookie crumbles, caramel chocolate, white chocolate chunks and bitter caramel sauce
• Caffe mocha - white chocolate drizzle, black cocoa cookie crumble, ganache cream and chocolate chunks
• Latte - white chocolate topping and white chocolate "powder", white chocolate chunks, milk cream (like condensed milk in taste) and a cookie base

The slices of cake look great, but they all seem a bit overloaded with sweet things. That being said, I'd bet dollars to donuts that these are not insanely sweet, but they are fatty. I very rarely bought cake or sweets at Starbucks in Japan because there was always a plethora of fantastic bakeries around me. I'd buy a pastry at one of them and take it into Starbucks and the employees never seemed to care. Though these look pretty tempting, the baked goods sold at Starbucks were never appealing because they were sealed in plastic just like convenience store pastries and could never live up to the fresh stuff I could get nearby. I don't think these would change my habits, but the mixture of ingredients would be tempting. 

Awashimado Adzuki Tart

Sometimes it seemed to me that the Japanese randomly assigned English names to various things. On the front of this treat, the big characters say "tart" or "ta-ru-to". This is in no way a "tart". I know because I looked it up to be sure that I hadn't missed some sort of alternate definition of the word. Wikipedia will back me up on the fact that a tart requires a pastry base, which this does not have.

Of course, the Japanese absolutely do not need to conform to our limited Western definitions of our own words. For a country that often focuses on conformity, this reveals a bit of a rebellious streak. Kudos to them for finding a way that expresses their inner rebel while still not ruffling any feathers. When mom and dad don't see won't hurt them... unless there you're dumb enough to leave wrappers of any sort lying around the betray your illicit activities, but that really has nothing to do with red beans or tarts or even food. 

This confection is made by Awashimado, the company that makes Adzuki Bean Boy cakes, a product which I described as the Japanese equivalent of cookie dough. I probably put on an entire pound of Adzuki Bean Boy by the time I'd left Japan. After scarfing down too many of those hefty bean cakes, I wanted to sample some of the company's other products and this was one of them. 

The main benefit over this misnamed tart over the bean boy is that it is only 170 calories (whereas it's brother was a whopping 260). I certainly didn't expect as much buttery richness from this, and I didn't get it. What I did get though was a very, very sweet, thick and satisfying smooth yet hefty filling of red bean paste wrapped in a moist bit of sponge cake. The cake is similar to castella, but slightly softer and, frankly, a much better textural compliment to the filling. 

This was a wonderful variation on a Swiss cake roll and I would absolutely have it again and again, if I could find access to it. I purchased this for 98 yen ($1.24) in a Tokyo supermarket, Inageya. I'm hoping to locate some of Awashimado's line in California after I have a chance to explore the various Japan towns in San Francisco and San Jose. If you find this (or the Adzuki Bean Boy), I'd recommend picking one up and giving it a try, but do it on the spot so you don't regret buying a big stash if you end up loving them a much as I do.

(If you'd like to download some wallpapers with the cute, simple mascots that Awashimado uses to promote its foods, you can find them here.)

Lotte Custard Cake and Choco Pie

The unusual source of these snacks. This is after my husband toppled two of them into the prize bin.

One of the great things about my husband starting to play claw games for the fun and challenge is that it encourages me to sample snacks for reasons other than they happen to be on store shelves. Last week, we were out for a late night stroll and stopped by the local game center. They had a display of Lotte cakes in one of the machines and he put in a few 100-yen coins and managed to topple two boxes of cakes into the prize bin. Yay! Double review fun!

When he started playing the game, I was mainly interested in the custard cake because I've had the Choco Pies plenty before. In fact, I'm sure they contributed to weight gain in my early years in Japan. The truth is that I hadn't had this version of a Choco Pie (there are so many versions of "choco pie" in Japan) for a very, very long time. It's the most visible and probably the most popular, and it's not really a pie at all except in the same fashion as a "moon pie" is a pie.

Both of these are about 6.5 cm. (2.5 in.) in diameter and about 2 cm. (.8 in.) tall. They're smallish cakes, but enough to satisfy as a snack. The custard cakes are slightly lighter, weight in at 27 grams (about 1 oz.) and only 122 calories. Choco Pies are 32 grams and 163 calories. The feel much heftier with their denser cream filling and generous layer of chocolate coating. The extra calories come from a higher fat content as shortening is the second ingredient for the Choco Pie (third for the Custard Cake, which boasts more sugar).

