Yoneya Lemon Daifuku

As I've mentioned before, I am currently living in a rural area. For the most part, I love it here. Though the local politics don't match my values at all, I'm accustomed to living in a culture with values that aren't in accord with mine. In fact, I feel like living in Japan helped prepare me for being a liberal in a conservative zone. I can accept the culture (which is beyond politics, but that's the biggest "hardship") as something which suits the locals, but doesn't suit me personally and just keep my distance.

At any rate, the biggest aspect of small town life that actually does bother me is the food culture, such as it is. There are about 10 restaurants that aren't chains or fast food places, and most of them offer a limited menu with an emphasis on burgers and sandwiches. I don't like to order anything at a restaurant that I can't make myself at least as well, if not better, than a restaurant can. I rely on Yelp to some extent to make some decisions about which places to try, and, though I've lived here for almost two years, I've not hit all of the places yet because I tend to spend my money at ethnic places about an hour north of where I live (in Oregon, in a city which is big enough to have a wider range of options).

What Yelp has made me realize is just how much ones tastes are conditioned by local experience. People raved about a local steak place and it got high star reviews. My husband and I finally went there on his birthday about a year after living here and both found it extremely disappointing. The "salad bar" was a limited range of canned food options. The chicken I ate was some sort of pressed meat with grill marks. The "dessert" was a scoop of cheap ice cream with Hershey's syrup on it. This helped me see all too clearly that people who haven't had a broad range of experiences can't tell the difference between what is at the low end of the culinary scale and what is at the high end.

As someone who reviews snack foods from another country, I realize that that people may judge the food I'm judging less harshly than I do because some of them haven't lived in a place in which better options exist. And, I'm sure there are sometimes things I review which other people have more experience with that other people would find inadequate, but I really enjoyed. This snack really illustrates to me how spoiled I was to have lived in a place in which fresh confections made with mochi were common. I think someone else might have found this more enjoyable than me, but only if he/she had never had a better version.

This is made by a company called Yoneya which specializes in traditional Japanese confections like yokan (a block of sweet bean gel). They seem to offer a lot of summer gift boxes as well as individually wrapped sweets like the one I'm reviewing. One of their less traditional, but quite interesting looking foods is a peanut monaka. It's actually shaped like a peanut, comes in a peanut-shaped box, but is oddly filled with red bean jam (anko) and not peanut-based filling. Oh well, two out of three ain't bad...

The mochi shell on this wasn't hard, but it also wasn't super soft and pliable. It seemed too thick and, though it was easy to bite into, it was weirdly firm in a way most fresh (non-shelf-stable) mochi is not. That said, the lemon filling in this was nothing short of amazing. It was tangy, sweet, and bright. The flavors were so good that I very much wanted the textures to match and I decided to give it a turn in the microwave to see if warming up the mochi would make the texture more stretchy and pliable, but it didn't change anything. It seemed too thick and overworked/dense. It was very unfortunate that the mochi outside didn't match the lemony bean filling inside.

If you want to try this, and I guessing you don't, I'm afraid you're out of luck as the only place you could have gotten one was from Bokksu and they seem to no longer carry them.

Source: Part of the Bokksu premium summer citrus box

Aya Usagi White Bean Cakes

One of the big differences between my blogging in Japan about Japanese food as compared to doing so in the U.S. is that it costs me at least 50% more. This sucks, but, as someone accustomed to paying at least 50% more for imported food when I lived in Japan, it's something I'm quite accustomed to.

The other difference is that I feel more like I have to ration my treats because I can't get them as cheaply or easily as I once did. This is one of the reasons that I haven't hoovered up my stack of manju from Nippon-ya like an anteater that has a mental health disorder. I imagine that, for anteaters, having a vacuum cleaner complex is probably similar to having a Napoleon complex among humans. I am all powerful! All ants will be consumed through my magnificence protuberance like Dorothy during a Kansas tornado!

I'm sure nobody comes to my blog to hear me inhabit the reality of anteaters with mental health challenges - well, maybe a few bodies do - so I will get on with talking about bean cakes. I waited until well past the point of reason to eat the last one and savored every little morsel. Unfortunately, though these were quite fresh when I opened the box, holding out on the last one until after the box had been opened for nearly a month meant the last one was a bit stale. This isn't any sort of indictment of the cakes because they held out for a long, long time. However, I do recommend you eat them within three weeks of opening the box. The oxygen absorber can only do so much.

This was, by far, my very favorite of my haul from Nippon-ya. The cakes themselves (when not well-aged)  have a soft, thin, cake covering a good portion of white beans that are generously sweetened, but not cloying. They have a lovely flavor which brings to mind butter, vanilla, and yellow cake, but doesn't really fit any of those descriptions. Sometimes, these types of cakes are a bit bland and mushy, but this definitely has a flavor profile. It's not incredibly deep as it tends to be just that indescribable flavor and sugar, but it's very satisfying.

The beans in these have a slightly fudgey texture to them, especially when they're fresher and moister than my antiquated final cake. I'm guessing this is delivered courtesy of the white adzuki and kidney beans as well as the multiple sugars (as sugar adds moisture)

Where I bought it: Nippon-ya (San Francisco)

Weight: 11.6 oz.

Price: I don't recall exactly, but I think it was $12.95.

Yuki & Love Mango Mochi

Have you ever been in a situation in which someone tries very hard to convince you of something and the more they try to get you to believe them, the less you do? If your friend was trying to get you to go on a date with another friend, you'd probably become suspicious if they used too many superlatives. "He's a great guy, really. He works hard, has a great job, and is trustworthy. He's the best cook I've ever known. He's great, really!"

