Lotte Strawberry Chocolate Pops

This is another form of "dagashi" (kid's snacks) with some cute and inventive design. The pops are designed to look like flowers that are tethered at the base. You snap them apart at the root to eat each "pop."

These aren't actually lollipops though. They're small amounts of chocolate (about the size of a Hershey's kiss) stuck on the end of a plastic stick. There's also a-guitar pick-shaped sticker inside. Mine was a strawberry monkey (monkee ichigo) who wears the top half of a strawberry (with an strangely placed and long stem) as his trousers. Filthy monkey.

The packaging on this is cute, but also smooth as silk to open. There's a tab at the bottom which you peel apart then pull up and it comes off easily and cleanly. This is the sort of thing which is part of Japanese marketing and products which is rare in the U.S. It's an attention to detail which makes the experience of consuming something much better there.

The novelty element of this is high. It's clearly designed more for fun than as food. The sticker, the colorful and cute characters, and the sticks make that clear. I generally have pretty low expectations of these types of things.

You can smell the strawberry element immediately and it actually smells authentic. If you eat it with the strawberry side facing your tastebuds, you get a very present and good, sweet strawberry flavor. It's reminiscent of jam mixed with cocoa in a good way. The texture is soft and it's milkier than some other varieties. It's also fairly sweet, but not cloyingly so. The slight floral and tart notes from the strawberry help offset the sweetness.

For a kid's snack, this is quite amazingly well balanced in flavors with some complexity. Most kid's treats are one-note and too sweet, salty, or fatty to cater to their less developed palate, but this was one of the best strawberry chocolates I've tasted. I could have used a little more chocolate bitterness and it could have been a hair less sweet, but, overall, this was a winner.

This item was part of my free ZenPop Japanese snacks box.

Yaokin Strawberry Cream Roll Cake

This is the first item from the ZenPop Sweets box that I previously reviewed. I chose it mainly because I wanted a small dessert and it looked small and like a dessert. That being said, this is a "kid's snack" in Japan and sold for a mere 20 yen (20 cents), so it's unrealistic to expect it to be as refined as larger, adult-marketed shelf stable pastries. And, of course, shelf-stable pastries are a completely different category from actual fresh pastries.

If cakes were to be compared to movies, the real deal would be a comedy like "Grand Budapest Hotel," and this type of product would be something by Adam Sandler which didn't do well at the box office. Note that I've never seen a good Adam Sandler movie, let alone a bad one. However, while I distrust most of what the internet tells me, I have some faith that their disdain for a movie that failed to make money that also featured a guy who irritated the crap out of me every time I saw him on "Saturday Night Live" is appropriately placed. So, don't expect some finely made performance a quirky, beautifully executed manner. This is more pratfalls and dumbassery. All you can hope for is that it'll make you smile anyway.

There was no nutrition information on the packaging, so I can't tell you how many calories it is. It can't be many though because it is small. The packaging is very deceptive in that the actual cake is less than half the width and only a little over half of the length of the package. It's also not exactly what you'd think of as a Swiss cake roll with moist sponge cake and whipped cream frosting. The filling is a somewhat cream-cheese-like frosting and the "cake" is somewhat doughy and quite moist. It's more akin to a slightly damp pancake.

When you open it, the strawberry scent is potent. The flavor is not super sweet, which is actually a bonus. The cake has a nice flavor, but the doughy texture is a little disappointing as it feels like you're noshing on a slightly underbaked item. Still, there is something appealing in it's qualities and the flavor of the cake is decent.

The interesting thing about this is that, if you are expecting Ralph Fiennes instead of Adam Sandler, this will disappoint, but it's actually not a bad shelf-stable snack. It needs to be placed into its own category and I felt it was closer to a low-rent version of a dorayaki (a traditional Japanese snack which looks like two pancakes filled with red bean paste).

I wouldn't buy a case of these, and I wouldn't want to eat one every week. If I still lived in Japan though, I could see me buying one occasionally and keeping it in the my desk when an urge or craving hit. I think the fairest thing to say is that I wouldn't want to see this in every box I got from a snack box service, but I wouldn't mind seeing one show up once a year or so. That actually makes it something I'd want to see more frequently than any Adam Sandler movie.

Source: ZenPop box service

Nestle Strawberry Cheesecake Crunch Mini bars (product announcement)

Image from Nestle Japan's web site.

On June 9, Nestle Japan will release a strawberry cheesecake version of their Crunch bars. This is marginally more interesting than a similar type of KitKat, but only mainly because they haven't saturated the Crunch bar market with varied flavors as they have their darling KitKats.

You may wonder why they're showing ice cream on the front of the package when this is a cheesecake flavor. In honor of the changing of the season from wet, humid, and uncomfortably warm to unbearably hot, humid, and somewhat less wet, they are advocating that you freeze the bars to give you a more pleasant experience. If you'd like to pick up a bag, they're retailing for 500 yen (about $5), but it's likely that you can get them for around 350 yen at most markets or discount snack shops.

