Cheddar Pretz

There is a whole category of snacks in Japan that are marketed as accompaniments to alcohol. Since this is a country where alcohol is an important social lubricant that allows stoic salary men to let loose on a regular basis, one can say that alcohol operates as a socially sanctioned therapist opening cathartic floodgates and letting the tension pour out.

These types of snacks to accompany alcohol are called "otsumami" in Japanese. They range from little whole dehydrated fish to strips of squid to chips and pretzels. I've seen the scarier bits hanging in convenience stores and liquor shops for years, but am not brave enough to chow down on dried fish as they stare back at me with their dead eyes. Pretzels, on the other hand, can hardly be offensive.


Pretz are just pretzel sticks presented plain or with flavoring. I'd say they were a savory rip-off of Pocky, but they're both made by the same company so it's not exactly theft. Also, this is a pretzel stick. It's a pretty basic concept that cannot be claimed as original to any particular company. This particular variety of Pretz has 6% cheddar cheese in it and I'm going to say that that's not nearly enough. When you open one of the two foil packets in the box, you smell a fairly strong cheesy flavor, but the smell doesn't translate into much cheese taste. They're also not incredibly salty.

All in all, they're not a bad pretzel experience, but not a spectacular one. The back of the box makes mention of the fact that there is pepper on them, but there is very little and it doesn't make much of a difference in taste. There is also Sucralose in these. In fact, there seems to be a lot of artificial sweetener in Japanese snacks for reasons I can't understand.

Japanese-made pretzels are no different than Western-made ones. They just cost a little more, are lighter in color, come in smaller portions and have less salt. Each box comes with two 31-gram (1 oz.) foil packets that will set you back 139 calories. If you're hot for some pretzels, these will do you fine, but don't expect any serious cheesy goodness to come along with them. I guess if you're getting potted and blowing off steam about the boss, you're probably not all that concerned about how much serious cheddar flavor you're going to get on your nosh.

Lawson Value Line Swiss Cake Roll (Chestnut)

Lawson's runs a chain of convenience stores all over Japan. The curious thing about Lawson's is that the brand originated in Ohio, but it has grown to be the second largest convenience store chain in Japan. Lawson's presently has three different types of stores. One is your average somewhat expensive shop full of junk food and lunch fodder (bento, rice balls, etc.). Another is called "Natural Lawson's" and supposedly carries somewhat healthier fare including fruit and vegetables and health food products. The last one is a 100 yen store.

The 100 yen shops carry a "Value Line." These are products which are large for their low price tag. I should note that none of these Lawson shops are located in my neighborhood, but I found this Swiss cake roll at a different 100 yen store. I guess that Lawson's markets their products to other shops or my local 100 yen place, called QQ, could be owned by Lawson's.


The Value Line Swiss cake roll has been around for awhile in vanilla, strawberry and mocha flavor, but a few new varieties have been introduced with the change in season. Since I can't resist chestnut (called "marron" here), I decided to give this cake a try.

If you give the cake a sniff, it smells sweet, cakey, and ever so slightly like chestnuts. The cake itself is a nice, soft yellow sponge. It's not especially moist, but it's also not especially dry. It's a bit sweet, but doesn't carry much flavor on its own. I wouldn't be surprised if this was by design to allow the cream's flavor to dominate. The cream is very light and smooth. It has the texture of whipped cream and is sweet and has a somewhat subtle chestnut flavor. The cream also has a hint of coffee flavor and malt, but I believe that comes from caramel coloring and flavoring. The ratio of cream to cake is just about perfect.

For 100 yen, this is a very nice Swiss cake roll. It isn't as good as a designer cake from a high quality patisserie, but it does beat more expensive cakes I've had from markets and bakeries. Generally speaking, the Japanese don't do cakes very well compared to some other Western born treats. One of the reasons for this is that they don't like their treats as sweet on the whole and sugar adds moisture so reducing the sugar results in cakes that tend to be on the dry side. However, this combination works well. You wouldn't be embarrassed to serve this to guests in a pinch and it certainly would make for an economical dessert if you're hankering for a bit of cake.