By the second "really," your suspicions are going to be aroused and you won't be shocked when you meet him and find he has an enormous horned toad tattooed on his face and is still living at home with his mother. He probably also has a collection of pet reptiles in his basement "bachelor pad," and an unabashedly displayed collection of adult diaper pron. No, I'm not speaking from real life experience, fortunately.

I think that there is an inverse relationship between how good something actually is and its claims of how good it is. This not only applies to dates, but also to food. I should have thought of that before buying this mango mochi, but Asian food so often has such claims earnestly displayed on it that I've learned to tune it out. This one says, "Tastes good, absolutely delicious products." If that weren't enough, there is a little crown on it that says, "King of the Tawiwan mochi." That was the one that should have told me that this was a potential toad-faced loser with a stack of diaper porn.

Perhaps I'm being a bit too harsh on this, but I did have somewhat high expectations. I found this at "Ranch 99" Asian market for around $2.00 (200 yen) and was happy to find a new flavor among the more common taro, sesame, peanut, brown sugar, and green tea. I wished I'd tried the green tea instead.

The mochi itself was actually quite good. It is tiny - about the diameter of an American quarter or a little bigger than a Japanese 100-yen coin - and only 90 calories per serving, but it manages to pack a little funk into its petit package. The mochi is soft, fresh, and nicely chewy, but the thick jelly-like center which is supposed to be mango has a strange taste to it.

This starts out okay with a bland flavor that becomes sweeter as you get more of the center flavor. It is definitely mango, but the finishing flavor is polluted by something which tastes like melon, but not any melon that you'd want to eat. I'm guessing this flavor comes from the cassava starch in the ingredients list, but I've never had cassava so I don't know what it actually tastes like. All I know is that something ruins a fairly promising mochi and I'm going to say the cassava is the toad tattoo on an otherwise decent-looking face because most of the other ingredients are sugar (maltose, water, sugar, cassava starch, mango juice, gelatine, glucose, sorbic acid, natural flavor, and a bunch of artificial colors). The weird thing is that that is mochi, but there's no rice listed!

I may choke down one or two more of these, but chances are I'll spring them on unsupecting visitors or throw the rest out. Life is too short for weird-tasting fruit mochi. I'm sure you'll see that on a bumper sticker one day, just as I'm sure you'll meet someone with a toad tattooed on his face (likely sooner rather than later given how many people tattoos there are in America these days).

Adachi Sangyo Chestnut Monaka

Sorry, I managed to lose my pictures, but the manufacturer's is much nicer anyway.

If you search my archives, you will see that I have only reviewed a "monaka" sweet twice. Both times, I was reviewing ice cream because that was the proper context into which I personally believed monaka belonged. For those who don't know, and there's no reason why you should, monaka is often called a "wafer" and is similar in texture and flavor to the cake cones that your mom buys as inadequate receptacles for a scoop of ice cream. That is to say, they taste like nothing and have a spongy texture. I swear that the vast majority of cake cones sold in America these days are not for holding ice cream, but rather for baking novelty cupcakes.

My ambivalence toward monaka was lifted recently when I saw a package of 3 chestnut monaka treats on sale at Nijiya market for $2.49. Most of the bean/chestnut paste sweets there are massively over-priced and I have been hankering for chestnut for quite some time so this lured me into the monaka world.

The truth is that not all monaka are created equal. While I've had some which are the texture (and taste) of Styrofoam, the case on these was rather different. Yes, it is still essentially flavorless, but it is super flaky and almost wispy. It flaked like super fine pastry instead of made my misaligned teeth attempt to tear it asunder. I can't say I loved it, but I can say that it didn't in any way detract from my enjoyment of the filling inside, and the filling is really what this is all about.

Inside of the flower-shaped wafer is a generous amount of bean paste with bits of chestnut mixed in. It is rather surprisingly sweet for a Japanese traditional treat. By the end of one cake (which is all I can eat at one sitting), it was just on the edge of cloying without going over. Honestly, it made my teeth hurt even with coffee to drink between bites. The texture was oddly chewy in spots, which I imagine was something about the rather roughness of the puree.

Despite how sweet this was, I really liked it. I could have used more chestnut and less red bean flavoring, but I really enjoyed the delicate texture of the monaka coupled with the jam. The flavor was good with the chestnut, if not shining through, cutting out the intense "beaniness" which you sometimes experience with anko.

Note that the nutrition information I was given was a bit of a cheat. There are 3 cakes in the package, but the calorie information is given for 4 servings of 84 calories. Each is actually 112 calories. Since the ingredients list is headed by "sugar", neither the sweetness nor calories are a shock. Beans, which by weight are surely a huge part of this, is 4th on the list. That's a lot of sugar!

The company that makes these is Adachi Sangyo, and I was frankly surprised that they have a web site as many of smallish makers of traditional sweets in boring packaging never put up a web site. They make a small range of snacks which are all very much "Japanese". The focus is on monaka, daifuku, dorayaki, and jelly (gelatin) treats. If I were in Japan still, I'd keep my eyes peeled for their chestnut daifuku because it looks pretty awesome. Unfortunately, even if I were still there, I'd be unlikely to locate them as this is one of those businesses that has limited distribution. One thing I definitely learned is that being in the thick of things in Japan is no guarantee of finding a particular Japanese release. Some things are easier to find here than they were there, quite frankly.

Though I really liked these, and I'd buy them again for the same $2.49 (214 yen), I'm not sure others with different tastes would share my enjoyment of them. Monaka is, in my opinion, a bit of an acquired taste texturally, even good monaka. Bean jam is even more so, and this is pretty sweet stuff. Nonetheless, I'd buy it again.

Fumido Kanoko (chestnuts in chestnut paste)

One of my students brought me a sample of the "kuri kinton" that her family had for the New Year's holiday as part of their traditional holiday "o-sechi". Those are more Japanese words than I usually put in a sentence, so I'll say that it's just chestnuts in a sweet puree made up of sweet potato and chestnut that is served as part of their traditional elaborate holiday meal(s). I loved what she gave me. In fact, I raved about how good it was because it had two great tastes that taste great together.

