Furuta Creamy & Crispy Pie

Recently, I read an article on a food news site in which someone was extolling the virtues of monaka. The notion of the ice cream encased in the cone rather than heaped on top of it was just too exciting for them. It's as if the writer felt the Japanese had done something truly remarkable.

The problem is that no one cares that much for a cake cone, and monaka are the equivalent of cake cones bricking up your precious ice cream. They're edible Styrofoam packaging with little flavor and a less than appealing texture. And I have to say that cake cones in the U.S. are actually better than the monaka coverings I experienced in Japan. That's probably because they aren't being sold with the ice cream already in them where it can leech moisture into the cone over time as the hapless confection sits in the freezer waiting for someone to find it appealing enough to buy.

I'm not saying monaka were never good. I found the Jumbo Morinaga one quite appealing, but that was more about the filling than the "wafers" that encased it. My point is that they don't taste like much, but that actually suits Japanese tastes pretty well. In fact, in my experience, the Japanese love things that are on the bland side. It's why I so often heard students complain about food in the U.S. being too sweet or too spicy. Note that they rarely said it was "too salty", but that would be a bit too ironic coming from the land of soy sauce.

When I buy any snacks from Japan, I keep in mind that their tastes are different. A lot of the time, I have to look for subtlety and texture rather than strong tastes. When things are good, there is flavor depth which reveals itself in the absence of a high amount of sugar or spices.

When things are not so good, well, it's rarely actually bad, but is something I tend to be indifferent toward. In general, one of the more popular types of crispy cookie-like snacks that falls into the "indifferent" category are these "pies". When they say "pie", don't think "Hostess fruit pie", think "pie crust". That's my way of saying not to expect a lot of sophisticated flavor.

The cookies smell of margarine which is desperately trying to convince someone that it is actually butter with a faint hint of coconut. The strange thing is that coconut is nowhere in the ingredients, so it must be some sort of olfactory hallucination. The cookies are about half the size of my palm. Each is 48 calories.

The flavor of these is definitely on the muted side. They are lightly sweet with the fake butter and fried flour being the outstanding flavors. Each is light and flaky and like layers of concentric pie dough. There's not a whole lot going on in the front end, but there's a back end flavor which is very reminiscent of the edge of the crust on a pumpkin pie. Most of what you're getting from these is texture, not taste and there's very little in the way of depth. These are a snack that cries out for some sort of addition, whether it's a little jam, a side of cream, or a cup of tea or coffee.

These aren't bad at all. In fact, I think they'd go over well as a garnish on ice cream or even used as a heart-shaped decoration on the side of a frosted cake. In fact, they'd be ideal for the latter since they add a textural contrast and could match nearly any flavor of frosting or cake. At $1.50 (150 yen) per package for 7 "pies" (at least at Daiso), it also wouldn't break the bank to buy them. Mainly, however, these are for people who want a variation from the tea time butter cookie and really aren't much of a taste event.

Random Picture #136

Both photos courtesy of BlogD (used with permission). 

It's nice to see that the Japanese merchants are really getting into the spirit of the season. That's the spirit of selling more stuff to people, of course. These are kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) cream bread which were on sale in Ikebukuro. The face is a chocolate cookie mixture, probably similar to the coating on melon pan. The bread is pumpkin flavored and inside is custard cream. I'd be happy to sample these if I were in Tokyo if it weren't for the fact that they look like a family that didn't look like cream bread created close enough to  Fukushima's nuclear plant to create some unfortunate results. These are actually very unusual in that they are rather sloppily made for a Japanese bakery. Usually, they're  more meticulous than this.

The cheesecakes in this picture are much closer to what one would expect from a Japanese bakery. They are "rare cheesecakes" (like New York style, except lighter, as opposed to baked cheesecake) and the stenciling is pretty perfect looking. Despite having pumpkins on them, they aren't pumpkin flavored, though those are mini pumpkin pies down below. I wonder if those pies are Japanese pumpkin (kabocha) or American. Yes, the taste is very different. I wouldn't buy one though as 845 yen ($10.65) is far too expensive for a tiny pie.

Tirol Raspberry Cheese Pie and Peach Pie Premium

When I was growing up, I remember going to local supermarkets with  my mother and seeing these boxes of pies with a clear plastic cover over the top. They'd have elaborate crusts with patterns on the top, perfectly crimped edges, and look nothing like the slapdash pies my mother put together. Hers had crumbling edges that were pressed down with a fork. I remember wanting to buy and try those pies, but we were too poor to pay whatever they cost. If I was having pie, it'd be her craptacular crust with some store brand canned pie filling plopped in the middle.

