Riska Shittori Kinako Snack

When I was teaching enormous numbers of business students (via telephone - about 300 per busy season), they often talked about building brand name loyalty with their customers. These were companies like Toyota, Sumitomo, Brother, and Nippon Denso. In their cases, loyalty meant some pretty big bucks as they didn't sell tiny things.

The way in which they cultivated this greatly valued loyalty was to lavish attention on customers who worked at the upper management levels. They sent out the same salesman and he'd sweet talk the client. After years of working together, it was that much harder for the customer to move along to a cheaper vendor. Snack companies don't have the luxury of taking it to the customer on that level - both because they have too many of them and their products are so low margin.

So, how does a snack company build brand allegiance? It's something that I pondered because I tried this Riska product, loved it, and then realized the brand makes a good number of economical and tasty snacks, but no one pays much attention to them. If I look back through my blog at all of the Riska products I've reviewed, I liked every one of them and two of them, Corn Potage and Heart Chipple, are in the pantheon of my all time favorite salty snacks.

I'm wondering what it is that Riska isn't doing to build brand loyalty. In my opinion, they have the goods, but they don't have the profile. Someone at Riska should get on that. And, they should also try to export more of their products to the U.S.

This snack is a kinako (toasted soy flour) version of the more common chocolate variety. Like the chocolate version, this has a somewhat puffy, but crisp corn base. You can see from the picture that they're rather airy. Think about the inside of a corn-puff snack with bigger air holes (like an expanded and less crispy Cheeto). "Shittori" means "moist" and the crispy nature of these corn puffs seems to be softened a bit by the white-chocolate based coating. The coating is flavored with kinako, so it has a bit of the nutty soy flavor that one associates with toasted soy powder. It's sweet, but far from cloying and the kinako flavor pairs very well with the muted, earthy corn flavors. It's a much better match than the chocolate in the original version.

A whole bag of these is 80 grams/2.8 oz. I paid $1.58 (161 yen) at Marukai Japanese market (a veritable bargain for a Japanese import). It's a lot of snack for the price and the whole bag is 446 calories. However, it's supposed to be three servings so it's only lethal if you pig out. Tempting as that may be, I've found that you enjoy them more if you put some limits in place as the acclimation to the taste will limit your enjoyment over time.

I loved these, but I also love kinako. I would definitely buy these again and I hope that Riska ups its brand profile and gets into more markets. Even in Japan, I tended not to see them everywhere and it's even harder to find them here in the U.S. If you can find them, I'd recommend giving them a try.

Bourbon Kinako Chocolate

Have you ever thought about what you owe to the existence of fire? Oh, I'm not talking about such pedestrian things as keeping your naked ass warm, generating energy for your gadgets so you can be a techno-zombie, or making sure that every burger you eat isn't tartare. I'm talking about something bigger and more important - the contribution it makes to the taste of the food you eat.

Since most of us are naked apes who enslave machines to do our dirty work (and occasionally people, but this isn't a political blog so let's not go there), we don't think very hard about how our food gets to be what it is. Roasting, which involves, you know, fire, is part of what makes some of the best things in life good. I'm not even talking about the type of "roasting" that involves cooking food, I'm speaking of the type which makes the things used in cooking palatable. In particular, coffee, nuts, and chocolate all come into their own through roasting. Soy bean flour is another one of those things which blossoms into something special through the magic of fire.

One of the reasons that I like kinako so much is that the roasting brings out a nutty flavor. It is reminiscent of peanuts, but has its own special qualities. I'm guessing that it tastes like peanuts in large part because the roasting cultivates similar qualities in soy bean and legumes, but I'm no expert on this. All I know is that kinako is good. When I found these for about $2.00 at Niyiya market, I snapped them up.

Bourbon is best known for making tubes of tiny packaged cookies. Some are pretty good and some are quite boring. They do have other products as well, but they aren't as ubiquitous or well-known (except for the Alfort line of cookies with chocolate). I'm certain this particular product is a temporary one which will vanish when the cherry blossoms arrive in spring, if not sooner. Kinako is a winter flavor for reasons unknown to me, but I'm guessing it has to do with the harvesting season for soy beans in the distant past.

These are little nuggets of kinako bliss on multiple levels. First, you are hit with the nutty joys of the toasted soybean flour on the outside with the slightest bit of creamy white chocolatey flavor and texture. Next, you get the airy, crispy wafer shell and finally you are rewarded at the end with a roasted peanut. Each element unfolds both as an individual flavor (the peanut mainly as an aftertaste) and as a melange of flavors. For a tiny little thing, this packs a load of depth both in taste and texture.

