Tohato Harvest Sand Biscuits Mont Blanc flavor

Every year, around Halloween, a bunch of sites will do lists of the best and worst Halloween snacks. The "best" usually are anything covered in or mainly comprised of chocolate and/or peanut butter. The "worst" tend to be anything chalky or in the genre of what the British call "boiled sweets" (hard candy). Basic Harvest Biscuits are the boiled sweet of the cookie world. They're what you're disappointed to see served as a tea time snack 95% of the time because they're just plain, flat, not so sweet discs of crispy cookie.

Mind you, being in a category which isn't blow-your-socks-off amazing isn't a bad thing if you are in the mood for something quite crunchy, but not rich or super sweet. The main sticking point with Harvest Biscuits is that all flavors, without fail, taste like coconut. I do wonder if, to that end, the Harvest people have expanded their line to include things like these sandwich cookies which have the architecture ("cookie architect" absolutely should be a career one can pursue in life) of an Oreo. The big question is whether or not the structure and composition of this cookie edifice is sound.

The texture of the "cookie" on these is super crisp and on the harder side. They either feel thicker and harder than the routine Harvest cookie because they're so tiny (about an inche or so in diameter) or they actually are. On the cookie to cracker spectrum, this leans closer to the "cracker" end than the cookie side. The filling is very firm, or at least it is in somewhat cooler temperatures as it is now in my part of the planet.

The main draw of these is the mont blanc filling. Mont blanc, for those who don't know, is a sweet made with a chestnut paste, whipped cream, and either a meringe or cake base. The filling tastes distinctly artificial, or it simply is so intense that it comes across that way. The combination of the strong, fake-tasting filling with the coconutty little crackery biscuit simply did not work for me. I was enormously disappointed in these because I love mont blanc. In fact, I did something I rarely do which is fail to finish the packet.

Source: ZenPop box service

Fujiya Milky Mont Blanc Chocolate

I have reached an important conclusion about the Fujiya brand's versions of chocolate. Well, it's not important in a global sense. It certainly isn't going to impact climate change, cure cancer, or end starvation. It's also not important in a local sense. It won't end the California drought or lower the local taxes. No, it's only important in helping my readers relate to the status of this particular brand in Japan relative to the status of a similar brand in the U.S. Saying it like that sort of undermines the sense of my conclusion having any importance at all, even in my estimation. Oh, well.

At any rate, despite the less than earth-shattering nature of my revelation, I will finally offer it. Are you ready? Fujiya is the Hershey's of Japan. By that I mean that they make sub-standard chocolate products which are popular mainly because their taste is familiar, their packaging and logo can be related to, and their mascot a long-standing icon in the culture. Their products aren't great, but people know them so they like them.

This is not exactly a criticism of Fujiya. I like Hershey's kisses despite their chalky texture and sour milk/yogurt-like flavor profile and less than endearing chocolate notes. You can enjoy something and recognize that it's not the greatest quality version of that item on the market. Bad pizza is a case in point. I love bad pizza because it is familiar to me as someone whose mother would purchase an enormous quantity of bread-like squares with some form of ketchup and vegetable-based cheese-like product on it. It was a fast food meal from our freezer that provided a welcome alternative to the disgusting sloppy mess of canned vegetables, stacks of day-old white bread, and meat stuffs cooked into a grey, tough mass that my mother used her very special culinary skills to create. Yes, I like things because they were introduced to me in my childhood when I had a very different frame of reference.

The chocolates look cute with the adorable little embossed faces.

You may guess from that introduction that this box of twelve "Milky" mont blanc (a chestnut-paste-based dessert pictured on the lower right of the product's box) candies let me down. Indeed, it did. There is a particular flavoring in all of the Milky chocolates which I am not a fan of. I don't know what it is, but it is like the sour milk flavor in Hershey's chocolates. You either like it or you don't, and I don't.