My guess is these will taste pretty much like the strawberry cheesecake KitKats. I'll pass, thank you.

Meiji Gummy Choco Candy

Nuts, corn flakes, bananas, wafers, rice puffs and crisps, potato chips, coffee beans, and grasshoppers. No, this is not a game of "one of these things is not like the other". These things are actually all alike in a particular way. All of them, including the grasshoppers, can be purchased in chocolate-covered fashion. I thought about all of the things which you can buy covered in chocolate which may or may not naturally seem a pairing with it when I pondered the idea of chocolate-covered gummy candy.

Today's reviewable comes to you (and me) courtesy of CandyWarehouse at which you can not only buy the chocolate-covered gummy candy, but also a variety pack of insects enrobed in thick chocolatey goodness. The notion does bring to mind the "crunchy frog" sketch in Monty Python, but it may seem far less alien in the future than it does now as I hear that we may have to utilize insects for protein when civilization falls in the next 50 years or so. When that time comes, you'll think that chocolate-covered gummy will be a gourmet memory and in no way inferior to any of the other more common suspects.

This isn't chocolate in the conventional sense as it's not the brown stuff, but rather fruit-flavored white chocolate. The three flavors are strawberry, muscat, and orange. The first and last seemed rather promising as those flavors pair well with conventional chocolate, but I was dubious of the muscat flavor.

After opening the tube, I was hit with an intense fruity smell. It was surprisingly strong. After sampling each flavor, I discovered why. Each of them tastes like a child's bubblegum flavor infused into white chocolate. It is too intense and fake-tasting. The weird thing is that fruit juice concentrates as well as various fruit liquors are used to flavor these. The flavors come from real sources, but it's all a bit too intense for my tastes.

Of the three, the one that was the least palatable was the muscat. I know muscat isn't the same as grapes, but they are similar. Chocolate-covered raisins work, but have you ever seen or tried a fresh grape as part of a chocolate fondue? I'm guessing not and for good reason. The two flavors just did not mesh.

The strawberry was intense at first and ended with a strong white chocolate sweetness. It worked okay, but it was like two flavor blasts and neither was particularly tasty. On the bright side, the textural contrast of the soft, creamy chocolate and the chewy gummy was pleasant.

Orange is the flavor that I would expect the most from, but it also was far too strong. It reminded me of flavor-blasted baby aspirin. I guess that all of that fruit flavor really is packed in there.

I admire the effort put into these, and the truth is that my husband liked them. He said that the flavor really got more intense once all of the chocolate melted away, but he still liked it. I wouldn't say he loved it, and I don't think he'd go out of his way to get them again, but he will finish the tube. As for me though, I'm not going to eat more of them so that's an "unhappy" rating is for me and a "happy" one for him. He said he likes the taste and the overall experience are good for him, which is weird because he generally dislikes gummy candy of any sort. I actually like gummy candy and even have experience with chocolate-covered gummy (via Tirol's "mochi" chocolates which are actually gummy).

So, the bottom line is that how you'll feel about this is going to vary based on your tastes. I'm going to give it the two ratings it deserves.

For me:

For my husband:

 

Nestle Strawberry Adult Sweetness KitKat (mini)

I received today's item free from CandyWarehouse, which is actually pretty awesome... at least for me.

My mother had a Japanese pen pal when she was in high school. I believe he lived in  Hiroshima and at one point he sent her a Japanese doll in a glass case. I knew about this because there was a black and white picture of this man with his two children leaning against what looked like a fairly old-fashioned Japanese house in one of our photo albums for years. At that time, I didn't think much about Japan or this man. It would never have occurred to me that I'd ever visit Japan, let alone end up living there for most of my adult life.

This pen pal stopped writing to my mother at one point and she told me he had been killed in an earthquake. I accepted this at face value for many years, but now I realize she simply made this up. She never heard any news of a major earthquake, but this was the explanation she chose to work with to explain why he got bored with or tired of writing to her. Unfortunately, making things up is something my mother did and continues to do habitually.

Most of my mother's knowledge of Japan comes from her correspondence many moons ago (from the 1950's) when Japan was a very different place. Her notion of life there was (and may still be) frozen in what that pen pal told her. When I first arrived there and talked about the logistical complexity of getting myself, my husband and seven enormous pieces of luggage from the airport to our new apartment in 1989, her response was, "can't you just get a rickshaw?"

Getting my mother to change her notions of what life in Japan was like 30-40 years after she corresponded with one of the natives was nearly impossible. People do tend to have difficulty abandoning a notion once they've settled upon it. One such notion that persists and I'm sure will continue to persist is the "crazy KitKat flavors" releases.

Nestle appears to have stopped rapidly running a treadmill of releases of freaky flavors and settled on a new strategy. However, people still believe otherwise. The occasional odd flavor release as well as the existence of unusual regional flavors (which are available year-round) will reinforce such notions, but the truth is that things have changed a lot. The marketing has skewed to reflect changes in the demographics in Japan. There are more older people and fewer younger people. Japanese people have endured a long period of relative economic decline and take comfort in more old-fashioned and conservative flavors.