When I left Japan, I lamented to her that I'd never see the likes of kuri kinton again. I was wrong, sort of. I did see it again, but at a price that justified the "kin" (gold) in kinton. Fortunately, this student remembered my love of said dish and, as part of her goodbye gift to me, she gave me a box that contained two cans of "kanoko", which she said was like kuri kinton and would keep for up to a year. 

When I got to the U.S., in a fit of nostalgic craving, I had one can in the first month of my stay at Lopez Island. I stashed the other away and had it a little over a year later, but it was none the worse for wear. It kept well in it's stylish tin can, and tasted every bit as good as the first can consumed a little over a year earlier.

This is made by a company called Fumido which makes a variety of very Japanese types of sweets and sells them largely at department stores, but also offers them online. They are beautifully packaged and don't come cheap. One can is 1,260 yen or about $12.60. Two are 2,520 yen, which shows you that there are no economies of scale (as is so often the case in Japan). This means my student spent some pretty pennies, or yen, as the case may be, on this gift for me.

The contents of the can are large halved and whole chestnuts resting comfortably in a thick paste of chestnut and sugar. Fumido makes it a point to let you know that the chestnuts are domestic (from Japan) and that there are no chemicals whatsoever added to it. It is simply chestnuts and sugar, so, while it may not exactly be "health food", it's not full of artificial badness either.

What it is full of is chestnut goodness. Each can contains 260 grams of paste and nuts and 100 grams is 257 calories. That's a whopping amount of energy, especially when I had to restrain myself to eat the can in 3 sittings. It packs a caloric punch, but it is decadent and delicious with the mild chestnuts and the smooth paste having the right level of sweetness and nutty flavor. It's a simple, but warm and enriching experience.

If I could buy this again, I absolutely would. If you're going to Japan or are in Japan and want to buy someone and delicious gift, this is a great fit if you know they like chestnuts. Yes, it's expensive, but for something which is an elegantly presented slice of Japanese cuisine and culture that can safely stick around on a shelf for awhile, it's well worth it.

Yuki & Love Brown Sugar Mochi

Writing a blog sometimes causes you to face problems that most others don't have to think about. For instance, the name of the maker of this product is "Yuki & Love". When I tried to use the name of the company as a part of the title of the post, Blogger threw up a red flag and said that I could not pass "Go" and I would not be given my $200 (aka, it wouldn't save my post with that name).

As you can imagine, it's a bit perplexing to see how my title so offends the Blogger gods, but I actually did know what it was on about. This is one of those dumb things about computers that you don't think about until it steps up and smacks you in the face. Blogger's glove slap to my cheek was the result of using an ampersand (&) character in a title. What was worse than that was the fact that it had a digital hissy fit was that it did it on a post I'd written on a Mac, but not on a similarly named post that I'd written on a PC (yes, I'm "bi-platform", call me a pervert if you like... in fact, I'd like it if you did call me a pervert).

This is one of those "under the hood" issues that makes no sense unless you're someone who has lived on the deeper edge of the computer-using continuum, and while, I'm no geek, I have had to tussle with these problems before as part of my work in publishing textbooks. All of these letters that are showing up on your screen have various codes and such associated with them and, while it may look like an ampersand is an ampersand to our eyes, the computer begs to differ with our assessment of such things. What you're seeing isn't necessarily what is being gotten. (Yes, I solved the problem by choosing a different ampersand with a different code from the Mac's character palette. Even though they looked the same, one choked the system and the other went down nice and smooth.)

Such is the case with this "Japanese style brown sugar mochi". What I seem to be seeing is a super creamy center that is just barely failing to ooze out of it's pounded rice cake wrapping. It looks like a chocolately delight, though, of course it's actually brown sugar. What I saw on the front of the box though, was not precisely what I got. 

Opening the package and seeing the dusty little balls with a scuffed tops filled me with a sense of foreboding. Cutting one in half to reveal the dark innards further filled me with a notion that these were not going to be as good as my previous experience with the taro mochi. It resembles more closely what you'd scoop out of a cat's litter box than what is shown on the box with a sugary, creamy center.

One of the things I was extremely happy about when I tried the taro version was that the pounded-rice-cake  was soft and chewy as real Japanese mochi should be. I was very disappointed when I discovered that the brown sugar version has a fairly tough mochi casing. The thing that tends to make or break these types of treats is the texture as they are usually not incredibly sweet or intensely flavorful. Ideally, you get a multi-faceted experience in which you get the texture of the smooth, somewhat grainy center with the soft, chewy rice cake with subtle but pronounced flavors. This was slightly better after I gave it 5 seconds in the microwave, but I have to caution readers from repeating that procedure as these types of sweets get molten hot super fast and the center can burn your tongue pretty badly if you go just a few seconds too far in your irradiating.

Though the texture was disappointing, my main problem was with an odd flavor that came along with it. I think this funky taste may have came from the use of sulphered molasses (the sulphur acts as a preservative, but it does make the molasses taste different). However, I'm really not sure of the source of this taste. I only know that it greatly undermined the quality of the experience of eating this. It tasted generally fine and sufficiently "brown sugary", but that off flavor which seemed concentrated in the powdery coating on the outside was a real spoiler.

When I reviewed the "Yuki & Love" taro mochi, I lamented that I hadn't taken advantage of a sale at Ranch 99 Market to buy up other flavors while they were on sale. As luck would have it, all varieties were placed on sale for $1.50 a box and I scooped up a few more. Given how happy I was with the taro version, I had high hopes that the brown sugar version would make me as happy as brown sugar appears to have made the Rolling Stones in their song. Alas, it failed to meet my expectations.