The bigger sin than this weird taste is that the chestnut/mont blanc component, which was the part of this candy which compelled me to buy it at Nijiya market for about $2.20 (224 yen), is quite weak. It tastes a little like caramel at first, but it dissipates too quickly to really detect any greater depth of flavor. Mostly, you're just getting the very soft, fatty weird chocolate exterior. I should note that this is not because it is fake chocolate, or at least I think it's not. Fujiya uses cocoa butter and cacao mass. It also uses vegetable oil and "artificial flavor", which may account for the strange taste that I dislike. This is not horrible by any stretch of the imagination, but I'll turn to this when I'm out of other candy or want a tiny portion (each square is 20 calories) and only have big amounts on hand.

I have to try to remember that I don't care much for Fujiya's products. I buy them so infrequently that I forget and make mistakes like buying this. That being said, the chestnut part would probably have sucked me into buying it even if I remembered Fujiya's freaky chocolate recipe. Besides, if I keep eating it, I may get used to it and actually learn to like it. It worked with Hershey's, after all. 

Random Picture #213

Recently, I was talking about Asian bakeries with my sister-in-law. We were talking mainly about a chain called "Paris Baguette" which has a French-sounding name, but is actually Asian and has a focus on Japanese- and Korean-style offerings. Of course, when I talk about baking and Japan, I really mean the European-style confections that Japan has modified for its market's tastes.

One of the things which Japan modified for its tastes was flan, or, if you prefer, pudding, or, even "creme brulee" without the burnt top. I've always been confused about whether this should be called one or the other. As you can see by the side view, this is essentially flan. It has a sweet syrup on the bottom and a thick pudding in the center. Personally, the point at which flan and pudding are separated comes at how thick they are. Flan can stand on its own, though it may wobble a bit. Pudding tends to be a bit more gooey and needs a container to support it. At any rate, the plastic containers of "purin" that you see here were in a supermarket in Tokyo and they have whipped cream as well as chestnut puree (the ones on the right). The ones on the left are "fruit purin", but the curious thing about them is that they have a mini purin on top of the larger purin. It feels like one of those mirror within a mirror deals, only with food.

Sanko Seika Snow Inn Chestnut Cream Sembei

It's the most wonderful time of the year. Yes, it's when all of the chestnut sweets start showing up on shelves in Japan... or Japanese markets in my local area. I was thrilled when I saw these chestnut and milk sembei at Niyija market for $2.99. Though I sometimes have issues with the combination of the baked rice flavor of sembei coupled with sweet frosting-style flavorings, this was really too enticing to pass up, even at a somewhat premium price.

The picture on the ront of the bag shows a mont blanc confection as well as a few chestnuts. One has to consider that these are merely there to create visions of such things in your head rather than tell you what the sembei actually tastes like. The truth ended up being that this actually was much closer to mont blanc than chestnuts. No one was more surprised by this than me. As an enormous fan of mont blanc, you'd think it would trhill me. Not quite...

The issue with this was that there was the hint of chestnut, the sweetness, and a hint of what seemed like alcohol. Sometimes, there is brandy in the chestnut paste used in making mont blanc, and I think that flavor was conveyed in the frosting on these rice crackers. This is not a particularly bad thing, but that flavor was stronger than the others (aside from the basic rice cracker flavor itself).

I liked these, though not as much as I'd hoped. I think that they do convey the flavor of chestnut cream, but I'd like the flavor to be somewhat more potent. I'm more than happy to have this bag as a salty sweet, but, if it shows up again next year, I wouldn't buy another bag. It's good as a novelty, but not something that I'd seek again and again - at least not for the standard price.

It's interesting to note that the Sanko Seika "Snow Inn" line is turning into the rice cracker equivalent of weird KitKtas. Besides lemon and mango sembei, they've released this chestnut cream variety as well as a strawberry cream one. Though American fans of Japanese snacks are unlikely to get as excited by sembei as by chocolate-covered wafers, I am intrigued by their flavor diversity and will continue to sample new products as long as they keep making them.

Kikkoman Marron Soy Milk

There's no picture of the soy milk poured in a glass because it's just off-white liquid. You're not missing much.