You can imagine that my pie experiences back home were far from stellar. In fact, because I was never really exposed to good pie (not that the supermarket pie would have been good, but there may have been a chance), I didn't really miss it when I came to Japan. Japan is a country that, by and large, doesn't "do" pie. There are some shops carrying something resembling pie, but a lot of the time it's not wedges cut from something round but rather flaky dough with fruit or custard heaped on it and given a shellacking with sugary glaze. So, I'm definitely not approaching these with the enthusiasm of a true pie aficionado. I'm guessing that is all for the best.

I picked these up at a local 7-11 for 32 yen (42 cents) each. This is the standard price at convenience stores for premium Tirol chocolates in my area. However, the availability of any particular flavor is not certain and I've been to 7-11 and other convenience stores that didn't have one, the other, or both. You may have to scout for them. The raspberry cheese pie one is 58 calories and the peach pie is 53, quite reasonable calorie "costs" for candy which is about 1 inch/2.54 cm square. Think of it as having a similar volume to 2.5 Hershey's kisses.

Raspberry Cheese Pie was a flavor I approached with some trepidation as my experience with Tirol cheese chocolates has not been a happy one. As I've said before, with cheese sweets in Japan, you have to think "Gouda", not "cream cheese". The mix of pungency with sugar can be quite off-putting, if not an obnoxious assault on the tongue, but hope springs eternal. Peeling off the wrapper and giving it a sniff, I was thinking "oh no", not "yummy". It smells like cheddar, which did not really play well with visions of raspberry cheesecake flavors dancing in my head. Fortunately, the cheesy nature was not overbearing and paired very nicely with the ever so slightly floral raspberry flavoring and sweet white chocolate. While I wasn't blown away by this, I did eat the entire thing and enjoy it. I wish, however, that the textural elements had been a bit clearer. The biscuit in mine wasn't crispy, but rather like a soft cookie and I'd have preferred a crunchy contrast to the soft white chocolate.

The Peach Pie was the flavor I had higher expectations of because I loved the Apple Pie premium candy. I was delighted to see that it had the same crispy bits packed into it and happy that it smelled amiably of peaches. Cutting it in half for a picture, I noticed little bits of dried peach in there and they gave this the same chewy fruit and crispy pie bits texture as the Apple Pie candy. This is quite sweet, however, but I "blame" that on the white chocolate. The peach flavor is a bit intense, but I didn't mind.

I would definitely recommend either of these as a small tea time treat when you are in the mood for just a few bites. They are both very tasty and have complex flavors and in the case of the Peach Pie one, varied textures as well. I wouldn't recommend these if you are looking to indulge in more than a bite or two though as the sweetness can get pretty cloying. I ate both of these at the same time and it got to be a bit much for me by the end of the second one, but I think I actually would buy them again if I wanted a sweeter than usual bite of fruity chocolate.

Lotte Chocolate Pie Bites

In Japan, you can score a bucket of pies... teeny, tiny pies, but a bucket nonetheless!

Sometimes I think about the future of this blog post-leaving Japan. There is no doubt that I will be able to procure Japanese snacks one way or another after I leave, but I wonder if the same interest value will be there for me. Part of the delight of sampling and talking about such trivial things is that the way in which I get them, though frequently similar, is part of life here. Getting them by mail order doesn't carry nearly a much oomph as finding them on sale for half their price at a discount shop, or whining about how I had to tramp all over my neighborhood to find that one place that carried something I wanted.

The notion of a bucket of pies is somewhat spoiled when you open it and find this bag crammed inside.

In the case of this, my story is quite unique. My husband and I have taken to walking later in the evening because of the sun beating down on us during the hot and difficult daylight hours. We went out for a rare 9:00 pm stroll and found ourselves at a Namco gaming center. For kicks, he decided to try a machine which had tubs of both these pies and Koala's March cookies. He wanted to see if he could knock one over because they looked to be balanced such that it should have been fairly simple. This is part of the deceptive nature of such machines, but his first attempt (he put in 500 yen ($6.33) which gets you 6 tries), he did a good job knocking one of the Koala's March tubs off-based. On the second try, he hooked the pie tub and it fell quite by accident. Unfortunately, the position of the Koala's March tub became disadvantageous after this and he couldn't get another.

And keeping with the theme of packaging inside of packaging inside of more packaging, we find two-packs of tiny pie bits.

So, we "paid" 500 yen for these, which probably isn't too far from the value of this quantity (I discovered a bag of these costs about 263 yen, so, that is the true value), though I don't think you can buy this configuration in markets. For the record, you can get 12-packs of these from Amazon for about $4. This has a bag with 64 pieces in it in 32 two-packs. Each pie is slightly smaller than a 100 yen coin or American quarter and has 24 calories. I think the name of this, incidentally, translates to "pie nuts", though the Chinese character also means "real" so it may be a play on words. I think the nuggets are supposed to suggest nuts (and that's why there are squirrels pictured on the bag).