This isn't really "bad" mochi, and it certainly was in line with the price point, but it also was  not especially "good" either. I'd call it a decidedly "meh" experience and I wouldn't buy it again. In fact, it's safe to say that I wouldn't really care to get a box for free, though I will likely slowly finish this box because it's still mochi.

Tochinomi Daifuku (chestnut and red bean)

People have been telling me about various "Japan Towns" since I returned to the U.S. I'm not sure what I expected when I heard about such areas, but it really was not what I experienced. I guess that I expect "Japan Town" to feel like, well, Japan. That doesn't mean I expect that Japanese people will be milling about, staring at their phones like zombies and gawking at the white girl with piles of red-blonde hair. The truth is that, I am not sure what was missing, but I think that the atmosphere created by the crowds, cramped spaces, the frenetic activity of employees trying to look like they're performing their tasks perfectly, the constant cleaning and tidying, and the conversations in Japanese.

I've been to two "Japan Towns" since coming back home. The first was in San Jose, and I had the misfortune to go there on a Monday when, apparently, it is mainly shut down. This was a big disappointment because one of the reasons I went there was to visit their traditional sweets shop, Shuei-do. I'm not sure, but they appear to have vanished from the Japan Town web site and may have gone out of business. All I know is that the Japan Town in San Jose was so tiny that I haven't been motivated to go back on another day.

The other Japan Town that I went to recently was in San Francisco, and it has more to offer, but is still largely just a shopping arcade plus a few other shops located near the Peace Pagoda. It is definitely more interesting than the San Jose equivalent, but not as much as I'd hoped. I think I simply expect too much. As an oasis of "Japan-ness" in the U.S., it's actually pretty good. There are a lot of Japanese restaurants, several Japanese stores including a bigger, nicer Daiso than the one I frequent, a gaming arcade, and some sweets and grocery stores. However, it's all pretty streamlined. You don't get much of a real ethnic feel from it. There aren't little grubby mom and pop shops for the most part (as I hear you may experience in China Town). Of course, the Japanese aren't exactly known for doing "grubby". 

The best part for me was Benkyodo, a place selling hand-made Japanese sweets, and Nippon-ya. Nippon-ya is where I procured today's snack for review. The latter offers boxed sweets which are pretty much the same as those sold in train stations, the airport, and souvenir shops around Tokyo. It is the sort of thing I thought I'd never encounter after leaving Japan. I was a kid in a Japanese candy store when I say stacks of gift-wrapped boxes of sweets topped by the usual plastic display of samples with cutaways to show you what was inside.

There were so many options and I wanted to buy them all, but I can't really justify doing so when I am the only one who is likely to consume the contents. The prices were in the $9-$10 range for boxes with 16-24 pieces. This is incredibly reasonable and in line with the average prices in Japan. Most of the time, these cost about 1000 yen ($11.21) per box in Japan, often more than that. Someone on Yelp said that they felt these were "expensive", and they may appear to be so by U.S. standards, but I was more than happy to fork over $9.25 for a box of 20 small daifuku.

I agonized about what flavor to buy since there were many that looked appealing, but ultimately went for chestnut since it is one of my seasonal favorite. I figure the fruit flavors are likely to stick around until spring or summer, and this will vanish with the cold weather. The display promised chestnut bits in red bean paste with a hint of caramel. As you can see from the cutaway above, there aren't any chestnut bits to speak of in the one that is shown here. This was the third one I ate, and I haven't found any pieces in any of them. 

The flavor balance is definitely heavy on the mochi and red bean side and there is absolutely a hint of caramel. The chestnut flavor is very subtle, and you actually have to be looking for it. Overall, the flavor profile is not intense, but tends to settle in slowly. These are sweet enough without going overboard. I only wish there was a stronger chestnut component. The ingredients list starts with "sugar", followed by rice, and red bean and only then does it get to chestnut followed by emulsifiers and caramel. You can see what it's not so big with the chestnut. 

The main reason for selecting daifuku in my opinion is the interplay of textures, not so much the strength of the flavors. The soft chewy pillow of mochi contrasts with the smooth paste inside. This is light on the filling, but the mochi is fresh and soft. It's definitely very much on par with relatively shelf stable mochi in Tokyo. When I say "relatively shelf stable", I mean that there's an expiration date in a few months, not next year. This one expires on March 2, 2013. 

I like these, but I can't say that I adore them. I have no regrets about buying them and will enjoy eating them slowly but surely. They absolutely remind me of some of the Japanese sweets I purchased in Japan in that not every one was exactly what I wanted it to be, but they all tended to be decent enough. The main failing in these is not enough filling and not enough chestnut. They're good, but they could have, in my estimation, "should have", been better.

Yuki & Love Taro Mochi

People tend to believe that something is exclusive to an area or culture because they have no experience with it in another area or culture. When they do encounter it elsewhere, they often assume it is a copy of the food from their place of origin rather than consider that they may be the ones doing the copying. Living in Japan, I encountered many people who believed Japan invented something or some cultural aspect was absolutely indigenous. Later, a little research would often reveal that something was not Japanese at all, but rather a riff or copy of some other country's culture.

This is not exactly a criticism of Japan. It's more food for thought which I hope people will set aside and chew on when they have time. Americans, because our country is relatively young and a mutt nation of people and cultures from all over the world, tend to assume things are actually not invented here. We know we didn't invent French fries, not because they have the word "French" in them, but because we didn't invent hardly any of our cuisine (and French fries are from Belgium, right?).

At any rate, I assumed that anything which I first encountered in Japan was, by default, Japanese. By doing this blog, I have discovered that many of those things are of Chinese origin if they appear to be based on foods that tend to be more predominant in Asian culture (rice, noodles. etc.) or Portugal if they tend to be based on things you would find in Europe (wheat, almonds, etc.). That being said, I never questioned the idea that mochi or any type of Japanese sweet for that matter was purely the province of the Japanese.