I sampled the Custard Cake first and the first bite carried a lot of the feel and taste of a cake preserved for long-term storage. If you've had a Twinkie or other packaged cake, you know that there is a particular flavor that sometimes comes along with such things. It's not offensive, but it's not natural and troubles some people. It doesn't really bother me, but those who are sensitive to such things may find these unpalatable for that reason alone.

The cake itself is, like many shelf stable Japanese cables, a bit dense and a little oily. The flavor is lightly sweet with vanilla, orange, and whipped cream flavors. The finish is very similar to that golden sponge cake which is the symbol for all that is nutritionally wrong in the world of packaged foods... the Twinkie, though it is not nearly as sugary and has a lot less filling than it's American cousin. The box touts the "fluffiness" of the filling, but a lot of it seems to be absorbed into the moist little cake. And keep in mind that this is "moist" from fat, not freshness. It's a very distinct difference. That being said, I liked this, but I'm judging it by a very particular standard. If you compare this to a real cake or even a fresh packaged pastry (like a Lawson Swiss cake roll), it falls short. If you compare it to something which you can put in the cupboard or your desk drawer and forget about for weeks or even months and indulge in in moments when you want a bite of cake, this is actually quite good.

The Choco Pie is similarly being held to the same standard and also comes out on top. The cake is denser and the filling thick enough to provide fatty pleasantness on the tongue. There are distinct layers of taste for each component of the pie. The chocolate of the coating, the vanilla of the creamy filling and the floury cakey portion. This places it above and beyond the knock-off choco pie that I reviewed awhile back. While that had a pleasant graham cracker thing, it didn't have as much strong flavor as this nor as good a depth of flavor. This is absolutely a superior product compared to that one, but these tend to cost a bit more as well. Though I got these two boxes for 200 yen ($2.60) due to my husband's gaming skills, the retail price is generally between 250-300 yen ($3.25-$3.90) per box according to Rakuten and Amazon Japan (which sell them in 5 box lots). I've seen them in shops for 270 yen or so. The cheapie knock-off version is a mere 100 yen ($1.30), but I'd say these are worth the increased price.

If you're a fan of packaged long shelf-life cakes to toss into a lunch box, put in your backpack for a hike, or keep around for the occasional sugar-high, I think these are very good options. If you're fussy about your cakes and would rather have nothing if you can't have fresh, high quality cake, then these aren't likely to light your fire. For those who were fans of Hostess snack cakes back home, this is probably the closest you're going to come to a similar product in Japan. I liked these, and if the mood struck me, I'd have them again. For what they are (junk food), they're pretty good.

Bourbon Marron Blanche

The temperatures may still be hitting the high 90's on a daily basis,  but as far as Japan is concerned, autumn has arrived. You can tell this by the fact that fashion victims are already donning their fur-lined Ugg boots and wearing sweaters and jackets designed to keep bones from catching a chill (as opposed to the thin ones worn to protect delicate pale skin from evil tanning rays). I know because the sweets varieties are starting to change. The rows of "ice lemon" are being replaced by sweet potato and chestnut.  Apparently, we need to focus on roasting tubers and nuts despite the fact that every day is a slog through an overheated bog.

All of that whining about the weather aside, with the equinox coming up (Sept. 23), the weather may actually be turning from "cook on high" to "slow simmer" soon. And, of course, I'm very happy to have the fall line of treats on the shelves. I'd probably trade them all for about a month less of sweltering heat, but that's not an offer that has been made to me so I'll settle for trying this marron (chestnut) cake.

I found this at Inageya supermarket for 198 yen ($2.59) for 6 tiny little cakes.  Each is only about 5 cm x 4 cm (about 2" x 1.5") and packs a pretty decent calorie punch for that size at 103 calories per cake. The cakes are a multi-layered affair with a "fluffy" yellow cake base with a "fluffy" chocolate cake on top of it. The chocolate layer has bits of chestnut and another layer of yellow cake with a drizzle of chestnut "chocolate".