Clearly, I loved these. Each package is supposed to be one serving of 190 calories, but I think I can stretch that over two or three portions given that there are 34 little nuggets in the bag (yes, I counted). They're too good to pop in your mouth by the handful and chomp down on rapidly. I recommend savoring each individual bite for it's flavor depth and mixture of textures, preferably with a drink to cleanse the palate between nibbles. If you like kinako, you will love these. If you've never had it, these are a very good introduction to a flavor that is known and loved by many Japanese people and that I wish were common in America.

Morinaga Kinako Mochi Choco Ball

Candy makers speak in a sort of code. As children, we come to understand this code, but, as an adult, I had completely forgotten about the spycraft of sweets marketed toward the short set. For instance, "hot" in candy code often means, "strong cinnamon". It does not mean that chili is infused into the mix. That is only the case for candy designed for adult buyers and candy snobs who think that mixing hot stuff with sweet stuff is the bee's knees.

American candy makers have their code words and Japanese ones do as well. This was a fact I had not considered when I spied this box of "kinako mochi" or "toasted soy bean and pounded rice cake" flavor of Choco Ball. When I think "mochi", I think of chewy, slightly elastic, and soft covering on the outside of a traditional Japanese sweet. In candy code, however, "mochi" is what they call "gummi". That is necessarily a bad thing, but my level of enthusiasm would have been dialed back a bit had I remembered that this contained a core of German ingenuity rather than stretchy Japanese rice.

I found this small box (26 grams, a little under an ounce) of candy at Mitsuwa Japanese market on what I would consider a "very good day" in terms of scoring both interesting and affordable snacks. It was $1.19 (119 yen), which is still more expensive than it is in Japan (85 yen or 85 cents), but is very reasonable for an import.

When I flipped open the "beak" on the top of the box, I felt the very familiar scent of kinako "chocolate"; that is to say, white chocolate infused with toasted soybean. This is a smell that I love and welcome, and I think that kinako makes a very good match for white chocolate because it has no sweetness. I carries more of a nutty flavor from the roasting and only a hint of its soy roots. When I say, "soy", think soy beans, not tofu. There is quite a big flavor difference.

Each tiny little ball is about the size of an M & M, though, obviously, shaped differently. There 19 balls in the box, and the whole thing is 118 calories (about 6 calories per ball). I tried to get a cutaway view, but they're too small and soft for that. Biting into the white chocolate exterior causes the outer portion to crumble off of the gummy inside. Clearly, these are meant to be eaten in one go. Considering the small size, I imagine they're much more likely to be designed to be consumed a few at a time rather than in two bites. 

The outside has a nice sweetness and an earthy, nutty flavor from the kinako. The gummy inside is fresh, soft, and chewy, but it's so small that you have to make a special effort to get much of a "chew" in on it. That's okay. It invites you to be mindful of the experience. My tongue detected no flavor from the gummy inside, but that is no surprise both because of the size and the fact that they probably wouldn't trouble themselves to infuse it with something resembling the mild flavor of rice cake.

I really liked this, but I'm a kinako junkie. I think this is a very approachable option for those who may be a bit reluctant to try Japanese sweets, especially since it tastes a little bit like peanut butter. If you can find a box for a reasonable price, I say, go for it. 

If you're interested in a wallpaper showing Kyro-chan, the illustrated bird mascot on Choco Ball, you can download a few designs here. 

Lawson Anko Cream Daifuku

Image from Lawson's web site.

There were certain things in Japan that I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole when I first got there. This is one of those types of things. Now, if I had a 5,133-foot pole, I'd use it to get my hands on one of these babies. For a mere 150 yen and weighing in at only 191 calories, you can enjoy this "Uchi Cafe" treat at limited Lawson convenience stores. It was available from May 7, 2013, so it should be around for a wee bit, but don't count on seeing it for terribly long. These things tend to have a short lifespan as they are marketed at the fickle affections of young women who value novelty.

The outside is soft mochi and is filled with sweet bean paste that has a whipped cream center. The package comes with "black honey" sauce, or "kuromitsu" and it's sprinkled with kinako (toasted soybean flour). I'm sure that it doesn't come with an elegant little dish or wooden stick, but I'm sure you can transfer it from it's plastic package to a more fitting serving situation. This is part of the "premium sweets" line, which focuses on incorporating cream into the treats.