The days of ginger ale, apple, cola, and lemon squash KitKats are likely over. It's not that we'll never see another weird flavor again, but just that the extremes are less likely and less frequent. As a point of comparison, I will say that, at its height, such strange flavor releases appeared to hit the convenience stores every 2-3 months.

The core line-up of KitKats these days strongly reflects the conservatism of the company's choices now. Their main releases are the plain chocolate KitKat and various similar big bars and the "adult sweetness" line-up which includes bittersweet chocolate, milk/vanilla, green tea, and strawberry with a very occasional new flavor (like passionfruit or raspberry). Mostly, these are available as individually wrapped mini bars either in boxes or bags. The whole position of these KitKats is that they are less sweet to cater to adult tastes since kids tend to like things much sweeter than grown-ups. The size is also meant to cater to the smaller adult appetite for treats.

Of these "adult sweetness" options, the only ones that I had not already tried were passionfruit and strawberry. Fortunately, CandyWarehouse offered me the opportunity to sample the strawberry without having to fork over a pile of cash to buy a bag at a Japanese market. Generally, it costs $6-$7 to buy them locally. They are, obviously, much cheaper in Japan as compared to buying them as an import.

The bar is a little soft on the outside, which is often the case with white chocolate, but the inside has nicely crispy and super fresh-tasting wafers. The chocolate lives up to the claim of reduced sweetness and lacks the cloying and weird artificial notes that white chocolate blends sometimes possess. The strawberry flavor is nicely blended in and neither too potent nor too weak. It's exceptionally balanced in terms of giving just enough sweetness to be a good experience, but not so much as to be overpowering. There is good flavor depth - you can detect the white chocolate, the strawberry, the sugar, and the wafers - and good textural variation with the wafers crispness and the creaminess of the white chocolate.

The entire adult sweetness line is a winner and this surprised me because I'm not a fan of either white chocolate or strawberry chocolate, but the balance on this is perfect. I could definitely see having this again and will be quite pleased to finish the bag. I wish Nestle would provide a similar line for the American market, but I'm guessing that the "all or nothing" nature of American tastes - that is, either eschewing sweets altogether or wanting them to put you into sugar shock - would make them too unpopular to survive here. This is a fresh and pleasant way to get your sweet on, and at only 70 calories per bar, a nicely portioned treat.

Bourbon Petit Strawberry Langue du Chat

Since returning to the U.S., I have seen a pastry called a "bear claw/paw" many times. I've never actually consumed one, because they are huge and have almonds and my husband doesn't eat nuts and I don't want to be responsible for the full calorie load on my own. The reason that I've seen so many of them is that my husband has a fondness for donuts so I've seen a lot of different donut shops and their various takes on the "bear paw".

Sometimes, these specimens actually resemble the paws and claws of a bear in their shape and they definitely have verisimilitude when it comes to size. At others, it's just a rectangular dough concoction which someone has haphazardly snipped the edges of in a weak attempt to make it look like it could be a paw in an abstract or cubist representation. In other cases, it's just an almond pastry that is square or rectangular and has the same components as the traditional bear paw, but doesn't look like one at all. In one case, it looks like a bear paw only if your bear is a mutant with a lot more toes than usual.

The idea of how foods drift in appearance from the name they have been given was brought to mind because "langue du chat" means "cat's tongue". The original is a long, stretched shape with has two somewhat spoon-shaped ends. Though this is called "langue du chat", you'd have to have a pretty weird cat to have a tongue shaped like these nearly perfectly round little cookies. Clearly, like the bear paw, the composition appears to be the reason for the name. That being said, I've read that it's supposed to be a chocolate, not a cookie, but then I never encountered the name at all until I moved to Japan. There, langue du chat tends to refer to two crispy butter-cookie-like wafers with a  modest amount of sweet chocolate filling some sort. These cookies definitely fit the description in terms of content, if not in appearance, of the langue du chat that I experienced in Japan.

A quick whiff reveals a pretty potent strawberry chocolate smell. The first sensation is largely textural rather than about flavor. The outside cookie, rather disappointingly, doesn't have much flavor at all. It does have a slightly melt-in-your-mouth and somewhat crispy at the same time texture. Most of the flavor comes from the rather sweet strawberry filling, but there is little enough filling that you don't get overwhelmed by the sweetness. The punchy strawberry flavor that is carried by the acids in them doesn't come through until you have a second cookie, which at 12.5 calories per cookie, you can certainly justify doing.

I paid a dollar for these at Marukai Japanese market and I find myself torn about how I regard them. They are certainly decent little cookies. The texture of the cookie itself is excellent, but I also wish it carried some margarine or flour flavor to create greater depth. I'm absolutely in low with the texture and the tiny size (each is about the size of your thumbnail), but I'm not an enormous fan of strawberry. The bottom line is that I'm happy that I bought these, but I don't think I'd get them again. I am inspired to try a chocolate version in the future. Because of that, I'll settle on a "happy" rating rather than "indifferent".