They smell very weakly of chocolate and not much else. The outside of the pie has a little shellac of sugar on the top which lends a little boost to the overall sweetness level, but mostly this is about the texture. The pice is flaky, crispy and crumbles apart in delicate layers. Lotte says there are 64 layers in each one, which is a lot for such a little nibble. The chocolate filling is not particularly intense or sweet, but adds a tasty nuance of chocolate. There is also the flavor of flour steeped in fats that one would expect. It's not especially flavorful, but on the whole, it works.

I liked these far more than I expected because I'm not big into "pie" based sweets in general. However, the size, crispiness, and subtle balance of flavors made for a very enjoyable bite or two. I don't know that I'd want another really big bag of these, but I'd certainly pick up a smaller box of one at the store on occasion. However, I would caution that you have to value texture over strong taste if you're going to like these.

Nippon Ham Chilled Bakery Meat Pie

Since I started working part-time, my eating schedule has been forcibly changed two days a week. Usually, I have the luxury of eating dinner at 7:00 or 8:00 pm, but on the two days on which I work, I get home at 10:30 or so after eating lunch around 5:00. I don't want to eat a lot late at night, so I've been pursuing some different options. As a result, my readers will be "enjoying" some different food reviews than before. In fact, chances are that there will be more convenience foods which resemble "real food". Honestly, this is all the better for the continued life of this blog as I really am starting to see fewer and fewer attractive options in the snack aisles. That's not to say there aren't things I haven't sampled, but that variations on a theme get pretty boring after awhile.

This is more pie than "meat", but that's okay with me. I'm not a great fan of meat anyway and chose this for a light meal prospect. The pie is flaky and slightly buttery. It has a light crispiness which is very pleasing and a tender interior. The meat filling is more of a "paste" which has a touch of tomato paste flavor, but nothing really too strong. It reminds me of the sloppy joe mix we used to get in elementary school.

This is actually pretty good as long as you have exceptionally low expectations of the meat filling and reasonable hopes for a nice flaky pie. I enjoyed this quite a lot, much as I enjoyed its companion piece, the cheese pie. I'd pick up either as a filling snack or breakfast if the spirit moved me. Both have better than average bakery qualities for something you pick up in the refrigerator case at Seiyu. At 298 yen ($3.72) for 4 pies, they're cheaper than the local bakery's offerings as well. I kept this around in the fridge for about a week with no degradation in quality, which was a bonus. If you get home late, like a more filling snack, or just want a little breakfast variety, I'd recommend giving this a try.

Nippon Ham Chilled Bakery Cheese Pie

I once read a blog post on an aggregating site which offered information on more ecologically sound living which said that cheese is an addictive substance. The article talked about how cheese is engineered to act like cocaine and that the reason we enjoy it so much is that we are chemically bound to it in a manner which is equivalent to the crackhead and his pipe. Realizing that this was vegan propaganda, I closed the tab and never read anything on that site again.

Of course, assuming it is true that we're addicted to cheese, I can't say that I would care. Some addictions are worth the suffering  (though I do apologize to the cows). If I could eat just one food for the rest of my life in all of it glorious permutations, it wouldn't be chocolate that would win, but cheese. I'm guessing that I spent a past life in Wisconsin. The grim irony is that I live in one of the worst places in the world if you're a cheese lover. It's a wasteland studded with bizarre mixtures of cheese and other things that don't belong in the majesty of its dairy kingdom and processed dreck.

The thing is that I think I'm starting to become so used to the weird experiences with Japanese cheese that I'm starting to like what I have available. This troubles me slightly, but on the other hand, a crack monkey probably will smoke whatever he can get if the best isn't available so why should a cheese monkey be any different?

With the full knowledge that this was going to be odd, I picked up this package of 4 "cheese pies" at Inageya Supermarket  for 298 yen ($3.68). They are sweetened with honey and use Gouda cheese and I knew I was stepping through that looking glass of savory and pungent mixed with sweet that the Japanese do so often, but not so well.

These pies are sold as "premium", which is rather funny considering the fact that they're just slightly squished pre-baked dough with a little filling. In fact, the filling only covers about half of the total length of the hand-length pie. The size is pretty good though for a continental breakfast and at only 181 calories, they fit easily into a sensible diet.