This is one of those treats that would hit every mark with me - mochi, whipped cream, kinako, and anko, though I would probably skip the kuromitsu.

Fist Soybean Flour Dumpling Candy

Sorry for the partial picture. I lost track of the picture I had of the bag before opening and had to crop a shot of it from among a bunch of other things I bought. I'm sure it makes a huge difference. 

I think it's important to say that the title of this post is not my translation of this item. It is the one that is written on the package. It's proof that crummy translation is done even when a big corporation is behind it, in this case, Daiso Japan, and has the resources to do better. I had the feeling that someone plugged the Japanese into Google translate and dutifully just wrote down the first thing that came up.

I bought these not because they have a funky translation, but because they are kinako (toasted soybean flour). It's not wrong to say that going to the Daiso Japan approximately 4 months after leaving Tokyo brings actual tears of nostalgia to my eyes. It's almost like stepping back into a Daiso back home in Asagaya, except that this one has a lot more cheap, tacky figurines than that one and sells food. My local one never offered any snacks as the one in Mountain View, CA does (and I thank it wholeheartedly for that). I paid $1.50 ($1.91) for these at that shop. 

In Japan, I was a fan of pretty much all things kinako and this was the only food item that featured that nutty dusting of food goodness that I came to enjoy. Unfortunately, upon opening the  bag, my affections immediately began to waver. It was like falling in love from a photo and finding that the minute the object of my admiration opened his mouth, he had bad breath. The contents smell very funky, like weird organically produced and fully sustainable glue products. Though scent is not the only important thing, it tends to tell you something about the taste.

Though I was not encouraged, I popped one of the pea-sized morsels into my mouth. From external appearances, I wasn't sure if the texture was going to be hard or soft or chewy or crunchy. They look like little sugar-covered hard candies. The true texture is that of an extremely dense ball of Play Dough, or at least what I think it would be like. I never actually ate my toys as a child, though I do know that some kids did nosh on their colorful balls of putty. 

The flavor is not particularly strong. It does taste like kinako to some extent, but there's a weird aftertaste and the flavor doesn't feel like it is punched up enough. It tastes like bland flour with just a hint of sweetness. This is rather surprising since the ingredients are soybean flour, sugar, starch syrup, sesame, oligosaccharide and salt. That's a lot of sugars for a relatively bland flavor hit. It does all translate into a lot of calories though. If you are so hungry and desperate that you'll eat the entire 110-gram (3.88 oz.) bag at once, it'll set you back 385 calories. I didn't count the total number of tiny dumplings, but I'm guessing each one is between 10-15 calories. Chances are, you'll never get past 50 calories at one sitting as these are far from "more-ish". 

The company that makes these, Takadaya Kinako, recommends that you "gently warm" them in the microwave. I threw three dumplings in the microwave for 12 seconds and, though they did not get particularly hot, they smelled like they were burning. Even though the temperature was such that there was no risk at all of scorching my mouth when I popped one in, one of them still tasted slightly burnt. While warming them did improve the texture slightly, it really wasn't that much better and it had a negative impact on the taste.

These are not good, really. I'm probably going to slowly eat the whole bag over a prolonged period of time because I love kinako so much that I'll consume them out of nostalgia for that particular flavor, but they really need something more than they've got both in terms of texture and flavor. My guess is that they could have used more salt, but even possibly more sugar, or some medical marijuana... something to make the experience of eating them more joyful. 

This is marketed mainly as a healthy candy and the company says you can give this to your children and not feel bad about it. They mention oleic and linoleic acid as well as various vitamins and minerals, fiber, and protein. I'll grant that it may indeed be healthy, but I'd argue with the notion that it in any way resembles candy. If you're looking to substitute something uniquely Japanese for a protein bar or energy bar, this might be your snack. It's got a real similar feel to it as a Lara bar or Clif bar in that it is a doughy clump of protein-based stuff. If you're looking to entertain your taste buds, I'd suggest heading off to more flavorful pastures. 

Montoile Mochi Mochi Kinako Mochi

I've been on a big mochi snack kick as of late. It could be that my affinity for the stretchy, chewy textural delights of pounded rice cake have finally lodged in my brain after years of having them. It could be that I have a death wish and like to take risks with my snacks. After all, the two most dangerous foods in Japan are venomous blowfish (fugu) and mochi, which many people choke to death on over the New Year's holiday. Of course, they eat big honking blobs and I'm nibbling on delightful little packets of it full of sweet fillings.