The construction is sophisticated and one would hope would add a depth of flavor from the various layers. Unfortunately, it doesn't really work particularly well in this regard. Rather than each component bringing in different flavors on the tongue, it all seems to come together as a melange of mild chestnut flavor (from the coating on top), weak chocolate, and general sweetness. The chestnut pieces are too tiny and scarce to really get much play on the taste buds and enhance the flavor and the yellow cake seems to be pretty much flavorless. There are some interesting textural inter-plays with the soft cake, chestnut pieces, and slightly crispy drizzle on top, but this is undermined by the fact that the cake is clearly prepared for a long shelf life and has that moist but dry feeling that such cakes often have.

This isn't a bad bit of cake at all, but it's just not particularly great either. If I could have bought a small pack with two or three of these, I wouldn't have regretted it, but I'm not sure that 6 of them isn't more than I require given the relatively low quality of the taste experience. I wish the cake were actually "fluffy" or had more flavor, that there was a creamy filling of some sort, that it was a bit less sweet, or the chestnut flavor were just more robust. I'll finish this box, but it's going to take awhile and it's going to be more about a texture craving (for cake) than about being over the moon about the flavor.

Yamazaki Lemonack

I've mentioned before that I took on a part-time job because of post-quake income loss. This has had many benefits for me and a few drawbacks. The main drawback is that blogging time has been dramatically slashed and I now struggle to keep up (and may yet have to reduce posting frequency, but I'm hoping not to). The benefits, beyond more cash, are that I'm meeting a whole new crop of people and learning ever more about Japan and the Japanese people and that I have regular access to areas I wouldn't normally go to. To that end, there's a convenience store (konbini) chain that is not in my area but is at one of my new workplaces. It's called "Daily Yamazaki". Note that going to a shop is infinitely better than hanging around one of my new workplaces since it is located in a huge old building in a very seedy area that houses a giant pachinko parlor, a karaoke bar, and several other establishments catering to less than elegant appetites. However, the job itself is great and the workplace very nice except for the air conditioning settings which are designed for reptilian metabolisms.

One might think that a "konbini" is a konbini is a konbini, but that is not so. The Daily Yamazaki chain is ran by the same people who make Yamazaki Pan products. That means they get to gobble up more shelf space in their own convenience stores. These are things which I'm not likely to find anywhere else and that's how I ran across this "Lemonack". I was killing time before work (as I'm compulsive and always arrive early) and checking out their stock. I picked this up purely based on name and the fact that it was made with lemon as I didn't have copious amounts of time and didn't investigate the ingredients list. The front of the package is utterly devoid of clues as to what is inside, but at a mere 68 yen (85 cents) for something about half the size of my palm, I wasn't really making a big investment anyway.

It turned out that this is a little lemon cake with lemon coating. This must be a seasonal thing right now because local bakeries have been offering very similar things as of late and this is not too dissimilar  from the Fujipan lemon cake that I reviewed previously. Well, it is a lot smaller, less sweet and less moist, but the general shape and concept are the same. The cake is slightly dry, which isn't surprising considering it has to sit around for about a week in the store. Most of the flavor is coming from the sweet lemony coating, as is a very nice aroma. While the yellow cake doesn't add much taste, it also doesn't really detract.

This is a hard one to rate because I definitely enjoyed eating it, but couldn't help but think that I'd only buy it again under specific circumstances. I'd have to have coffee or tea to have with it to offset the dryness, desire a baked good, and want a small portion to ensure that I wouldn't eat too much. Since I'm generally pretty good at limiting portions without external enforcement, the latter isn't a strong issue for me, but may be for others. I'd also probably have to be looking for something economical rather than a more expensive bakery option because there are bakeries in the vicinity as well. That being said, I think this warrants a favorable rating overall, but I wouldn't be jonesing for another... though I'd buy a whole case if Yamazaki Pan would explain the naming and why this is called a "nack".

Just a gentle reminder that there is a contest running for two weeks to win a few snack and snack-related goodies. If you'd like to enter, the details are in this post.

Fujipan Lemon Cake

 "Born from an exhausting research of fine tastes. We provide a first-class taste brought directly from the earth." This is what Fujipan has written in elegant script on the front of the package of the lemon cake I'm about to review. I think that means these are baked by Morlocks, or the mole people. Either way, I'm inspecting it carefully before I take a bite to make sure there aren't any Eloi baked inside.

I found this cake in Seiyu supermarket's giant ass pile of baked goods. It looks like a yard sale of consumer-grade pastries after it has been liberally picked over and fondled by retirees and housewives who would rather fondle the baked goods than attend to their irate children. It was next to a lemon melon pan, and this won the contest for which one I'd buy because I knew my husband would split this large cake (about the size of two Hostess cupcakes) with me but not the melon pan. It cost a mere 100 yen ($1.21).