Kikkoman is one of a few Japanese brands which is very familiar to most Americans, even those who are younger than the current crop of anime-watching, Pocky-crunching, Hi-Chew chewing Japanophiles. The reason for this is that Kikkoman's soy sauce was a staple featured product on game shows since the 70's. I remember watching "The Price Is Right" and having people guess the cost of a bottle of their sauce. I also remember their products being offered as "parting gifts" to losers on a variety of game shows. When it comes to brand name recognition, I'm guessing no Japanese product would cross demographic lines like Kikkoman does.

That being said, I never really paid attention to their other products, not even in Japan. Until I looked at the manufacturer of this soy milk, it didn't know Kikkoman made it. It's not that it even matters and it surely makes sense that a soy sauce maker would make soy milk as well, but mentally my brain isn't capable of lumping "black, salty sauce maker" with "white sweet milk maker". My brain has some issues, as I'm sure readers who catch my typed brain farts can attest to.

As I've mentioned before, I like soy milk just fine, but it has a lot of fat and sugar in it (at least in Japan) and is more expensive than cow's milk. It took this very unusual flavor to get me to pop for my own carton of soy milk. I found this 200 ml. (1 cup) serving at Seiyu supermarket for 100 yen ($1.31). It mentions tasting like mont blanc cake, my favorite cake in all of the known universe. It's usually sold as a sponge cake with whipped cream and a pile of sweetened chestnut cream piped on top of it. I guess one might consider this a nutritious dessert drink, but there are a lot of additives in it including acacia gum, sorbitol, and dextrin. Sugar is also the second ingredient.

It should be no surprise that this is quite sweet considering the ingredient list. The flavor is intense at first, but mellows out as you drink more. It really does taste a lot like mont blanc, but without the accompanying textures and varying flavors (whipped cream, sponge cake), it feels "wrong". It's like eating the topping off the mont blanc cake without the satisfying texture. And, of course, it's hardly exactly the same since it also tastes like soy milk. That's not a bad thing at all. I liked this a fair bit, but I'm not sure I'd have it again because I'm not convinced it's good for me. On the bright side, the whole carton is only 104 calories so it's a modest indulgence.

I think I'd buy this again, but I don't tend to drink my sweets very often. I tend to prefer to eat them because I'm a texture junky. That being said, I think this might be a nice morning sweet drink with something blander alongside it (like a piece of toast). It'll also be a refreshing pick-me-up in the afternoon. Still, I can't see drinking it often because it is rather intensely sweet.

Luna Midnight Sweets Mont Blanc

No, I didn't wait 3 months to try this. This is an older picture of the product.

Would you like to know what invention would make a person the wealthiest person in the world? Create a food that tastes like something almost universally loved and create an extremely low calorie or no calorie version. The person who could manage this would solve the biggest of first world problems, how to eat and eat and eat what you love without getting fat.

While no one has created this magical product, food companies keep trying to pander to this desire. This yogurt is one such product as it shows a richly piled chestnut paste sweet on the front as an empty promise of sweet, rich, fatty dessert for a handful of calories (and 100 yen/$1.30). I, at least, am dumb enough to keep hoping that some day I'll be able to enjoy things without paying the price is thigh expansion.

Anything which carries the "mont blanc" moniker has a very high bar to leap over in my opinion. I adore chestnut anything and this particular dessert is something I'm always tempted by when I pass by a patisserie. When I leave Japan, it is something I will absolutely miss. I can only hope that, during the 23 years I've been away, someone back home will have produced their version of this treat for the American market. No, I'm not holding my breath.

Peeling back to the foil reveals an encouraging sight. There are little bits of chestnut mixed into the yogurt. The flavor is definitely that of sweet yogurt, but there's also a good amount of chestnut flavor mixed in. It's not exactly like tucking into a pile of chestnut cream piped on top of a pastry, but it's still pretty satisfying. The yogurt is thin and I think the experience of eating it would be more impressive if it were thicker. Of course, the appeal of this line of sweets is that it's low calorie (65 calories for 110 grams, or a little over half a cup) so any thickness would likely be accomplished by adding artificial thickeners.