It turns out that I was wrong. Other Asian countries have their own variations on pounded rice cake with various fillings. I went to a small Asian market not too far from my current residence and found a pretty reasonably priced multi-pack of mochi treats and snapped it up. When I got it home, well, let's say that either I was unlucky or Chinese-style mochi isn't exactly the same as Japanese. The mochi was thicker, tougher, and the fillings were not as finely processed. I was disappointed and rather put-off by future purchases of non-Japanese style mochi treats.

When my husband and I were exploring the 99 Ranch Asian market, I was persuaded to give the whole idea another go by the low price on several boxes of "Japanese-style" mochi. At $1.50 per box of 6, it was a bargain compared to the usual pricing for such things. Also, it says "Japanese-style" on the box, so, you know, it must be the nice, soft little pillows of mochi with smooth fillings that I got used to in Japan, right?

The company that makes these is Taiwanese and their web site is in Chinese, so I have imperfect access to the information about them. They make a lot of interesting looking sweets including some with mochi and others with cake-style enclosures. If I run across other variations by this company, I'm likely to give them a try considering that they include a lot of flavors that I like like sweet potato, mango, and brown sugar. 

The flavors on offer at Ranch 99 were brown sugar, taro, peanut, and sesame. The truth is that they all sounded good, but I chose taro because I'd never had it before. I was also inspired by what I thought was a mention/review of a McDonald's taro pie on the Impulsive Buy, but I can't seem to find said review to link to. Perhaps I dreamed it, or my mad search skills are insanely bad rather than good. I wanted to get some idea of what taro tasted like, so I splashed out the buck fifty for this version.

For those who don't know, taro is a corm. That's a way of saying it's not a potato, but sort of looks like the ugly love-child of a ginger root and a tuber. Before I even sampled this taro mochi sweet, I guessed that it would probably not have much of its own flavor, but would likely be like a potato or other starchy food that tends to reflect the flavors it is prepared with. This rather defeats the purpose of wanting to sample taro, but it's not like I stood in the supermarket deeply reflecting on this when I decided to buy this. Nobody thinks that far ahead about buying a simple box of snacks, right?

The previous paragraph is my way of saying that I still have no idea was taro tastes like. I can say that this mochi sweet tastes very nice though. The flavor seemed to have a bit of a caramel note with a hint of some sort of cream. It was quite sweet, but not over the top. The mochi case was lovely and soft, just as one would expect Japanese mochi to be. This was immensely gratifying as finding a shelf stable mochi snack for a good price has been very difficult since I came to California. The Japanese-made ones that are sold in such packaging costs between $5-$7 (421-589 yen) and tend to be in fruit flavors for some reason.

I really liked these and would buy them again in a hear beat. In fact, I regretted not buying a box of each flavor after sampling this one. While I don't think that I could count on the taste of each flavor being good, I think that the basic textural components would be similar and that is often where a good mochi sweet lives or dies.

As a little reminder to readers who may have missed it, or to those who haven't gotten around to entering, I'm offering a box of the current Tokyo regional KitKats (rum raisin) as a contest prize. You can read about it and enter here. The contest ends on Christmas day 2012, so enter early, but only once, please. Also, please remember that comments are moderated so there is a delay between your making the comment and it being posted. Many people are submitting comments two or three times because they are not showing up immediately. Rest assured that your comment will be posted and it is not necessary to submit multiple times. 

Kondo Honey Factory Yuzu Jam

This is a review which is tricky to write because I know most of my readers don't know what yuzu is. Even if I tell you that it is "Japanese citron", that doesn't necessarily convey much as it's about a fragrance and a flavor which are unfamiliar to those who haven't been exposed to it. Taste-wise, the best I can say is that it's a little like a tantalizing three-way between lemon, grapefruit, and orange, with the first two dominating the flavor menage. 

This is often sold as "marmalade" rather than in the form I'm reviewing it as here. And even this is not actually marketed as "jam". The characters on the jar do not say "yuzu jam", but rather "yuzu tea". The reason for this is that it is common in Japan to use this marmalade for a tisane. It's a little like the way that Russians sometimes sweeten tea. You stir a spoonful of jam into hot water.

However, I would not waste a precious spoonful of this by diluting it into hot water. Unlike orange marmalade, which I find vile and bitter on a bad day and barely tolerable on a good one, this is much more palatable with a delicate balance of citrus bite and sweetness. Whatever bitterness there is is balanced out of the equation, but the qualities of the fruit stop it from being cloying. The truth is that, I could eat this by the spoonful if I were inclined to allow myself. I couldn't eat the entire jar at once, mind you, but I could put away 2-3 spoonfuls at a sitting before I'd feel overwhelmed. It's just like candy to me.

Note that this is a pretty high quality yuzu jam compared to what is on shelves in most markets in Japan. This is 250 grams/8.8 oz. for about 800 yen ($9.60). The reason it is so expensive is that it is made with honey and because it is made with more yuzu. Usually, there are stringy bits of peel in a sugary base. This is more like a puree so the concentration of yuzu and the sugar component (honey) are higher quality and therefore more expensive. The nutritional profile is almost certainly better than the cheaper versions, and the flavor is a bit nicer, but I can't necessarily recommend this for a casual consumer.

Incidentally, this jam came directly from Tokyo, and it can be bought online as well, but I didn't make the purchasing decision. I asked my brother-in-law to buy some yuzu marmalade for me and carry it over when he came to the U.S. for a holiday visit and he brought me two jars of this. It is fantastic, but I'd be too cheap to make such a decision for myself. 