The cake has a lemon glaze on the outside and is split open ostensibly to pipe lemon cream into the center. While the glaze covers all of the top, the lemon cream is extremely sparse. In fact, there was probably a smidge (that's a technical term equivalent to about half a teaspoon) in my half. This is unfortunate because the cream is delicious with a strong zesty lemon flavor and a creamy richness. The rest of the cake is mainly skating by on two things, the texture and glaze.The cake iss moist, tender and slightly dense. The glaze is very lightly sweet and only cares a hint of lemon.

At about 340 calories, the whole cake is a bit of a calorie bomb, but if you can manage to muster up the self-control to only eat half, it makes a very nice treat for tea time or dessert. The texture is exceptional for a packaged cake and, while I could have done with more lemon in the glaze and definitely more of the lemon cream filling, I'm satisfied with the taste and sweetness level as well. I could definitely see buying this again.

Oreo Soft Cookie

Note that the bag was open before I took the picture. I couldn't wait to try them until I had a camera.

I blame the purchase of this mundane review fodder and the expansion of any fat cells firmly on Marvo at The Impulsive Buy. I've gone a very long time ignoring this offering from Nabisco because I figured any Oreo product which was not an original cookie was bound to be sub-par. I've tried a few things here that have been offered as members of the extended Oreo family, but I have not been impressed with the original product's offspring. Marvo mentioned that Oreo Cakesters, which I'd hoped these would resemble, were like Hostess Ding Dongs or cupcakes and I wanted that blast from the past.

The cookies are tiny at 4 cm (1.6 in.) in diameter and you get 8 of them per bag. I paid 168 yen for them at the discount snack shop Okashi no Machioka. Even with the discount, that's pretty expensive for a small number of tiny cookies. Each cookie is about 80 calories, despite being such a tiny morsel.

The soft, dense cookie exterior has a slight bit of the bitter chocolate essence of an original Oreo cookie, but it's more muted. It's lightly sweet and the filling is mostly about texture. It adds a creamy, fatty contrast to the soft, yet slightly dry cookie exterior. Frankly, the outside of the cookie is like a dry Oreo-flavored brownie. This is not a bad thing, but it would be the sort of brownie that is created to have a long shelf life with all that tends to mean - a slight chemical aftertaste, dryness, and moistness that comes mainly from transfats.

I liked these, despite how the aforementioned paragraph may come across. I've read that Japanese Oreos are less sweet than American ones and I'll have to take everyone's word for it because I never ate Oreos in the U.S. and can only recall how they taste here. This truly is a soft cookie version of an Oreo with a slightly less bitter cookie and slightly less dense and sweet filling. It's good for what it is, and not a bad snack to have on hand for a specific kind of craving. They're no Ding Dong or Hostess cupcake, but they're still pretty good.

Yunotamago Cakes

What does it take in Japan for a sweet to be labeled with "tamago" (egg)? Well, apparently it just means that it has a white shell and a yellow center. I guess that actually makes it resemble a real egg more than the likes of a Cadbury Creme Egg since those poisonously delicious sugar delivery systems are brown on the outside. Suffice it to say, these cakes have zero in common with those infamous confections. That's actually a good thing.

These cakes are a souvenir that I picked up while looking at cherry blossoms in Ueno about a week or so ago. They were on sale at a famous snack shop in the shopping area of Ameyokocho. Because the shop sells a fair amount of discounted food, I got this box of 12 cakes about the diameter of a half dollar coin (4 cm/1.6 in.) for 580 yen (about $7).  In a regular souvenir shop or via online outlets, they cost 700 yen ($8.44). when you buy these sorts of things in Japan, there is always a sample box with plastic versions that show a cutaway of the interior of the cakes. This is so you get a better idea of what you're buying considering the "gift wrapping" on the outside of the boxes.

Just as a note about the maker, Izumi Bussan, it's a Tokyo-based company which has no web profile. I can find maps to their office, but I can't find a link to anything else referring to them. Their main business is producing souvenirs like this. I sometimes wonder how many small companies do nothing more than make boxed treats that are sold in stations and snack shops for people to buy and parcel out at the office or at home.