Careme Delicia Strawberry Fromage Chocolate/Cookie

Stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld once did a bit about how cars were named to bring to mind certain words, but to not actually use them. One of his examples as "The Integra", which was meant to evoke thoughts of "integrity". This candy/cookie combination obviously took a page from the book being referenced by such car makers. It's not "delicious", it's "Delicia".

This is another in a line of sweets designed to bring to mind a much more complex confection. I love these in theory. In practice, I'm often disappointed. I never expect them to actually taste like a real strawberry cheesecake. My only hope is that they have complexity sufficient to distinguish them from something like a plain white chocolate bar flavored with strawberry. If you're going to make such a fussy treat, then at least make sure the consumer's experience is nearly as good as the candy looks.

The candy smells delicately of strawberry. Biting into it yields a textural wonderland with the crispy little cookie providing crunch and contrast to the somewhat soft strawberry white chocolate and the even softer white "cheese" filling. The textural complexity is accompanied by flavor depth including some sense of creamy whipped cream, ever so slightly floral strawberry, and a hint of earthy grain from the cookie. I'm not going to say everyone will pick up on all three of these elements individually, but they are there if you take the time to notice during the tiny sweets brief experience in your mouth to heed its attributes.

This is a pretty impressive little treat that offers layers of complex flavoring and texture though what I can only assume is the work of tiny little fairy folk. Each is about the diameter of a nickel/five-yen coin/your big ass thumbnail but is a cookie platform with freeze-dried strawberry encasing "cheese cream" which in turn has a tiny dollop of stawberry sauce and is topped with a disc of strawberry-flavored white chocolate. It sounds like it'd send you into sugar shock, but the sweetness level is very balanced with the blandness of the cookie and the tartness of the strawberry.

All of this weighs in at only 31 calories per bite. Yes, it's a small portion, but if you compare it to a square of Milka chocolate (22 calories) or a Hershey's Kiss (25 calories), it's got a lot of bang for the calorie cost. In terms of the monetary cost, I paid a little over $2 for this at Marukai market. For 8 pieces, that is somewhat expensive, but my husband and I look at junk food as much as the experience cost as the cash. If you can eat one of these and be happy with it, then it is well worth the higher price. I can say that I'm intrigued to try more of the Delicia sweets after this and would definitely buy this one again.

Bourbon Petit Strawberry Chocolate Chip Cookies

There are some words in the English language (and I'm sure other languages as well, but this is the one I speak fluently and know the best) which carry a particular connotation. This is something which I find rather regrettable as I think words that are not meant to be derogatory should be able to retain their neutrality and be seen as purely descriptive.

I'm not talkinga bout words like "bonehead", which is clearly meant as an insult, or even things like "stupid". The type of word I'm talking about is something like "fat". This word actually is an adjective, but it's also used as an insult because being fat is seen as such a crime against humanity in our current age. Of course, it's only derogatory when we're talking about humans. If we're talking about cats, it can just be considered incredibly cute and cuddly. At least I love big fat kitties.

While "fat" is seen as having a derogatory connotation, "petit" is seen as having a fairly positive one. In fact, unless we're talking about men, I'm pretty sure petit is always seen as being a good thing. For women, shopping in the petit section is seen as an achievement. Petit animals - the sort that yap and crap everywhere - are somehow seen as adorable no matter how inbred and lacking in brain power they seem to be.

When it comes to snacks, I'm not sure of the connotation and it's interesting to note that there's a line of "petit" snacks in Japan and the French have their "petit fours", but America has "super sizing" and "Big Gulps". If anyone knows a line of "petit" snacks in the U.S., I'd like to hear about it. Mostly, I'm seeing "giant" this and that. Though, to be fair, there are "Giant Pocky" in Japan. At any rate, I'm not so sure that "petit" branding would sell in the U.S. as it does in Japan as we seem to like our women tiny, but not our food. That's a rather odd contradiction as big food makes it harder to have petit people.

As is always the case with the "petit" brand, these are tiny little cookies. Each is about the diameter of a 5-yen coin or a nickel. That's a little bigger than your thumbnail if you're me. The calorie count is 16 each. That sounds pretty demure until you consider that you could easily put away half of the package in one sitting if you weren't being careful.

Each cookie is cripsy and has a shortbread-like texture. You get hit by a burst of bittersweet chocolate chips coupled with a light strawberry flavor. The strawberry elements works far, far better than I would have imagined because it is not overly acidic nor floral. It sits in the background adding depth without clashing with the chocolate chip titans.

The texture of this is amazingly satisfying and this was a far better little cookie than I could have guessed. In fact, I loved it and no one is more surprised than I am that that was the case. I expected this to be very "meh", but this is a definite strong "happy". At $1 (about 100 yen) per package, I would definitely buy these again.