Though I relish eating this straight or on toast, pancakes, or scones, I can't speak for others. I can say that this is delicious and I'd be surprised if anyone who likes something which is similar to candied citrus peel (lemon, orange, citron, of course) would not enjoy this. If you're looking for a holiday treat for a foodie in your life, this would absolutely make a high quality and unique, but approachable gift. I imagine a really upscale eater would enjoy it with certain types of cheese or a good cracker. 

Taiko Milk Caramel Sticks

I've had the empty bag from this package of milk caramel sticks ("bo") in my desk drawer for about a month. The reason for that is that I consumed them happily and quickly and did not quite get around to reviewing them. I wasn't exactly waiting for any particular reason, but since this appears to be a (hopefully) permanent fixture at Daiso Japan, I favored reviewing things with limited availability over this uniquely Japanese cookie.

The reason I'm getting around to it today is not that I don't have other things to review. The truth is that I do, but I caught a cold and my sense of taste and smell have been obliterated. I can't give anything new a fair shake right now so I'm reliving the tasty memory of these cookies. After you've eaten a whole bag (not all at once, mind you), it's rather easier to recall their flavor.

I've mentioned in previous reviews that I'm not the biggest fan of caramel, so this was my last choice among the Taiko tube-shaped cookies at Daiso Japan. Previously, I reviewed their sweet potato and brown sugar varieties and enjoyed them both. There's something about their texture and balance of sweetness that really appeals to me. They're simple in terms of flavor, but not in a bad way. The sense I get from them is one of nostalgia, but not for Japan or Japanese things. It's nostalgia that relates to times when food was made in a much simpler way rather than formulated for maximum appeal from teams of focus groups and test markets. I just get the feeling someone made these and sold them without tweaking them to death to optimize sales. 

Though sometimes "simple" can mean poorly formulated, but I really do think these are made well with their pockets of airy crispness and sugary outside. The caramel flavor is very subtle, and while quite sweet, they are not cloying. The package says they are "gentle" milk caramel flavor and I say they are all the better for that. In fact, I'd rate them as second the sweet potato version (which were sweeter, but had a flavor I enjoyed more). If you add in the fact that each cookie is about 6 inches long and only 52 calories, you're looking at a sweet treat that gives a lot of satisfaction for a low calorie price.

This is one of those unassuming treats that looks rather dicey to those who can't read Japanese and are unfamiliar with this style of snacks, but these are delicious and I would invite anyone with access to them to pick up a pack and try them in one of the three available flavors. I can't guarantee you'll like them, but there's a very low chance you'll hate them. For only $1.50 (124 yen) a package, it's not much of a risk. 

Kinjo Imo Yokan

Part of the unwritten "mission" of this blog is to allow people who encounter what appears to be odd Japanese snacks to understand what they're buying. Another part is for me to just have an outlet to prattle on about and try and be creative about something which is, at its core, pretty mundane (talking about food). Sometimes I succeed at one or both of these, and at others, well, I just phone it in because I'm only making like 10 cents a post here from my ads and I can't always bust my brain pan for you people... not that I wouldn't like to, but sometimes life is rather busy and sometimes I'm rather lazy.

Yokan is definitely one of those mysteries to the average tourist or newcomer. The history of this sweet is mentioned on Wikipedia, but essentially it's one of those things the Japanese ripped off from another country (in this case, China), and then gets credit for inventing. This is like "Japanese cheesecake", castella, chitose ame, and "Japanese bread (shoku pan)". I thought this might have been some sort of effort to preserve food, but it's actually a variation on a Chinese treat made from boiled sheep. Yum. Yum. I'm glad that Buddhists decided it would better to thicken things with agar agar and red bean paste and let the poor sheep alone.

I found this, alone with many other yokan options, at Daiso Japan, but this is an extremely popular and easy to find treat in Japan as well as Nijiya Japanese markets in the U.S. It is cheap (only $1.50) and keeps for quite awhile. In the summer, it's nice if  you eat it chilled, but I generally think the flavor is better at room temperature.

This doesn't really smell like sweet potato, but it does have a distinct aroma which is hard to put ones finger on. It smells like something sweet, like sugar that has been cooked for a long time, but without any strong notes of a particular scent. The flavor is like red bean paste mixed with sweet potato that has just reached an intensity before it becomes overbearing and settled at the furthest point before it becomes unpalatable. It's intense, but not in a bad way. Unsurprisingly, because the second and third ingredients respectively are sugar and corn syrup, it's quite sweet, but not cloying. This isn't meant to be wolfed down. The whole 4.8 oz./130 gram bar is supposed to be two and a half servings (a whopping 170 calories per serving), after all.

The real star for me of this is the texture. It is firm, but smooth, and has just a bit of grain from the beans. It's like gelatin, but without the slippery, slickness of it and with more flavor depth and just enough texture to give it heft. I wouldn't be surprised if part of the process of making this was to finely filter it such that very little that hasn't been pureed into smithereens didn't get through.

I loved this, but then I love both bean paste and sweet potato. That being said, this is far from the "beaniest" treat that one can have in Japan and is very accessible to those who hate anko. It's a good gateway experience for those who think the whole idea of sweet bean paste is gag-inducing, at least if they like sweet potato. The texture is like the inside of a jelly bean, and that can't be wrong, can it? I'd definitely buy this again.

Shirakiku Kurogoma Daifuku

Stupid glare.

My husband recently completed a class in which he had to write a paper about the effect of cultural images on him. It made me think about how our shared cultural imagery, like the white Coca-cola logo on a red background, Tony the Tiger telling us that Frosted Flakes are grrrrreat, or Chester Cheetah encouraging us to turn our fingers and tongues orange are things Americans can all understand. I also thought about how, through many years of living in Japan, I came to know and relate to the images of that cultural including Akagi's Gari character and Anpanman. The spread of various cultures worldwide has begun a unification of shared experience such that we can increasingly identify with one another's experiences and find a connection through which we can relate to one another. This is why establishments like McDonald's, which are generally viewed only through the perspective of their negative effects on health and cuisine, may not be entirely seen as harbinger's of a worldwide cultural apocalypse. Perhaps they herald a worldwide expansion of waistlines and narrowing of arteries, but they do provide us all with a common cultural reference. The iconography of the golden arches is one people around the world can identify.