I enjoyed this, and I'm glad that it's spending a fair amount of time on the shelves of my local convenience stores. If you're a chestnut fan and aren't put off by very sweet yogurt (or artificial sweeteners), I'd definitely recommend this as a "dessert yogurt". You could do much, much worse, both nutritionally and in terms of the quality.

Gateau du Mont-Blanc KitKat

Lately, KitKat offerings have been uninspired yawn-fests. With the exception of the  Tohoku special Zunda KitKat, it's been a steady parade of dark chocolate, white chocolate, and strawberry offerings with the occasional re-issue of a seasonal flavor. If Japanese KitKats were a television show, it'd be a sitcom in which each week the story is basically the same but the characters crack the same types of hackneyed jokes or a boring re-run. The show would be amusing enough on occasion that it'd manage to stay on the air, but generally keep viewers out of a sense of familiarity rather than the show's true entertainment value.

When I saw this box of Mont Blanc KitKats in a Natural Lawson convenience store, I felt like I was seeing the most enticing "preview" that I'd seen in a long time. Though this is not the most creative flavor idea for Japan (there are plenty of mont blanc treats here), it is still novel enough to get this lover of chestnut sweets excited. I forked over my 168 yen ($2.20) and prepared for what I hoped would be a novel experience.

A sniff revealed coffee and caramel notes. This is fairly typical for chestnut sweets because the roasting of nuts often causes a similar aroma to that of roasted coffee beans. The  caramel scent, unfortunately, comes from the artificial flavoring that is used. These have an intense sweetness and the finish is definitely of chestnut, but the first hit really is more like fake caramel. The chestnut element is gotten from powder rather than actual chestnuts.

This is an okay, albeit very sweet KitKat. I wish the depth of flavor were better. This might have been achieved by dialing back the super sweet aspects, but this is a candy bar and a white-chocolate-based one at that. Real mont blanc cakes are sweet as well, but not as overpowering as this. They also have a richness that they get from the fatty filling which is utterly absent in this bar. Though I will finish the box, I wouldn't buy this again.

Plecia Great Mont Blanc

All things mont blanc draw me to them. The Pied Piper would have nothing to offer me, but the Hamlin baker could lead me to my doom with a lovely mont blanc. Something which resembles a small mont blanc pizza with only 318 calories, scarcely more than a real pizza of the same size (14 cm. in diameter). Of course, I'm not sure if this is a "proper" mont blanc, because it doesn't have mountains of piped chestnut paste lying on top of it. However, according to Wikipedia, it just means that there is pureed sweetened chestnuts and whipped cream, so even this flat version should qualify.

I found this for 275 yen at Inageya supermarket while my husband was inspecting the beer options. There's a section next to the butter which offers "fresh" (as in not designed to have a long shelf life) sweets which often lures me to it with its wiles but rarely pries my hard-earned yen out of my wallet. The problem is partially the cost, but also the calories. Most of the treats are fatty delights, filled with rich pudding, whipped cream, and small amounts of cake. Also, frankly, there are a lot of cake shops around Tokyo which offer fresher, prettier options with less environmentally wasteful packaging.

This is a simple thin layer of yellow cake smoothly covered with a whipped cream base and with some ribbons of chestnut cream on them. I didn't expect too much, really, but I was incredibly impressed in the end. It's not too sweet, has a much better chestnut flavor than I expected based on the chestnut to cream ratio, and had a serviceable sponge cake at the bottom. I found it incredibly delicious, and ate the whole thing at once when I'd originally planned to just eat half of it.

This is my second product from Plecia, which specializes in these types of refrigerated cakes and sweets. They draw me because they have tasty lower calorie treats with a lot of whipped cream, and that is something I find hard to resist.

Maxim Cafe Menu (Oreo, Mont Blanc)

When I lived back home, I used to buy General Foods International Coffees. I didn't have any moments to 'celebrate', but they made adequate sugar-free instant coffee. At that point in time, I was a coffee wuss and couldn't stomach the real stuff. Those flavored coffees are like training wheels...okay, perhaps more like tricycles that your parents are holding onto the back of while you ride around tentatively. They give you a thimble of coffee, a ton of fake flavor, a lot of powdered milk and gobs of artificial sweetener. I'm guessing one has no more than a smattering of coffee beans worth of actual coffee...okay, perhaps no more than a smattering of coffee-flavored chemicals.