A lot of these types of souvenirs fall into several rough categories. One is mochi (pounded rice cake) wrapped around a filling of beans, custard, or some other soft sweet center. Another is a thin somewhat bready shell around a more solid center (chestnuts, sweet potato). And yet another, which this sweet falls into the category of, is a steamed cake with a soft filling. Steam cakes in Japan are often a very rich and fatty affair made with lots of eggs or margarine. It's the eggs, especially the use of the yolks, that makes them so good. I haven't met a steam cake here that I didn't like, though I have met many that I didn't absolutely love.

The cakes smell of margarine and general baked sweetness. The texture is very soft and the flavor richly eggy and quite sweet. The custard in the center is quite thick, and you get the feeling that this is either because they are designed to last awhile or that some of the moisture of the center is absorbed into the surrounding cake. Through time, I wonder if it'd turn into a pudding rock in the center. Fortunately, these are good enough that I'm not inclined to leave them sitting around long enough to find out.

My husband didn't care for these because they had a particular flavor that he didn't care for. Whatever it was, it didn't bother me, but I'm pretty sure that I could detect what he was referring to. One of the ingredients is sweetened lotus milk, and I wonder if that is the strange thing he dislikes.

I liked these quite fine. They're not the greatest souvenir I've ever had, but they were tasty and sweet with a lovely texture. I really did like the flavor and I'd certainly consider buying them again if they were on sale. They wouldn't be the kind of thing I'd revisit immediately or often, but I'd welcome them a few times a year.

Shin Iwaki Kawasaki "Tofu" Cake

Sometimes the name of a product is meant to convey something about the ingredients, and sometimes it's a play on another type of food. That is, it is meant to resemble that food, but doesn't actually use it as a material. I've made some tofu-based sweets before including a fake cheesecake, and they turned out pretty terrible. I like tofu as a savory component, but I have never taken to it in sweets. I'm pleased to say that these cakes are pure cake. They are just served in a similar style of little plastic container as tofu is sold in. The resemblance to tofu, oh so very fortunately, stops there.

I didn't purchase these cakes. They were a souvenir given to my husband by one of his students who is aware of my blog and kindly gave him one of each type so that I could sample them. The student was in Kawasaki, where this is sold by a shop in Kawasaki station that has been doing business since 1923. The web site says that these are freshly baked every morning, but they are packaged to keep for awhile. They are sealed pretty well and have moisture absorbing packets in them. If you have a chance to pick them up (the shop information is here), they will keep until you can get them home and share them with family and friends.

The cakes are very moist and soft and feel very rich in texture. The filling for each is a thin layer of bean jam. The jam is flavored differently according the cake type so as to compliment it. The first ingredient is eggs, followed by flour. I think the dense, moist texture comes from the heavy use of eggs as well as the moist filling.

There are three flavors available:

Green Tea:

The first bite yields a strong green tea bitterness that mixes well with the lightly sweetened cake and filling. I'm not a green tea fanatic, in fact, it's just "okay" by me, but I really enjoyed this.

Strawberry:

The strawberry flavor of the cake itself is quite subdued, but the bean jam filling is a bit more intense and actually quite realistic. I don't know if it uses real berries, but this in no way is fake or overbearing. Though strawberry isn't my favorite, I still enjoyed the subtle sweetness and delicate flavors of this. 

Sesame:

This was the one that I was most looking forward to sampling and I was not disappointed. The filling in the center tasted like "sesame butter" rather than bean jam. The sense of it being like peanut butter strongly flavored with sesame was rather strong. The flavor was intense, quite sweet and delicious. 

I loved these, though sesame was my clear favorite. If I find myself in Kawasaki, I would definitely pick some up for myself. As souvenir cakes go, they are a great option for foreigners while still retaining their essential nature as a Japanese sweet. If you're searching for something which isn't too overbearing in the sweetness department and is very moist, these will definitely please you.

Les Ricesses Sweet Strawberry Roll Cake

Since I haven't lived in the U.S. for quite some time now, I wonder how many domestic creations are offered under French brand names as compared to Japan. Not only are many sweets and baked items offered under French names, but it's also incorporated into a lot of apartment building and business names. Does this lend an air of sophistication? Is it conjuring up the odors of fine cheese and wine? I guess back home after the whole "freedom fries" debacle, it's not likely that American businesses are thinking using French words is going to

The truth is that I have never studied a bit of French (I studied Spanish) and only know that "les" is "the". I checked a translator and it appears that "ricesses" isn't a French word, so I don't know what the deal is supposed to be with the brand name of these cakes. Is anyone out there has an idea, let me know. If it's something vaguely pornographic, well, perhaps that'll add some spice to things.