To a lesser extent, the names of companies are part of a shared cultural heritage. Depending on when you grew up and what you watched on T.V., you might have heard of "the Chubb group" (no, it's not a bunch of overweight singers) even if you don't know what business it is in. For those who don't know, it's an insurance company that sponsored a lot of public broadcasting during the days of my youth. When I lived in Japan, I worked directly with corporations as part of my longest running job and came to know the names of plenty of businesses that the Japanese knew well, but Americans would never have heard of. Yes, Virginia, there are more companies out there than Sony, Nintendo, and Toyota.

Through this blog, I further developed a pretty good understanding of food manufacturers in Japan. I didn't watch much T.V., so I didn't see commercials (which has been the primary way that I came to know America food producers), but I have done enough research to recognize the big guns in the Japanese snack world, and there are more out there than Nestle Japan, Morinaga, and Glico. Since coming back to the U.S., I sometimes feel a little thrill when I find something made by one of the familiar names from my time in Japan. I think the bigger surprise though is how infrequently I come across them. There is a whole range of Japanese and Japanese-sounding companies that produce food for export, but either don't produce them for the domestic market or do so under another name. This is a whole new level of corporate identity education for me, and it feels really strange to find this other layer. The company that made this daifuku, Shirakiku, is one of the places that falls in this new strata.

The company that makes this is Nishimoto, which is, according to their web site, a "100%" Japanese company with a wholly owned subsidiary in the U.S. The company began in 1912, which means this year is its 100th anniversary. Omedetou gozaimasu, Nishimoto (that's "congratulations"). They started off doing food trading between China and Japan, but switched over to the U.S. After a brief hiccup during World War II (for reasons one can guess), they have had increasingly impressive sales in the U.S. dealing in rice, snacks, frozen food, prepared food, and some drinks. The weird thing is that I don't recall ever buying their products in Japan, even though they clearly are a pretty major company. Previously, I reviewed an anpan that they distribute in America.

I realize that my fascination with such things exceeds that of my readers, and I hope that those of you who are bored to tears skipped to the end of the review where I talk about the food instead of falling asleep on your keyboard. Don't sue me if you have keyboard imprints in your forehead or chipped a tooth on the edge of your desk. I make no guarantee when it comes to the entertainment value of any of my blogs. You could demand your money back, of course, and a court may require me to reimburse you for your investment, but I'm guessing it wouldn't be worth the cost of a lawyer.

At any rate, the value of buying goods produced by someone who does so especially for America is that you get them at a lower cost. Instead of them being made to optimize costs in Japan, they are made to be affordable right here. This is the reason I'm sure this only cost me 99 cents (77 yen) at Nijiya supermarket in San Jose's Japantown. It was cheaper that I'd pay for such a thing in Tokyo at that rate.

For a daifuku, and a daifuku to those who don't know is a blob of glutinous rice cake filled with sweetened bean paste/jam (or some other filling), this is a bit small at 95 grams (3.35 oz.), but is certainly a hefty bit of Japanese sweet.The outside is beautifully studded with black sesame seeds and the weight of it is largely coming from a generous interior of relatively coarsely mashed red beans.

They're not really meant to be cut in half like this and it's not really a pretty sight with the smeared bean jam.

When you open the packet, you are greeted with the distinctive smell of the black sesame seeds. The mochi has a chewy exterior (think mozzarella cheese crossed with taffy in texture, but not taste) that pairs texturally well with the mashed-potato-like consistency of the anko filling. I was immediately struck by the fact that this is the least sweet daifuku I have ever had. The major flavor focus is on the sesame and anko. The anko is thick and "beany" rather than fine, smooth, and sweet. The mochi is sticky, but easy to chew and fresh. The depth of flavor and complexity of the textures is quite fulfilling, but it can seem a little bland at first since it takes awhile for the flavor to build up speed on your taste buds.

The ingredients list for this is rice flour, red beans, sugar, water, corn syrup, sesame seeds, and potato starch. The package says that this is a "product of U.S.A.", so I'm guessing this was made here for here, but that doesn't detract from the fact that this is very much like what I'd buy in Japan. In fact, given the low sweetness level, and modest 227 calories, this would fit in just fine in a selection of daifuku in Japan.

Sometimes, I strongly crave something with mochi and this really filled the bill. I had gone to Japantown originally to go to a famous sweets shop called Shuei-do, but they were closed and this was what I did to fill the hole. I can't say it is the best daifuku ever, and I absolutely can't say it would eclipse something fresh and hand-made from a sweets shop, but I can say this is pretty darn tasty, economical, and I'd buy it again.

Fist Soybean Flour Dumpling Candy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Taiko Sweet Potato Sticks

I mentioned in a previous post that one of the nice things about buying Japanese products in America is that they save me from having to translate the ingredients. While I can read a lot of the characters representing common ingredients now without trouble, there are, at times, unusual things which I need to look up and a bit of time is now saved. That being said, there is a new problem associated with the translations. The English labels are slapped over the information in Japanese such that I have to try and scrape them off to get to the Japanese when I want it. In this case, I wanted to see the name of the company that made the product (not the importer, which was all that was listed in English). I spent five minutes carefully scraping at the residue hiding the information I wanted to extract. Of course, I'm pretty sure nobody but me cares who makes the food I review, but now that I've gone to all this trouble, I'm going to talk about it.