When I spied this package of mochi treats, I snapped it up in no time because it not only is a mochi snack, but is a collaboration with Tirol. For those who haven't had Tirol's reputation written into their memory cells by my copious numbers of reviews of their products, they make little square chocolates with unique wrappers. Many people collect the wrappers and many more pick up their blocks of limited edition "premium" chocolates for sampling. In my case, I can say that I've probably been as disappointed in their offerings as delighted, but I love trying them. It's a small amount for a small investment, and usually a pretty interesting taste experience regardless of how good I believe it is.

This combines Tirol's kinako mochi chocolate with Montoile's "Mochi Mochi" brand. This is a brand which I had not encountered prior to this, but the company makes a lot of this type of small mochi based treat as a shelf-stable snack. They also collaborate with a wide variety of company's including snack cake makers and Bambi caramels. Besides this kinako variety, they make a coffee and "milk" collaboration with Tirol.

Each little blob of mochi is filled with marshmallow and has a core of kinako chocolate. The size of the entire piece is about the diameter of a quarter with a pea-size chocolate center. Most of the kinako flavor comes from the powder on the outside of the mochi, but a flavor burst comes from the center with the kinako chocolate bit. The mochi and marshmallow mainly add texture, but there is also a little sweetness from the marshmallow.

This is pretty good, but hardly the greatest mochi experience or kinako snack I've ever had. I'm not sure that a shelf-stable mochi snack really gains much from having a bit of Tirol chocolate put in the center. That being said, I liked these a lot because I think the marshmallow filling complements the mochi and kinako well. It isn't as good as a "real" mochi snack like something fresh and filled with bean jam, but it isn't a bad thing to have around for a quick chewy bite.

I found this at Inageya supermarket for about 150 yen($1.86) and you get about 10 pieces for that. Each is about 28 calories. I think this is interesting as a novelty, but I don't think I'd buy it again. Oddly, however, I think that,  had I found this back home, I'd regard it more highly. Right now, I have free and easy access to freshly made mochi at traditional sweets shops. Packaged shelf stable treats like this are far less valuable in the face of fresher options. If you find this in an Asian grocer, I'd certainly recommend it if your options don't include fresher versions. It's not the real deal, but it's pretty good nonetheless.

Echigoseika Funwari Meijin (Kinako Sembei)

There are few things in Japan which I consider to be a type of food crack for me. In fact, I think that even using "crack" to talk about the addictive quality of certain things is monumentally over-used by people. I don't think I've ever needed to use that term before. There is a first time for everything.

Echigoseika makes several varieties of "fluffy" (funwari) sembei. In fact, I'm not sure if I can accurately call it sembei, but I do because that is the section that it is sold in in snack shops and markets and glutinous rice is one of the main ingredients. Well, it's the third one after sugar and vegetable oil. The fact that the first two ingredients are part of the bad food trifecta (the third is salt) should indicate how healthy these must be. That is to say, not very much. The other two flavors are white chocolate and cheese. The thing all of these have in common is that they are light, delicate, and they melt in your mouth when you eat them. They are like nothing I have ever had before in the U.S., but I can say that they have a strong enough texture for minimal crunch and a melting quality that makes them collapse in a pile of flavor on the tongue.

As one might guess from the introduction, I loved, no, no, ADORED these. The kinako (roasted soybean powder) gives them a roasted nut flavor which is similar to peanut butter. They have a great blend of salty and sweet layered on top of the nutty flavor. This comes together in a burst of incredible flavor which is potent, but not overbearing. I'm grateful that a bag comes with 6 individual (14 gram/.5 oz.) packets in order to encourage portion control because it would be easy to open a bag and just eat the whole thing. While each packet is only 72 calories, eating all 6 of them at once would pretty much constitute the better part of a meal's calories. 

These are awesome. If you see them, buy them and gain some weight enjoying them. Unless you really hate salty sweets or are super, duper sensitive to soy powder flavor (though this really does taste peanut-buttery), I can't imagine these would  not be a hit. Like the white chocolate sembei, I can't believe these would not make an excellent souvenir if you're in Japan. Even fussy Western palates should find these quite tasty. 