Since "graduating" to "the hard stuff" (aka real coffee), I haven't bought many flavored instant coffees. Part of the reason for that is that I live in Japan, where sugar-free versions of such things don't exist so a small serving of instant coffee brings with it gobs of actual sugar instead of chemicals that are meant to fool you into thinking you're having sugar. Another reason is that such things are expensive for piddly amounts of warm, brown liquid.

I was strolling around Peacock supermarket when the Maxim Oreo cafe latte mix and I couldn't resist. The Mont Blanc was hanging out next to it so I decided to toss it in as well. Each box cost 158 yen ($1.94) for 5 servings of the Oreo flavor and 4 of the Mont Blanc. I don't know why one has more than the other, but I think it's because one is more elegant fake coffee and the other low-brow junk food fake coffee.

I didn't take a picture of the coffee after I made it because it looks like coffee. There was really nothing to see so I justified being slack about the pictures. Imagine any of the billions of images of coffee out there and visualize one. There, you got it.

Both make a small amount of coffee. You add 130 ml. of hot water to the powder in each tube. I tried the Mont Blanc first and it didn't taste like much of anything. If you added a teaspoon of regular brewed coffee to reconstituted powdered milk with just the barest whisper of chestnut, that's what it is. It isn't particularly sweet, which is either a plus or a minus depending on how you like such things. I tried it with a little sweetener to see if making it sweeter would bring out more of the chestnut, but it just made it sweeter which totally drowned out the minimal coffee and whispery chestnut flavor.

The Oreo flavored coffee was a different kettle of fish, which is not to say that it tasted like fish. It did, however, make a strange crackling noise when I added in the powder. I think that if you were trying to create some sort of faux witches brew situation for Halloween with accompanying sound effects, this would do it for you. Though both of these are labeled "latte", the Oreo version was a lot darker and had a stronger coffee flavor as well as what tasted like essence of cookie crumbs mixed into it. That may not sound too bad, but the problem is that bitter chocolate Oreo cookie crumbs without the sweet creamy filling doesn't work so well. If you add bitter (coffee) to bitter (chocolate cookie), you get a strange combination. It's not bad, but it's not good. At least this tastes like something though, which is more than I can say for the Mont Blanc version.

Neither of these coffees lit my fire, and I definitely wouldn't buy them again. At about 65 calories per 3/4 cup serving, I'm not inclined to waste my precious snacking allotment on these. I'm not even sure that I'll finish these two boxes. They don't have to be bad to get stuck at the back of my snack basket and collect dust. They just don't have to be good and these are incredibly so-so.

Lawson VL Marron Latte

There are always a lot of appealing looking coffee beverages on offer in Japanese convenience stores. Unfortunately, they're all also usually full of sugar. While I'm fine to eat a little sugar, I have a problem with drinking it since liquids spend a lot less time on the tongue that solids. Nonetheless, the idea of a marron (chestnut) latte drew me in and I decided that it was worth 158 calories to give this cold coffee drink a try.

This 300 ml. (10 oz.) cup cost 100 yen ($1.20) at a Lawson 100 shop. the ingredients include brandy, coffee, dextrin, sugar water, and sugar. The ingredients list didn't include "kuri" or "marron" (words for "chestnut") that I could find. I'm guessing that the chestnut part came under the catch-all umbrella of "flavoring". It did smell like both chestnut and coffee, but the chestnut had the same olfactory presence of the types of syrups that get squirted into your coffee at upscale coffee houses.

I tried to peel back the top to get a picture of the coffee, but the plastic inner seal thwarted me. Trust me when I say, it  just looks like regular coffee and nothing special.

This had a unique flavor blend. The strongest element at first was the sweet chestnut flavor followed the the brandy and then the coffee. The three flavors come together very well to create a unique beverage. All of them are strong, but not overbearing. This tasted nice, but really is a bit like liquid candy because it is so very sweet.