My husband and I encountered this line of individually wrapped cakes at Seiyu supermarket. There are three flavor options, each quite conventional: strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla. He wanted to try strawberry, so that's what we paid our 268 yen ($3.27) for. The bag has ten little cake nuggets at 77 calories each. For dainty sorts, it's about 3 bites. For more robust eaters, I'm thinking 2 tops. For Japanese people, who based on my T.V. watching experiences seem to want to cram as much into their mouths as possible, I'm guessing this is just one bite.

The cake is extremely soft and fluffy which is good because if it was firmer it'd probably squirt out the filling onto your computer screen from the pressure your teeth places on it to bite through. The filling is fatty, sweet, and decently flavored with only marginally fake strawberry filling. One thing I really do like about cakes in Japan is that the whipped fillings are generally more "real" than those in the U.S. They always feel decadent on the tongue. The only thing which my husband didn't care for about these was that they have an aftertaste or chemical which he associates with Japanese snack cakes. I'm guessing this is a preservative of some sort, and, while it annoyed him, it didn't bother me.

I liked these, a lot, but there are economics to be considered when reaching a conclusion about a repeat buy. These 10 tiny servings cost a lot more than a single roll of a Lawson's Value Line roll cake and those cakes are easy to find, and offer as much and possibly more total cake quantity. The flavors are also generally more interesting and varied since Lawson's issues seasonal flavors like chestnut and green tea. The main benefit of these Les Ricesses cakes (besides the fancy name) is that they are preserved and packed such that you can keep them around for several weeks without their going stale. Since the Lawson's is one big roll, you have to finish it up in about 3 days before serious staleness sets in.

If you are the type who likes to keep a little nibble of cake about the house for times when your sweet tooth is aching, this is a tasty choice, but if you just want a Swiss cake roll treat for a day or two, the Lawson's is a much cheaper and less wasteful option.

Pporo Chocola

If you shop in Japan for a long time, you start to see the same foods in the same places over and over again and this Pporo Chocolate is one of those. I've run across it in many department store basement shops. It's the sort of thing I recognize, but have never had the inclination to buy. The array of foods that fall into this particular category for me personally is incredibly vast. It's not that there is anything wrong with such foods, but just that they tend to be on the pricey side and look like they're not all that good.

This confection fell into my hands via the generosity of one of my husband's students. I found out the price online and it is 350 yen for a 5-slice package. Each piece is about 6 cm x 2 cm (2.3" x .8") and relatively dense. When my student gave this to my husband, she said that she had heard that it was very good, and my searches online revealed that it is pretty popular among many Japanese folks. One of the promotional points is that it contains ingredients originating from Hokkaido. Hokkaido is in northern Japan and well known for being too damn cold for most Tokyo-ites to bear, but also for its agricultural products including its butter and dairy.

You can see that the interior looks moist like a fudge brownie from the pictures, but actually it's oddly both dry and moist simultaneously. The chocolate flavor is neither deep nor weak and the texture is crumbly but dense. It's like a brownie that has been somewhat vacuum desiccated. That is not a bad thing, mind you. I think that the lack of moistness is related to the reduced sugar content. This is not an incredibly sweet cake, and I rather liked that. My husband, however, was not a fan. For him, it wasn't "potent" enough either in terms of the sweetness or chocolate intensity. I rather liked the texture, especially with a hot cup of tea or coffee.

I ate 4 of the 5 pieces of this (not all at once, mind you, I'm not a hog) and I enjoyed them, but I'm not sure I'd personally purchase it. I would certainly welcome it as a gift should we receive it again, however. For me, the bar on non-cookie-baked-good-based snacks (say that five times rapidly) is higher than on other things. This is because I am capable of making very impressive brownies, cakes, and muffins on my own and I have better control over the ingredients and outcome. The main "problem", small as it is with this particular product, is that the preservation technique impacts the texture. One of the reasons this is a bit dry (yet still fatty) is that that means it can stay edible in its foil packaging for a longer period of time.