Tohato All Azuki Cookies

I once said that I was on a quest to sample all of the "All (Fruit)" line of cookies and then I promptly forgot that this was one of my snack blog missions. In fact, I forgot that I had any missions of any sort, but perhaps all of the incessant commercials playing in Shinjuku station for the newest Mission Impossible movie sparked my memory. I must say that I wonder if it costs more to run ads in a station that about a million people walk through than it costs to run ads on television in Japan. That has nothing to do with these cookies unless Tom Cruise decides to appear in ads for them in the future. That's not outside of the realm of possibility, but I think that he's unlikely to smile and bite into cookies that smell a bit like mold or dirt, as these ones do.

That's right, these cookies smell pretty rank. Their unique bouquet reminded me very much of the dreaded oshiruko KitKat. Still, I'm nothing if not game to sample new foods, especially when I've already forked over my 100 yen ($1.24) to procure a bag of them and the only other option is to toss them and forfeit a review opportunity. I found these at Lawson 100, but you can find them pretty much anywhere that carries the All Fruit cookies. They are seasonal and will vanish after winter and reappear next autumn. So, if you want some cookies that smell like a zombie's armpit, act before it warms up.

All derogatory comments about the aroma of these cookies aside, they are actually quite enjoyable. The basic cookie used in the All Fruit line has a good flavor and texture. They are slightly flaky but soft. They're like a cross between a biscuit and a pie. Sandwiched between them are bits of moist sweetened azuki beans. There is also kinako  (toasted soybean powder) and black sugar syrup flavoring added, though the influence of these two ingredients are so subtle that you can barely detect them. They're like a voice in the next room that you can't make out, but they are nonetheless, present and contributing something to the overall taste. For all I know, they're also adding their own personal touch to the funk coming off of them as well. 

I'm not an enormous fan of red beans. The truth is that I like white bean sweets more than red, but I bought these believing that the moist nature of azuki would lend itself well to these cookies. That theory is supported by the taste, though there really should be more beans in them. It seems like Tohato continues to scale back the "fruit" portion of this line all of the time and you get more basic cookie and less of the filling then I recall in some of my previous reviews of these. Still, these are good and I recommend them. Just hold your nose when you open the bag and put the portion you want to eat on a plate so that the smell isn't so powerful.

Coris Kinako Lumps

A lot of the snacks I review are variations on familiar food themes. Even something as uniquely Asian as a bean cake can be roughly approximated as a cake full of mashed beans and the reader can grasp the idea. Occasionally, I come across something which defies comparison, and then I have to wrack my fevered brain for a way to describe it that successfully conveys what it is. Of course, I could just give up and compare it to something vaguely similar and spare my neurons the overtime work.

These kinako dama ("lumps") candies, produced by a company called Coris that specializes in cheap kid's snacks, are definitely a horse of a different color. Coris is a relatively small company and you see their flavored lozenges that resemble a chalky lifesaver in the kiddy sections of many convenience stores and markets. This kinako snack was a new find for me so I picked it up when I saw the little packet for a mere 20 yen (24 cents) at Lawson 100. I also can't resist anything as elegantly named as "lumps".  The little bag holds 3 marble-size candies and each candy is 20 calories.

Each little ball is soft enough that you can squish it with your finger, but firm enough not to easily lose it's shape or be bruised. When you bite into it, it's sweet and has a relatively powerful kinako flavor, but is not overwhelming. The texture can be best likened to a grainy taffy without the stringy, chewy, sugary parts. It's like thick Play Dough in some ways.

The web site for these stresses that they are made with flour, and I think that these are really pretty much flour, sugar and kinako (toasted soy flour). They literally are little dough balls. While I enjoyed the taste of these quite a lot, and they certainly aren't unpleasant in any way, the overall texture just didn't do much for me. They are squishy enough to be like cookie dough, and not firm enough to really feel like candy. This is a new product and it'll be interesting to see if it catches on well enough to be around next year at this time. I liked it, but once was enough for me.

Intense Roast Soybean KitKat (Tokyo Regional)

My husband and I learned about a large branch of a discount snack shop in a famous shopping area in Tokyo called Ameyokocho (aka Ameyayokocho) called Niki no Kashi. The shop carried a wide variety of domestic and imported snacks and some actual food. Even though that shop had a lot of interesting stuff, most of it was variations on common themes that I can get locally. Honestly, the best finds were imports - Rocky Road bars and malted milk balls from America and waffle cookies from Europe.