Random Picture #207

As I "warned" in my Monday review, everything is coming up strawberry right now. This was the display at Marukai market, one of several Asian markets within driving distance of my home. Everything you see here is strawberry sweets. It is mainly various types of cookies (Kabaya's crispy "Panda" cookies, 3 types of Bourbon petit cookies featuring strawberry in each, Delicia strawberry fromage cookie/candy combos), but there are also pretzels (Toppo, Pocky and Pocky Midi), cakes, candy (Hi-Chew and Look) and wafers.

As someone who is not an enormous fan of starwberry, I won't be sampling all of these, but I couldn't resist a few of them. You'll be seeing reviews of at least 4 of these items and a few have already been reviewed (linked in previous paragraph). If you love strawberry, I guess now is the time to track down some Japanese snacks. 

Meiji Meltyblend Fruity Strawberry

When I recently reviewed the chocolate version of "Meltyblend", I remarked that these are usually called "Melty Kiss" in Japan. What's in a name? In this case, I was thinking it might be the potential for a lawsuit between Hershey's and Meiji if they tried to called their small bits of individually wrapped chocolate treats "kisses". The truth is that I have no idea why this is called "Meltyblend", but a little research revealed the unlikelihood that the product has been renamed because of what I'm sure are Hershey's armies of industrial grade trademark protection lawyers. 

Research into how Hershey's came to call their little drops of chocolate "kisses" in the first place provided an explanation, but not a very credible one. Hershey claims that the sounds that the chocolate makes when it's plopped out of the machine resembles the sucking wet of a kiss. They neglected to mention that, back in old timey days, "kiss" was a common name for any small sweet and that there were products of all sorts referred to as a "kiss". My guess is that that origin is lost, but that the concept comes from the idea that it is a small touch of a confection on the lips - sweet and often short - and you want more.

This "Meltyblend", not "Melty Kiss", but they actually are the same product is the last of my "winter limited edition" Japanese sweets in stock. It's only limited to winter because of the low melting point aspects. It's not because it's strawberry. Trust me on this. If you're around for the random picture I'm planning to use on Wednesday, you'll know that strawberry is anything but "limited" right now. In fact, spring seems to have sprung in an absolute explosion of this particular fruit.

As for the candy, I'm sorry to say that this is the biggest "miss" I've experienced in the Melty Kiss line. It's not bad at all, but compared to the almost sublime varieties that I've sampled before, it comes across as humdrum and lacking in flavor power. They smell faintly of strawberries, and have a pretty decent strawberry taste at the start, but as the taste develops on your tongue, it becomes too strong and isn't balanced out by the chocolate portion. If it has had a ratio of 1/3 chocolate to 2/3 strawberry, I think the bitterness of the chocolate may have provided for an interested contrast. As it is, it just came across to me as 90% berry and with an almost inconsequential bit of chocolate. 

If you're a bigger fan of strawberry than me, this might be the bee's knees. It still has the soft, almost truffle-like, qualities of Melty Miss and melts nicely on the tongue. I just really need more chocolate in my chocolates. If this were a real kiss, it'd be the sort which didn't end up igniting much passion, at least in me. Perhaps it's more someone else's type.

Mister Donut Strawberry Assortment and prize sponges (product information/promotion)

Images from Mister Donut Japan.

For spring, Mister Donut is releasing a host of strawberry-flavored donut options. Three of them are new (which you can tell by the little circles that say "new" in them). From left, top row: strawberry milk donut, strawberry milk pon de ring (a chewy donut made using rice flower), and strawberry whipped cream pie (made with strawberry jam). The prices range from 126 yen/$1.23 (the yeast-raised strawberry donut second from the left in the bottom row) to 168 yen/$1.64 (the strawberry milk donut). For the most part, they are variations on two single themes - one is a strawberry coating made with white chocolate and whipped cream either on its own or mixed with strawberry. The French crueller (second from right, bottom row) is filled with custard.

Those who live in Japan already know that Mister Donut has a point card system in which you get a stamp in a little booklet when you buy donuts. After collecting a certain number of points, you can get certain promotional items. Of interest at present is a Duskin sponge with the pon de lion or French crueller mascot on it. When I was in Japan, I often saw a variety of such rewards like little bags, bento boxes, and, most frequently, various dishes (cups, plates, bowls), but this is the first time I've seen dish sponges. You need 50 points to get these and, as a point of comparison, you can also get a free donut for 50 points or a free drink for 100 points. I think it says something about the Misdo customer base that they would offer cleaning products as a prize. It lets you know that they are overwhelmingly female.

Starbucks Sakura Chocolate Latte (product announcement)

You know that spring is on its way in Japan when the "sakura" (cherry blossom or cherry depending on the entity that distributes it) foods start popping up. In my buffer, I have a post I've been sitting on which talks about seasonal flavors and sakura is definitely a harbinger of the end of winter. Starbucks is launching a very pink-looking beverage the day after Valentine's day. You'd think they'd do it before, but I believe this is a way of appealing to palates that are tired of all that chocolate. This is cherry and white chocolate with strawberry-flavored candy bits on the top. While I have to admit that the colors are beautiful, this is the sort of thing I'd avoid because I'd expect the fruit flavors to create a strange melange and the white chocolate to make it too sweet. 

