Morinaga Zoom

Product marketing and positioning is something which I often take note of when searching for snacks. This offering by Morinaga appears to be one of those snack releases which is screaming "volume" at you, though the truth is that it's not so heavy as just "large". The box is 18.25 cm x 8.5 cm (7.2 in. x 3.3 in.) and the vivid yellow with bold logo is very eye-catching. This is part of what drew me to it while perusing the offerings at local convenience stores. This is available at many shops, but I bought it at Sunkus for 105 yen ($1.30).

I imagine products like this are targeted toward young people, and men in particular. It's not so much the size, though that is a part of it. I think that snacks directed at women tend to have each piece individually wrapped so they can eat a small portion and leave the rest without fear of them going stale. Since this is six pieces in a tray, I think it's for bigger appetites (or for sharing). Each piece is only 30 calories which makes for decent portion control.

Though this is somewhat unusual for Japan, it's actually a variation on a crunch bar with less chocolate and more cookie and rice puff than candy. The small twist on this compared to similar bars is that this is made with bits of langue du chat cookies rather than something more pedestrian. Honestly though, I don't think that anyone could tell the difference with the small size of the pieces. They're tiny, about the size of a small bead, and I couldn't much tell the difference between the puffs and cookie pieces.

I consumed this at room temperature, and while it didn't melt in my hand, the chocolate was rather soft and I felt that the texture would have been better if I'd had it cold (I refrigerated the remainder and will try it again). The taste was mild and enjoyable though. The chocolate is closer to a malty milk chocolate, though not as "malty" as something like Crunky. There's just enough "bite" in it to keep the chocolate present along with the flavor of the crunchy cookie and puffs. It's not strong, but still pleasant. 

I rather liked this and would be happy to keep a box of it in the refrigerator at home or at work to satisfy a particular craving now and then. It's not going to be a favorite, but I hope it isn't a flash in the pan and stays on the market for an occasional purchase. It's lighter than a chocolate bar, and sometimes that's the sort of sweet I want.

Shoei Delicy Crunch Chocolate

One of my earliest memories of shopping for snacks in Japan is of this particular chocolate bar. It used to be sold at a convenience store nearby that was called "L & W". Those initials stand for "Liquor & Wine". The store was about a two-minute walk (tops) from our apartment and in addition to booze, they sold various snack foods.

They were one of the few shops two decades ago that was open past 7:00 pm and we were on a "English school (eikaiwa) teacher's schedule" at the time. That means we started work at 1:00 pm and finished around 9:00 or 10:00 pm. While the markets were long-closed by the time we got home, the liquor shop was usually open and a popular place to browse for our early experiences with Japanese food. They converted to a "Sankus" ("Thanks") convenience store after about a decade. Eventually, the elderly owners went out of business entirely as the glut of convenience stores in our area pushed them out. It was rather sad because they were in business for about 15 years of our time here and we frequently went to the shop. It's funny the things one little candy bar can make you remember.

When we first purchased this bar, for what I'm guessing was about 30 yen (33 cents) as that is about what it costs now, we couldn't read Japanese and it was a surprise to learn that it was a small chocolate crunch bar. It's pretty small at 9 cm x 5 cm (3.5 in. x 2 in.) and kitschy with its Japanese money motif. I don't recall if we bought it often, but I do know we bought it at least several times because it was so approachable among Japanese snack foods. We bought this bar at Seiyu supermarket, but you can probably find it in any store with a fairly large kid's sweets section.



This candy is small and cheap with a little card in it that is a fake 1000 yen bill that is a good miniature representation of a real bill, except for the fact that the fake bill says "kid's bank" on the back of it. So, it's pretty obviously designed for children. That means that one can't expect much from the quality of the candy. A lot of kid's candy is too sweet and poorly made.

When you open the package, the chocolate smells like sweet chocolate, and has a surprisingly appealing scent. The texture is a little soft, but firmer than many Japanese chocolates. I noticed that cocoa butter is not on the ingredients list for the chocolate. It has "cocoa powder" and "cocoa mass". My guess is that it is, perhaps, not as fatty as some other brands, and the flavor is definitely not as intense as some other Japanese chocolates. The crunchies are quite good, but not terribly crisp, and there could be a few more of them.

It's actually quite a decent candy and pleasantly mild. It's a better quality, less sweet candy for kids than the usual kid's sweets, though it's certainly not on par with the big ticket company's (Meiji, Lotte, Morinaga) consumer chocolates that are designed with a broader market in mind. For a cheap candy though, this is not a bad crunch bar at all, and makes for a nice Japan-specific souvenir to parcel out to more timid sorts back home. I'd certainly buy this again if I was in the mood for a crunch bar. In fact, I'd buy it before a Crunky because it's smaller and the puffs are just regular corn puffs instead of malt puffs and carry only texture and no flavor.

Daiiti Seika Goma (Sesame) Crunch Candy

One of my labels for posts is the category "grandma's snacks". This is the sort of old-fashioned stuff that I believe is marketed toward the older generation and reviewing such items is always a pain in the ass. The main reason for this is that it requires harder research to find the company that made the product, and often a much harder time reading the names of the companies. You can read Japanese characters in different ways such that even Japanese people read names incorrectly. For instance, I have a student name "Satomi" but her name can be read as "Rimi". In fact, when she was referred to me, the referral agency tole me her name was "Rimi" (and they're Japanese). You know that a language is confusing when even its native speakers can't read the names correctly.

With a little help from my husband (who is pretty good at kanji), I learned that this is made by a company named Daichi Seika, though they romanize the characters as Daiiti on their web site. They make a variety of nut brittle types of candies, but mainly focus on peanuts and sesame seeds. Their product line is limited and not incredibly glamorous, as is often the case with grandma's snacks types of treats.


I picked up this bag of very tiny sesame seed bars (5 cm x 2 cm x .5 cm/2 in. x .8 in. x .2 in.) at a local discount snack shop. It was about 120 yen ($1.34) and there are 24 individually wrapped pieces in the bag. Each candy is 22 calories if my math is correct. The first ingredient is sesame seeds and the second is granulated sugar followed by maltose and peanuts. This covers pretty much all of the flavor in these minuscule bits of sesame brittle.

The first taste is of the sesame and familiar sugary flavor. The sugar aspect is just like what I grew up with eating cheap nut brittle. That is, it has no toffee elements to it because there seems to be no butter. That doesn't mean it's bad at all. On the contrary, the sesame seed flavor is so perfect and rich that I think it's better that the sweetness be very simple. There are also tiny bits of peanut in the little slabs which come out when you come across one. Strangely, these smell just like peanuts despite the small amount of them in the bars.

I would absolutely buy these again. They are well-made, fresh, and have a great taste. I also think they'd make a pretty good souvenir for fussier eaters back home, particularly those who want something a little off the beaten path (sesame brittle instead of peanut). The only issue I have with these is that they are extremely hard to limit your intake of. They really are that good and the tiny size can deceive you into thinking eating a lot at once is OK, but those calories start to add up fast.