Look Hawaiian Chocolate

When I was a very young child, I had a puzzle which was a map of the United States. Each piece was a state and the point was to teach children the names of the states and their capitals. Since it would be very boring design to just have each state with words on it, they also put a picture or a few pictures of representative images for each place on the puzzle piece.

For some states, this was easy since they had very clear industries or famous places. California had Hollywood. Michigan had cars. Florida had oranges. Idaho had potatoes. My home state, Pennsylvania, had the Liberty Bell and coal. Some of the states were represented by rather silly things and those are the states that nobody remembers the position of on the map. Of course, Hawaii was easy. It had pineapples, coconuts, and hula girls. In fact, it also has a good deal more these days as we can also connect it with coffee, and macadamia nuts. In fact, I think more people know Hawaii as a stereotype than as an actual place to live (except the marvelous Marvo at The Impulsive Buy since he actually does live there).

I imagine that this offering from Fujiya for their Look line is based on favored stereotypical flavors. The box has all of the images that my old puzzle map used to have, including the hula dancer. Maybe one of their designers had that very same toy as a child.

Of course, there must be pineapple and there's also Kona coffee and macadamia, but the final flavor is pure Japan. That flavor is "blue Hawaii". My first experience with the "blue Hawaii" flavor was when considering a kakigori (shaved ice) treat for the first time. The syrup flavors included that non-descript flavor. We though that it might be blueberry at first, but it turned out to be some weird flavor that we could not figure out. Of all of the options in this box of Look chocolates, that one would absolutely be the biggest surprise as I had no idea what it was going to be.

pineapple: This was very subtle at first and I mainly tasted the bittersweet chocolate. The pineapple hit somewhere in the middle as an acidic burst and then faded away. I don't think chocolate and pineapple are a particularly good pairing in general and this did nothing to change my feeling about that.

macadamia: I had some expectations that this might work pretty well because, you know, nuts and chocolate, but it tasted strangely artificial and funky. It was if it had been contaminated by some bizarre artificial flavoring.There was only a modest nutty flavor mixed with the strange chemical taste.

Kona coffee: I figured this might be pretty good, but it also had a little of that odd flavor coupled with coconut. It had a rich, coffee finishing taste and was the best of the bunch. That is not to say it was fantastic, but it was complex and tasted closest to what one might expect.

blue Hawaii: This is where that strange chemical flavor came from. I wonder if the other flavors were "contaminated" in some fashion by the bubble gum-like flavor of this filling as that same essence is what I detected in the macadamia and Kona coffee to some extent. The pineapple is the furthest physically in the box from the blue Hawaii so it may not have been absorbing the scent/flavor as much. As much as I may feel that pineapple and chocolate are not a natural partnering, bubble gum and chocolate are about as mismatched as it gets.

None of these was terrible. I didn't exactly want to spit them back out, but that is more of a testimonial to how weak the fillings were and how serviceable the semi-sweet chocolate was. I can eat these, but I wouldn't say they'd be my first choice or even my second or third. If I was desperate for chocolate and this was all I had, I'd turn to it, but it's really not great. Maybe I got a bad box, or mine was older and sitting on the shelf caused flavors to coalesce into a mutant entity, but I wouldn't buy this again.

Glico Tropical Pocky

Recently, I was looking through a copy of "Elle" magazine. No, I'm not a fashion aficionado. It was free and I was on a sociological "expedition" within the confines of my home. I was looking at it not for the articles, which was fortunate since there are probably fewer than I can count on one hand, but for the ads. For those who have never taken a look at this particular periodical, it is pretty much all advertising for fashion-related items, especially clothes.

The point of scrutinizing the ads was to note certain aspects of them. What was the ethnic balance of models, where did certain products tend to be advertised (the front of back of the magazine), what products were advertised, etc. Though not scientific, I do believe that I learned a few things about how advertisers try to reach their markets and who they are focusing on. For instance, I noted that anti-aging products - so-called "serums" - did not include a model at all, but simply showed a big bottle of the product. Food was rarely advertised, but when it was, it was clearly marketed for the calorie conscious and toward the back of the magazine.

What is my point in all of this? My point is that we are marketed to in specific ways. There are a lot more conclusions I reached, which I won't bore you with here, but I am very aware that I believe I'm making choices when I am not. There may be 25 different types of Oreos in the store, but I'm still not in control of the choices I make. Whatever those 25 types are, I didn't choose them. Some marketing person decided on what would appeal to the broadest customer base and packaged them to make that base want them more. Products are positioned, choices are narrower than we believe, and we are not in control even when advertisers offer the illusion that we are.