The instructions say to bake at 1000W for 4 minutes, but I found that this browned the outside but left part of the cheese filling cold. A better method is to bake for 3-4 minutes then allow it to rest in the oven an additional two minutes to allow it to heat through, though this does make the pastry a tad darker. This leaves you with a really nicely crispy outer crust and a tender inside. The dough portion is slightly sweet and has an adequate texture and "baked" flavor. That is, a nice floury, margarine-y taste. I liked the dough quite a lot, but I am not comparing it to a fresh croissant. It's good for what it is, but doesn't compare to fresh and hand-baked.

The filling is lightly sweet, slightly pungent and not too terrible, but, again, I think I've adjusted to this odd mix. I'm not sure other foreign palates would find it so acceptable. My husband didn't care for it at all, though he prefers much sweeter things than I do anyway. The texture of the filling is similar to cream cheese offerings, but not similar in flavor. It's not gooey, but rather closer to creamy, though also a bit chunky.

I was surprised that I actually liked this, and would buy it again if I wanted to have a pastry on hand to toss in the toaster oven for a hot breakfast. Depending on how acclimated you are to the cheese in Japan, you might like this, but I'm not making any promises that it'll suit all Western taste buds.

Lawson VL Choco Pie

There are a lot of things in Japan called "choco pie". One of the most popular resembles a moon pie. It's a couple of cakey slabs with vanilla cream in the center and covered in chocolate. Even though they're not very good, I used to eat them regularly when I first came to Japan. I think I did it because they were relative innocuous looking, and I had not yet developed the high level of gustatory "courage" that I have now.

These Lawson VL Choco Pies are different because, well, they are actual pies. They're puff pastries with a toothpaste squirt size stream of chocolate "cream" down the center. For a mere 100 yen ($1.24) for 4 small pies, I'm not exactly complaining about that or the fact that the pie is rather pale and anemic-looking.

Among the ingredients are flour, "chocolate flour paste" (yummy sounding!), margarine, and shortening. It's pretty clear this is both a carb and bad fat festival. Still, they're only 151 calories of nastiness as long as one limits oneself to one pie.

The pie itself has an extremely familiar taste.There are other types of puff pastry pies on the market which either use the same pastry (but cooked a bit crisper and darker). I'm guessing Lawson's obtains the basic pie material from that company, or that this is the equivalent of "store brand" varieties back home. That is, the store name is slapped onto something which may be sold under another brand elsewhere.

The chocolate cream tastes a little like consumer-level chocolate pudding. This doesn't really matter since there is so little of it that you don't get much of a taste of it at all. That being said, the pie part isn't bad at all. It has a nice "baked goods" flavor to it with a certain floury nature and fatty moistness. If you like the flavor of raw pie dough, there may be something in this for you.

I'm rather torn about this. It's the sort of bad food that I might crave once in a blue moon, but not the sort of thing I'd seek out early or often. I will definitely finish the packet, though I'll probably toss the remainder in the freezer and eat it rather slowly when I get a particular craving for white flour carbs.

Sweet Box Apple Pie

Several months ago, one of my husband's students brought back a box of "apple pie" from Korea and gave it to my husband as a souvenir. That box had about 10 or 12 little pies in it and he slowly ate them. I had just one.


Fast forward to today when my husband and I amble down to the local QQ (99-yen shop) and meander around looking for band-aids and various snacks. Among the pile of snacks elegantly displayed in their original cardboard boxes and stacked at the back of the shop are these Sweet Box apple pies. The style of the box design as well as the picture of the pie on the box looks very much like the Korean pies that he got as a souvenir. Out of curiosity, and because he kind of liked the pies, we picked up a box.

Note that this box only contains 5 pies and cost 99 yen (about a dollar) and the Korean one had twice as many. The origin of the pies is China, but the distributor is Japanese. My guess is that these are exported to various countries with different packages based on their ultimate destination.

One can't expect much from this sort of thing. The best you can hope for is a happy surprise. Of course, I wasn't going to be surprised because I had the Korean ones already. The main problem with these "apple" pies is that the apple portion is so sparse. Most of it is "pie". And by pie, I mean a very dry, flaky crust, which is half pie and half cracker.


The smattering of apple filling tastes a bit like super thick apricot and apple jam, and is not very sweet. Because of the distribution, the first bite is mostly dry pie with the tiniest hint of the fruit. The second bite of filling is a bit better, like a tart apple, but there's so little of it that it's not worthwhile.

On the bright side, each 4 cm by 8 cm pie is only 63 calories. You're not getting much for the investment. I think these might actually be useful for pairing up with ice cream. The texture of the dry pie would probably add something to a sundae concoction, especially if you paired the ice cream with some sort of fruit sauce.

All in all though, these are really not very good. The pie is substandard. The filling is fine, but too sparse. About the only good thing is the price, and even then I think you could do better with your 99 yen on something infinitely tastier. I won't be picking these up again.