I'm giving this a happy rating because I think it's good, but I'm offering that rating with a caveat to readers. Don't expect this to be a fudge brownie or a fresh bar cookie experience. If you like not particularly sweet and somewhat dry brownie-type confectionery, this will suit you. Otherwise, you may be disappointed. For 350 yen though, and given the state of baked goods in Japan, this isn't a bad option if you're jonesing for this type of thing and don't have your own oven.

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Before I started paying attention to food labels, and indeed before most foods in Japan had full nutritional data, I used to think that the relative sweetness or composition of a food related to caloric values. That is, if it wasn't very sweet, didn't have frosting or a fatty filling, I figured that it couldn't carry much of a punch on the calorie front. Back in those naive days, the cake you see pictured above was one of my favorite treats. It's a mildly sweet, moist, vanilla cake which is about the size of your palm.

Fast forward to the present and my rather greatly enhanced knowledge of all things food and more comprehensive food labeling. I discovered that my favorite unassuming steam cake is about 470 calories. That's as much as I consume for entire meals. People think Japanese folks don't get fat because their sweets aren't as sweet, but that really does not relate to how fattening the snacks are. Take that from someone who has been paying close attention for the last several years - your hips are not safe merely because the food isn't as sweet.

Bourbon Petit Marron Tart

I'd like to imagine what the first meeting must have been like in Bourbon's product creation department when someone suggested created their line of "petit" cakes.

Lackey 1: "Gee, Kenji," the boss wants us to come up with a new line of products and I have no idea what to do."
Lackey 2: (sucking air noisily through his teeth in sympathy for the quandary they are in) "The safest thing to do is take an existing product and make it either bigger or smaller."
Lackey 1: "Let's toss a coin. Numbers it's small and flowers it's big." Small it is!"
Boss: "What is your idea?"
Lackeys 1 and 2: "We'll sell cake in pieces so small that even a hungry dormouse would be left wanting more!"
Boss: (sucking air noisily through his teeth in order to avoid expressing disappointment in the extreme lack of creativity being displayed, but also having nothing better to offer) "OK".

Let's face it, as marketing ideas go, selling things in itty bitty sizes is hardly a marketing revolution. I'm not sure that the notion of cutting cake up into teeny tiny little triangles and selling 8 of them for 100 yen (about $1.20) would have gone over in any country other than Japan. Sure, you can get away with tiny cookies or crackers, but cake that is the size of the tip of your thumb seems like an unnecessary choice. Still, there have been many iterations on these cakes released by Bourbon, so they must know what their market likes. And the market appears to like Lilliputian portions.

Each little bite of cake is soft and feels moist in your mouth, but also carries a sense of dryness due to the way in which it is preserved. The flavor is of very nice, somewhat sweet pound cake with a little bit of chestnut flavoring. The bottom of the "tart" is just as soft as the top, but adds a little burst of chocolate to the experience. The chestnut fragments, in addition to adding flavor, add a slightly crispy and chewy texture.

Each 5-gram piece is only 23 calories, so if you can stop yourself at one or two, this is great portion control. Personally, I can eat just one or two, but I would be just as happy to have had one whole cake of the size of all 8 pieces that I could cut up myself. The packaging with little separate tray compartments is a bit of a waste and it's hard to slide it back into the bag after you take one or two out. Regardless,  I really loved the flavor and texture of these cakes. If you like pound cake, I strongly suggest giving these a try.

Lotte Kagoshima Sweet Potato Cake

While stumbling around Okashi no Machioka snack shop, I noticed that there seems to be a new line of snacks featuring a graphic of a stern-looking Japanese gentleman in old-style garb. The man who is represented is Ryoma Sakamoto, a political revolutionary in the mid to late 1800's. Is it me, or is that sort of a weird thing to put on a box of cakes?  This particular line of Lotte snacks represent areas of Kagoshima prefecture associated with Mr. Sakamoto and were released on June 22.

There are 6 snacks in this campaign, and I'll be reviewing at least two of them. Besides these sweet potato cakes, I also bought a box of yuzu (Japanese citrus fruit) cookies, but there are also purple potato Crunky chocolates, Toppo castella-flavored pretzel sticks (like an inverted Pocky), and some yuzu gum which I haven't located yet. In fact, I seriously considered doing a Ryoma Sakamoto snacks theme week, but most of these items are multi-packs and I could't finish them off for weeks if I bought that many of them. And frankly, doing a week of snacks themed around a guy who was assassinated at 33 and whose Smith and Wesson revolver is picture on his Wikipedia page is just too damn weird.