These are made by a company called Taiko Confectionary and it's a company I've never sampled a product from before. They're one of those businesses that is so small that they have little web presence  beyond a couple of basic reference pages with addresses and phone numbers and a map. That means, unfortunately, that this product may be hard to find outside of where I located it in the U.S. (Daiso Japan) or in Japan.

These are called "sweet potato cookies", but they're really not a cookie. They're much more akin to the "bo" or "stick" snacks that are sold to children in Japan. That being said, the ingredients list is certainly in the realm of what suits a cookie. The first ingredient is sugar, followed by wheat flour, bread crumbs, corn grits, starch syrup, vegetable oil, sesame seeds, and only then sweet potato. So, there really isn't much sweet potato in these.

These smell very strongly of black sesame seeds. Each tube is hollow and super crunchy. The hole in the center makes them much easier to eat, though, if you are not careful, it's easy to bite into it the wrong way and send a shower of crumbs into your lap. They are very sweet and those who are sensitive to especially sugary treats may find them overwhelming. Despite being quite sweet, the intense flavor of the black sesame and the somewhat more delicate flavor of sweet potato come through well.

I often complain about "too sweet" sweets and this definitely has that potential, but it worked for me on multiple levels. First of all, I love the crunchy, crispy texture and find biting into one of these very satisfying. Also, there is a sort of shellacking on the outside of them which I'm sure is part of the heavy sugar concentration that works both visually and for the texture. I think that, if these weren't so sweet, there might be a danger of the flavor being flat. Sugar, like salt, is a potent flavor enhancer and works well when optimally applied. I think this is pretty nicely balanced, but it may be too much for some people with different tastes.

Despite all of the sugar, they are only 60 calories each for a cookie as long as the span of my  hand up to my longest finger (about 6 inches/15 cm.). You get a larger size I guess because they are hollow, but it does feel like a pretty substantial treat and pairs well with tea or coffee. I paid $1.50 (120 yen) for these and will absolutely stock up on them again when I find myself at the Daiso Japan. I loved them. They may be pure junk, but they are tasty as all get out.

Tokyo Sumida River Bean Cake

One of the things you get from being outside of a culture and looking in is a perspective on how things seem to be. You get an overview which is not possible when looking from the inside out. Of course, there is also that other perspective, the one people have from being outside and never being inside or only have been so for a short time. That's the one that you get quite often about Japan and Japanese food. People think that perusing the imports at the local store or checking out the catalog at J-Box or other importers gives them a pretty good idea of how Japanese people must snack. The truth is that I think they prefer snacks like the topic of this post (bean cakes) and rice crackers (sembei) to most of the types of things foreign folks fixate on. I think they care far less about the latest weird Pepsi or KitKat than about a wad of bean jam encased in bread or cake and find our fascination with such things peculiar. They know those things don't taste good and are little more than novelties, mere blips in the flavor continuum meant to gather attention with a flash and die away. 

Of course, my blog indicates that the interest level of foreigners in these types of snacks is pretty low. In a Venn diagram of Japanese snacks, there is not so much overlap between what piques Japanese interest in food and what gets my blog hits from those who have the patience to read my prattle. Trust me though when I say that you'll make any Japanese person happier with something from this type of snack than a box of chocolates unless they recognize the name as having a high price tag. Even then, they may not necessarily enjoy eating it as much, but they will definitely appreciate that you spent a wad of bills just to get something with the word "Godiva" emblazoned on it. As an aside, I've had the best luck giving Japanese people See's candy. They tend to like it a bit better because it's not as sweet as other American chocolates. My husband has been known to buy nearly 30 boxes of various sizes to give as gifts to students during visits back home. He had a lot of students, and they often gave him gifts and that was his way of returning the favor. 

Getting back to the subject at hand, my husband and I first encountered these bean cakes at a traditional sweets shop in Kichijoji, home of one of the more popular areas for cherry blossom viewing (Inokashira Park) and a very popular place for middle-aged shoppers. If you go to the Wikipedia page, keep in mind that the picture there is misleading. I didn't even see it look like that during Christmas when lights are often put up. At any rate, we bought this based on being given a sample by the shop attendants so we knew what we were getting. The interior is a slightly powdery, yet still moist, clump of very finely strained white beans sweetened with sugar and margarine. It doesn't have a strong taste, but mainly lends texture as it nearly melts on the tongue and offers sweetness. The outside is a slightly chewy, but also slightly crispy shell which is dusted with cinnamon. The combination of textures and flavors is sublime. 

These reminded us a bit of one of our other heavy favorites in the Japanese bean cake arena, Koganei Imo. The difference is that the cinnamon flavor is more pronounced in these and the interior is a little drier because these are shelf stable and mass produced. They are also greatly more accessible as they are sold at a variety of shops and you can only get Koganei Imo from one generational shop that hand prepares them in Ningyocho. There's a list of the shops that carry these bean cakes here, though if you can't read Japanese at all, you'll have to apply Google's translation to read the names. The shop chain that carries these is called "Chidoriya" and they have shops in department stores and various Japanese-style "malls". 

Before leaving Japan, my husband and I wanted to buy a big box of these to take with us. We returned to Kichijoji two days before leaving only to find that that branch of Chidoriya had disappeared. We decided to track some down in Kita-Senju and picked up a dozen to take back. The expiration date on the box was short, but the truth is that we still have them and are still eating them. They don't seem to lose all that much even though we've had them for about two months now. As you might guess, with something we enjoy this much, we're rationing them and trying to make them last by refrigerating them.

If you go to Japan for a tourist stint or live there, I would strongly recommend tracking these down. At the very least, you can get a sample taste before you buy to see if you like them as much as we do. And if you go and carry some back to the states, bring a box for me, too. I'm pretty sure ours won't hold out a whole lot longer. ;-)