Tirol Strawberry Cheese Pie Premium Chocolate (product information)

About two weeks before Christmas, I bought some brie at Costco. It was on sale and it was about as cheap as such things are ever going to get. What is more, Costco usually has better quality for its prices than your average discount joint. The brie I bought was quite good and I enjoyed a small piece of it most days with a little fruit.

Given that fruit and cheese make such a natural pairing, you wouldn't think that I'd be giving this strawberry cheese pie chocolate the stink eye because it shows wedges of savory cheese with images of strawberries. The whole concept of a wedge of Emmantale with strawberries doesn't bother me. The problem is adding copious amounts of sugar and chocolate into the mix. I will never get the concept of sugar and anything other than cream cheese. This is my admitted defect. That being said, if I found this at one of the local Japanese markets, I'd try it. I'm pretty sure I'd dislike it, but I'd take the plunge considering these are generally very cheap and small anyway.

If any of my readers has happened across this monstrosity and ingested it, I'd love to  hear your impressions.  

Baskin Robbins Strawberry Balsamic Vinegar Ice Cream (product information)

Strawberry Berrishima - Image courtesy of Baskin Robbins

I've read several food blogs for many years and I'm familiar with all of the foodie fads like adding balsamic vinegar to everything from salad dressing to fruit to your dog's organic doggie biscuits which you lovely crafted with your own two hands and baked into little heart and bone shapes. Foodies love them some balsamic vinegar.

Personally, I hate it. I have tried it and the things it is mixed with several times and there is a wine/vinegar combination flavor that just does not work for me. Frankly, it reminds me of blood. I can't say why it tastes like blood, and yes, from being a very young child and licking blood off of a wound before I knew better, I do remember what it tasted like. Yes, I know that sounds gross, but I wasn't the only child who did that. At any rate, I hate balsamic vinegar, though I actually really like other types of vinegar.

Baskin Robbins is playing to the types of people who were so disgusting as to lick the droplets of blood off of their scrapes and cuts when they were in first grade. If you think mascerating your strawberries with balsamic vinegar is the bee's knees, then this combo of mascarpone cheese ice cream with rippons of strawberry and said vinegar is for you. 

Lotte Gokujo (product information)

All images are from Lotte.

Japan's birthrate has been on the decline for ages and that means that there are fewer young people all of the time to enjoy sweets. There are two groups of people who generally are not drawn to such things - men and older folks of both genders. Since the market of young people isn't going to grow any time soon, the answer is to try and expand into the demographic that generally doesn't want your candy.

The professional looking chap above is meant to tell the modern businessman that, when 5:00 PM rolls around, he should kick back with a little sweet before going on to work his unpaid overtime. Lotte has his rumbling stomach covered with one of the most awkward looking candy and cookie combinations on the market. I didn't make that up. The mention of 5:00 PM, relaxation, and even "healing the heart" is part of the press for this product from Lotte.

The two new flavors are chocolate and strawberry. Ther feature a buche (soft cookie or cake) "sandwich" with a generous amount of "fresh cream" (essentially, ganache) coated in chocolate to contain the potential ooze. It actually looks fine, but essentially pretty boring. These things with soft cake are always a disappointment because the cake parts are either a bit greasy or dry (or an odd combination of both). Hungry business folks can buy that at convenience stores near their offices now. 

Tirol #1 Strawberry Assortment

I complained a lot about strawberry chocolates in Japan because there were so many of them constantly being put on the market and most of them tasted the same. I'm sure that that has not changed. The thing that has changed is me and my access to such things. It seems a lot less mundane when you're only seeing about 1/6 of what is coming out in Japan and opens the mind to the possibility of such treats being enjoyable. Of course, reality may serve as a teacher of a lesson I should have already learned. The strawberry chocolates are usually the same old formula with very marginal variations, especially from our good friends at Tirol.

I think the main reason to buy these candies is that they look so cool when you line them up.

Nonetheless, when I discovered a variety pack of strawberry candies at Nijiya market for a mere $2.19, I took the plunge. It's not only that it was relatively economical, but that my love-hate relationships with Tirol has grown more affectionate as I've been absent from their offerings for some time. Absence can make the heart grow fonder, or so the saying goes. However, presence may soon make you long for that absence once again.

The three favors in this are all white chocolate based. The main way in which they differ is in regards to the added "twist" flavor (jam, cream, red beans) and the textural element (marshmallow, cookie, gummi). It doesn't require much of their equipment to make such changes since these are all commom ingredients in Tirol's candies.

Funwari Ichigo Jam (fluffy strawberry): The "fluffy" in this is a tiny little slab of marshmallow that is between the sticky dollop of jam and the semisweet chocolate base. This has the best flavor combination with the strongest strawberry flavor and good contrast between the chocolate base and the berry flavor. The marshmallow also lends a certain sweetness, but mainly it's pillowy texture.