There are 6 cakes in the box and I paid 198 yen ($2.19). That price will probably go down as the product line rapidly ages. The back of the box shows a statue of a proud and tall Sakamoto with what looks to be a tiny Japanese woman slightly behind and off to his left looking on in admiration. I'm guessing this statue is in the area where the sweet potatoes used in this confection are from. Frankly, it looks a bit sexist in design to me as it brings to mind the idea of women walking 7 paces behind men in old feudal Japan.

When I unwrapped the foil packet and gave these a sniff, they smelled excellent. There was a definite good whiff of Japanese sweet potato. The first bite revealed what seemed to be brown sugar and buttery notes as well as sweet potato, though I will note that these use margarine (not butter). The second bite, however, actually wasn't quite as good as a strange flavor seemed to be revealed. The flavor seemed similar to coconut, but wasn't really quite the same. By the third and fourth bites, this flavor dominated and I couldn't detect the sweet potato much. I wonder if that weird flavor was a result of the use of "natural cheese" (probably Gouda if I know Japanese snack makers, and I do). Note that these are colored with anatto in order to bring them closer to a potato color. There is no real sweet potato in them, but rather a powder. Oddly, they also have cocoa powder in them.

These were fine, but not quite what I expected. Certainly as a generic sweet they're fine, if a bit oddly seasoned. The texture is moist and they're a bit fatty. Each small (16.5 gram/.6 oz.) cake is 77 calories, which isn't bad even for a morsel like this. I just wish the sweet potato flavor weren't diluted by so many other tastes. I will slowly eat the remainder of the box when I am in the mood for cake, but I'm quite certain I wouldn't buy these again.

Bourbon Petit Cake Choco Chip

I think there needs to be a diet blog which comes up with a formula for whether or not a food is worthwhile based on a "pleasure per calorie" index. For instance, something which isn't that good, but costs almost no calories could get a high rating and something which is very good for a lot of calories might get an equally good rating. The idea would be to rate how likely something is to make you fat for the pleasure you extract from eating it. Pickles are a "10" on such a scale, as they are almost zero calories to eat even though they aren't the most incredible thing since the invention of the Cheez-it.

When I consider how I regard various snacks, I factor such thinking into my reviews because, well, I'm female, and I have to worry about calories and such. For things that are chocolate, I use a Hershey's Kiss as the starting point of comparison. It's not fabulous, but it's good, and you can extract a certain amount of pleasure from eating just one or two (if you have the patience to let it melt in your mouth or eat slowly). Since each Kiss is 25 calories, you can gauge the pleasure per calorie ("PPC") pretty easily. If a Kiss is the point of comparison, it'd be a "5" on a 10-point scale. These Bourbon Petit Cakes, which are about the volume of 2 Kisses and also only 25 calories each, are a "10" on the PPC scale.

That is not to say that these are the most spectacular cakes in the known universe, but they are quite good. They smell good and chocolatey and have a nice textural balance between the somewhat moist, dense cake and tiny chocolate chips. Frankly, I was shocked at how good these were because I have come to expect two things from Bourbon cakes and Japanese packaged cakes in particular. First of all, I expected these to be bone dry, but they were like a cake brownie, well, maybe a day-old cake brownie. Second, I expected them to have some sort of strange flavor as a result of preservatives as I've had that experience with Bourbon's cakes before. These simply tasted like nice little semi-bittersweet brownie bites. The depth of flavor was particularly impressive and the sweetness balance was pretty much perfect.

Actual cake is quite a bit smaller than this picture. Let's just say only your Barbie doll (I know you boys out there are playing with them) would be the only one who would find this to be a generous portion, and even then she could eat it all and keep her genderless girlish plastic figure.

I picked this package of 8 little 5.5 gram (.2 oz.) cake wedges up at Lawson's 100 (a convenience store) near my home for 100 yen ($1.08) because I had a cake craving and didn't want to succumb to the allure of the 350-500 calorie carbohydrate bombs of cakes that are so common in the baked goods sections of conbini in Japan. It's not a lot of cake for the price, but a few pieces are enough to satisfy a craving for cake or chocolate. This makes a perfect tiny dessert with a cup of coffee or tea after dinner. Just make sure you savor the chocolate flavor while you have the small morsel in your mouth.