How does this relate to this regional KitKat? Well, one of the other shops in the Ameyokocho area was carrying this regional KitKat at a discount price. Usually, these cost 800 yen ($9.60) for 12 mini bars (66 calories each, so each mini is about 65% of the size of two fingers of a regular KitKat). at station shops and airports, but this little place had it for only 500 yen ($6.00). It also helps that this is a flavor I'm actually interested in trying, unlike many of the regional KitKats which very much look like reruns of commonly available flavors or stuff that's so weird that it isn't appealing.

Since I have tried kinako KitKats before (and liked them), the main question for me was what "intense" was going to mean. It turns out that "intense" tasted a lot less like toasted soybean flour than the regular kinako KitKat big bar. To me, this tasted very much like chocolates that are mixed with peanut butter such that you can't clearly taste the peanut butter but the chocolate carries some of the flavor.

It's hard to say if this is "intense" really. I think that roasted soybeans take on a peanutty flavor the more strongly they are roasted. They lose some of their soy flavor. I liked these quite a lot, but didn't feel they were particularly "Japanese" tasting so much as a (good) variation on milk chocolate. If they weren't more expensive than regular KitKat bars (and they are), I'd definitely buy them again.

Bourbon Kinako Wafers (Petit Series)

The word "petit" when rendered into katakana English becomes something akin to "poochie". Because I automatically translate po-chi into English and read "petit", I forget  how goofy it sounds. "Poochie wafers" sounds like a dog biscuit rather than a cookie for humans.

The Bourbon petit series is available everywhere in Japan. Boxes of these snacks in their long tubular packages are often placed on the top shelves in convenience stores and supermarkets. You can get a decent portion for about a hundred yen ($1.20). In addition to the tiny chocolate cakes I reviewed previously, they also offer a large range of small cookies and rice crackers. Whatever your fancy, you can get a night's snacking worth in one of these packets without totally pigging out. In the case of these wafers, 45 grams (1.6 oz.) provide 229 calories, or about 12 calories per cookie.

These don't smell like much of anything, despite being liberally covered in kinako powder (toasted soy bean flour). Each little cookie is about 2.5 cm (a little under an inch) square and looks more like a flat biscuit than a wafer. However, inside are layers with firm cream filling. They're nicely sweet without being overbearing and have a lovely toasted soy flour. Sometimes kinako comes across as very peanut buttery, but these are much closer to the soy side in flavor.

I absolutely loved these. They are fresh, crispy, sweet, and flavorful. If you like kinako, absolutely try these.

Random Weekend Picture 26

A few weeks ago, my neighborhood held its annual tanabata festival. It's always a huge ostentatious affair with tons of decorations*, but it is also rather quaint in that it is very neighborly. Half of the appeal is the huge decorations that the merchants make from wireframes and papier mache. The other half is pretty much the food. While quite often most people go for kakigori (like a snow cone only in a cup), wieners, fried chicken, or other types of meat or seafood on sticks, and cucumbers, there are often other more unique foods on offer.

The picture above is of warabimochi, which despite the name is not "mochi" (pounded rice cake) at all since the jelly-like cubes are made with plant starch. The cubes are rolled in kinako (toasted soy flour). Since I'm a great fan of kinako and mochi-like consistency, I wanted to sample this, but I didn't want to buy such a large container of cubes to do so. It can be purchased in markets as well, but I've never seen a very tiny container. This is supposed to be especially popular in summer.

*Many photos of these decorations get used in my 1000 Things About Japan blog.

Aero Setsubun Black Soy Chocolate Bar

The Aero black soy bar is Nestle Japan's second entry in the Setsubun marketing game.The red devil on the soy bean KitKat has been given a color job and been symbolically castrated by having his horns removed. This might be a girl demon. I'm not up on gender identification of devil and demon sorts.

I found this bar side-by-side with the Setsubun KitKat at Family Mart convenience store. Both bars are pretty much the same size, about 14 x 3 x 2 cm (5.5 x 1.2 x .8 in.) and cost 120 yen ($1.32). The bar has a bit of a rough-hewn pattern on the outside. I'm guessing this is supposed to resemble wood, but I can't imagine why. The information on the front says that this bar is .28% black soy. That small a quantity of a key ingredient seems to indicate that the people at Nestle Japan subscribe to the homeopathic notion that no matter how little of something you use, it can be effective.