If you think about this for a second, you'll see what I mean more clearly. If you wanted to eat a pumpkin-flavored Oreo with a yellow cookie, and I would want to eat such a cookie, could you? That's the choice I'd like to have, but it's not there on the shelf. It sounds like a fine holiday option, but it is not available. I'm given what I'm given, and can only choose from those options.

This leads me to the Tropical Pocky, of which mango is an integral component (pineapple is the other part). Mango started to explode in popularity a few years before I left Japan. Suddenly, I started seeing packets of dried mango everywhere then that was followed by various snacks being offered in mango flavor (including sembei/rice crackers). I'm pretty sure this all started with news that mango was going to cure you of cancer, wrinkles, or male pattern baldness. Once that news got out (if such news existed, which it probably did in some form or another), people started eating the fruit and once they developed a taste for it, everyone started to flavor food with it.

Japanese people didn't choose mango. Someone on a news program, a T.V. show, or another media outlet chose to highlight it and then everyone decided this was a bandwagon to jump on. So, I experience a plethora of mango-flavored snacks from a fad that started at some point in the not so distant past and continues to slog onward into the future. Mango could be the "tiramisu" of the future - a fad that started the integration of a flavor into the collective tastes of the country and never got old. Or it could just fade away over time.

This is not "mango", though it is listed as one of the ingredients and I have to imagine that there is a reason that it is listed as a copilot with pineapple and that it is listed first. It's the same reason that "Brad Pitt" is listed before "Matt Damon". Sure, we recognize both of them, but which is going to have a greater likelihood of drawing viewers?

At any rate, despite the billing of mango and pineapple, this is dominated by the pineapple and is far too sweet for my tastes. It reminds me of an overly sweet fruit punch, but the type that is made with real flavors rather than artificial ones. It has some verisimilitude to the real deal, but is too concentrated. If this were a drink instead of a Pocky stick, I'd be adding ice or water to it to water the flavor down. If you've ever felt that 100% fruit juice was just too much for you then you'll see what I mean.

This isn't an awful Pocky, but it's far from the greatest in my opinion. I won't throw the rest away, but it'll be a slow road to finishing the box - a stick here, a stick there, and eventually it'll be gone. I wouldn't buy it again, however, and I'm inclined to avoid other fruit-flavored Pocky after this experience.

Tirol Premium Shio Pine

Note: It has been pointed out to me that this is "shio" (salt) pine, not "shiro" (white) pine. You'd think that'd be clear from the big white letters written on it in English as well as the Japanese characters, but my addled upper-middle-aged brain missed that. That being said, there is nothing at all that is salty about this candy!

When I first saw this, I briefly entertained notions that it was going to be some sort of white pine flavor, like a pine nut, cone, or tree. I forgot all too quickly that "pine" in this case was "pineapple" and missed the fact that there were a bunch of yellow rings illustrating the package indicating the fruit this was supposed to taste like. This is surely an indication that I do not think in Japanese language, which is no surprise considering the fact that I spend most of my life speaking English despite where I live. Aside from asking, "how much is it", and "where is it," I rarely need to say much in Japanese. Yes, that may sound odd, but such is the life of an English teacher with an American husband. We don't all need to spend our nights trying to pick up natives in Roppongi and therefore have ample opportunity to speak the native tongue.

The fact that this is pineapple in no way disappointed me. I love pineapple, and it's one of those flavors that is harder to get wrong than others even if it is "shiro choco" (white chocolate). The combination of something with an acidic edge to it often cuts through the sweetness. The only way that Tirol was going to mess this up was to make the flavor too weak or the chocolate too sweet.

The chocolate is soft and cleaves rather easily with a knife, something which I value because it makes it easier to get a detailed shot of the interior. Inside, there is a little gummi candy topped with a few bits of crisped rice. Most of the pineapple flavor is in the gummi and lends a good bite and a fairy realistic pineapple flavor. The rice crispy bits add a nice textural contrast to the soft, sweet white chocolate exterior.

This is a tasty little candy that you can pick up at convenience stores now for about 20 yen (24 cents). It's a small morsel, about an inch (2.54 cm.) in diameter, and makes an enjoyable bite or two with a cup of tea. At only 54 calories, it also offers good portion control. If you're a fan of pineapple sweets, this is one that you don't want to miss.