I liked this quite a bit, and felt that the way in which all of the elements were balanced "worked". That being said, this isn't for coffee fans so much as for people who want an aspect of Mont Blanc, a dessert which has a heaping pile of chestnut paste that includes sugar and brandy, flavoring mixed in with coffee. If that sounds appealing, by all means, give this a try. If you're big into coffee that tastes greatly like coffee, this probably won't work for you.

Pepsi Mont Blanc

To my recollection, Pepsi has come out with these odd flavors only 6 times. The first was cucumber, which I did not sample. That was followed by Pepsi White, Pepsi Shiso, Pepsi Adzuki, and most recently Pepsi Baobab. I don't include the Pepsi Strong Shot in this cavalcade of weirdness because it didn't taste different than the usual Pepsi. It was simply hyper-caffeinated and more carbonated.

In my opinion, Pepsi has been moving in a steadily better direction with it's limited edition flavor choices, and they've also been doing more beautiful label designs with each one of these. The Pepsi Mont Blanc label is lovely with a wintry motif that conveys the elegance of the dessert it is modeled after. Of course, it could simply be that Pepsi has made a flavor based on my favorite dessert and I'm strongly inclined to believe their synchronicity with me constitutes a "good choice."

I picked this up for 147 yen ($1.82) for a 490 ml. bottle at a Family Mart convenience store. I'm not sure why 10 ml. has been shaved off of the usual 500 ml. serving of these types of drinks, but there it is. It was just released today and should be around for a few months. Though it's unlikely to be on all of the "konbini" shelves for longer than the first month, it will show up at other shops after its initial release. Note that the Pepsi Baobab lingered in boxes at sad little discount shops up until sometime last month. I got the feeling it didn't sell particularly well though I did like it.

I had good hopes for this and when I unscrewed the cap and gave it a whiff, I was greeted with chestnut notes though they were fairly artificial smelling. The best way to describe the smell is like a cross between a cream soda and root beer. The flavor also carries a bit of a cream soda feel with a chestnut finish. I'm guessing there is vanilla in it and that's why cream soda keeps coming to mind, but there is also a bit of a brandy or liquor-type flavor going on. This would be intentional on the part of Pepsi because mont blanc desserts are chestnut paste which includes sugar and often brandy. 

This tastes nothing like Pepsi, and it is unique but fairly tasty. The first sip in particular tastes very good, but the finish feels a bit flat and earthy. I'm not sure what that is about, but it tends to fade a bit as you drink more. Still, I liked this, and while I wouldn't drink it everyday, it is a nice change of pace, especially if you want a sweet soft drink which you're having instead of a treat. Note that this has 42 calories per 100 ml. so drinking the entire bottle is 205 calories. You won't be saving yourself any calories by having this instead of dessert, but you will be having a novel experience.

Tirol Petit Autumn Dessert Assortment

I've been thinking about the product positioning of Tirol (non-premium) candy in Japan and it occurred to me that they represent the same place in the market as Hershey's kisses do in the U.S. They're small candies that are individually wrapped and can be manipulated into a variety of flavors while still maintaining their essential nature. The main difference is that the Tirol candies are more sophisticated based on their more versatile shape, and have about 10 calories more per candy because they are slightly bigger. Being a Japanese product, they also are more elaborately packaged, of course.

I was drawn to this variety pack of autumn dessert candies at 7-11 (for 105 yen/$1.25) because of the inclusion of Mont Blanc roll as a flavor. All of the flavors have appeal for me, but it's hard for me to resist a sweet based on this chestnut-paste-based pastry. As readers of my other Japan-related blog know, it is my favorite item when I have access to a patisserie. Frankly, I was also drawn to the sophisticated package design and autumn colors as I trudged around in 95 degree F/35 degree C. lingering summer weather.