Strawberry Shortcake: In the world of Tirol, anything which is "cake" or "cookie" means the same thing. It means that there is going to be a bland little biscuit inside that is surrounded by some sort of flavored chocolate. This always provides a nice crunch and is there for texture only. The chocolate that surrounds this tiny little crackery biscuit is soft and only mildly sweet with a finish that includes a hint of berry tang. There may even be a small hint of cream flavoring, but it's so faint that I may have imagined it.

Starwberry Daifuku: I already reviewed a "premium" version of this, and this one appears to be little different. There's a little hint of strawberry in the white chocolate coating, but more of it appears to be flavorless and slightly tough gummy with a slightly gamey red bean flavor. I knew when I bought this assortment that this would liekly be the "dud" of the mix, but I wasn't going to allow that to dissuade me from trying.

The daifuku is clearly the loser of the lot. I actually like the jam version a fair bit and am good with the shortcake one as well, mainly because I'm a sucker for crispy additions to candy. On the whole, however, with 1/3 of the mix not being to my liking, I don't think this is on I'd go for again.

Glico Strawberry Pocky Midi

This entry continues my sampling the treasure trove of snacks I received gratis from Candy-san. I must say that I didn't expect a chance to try Pocky Midi when I wrote about the product awhile back. That wasn't because I didn't think I'd be able to get my hands on it, but rather because I wasn't sure I'd choose to buy it if I had a chance due to my somewhat ambivalent feelings about Pocky.

I'll also be honest and say that I'm not the biggest fan of strawberry chocolate. Though the quality of it tends to be better in Japan (less artificial taste, more of a sense of the real deal), the fact that it usually has a white chocolate base does not help. Usually, white chocolate is too soft and sweet for my tastes.

So, with these considerations in mind, I tried to give this Pocky a fair shake. Eating one at room temperature didn't impress me as it is incredibly soft and melts on the tongue in a way that I didn't care for. The flavor felt like it turned to sweet mush in my mouth. While the box description says that it has three components, the biscuit, "whip" chocolate, and a fruity coating, I couldn't really distinguish them as separate components when it was around 75 degrees. 

I like my chocolate to have some snap, so I hit upon a "brilliant" idea and put the package in the refrigerator. I'm sure that no one in the history of mankind has ever put chocolate in the fridge, right?  This instantly upped the game as it made it gave the chocolate coating some heft and allowed the flavors to take some time to unfold on my tongue. It is sweet, no doubt about that, but the strawberry flavor has a little bit of a bite as an end note. There is also a richness to the "whip" portion that much more gradually blends in when you have it cold. The coating is thicker than strictly necessary and that makes it sweeter than I'd like. If I ate one stick, I was in pleasure-land (for adults only). Two and it was bordering on cloying. One can look at this as incentive for portion control, or an indication that this is a bit much.

It's hard to give this a proper rating because I conditionally enjoyed this. If it is cold and I eat one stick, I'm happy to have it again. If it is room temperature and I eat more than one, then I'm not really keen at all. If you're a fan of Pocky, strawberry white chocolate, and fairly sweet things, you're going to enjoy this. If you're not, then you'll want to give it a miss. Candy-san is offering this for 210 yen or $2.13 on their web site if you'd like to sample it. Each box has 3 packages of 4 sticks at 113 calories per package. 

I'm giving it a provisional happy rating, and suggesting you consider having it cold as well.

Glico Baton D'or

"Baton d'or" means "golden stick" in French. Naming any product in French instantly improves its cache. Instead of being a repackaged Pocky stick, with it's snappy name and Japanese pop cultural tones, it's a sophisticated pastry. The package designs make me think about diet foods with their attempts to emulate a slender, curvy feminine figure, but that is not what is on the minds of the folks at Glico. The thing that makes this stick "golden" is butter, lots and lots of butter. With that fact, it seems unlikely that this will do much to trim the waistline.

This brand has actually been around since around the middle of last year, but is being beefed up with new flavors and stripped of its chocolate coating. The pedestrian flavors (milk, white, strawberry, green tea, coffee) above are being supplanted at a grand release at Hankyu department store with butter sugar, cinnamon sugar, maple sugar, strawberry sugar, and green tea sugar. Though it may seem that sugar is the big deal with these high class pretzel sticks, the real selling point is that they are dipped in clarified butter after they're baked (and then dipped in sugar). If I were still in Japan, I would totally want to buy one of these, especially the cinnamon one since cinnamon snacks are relatively rare there, but Hankyu department store is in Osaka and that's a long way to go for a designer pretzel. It would take a magic stick made of real gold to get me to fork over the price of a Shinkansen ticket (over $100).

These will be available from June 12, 2013. I'm guessing that distribution will expand beyond Osaka eventually, but that information isn't clearly provided at this time.

Look Amaou Strawberry Cream Parfait Chocolate

One of the things which has become clear to me since returning to the U.S. is that the market here for snack foods is dramatically different than that in Japan. One of these days, I want to write a comprehensive post about it, but the American market appears to favor enormous slabs of rich cake covered in frosting and the Japanese one prefers delicate little pieces with bits of fruit and whipped cream. A lot of people will attach some sort of character judgement to this tidbit of information, but I know that people like what they are given because they are given it, not because of some inherent personality issue.