The bar smells vaguely of soy flour (kinako) and has a gray bubbled interior. I ate my bar at room temperature, so the sometimes crunchy effect you get from eating catacombs of cold aerated chocolate didn't happen. Instead, I just got a soft, rich milk chocolate flavor and texture. It melts so quickly in your mouth that it seems like you've got a mouth full of warm fudge. It's a very sumptuous experience.

As milk chocolate bars go, this is very enjoyable. I've had Aero before, but mainly as smaller bars. I don't know if the tiny bit of black soybean in the bar enhanced the richness or simply that the thickness and room temperature chocolate made it seem more decadent, but I enjoyed this more than I remember regular Aero bars. That being said, I didn't taste the soy component at all.

Soy Bean KitKat (Setsubun Edition - Big Bar)

Nestle Japan currently makes six sizes of KitKats in Japan. There is this big bar, the regular 4-finger bar sold in boxes, minis, flat single finger minis used in cookie plus bars, flat longer fingers for regular Cookie Plus bars, and "petit" bars which are like 1/2 of a regular KitKat finger wrapped in foil as an individual treat. I've never reviewed the "petit" KitKats because they are simply regular milk chocolate bars in a different package. I imagine Nestle Japan offers these variations in size so that they can recycle a few recipes and offer them as something new by changing the sizes.


The notion that the recipes are being recycled wholesale (as opposed to being offered in small variations) came to mind after I sampled this Setsubun soy bean variety. It tasted exactly like the Ohagi KitKat that I reviewed last September. That is, it has the earthy, mossy, somewhat "dirty" or "moldy" taste that that bar had. I hated that flavor when I first encountered it in the Oshiruko KitKat, and found it more tolerable in the Ohagi one, and have reached a point of indifference after this bar. Next time they roll the same thing out in a new form, I may actually like it, though I'd prefer not to buy it again under a new name and in a different form.

This bar does have a few things going for it. It has a demon on it as a mark of the Setsubun holiday, and it is a big bar with plenty of crispy wafer goodness and nice milk chocolate. That being said, it was very disappointing for the flavor to be a repeat of a previous flavor. If you like the Oshiruko or Ohagi KitKats and regret that they are no longer on store shelves, you can grab yourself one of these at Family Mart for 120 yen ($1.32) and relive the memory. Otherwise, you might want to pass.

Variety Friday: Snack "Reruns" and Tirol Present Campaign

I've been doing this blog for a little over a year now, and one thing I've noticed is that what has come and gone has now returned. Lately, while I've been perusing the snack shelves, I've been noticing a lot of reruns. As I mentioned in Monday's post, most of them are in different packages than their original issue, but the contents are the same.

This may sound like bad news, but it made me happy. I have had the sense since I started this that there would always be an overwhelming array of items to sample and that I'd never get to most of them. The fact that a lot of what I've already tried is getting reissued seasonally means that the field is getting narrower, but also that my old reviews have long-term, or at least "longer-term" value.

Speaking of reruns, Tirol fooled me with a repackaging of their yaki kinako mochi premium candy. The candy itself was reviewed in a previous post with a fairly "blah" response from me. I thought that I'd seen a third permutation on the premium kinako mochi when I saw the new packaging. Also, the product has a different name. It's called "attaka yutanpo presento" (hot hand warmer present). It says "yaki mochi kinako" (grilled roasted soy bean rice cake) in very tiny letters on the side, but you have to really look for it.

Image pinched from Tirol's web site for this campaign.

The new packaging is part of a campaign which allows people to enter a contest to win a hand warmer enclosed in a case that looks like the kinako mochi mascot. You collect 10 points from the packaging (which can have 2, 3 or 10 points per package - mine had 3) and then can enter the contest by sending in a postcard with your points taped to it. There are 3000 hand warmers to be won. The address appears on the site linked above. You can print it directly from the graphic if you can't write in Japanese and are interested in the contest, which ends on February 28, 2010.

I must say that it's rather cheeky of the folks at Tirol to package the same candy differently just to sell them for an advertising campaign. They could have at least put points on the existing premium candies or made a new flavor for the contest. One might think that I'm just too dumb to know it was the same flavor, but I showed the package to a Japanese friend and she also said, "it doesn't say what it is" when she looked at it (and, no, I didn't prime her to say that - I just showed her the package). Still, the hand warmers are pretty cute. It's not cute enough for me to buy more candy, but I would probably enter if I were going to buy the candy anyway.