There are three types of candy and nine squares in total. The entire bag is 314 calories and each is about 35 calories. There is a huge list of ingredients since each one has its own separate listing but nice things like real orange peel, apple puree, and mikan (Japanese tangerine) pulp are included as are a lot of not so impressive things like oblaat (the stuff used for medicinal capsule casings), gelatin, and cornstarch. 

Mont Blanc Roll:

This one smells a bit like coffee, but I think it's a misleading olfactory cue. It really does taste just like the pile of creamy chestnut paste that is heaped onto Mont Blanc cakes. In fact, if it weren't for the difference in textures, you'd probably be hard-pressed to tell the difference between this candy and the real deal. If this weren't so small, the flavor may actually be too intense. The pastry has some other aspects with it to dilute the flavor but this is purely the taste of the cream. Still, as a small morsel (about 1 inch/2.54 cm. square), it's very tasty as is. The texture is soft and yielding, but not particularly creamy.

Orange:

When I cut this in half for a picture of the interior, it was a little tough because of the thick gummi-like interior. It smells very strongly of orange and the dark chocolate coating combined well with the sweet interior. Still, this seemed to have a bit of an orange Tootsie roll thing going on which I didn't simply love. I think this would have been a bit better had it been milk chocolate or even more intense dark chocolate. The orange flavor is the real deal though, and this was fine. I wouldn't buy it alone, but I'm good with eating the three pieces in this assortment and they won't go to waste.

Apple Pie:

This is exactly the same as the premium apple pie that I loved so much and praised in an earlier review. It's every bit as good as the original with nice chewy bits of apple, a strong hint of cinnamon, crunchy bits of "pie crust" and a white chocolate base.

This is a very nice assortment. In fact, it's one of the better ones that I've come across from Tirol in a long, long time and I would recommend it to anyone who finds the flavors appealing. In order of preference, I'd say that I still loved the apple pie best, then the mont blanc roll, and finally the orange. My husband liked the orange one best, so tastes do vary.

Mont Blanc Dessert Pocky

If you're not familiar with Mont Blanc, it is a dessert made of pureed chestnuts and whipped cream. You can find many permutations of it in most Japanese convenience stores, markets and patisseries. The original dessert is Italian and is named after a mountain in the alps. Mont blanc (the dessert, not the Pocky) has a pile of chestnut with whipped cream on top and vaguely resembles a snow-topped mountain in appearance.

Mont blanc is one of my favorite desserts so I was very pleased to see this version of Pocky in the stores. In fact, as fall arrives, many chestnut and mont blanc sweets start to appear on the shelves of Japanese stores. It's just one more reason to be happy that summer is over, as if the stifling heat and humidity ending and the cockroaches packing up and leaving Tokyo weren't good enough reasons. The popularity of chestnut sweets at this time of year is linked to the habit of consuming chestnuts in Japan at this time of year less so than to mont blanc desserts, popular as they may be.


Like the previously reviewed orange dessert Pocky, the Mont Blanc Pocky is sweeter and has a thicker coating than regular Pocky. They are also a little more expensive and each individual packet contains fewer sticks. Run-of-the-mill Pocky gives you 5 sticks with a puny coating. Dessert Pocky offers 3 decadently coated sticks. When you open the packet and give it a sniff, it smells pleasantly of chestnuts. The sticks mimic the appearance of the dessert by having a brown "chestnut" colored coating and a white drizzle representing the whipped cream.


The coating is sweet, but carries good chestnut notes, particularly at the end of chewing. I've complained about too sweet desserts before, but it isn't the sweetness that I object to so much as the fact that it's difficult to detect any other flavor behind all that sweetness. The chestnut dessert Pocky does a great job of keeping the flavor despite being pretty sweet without being overwhelming or artificial tasting. This is a balancing act Glico, the company which makes Pocky, did well with on the orange dessert Pocky as well.

Unsurprisingly, the ingredients are very similar to the orange dessert Pocky, including artificial sweeteners to keep the calories down. Three very satisfying sticks only set you back 97 calories. If you like chestnut and are in the mood for something with a hint of decadence, these are really a splendid option. If I allowed myself to buy another box, I think they also might be interesting to try after a quick dip in hot coffee.