Nico Nico Niccori Jelly

These Japanese "jelly" candies are really just gelatin in disguise. This is something which I sort of forgot when I bought this bag of "jellies", but was quickly reminded of when I sampled them. These are essentially prepared, all weather (as in they require no refrigeration), individually wrapped tubs of gelatin made from kelp instead of animal parts. I must say, looking at it that way either makes these much more attractive (hurray! no animal died in the making of these gelatin treats) or less attractive (yuck! eating seaweed derivatives).

I don't know many people who make their own gelatin desserts in Japan. There are boxes of gelatin as well as plain gelatin available in shops, but the variety and quantity is very limited. Most people buy these individually packaged versions. I guess that the joy of slowly moldering Jell-O in the fridge and it's fake fruity jiggliness hasn't caught on here.

back row: orange, melon, pineapple front row: grape, strawberry

You can get about one-cup-size tubs or ones with tiny amounts of gelatin like the ones I sampled. If I had to guess at the volume in one of the containers in the package I bought, I'd say it's about a tablespoon. The bag I bought lured me in because it was incredibly cheap. It contains 27 itty bitty tubs of gelatin for only about a dollar (98 yen). There are five flavors, grape, orange, melon, strawberry, and pineapple.

The first ingredient in these is grape sugar and puree, fruit sugar and puree from the various fruits represented by the flavors, and kale. The fact that there are a lot of sugars in them is a clue of what is to come. These are very, very sweet. In fact, they're far sweeter than any Jell-O I've ever made from a mix or gelatin I've had back home.

An unmolded orange jelly, with a small deformation from pushing it out of its tub.

When I opened the bag, it smelled like lollipops. Even though the tubs look airtight, they clearly are not or the bag itself wouldn't smell so fruity. Eating these requires you to tear back the top and then push the bottom to "pop" the gelatin out. The size, shape, and mechanics make it clear that you're meant to pop them directly into your mouth. No utensils, no mess, no fuss, but a lot of trash for a tiny bit of gelatin.

I was going to review each flavor individually, but the truth is that I can sum up the flavor of each of them in the same manner: super sweet and intense. The fruit flavors are real, but concentrated. It's a lot like eating a spoonful of cheap, off-brand jelly (yeah, the type you spread on toast) on the flavor front and slightly soft gelatin on the texture front.

It wouldn't be bad to toss these in the refrigerator (Nanao Seika recommends you eat them cold) and have one on a hot day as a quick, sweet pick-me-up, but I really am not a fan of the super sweetness or the concentration of the flavor. Frankly, I think these might be marketed more towards children rather than adults. More expensive and larger size versions of these types of gelatin desserts tend to have bits of fruit in them, which adults might favor. I gave away the rest of the bag and I don't plan on buying them again.

Pineapple Hi-Chew

There are a great many fans of Hi-Chew out there and I believe the pineapple flavor has been recommended to me by multiple people. And, I do like pineapple, but I'm not a fan of fruit-flavored candies. You wouldn't find me buying something like a Skittles or Starburst in the U.S., and I don't buy Hi-Chew. My husband, however, does so I have found myself in a position to review this oft-enjoyed treat.

Note that there are at least two kinds of pineapple Hi-Chew. This version is an Okinawa version. The stamp design on the package says "Okinawa" in Japanese on it. My guess is that you're supposed to only be buying this as a souvenir when you visit the southern part of Japan, but my husband picked this up in a sweets shop in Tokyo. The other version is "Golden Pineapple", and it's supposed to be sweeter than this version.

Hi-Chew are like a cross between gum and a caramel. They are chewy for awhile then melt away. I found this strange when I tried my first Hi-Chew, but rather liked it this time around. It's like having gum that never loses its flavor or makes your jaw tired.


The pineapple Hi-Chew smells a bit strange to me. There is a pineapple smell in there, but there's something else which I can't identify. It's organic, but ever so slightly unpleasant. The pineapple flavor in this is quite nice. It tastes like the real thing at first then there is some sort of secondary artificial flavor that kicks in. I believe this is the taste of the gum base that makes this a candy rather than a piece of, well, pineapple. The finish seems to send a burst of stronger, tart and acidic pineapple flavor over your tongue.

This was good, and I think someone who is more enamored of fruit flavored candies and the Hi-Chew texture would really love this. For me though, it is definitely the sort of thing I'd have to be in the mood for. I'd certainly buy it again if I had a yen for it (no pun intended).