What I mean by that is that the Japanese favor their twee little cakes with their light, fatty enhancements and fruit because that's what they've grown up with. I happen to like those, too, but that is because I have a long-standing love affair with whipped cream. Those of you with filthy minds, and I salute you, can use your febrile imaginations to make that fact far more interesting than the actual reality.

At any rate, one thing that informs the types of sweets that are produced in Japan is the backbone of their flavor preferences. This "Look" offering attempts to imitate a strawberry parfait with vanilla whipped cream. To get this effect, they offer a "vanilla whipped cream" base made with "fresh cream" (whipping cream) with strawberry sauce on top and covered in chocolate.

If you pause and pay attention while you eat these types of chocolates, you can discover whether or not they have succeeded in something that consumer level chocolates frequently do poorly and that is, offer flavor depth. When this type of attempt at sophistication succeeds, you'll get hit with a variety of flavors impacting different parts of your taste buds. You'll get the round, woody sense of vanilla, the tartness of the berry, and the slightly bitter chocolate with sugar to balance it all out and fatty richness to add heft to the experience. That's a lot to expect of one tiny little bit of chocolate, and it's not quite up to the task.

That is in no way saying that this is a failure. It actually is a very good chocolate with the chocolate dominating and the strawberry coming up behind it and mixing in a nice tart, berry flavor. The main way in which it doesn't come across is in the vanilla notes. There is a creaminess to the texture, but the amount of vanilla cream is too small to bring in much of a flavor punch. This is probably better than the alternative, and that would be too much fake vanilla flavor.

This is a very good consumer-level chocolate and if you like chocolate with berry, I'd definitely say give this a try. I don't even like strawberry chocolate and I liked this. It's available in the U.S. at Nijiya, as well as other Japanese markets.

Incidentally, the name of this confused me because I had never heard of "amaou" before and my efforts to find a translation online were not very fruitful. I turned to Facebook and asked my Japanese friends. Surprisingly, only one of them knew what it meant and that was because she is a chef and is familiar with this idea when it comes to food. She said that "a" was for "akai" or "red", "ma" was for "marui" or "round", "o" is for "ookii" or "big" and "u" was for "umai" or "tasty" (though in English, "umai" often means "savory", it has a more flexible meaning in Japanese). So, this is supposed to be made with big, round, red, tasty berries. I'm sure it was. ;-)

Meiji Pucca Strawberry

I was going to start this post off by saying, "as my readers may know, I love Pucca", but the truth is that I doubt anyone remembers what my snack preferences are no matter how long they've been following this blog. For those who don't know (i.e., everyone) I believe it is a miscarriage of snack justice that that other pretzel thing with chocolate, you know, the flavorless anorexic carb stick that people are nuts about, is the one that gets all of the attention. I think that these fish-shaped delights are the superior delivery system for sweet or chocolatey goodness.

The main reason that Pucca is better, besides the fact that the very thin shell has a superior crunch and actual flavor rather than acting like an anemic and flavorless bread stick is that Pucca filling can be softer. It's the genetically superior offspring from the happy union of frosting and chocolate. Such a filling works fine trapped inside the bloated belly of a pretzel fish. It'd be too soft for a packet of sticks jostling together in a plastic pouch.

I figured that this would be the ultimate test of how good Pucca can be. Strawberry is one of those things that so often goes wrong in treats, especially in my eyes. It is usually too sweet, too strong, or simply too fake. If a strawberry Pucca is good, then my faith in their crispy pretzel goodness no matter what flavor they are stuffed with will be pretty close to unshakable.

The shell on these is exactly the same as all others. It's a crispy pretzel exterior with a very light whole grain flour flavor. You have to be making an active to pick up on this with most flavors, but you pretty much lose the thread of it through time with this strawberry version. While the first bite is actually quite well balanced, the sweetness of the filling does start to accumulate as you go from 1st to 5th bite. This isn't a bad thing though. It's just a matter of fact.

The strawberry filling is decadently creamy and quite sweet, but not cloyingly so. It has just a bit of bite at the end and, yes, it does taste artificial, but not in a bad way. It's hard to explain, but there is no chemical flavor involved, but you know that it's not what real strawberries taste like. If you've ever enjoyed a "grape" lollipop or Kool-aid and enjoyed it while being thoroughly aware that it's all fake flavors, you'll know what I'm talking about.

I really enjoyed these, much to my surprise, but they were sweeter than the chocolate version. I would buy these again, but I'll be honest and say that they'd be at the bottom of my Pucca flavor list. That being said, it's a list which has no duds on it, and that's saying something.

Image from the Pucca web site.

Incidentally, there are apparently different shapes of Pucca. Since I never paid attention, I never noticed this. The Pucca site tells you about each one, including little four panel stories to tell you what they like. It's actually kind of creepy to think I need to know about the interests of something I'm going to eat thoughtlessly. ;-)