Tirol Grilled Kinako Mochi Premium

One thing I've noticed now that I've come around to a little over a year of snack blogging is that seasonal goodies that I reviewed last year are coming back around to the shops again. Most of them are in slightly different packages, but are the same products. Among the products I'm seeing reappear are kinako mochi multi-packs (strings of 10 small candies sold together) and the premium kinako mochi which I liked so much when I reviewed it last November. The kinako mochi flavors have been around as part of variety packs throughout the summer, but the premium version and 10-packs disappeared for about 6 months.


In addition to this old favorite coming back, Tirol has released a "yaki (grilled) kinako mochi" version. I love grilled kinako mochi, and will be doing a Variety Friday post about making your own real kinako mochi at some point (though my "yaki" part was a disaster) and wondered how they were going to achieve this.

The chocolate coating is a bit browner on the "yaki" version than on the regular kinako mochi candy and it has little crunchy bits in the center above the "gummi" mochi center. The bits look like chocolate cookie bits, but they're grilled rice puffs. They're crunchy and really reminded me of coffee. They not only did not add anything to this candy, but they detracted from it's attractive peanut butter-like kinako chocolate flavor. Everything that was right about this before, the flavor of the chocolate coating, the relatively tender mochi center, is still there, but the bitter little puffs spoil it.

This is a small morsel of chocolate (about 2.54 cm/1 in. square) and only has 53 calories. It costs only 40 yen (44 cents). I don't feel this was a waste in any way of my money or of the calories, but I definitely wouldn't buy this again with the regular version out there. I'm sure that there will be people who like this by itself, but I just can't get past the addition of bitter crunchy bits to something that isn't better for having them there.

This was also reviewed at Pocky Watch.

Green Tea Kinako Big KitKat

Recently, one of my students bought the yuzu koshyu sembei that I reviewed previously after I recommended it to her. I asked her what she drank with it and she said "green tea". The thought of sour and peppery salted snack treats with green tea really didn't sit right with me. I associate tea with sweets, not savory foods. She told me that it was traditional for Japanese people to have green tea and sembei at tea time. It makes sense, but I have my sembei with Coca-cola Zero because I'm a heretic like that.



It strikes me that green tea and kinako are a much nicer fit than green tea and sembei, so it was only natural that Nestlé Japan put them together. My husband found this big bar KitKat at New Days convenience store near his office in Shinjuku for 120 yen ($1.32) and presented it to me the next day. As I've mentioned before, I like these big bars more than regular KitKats because of the higher wafer to chocolate ratio. I loves me some wafers. The big bars are 44 grams (1.55 oz.) and this one was 242 calories.

The bar smells good. It has some mild kinako notes and that familiar sweet smell of white chocolate. The ingredients include "green tea paste" and "kinako". The green tea flavoring is all in the coating and the kinako in the wafer filling.

I could only manage to eat half of the bar for sampling because it's a whole lot of candy bar. The green tea flavor is strongest on the first bite. After that, the familiar bitterness of it is largely drowned out by white chocolate sweetness. The kinako is also very faint and mainly tastes like soy without much of a roasted flavor.

This wasn't a bad bar at all, but it's just too sweet and that overwhelms the subtle kinako and tea flavors. The texture is great and it doesn't taste bad at all, but it just isn't all that interesting. If you are so-so on green tea and kinako, or timid about trying them, this may be a good bar for you to try because it's not going to hit you too hard on the flavor front. Otherwise, I'd say give it a pass.

Kinako Petit Bit Chocolates

It occurred to me as I was pondering the writing of this review that these candies could be used as a very unkind way for a woman to break up with a guy. She could send him a packet of these and say that the candy was doing the talking for her in explaining the reason for the relationship ending. It'd be cold, of course, but at least he'd have some sugary goodness to console himself with.


If you're not looking to crush a man's soul, you can still enjoy the candy for itself. These kinako chocolates are firm, fresh, and sweet with an excellent balance between the sugar and the kinako flavor. Sometimes kinako is nuttier in flavor and sometimes it carries more of a soy flour taste. In this case, they carry more of a soy flour flavor. The taste hits you in a burst after the initial bite and is quite delightful. There are little puffs in them which make them a bit like a crunch bar, though the number of puffs isn't as high as something like a Crunky or Nestlé' Crunch bar.

There are 11 candies in each package and you can find these at New Days convenience store (among other places) for about 100 yen (about a dollar). Each candy is about 24 calories and well worth the price both on the hips and in the wallet. Male ego crushing is simply a potential side benefit.