The only problem with this cheap treat is that it's quite high in calories. The package says there are 382 calories in 100 grams and the entire cake weighs a little over 200 grams. I believe 5 servings would be fairly reasonable, but that's still a relatively small portion and weighs in at 152 calories. I'm guessing most people could put away 1/3 of the whole cake without batting an eye if they were looking to go a bit overboard.

I've tried the vanilla variety of this cake before and it's good as well. I try not to have it very often, but it is hard to resist when it's so cheap and easy to find. The only hesitation I have about recommending it is related to the nutritional issues and not the taste.

QBB Almond "Baby Cheese" Snack

The Western view of most Japanese people is that they're sitting around daintily eating rice balls, sushi, and miso soup while sipping green tea. Those slim physiques are attributed to healthy eating so people expect shops to contain fresh, high quality food. By and large, markets are well-stocked with the kind of stuff that keeps Japanese folks so trim. However, the dairy aisle, conveniently located across from the beer aisle in my local market, offers a refrigerated contradiction to the image of healthy-eating Japanese. It's a calm, cool ocean of processed cheese and margarine spreads dotted with the occasional bit of massively overpriced real butter and cheese.

Lining the top of the case is of the Japanese equivalent of "Kraft singles" are quite a lot of single serving "cheese" snacks. Up until now, I've been afraid to try any of them except the string cheese. The string cheese has the advantage of being a rare natural cheese product. One of the scariest snacks I used to see was called "cheese candy" which had little bits of pale processed cheese wrapped like hard candies. I haven't seen those as of late, but I might take one for the Japanese snack review team and give it a try if it's still around.

QBB has several varieties of snack-sized cheese. Each pack contains 4 individual little foil-wrapped blocks in an easy to open package. I could choose between "cream cheese", "Camembert", and "iron fortified plain cheese" in addition to the almond variety that I tried. Incidentally, QBB stands for "quality's best & beauty." The brand is produced by a margarine and butter company called "Rokko Butter Co." which was established in 1948. Besides processed cheese, they also make dried fruit and nuts. Most notably, at least in my opinion, they are responsible for distributing Lindt chocolate in Japan. Somehow it seems ironic that the same company that sells some of the very best consumer chocolate (in my opinion) sells so much processed cheese.


Each little block of cheese is 18 grams (.6 oz) in size and is rather pale and has very small fragments of almond embedded in it. The blocks are smooth, shiny and firm, but yield easily to a butter knife. If it's closer to room temperature, it is softer, just like real cheese. However, I somehow doubt it actually would melt, but I didn't attempt to heat it as I'm afraid of the processed blob monster with teeth of slivered almonds that might result. I'm pretty sure this cheese is not meant to be used in that fashion. Each block is just supposed to noshed on, probably with a beer. There are 62 calories, 3.65 grams of fat, and 191 mg. of sodium in each 18 gram serving. For the quantity of cheese (72 grams/2.5 oz.), it's not high priced for a cheese product in Tokyo at 128 yen ($1.30 USD), but it's also not incredibly economical.


I decided to try the cheese both alone and on a cracker. With a pessimistic attitude, I gave it a try and it was actually pretty good. It smells very vaguely of almonds and when you bite into it, you get a solid hint of nuttiness as well as a cheesy tang. The sense of the almonds gets stronger as you chew. The texture is pleasant, but clearly not like natural cheese. It's softer and more uniform than most cheese. It's not unpleasant in any way, but there is a little bit of what I'd call a processed cheese aftertaste. I tried it on a Morinaga thin wheat cracker with wheat germ. This is a very hearty cracker, but the cheese flavor was able to compete with the earthy grains of the cracker.


The ingredients list shows that the first ingredient is actually natural cheese and the second is almonds. Given how few almonds there are in it, this means the other ingredients are not present in great quantity. The third ingredient is whey. Many people don't know this but the way in which many types of processed cheese is made is by infusing the whey back into the cheese. Whey is a nutritious byproduct of cheese-making.The dreaded Velveeta is made by adding whey back into the cheese. In other words, this really isn't that bad for you. It's just more processed than natural cheese.

I didn't expect to like this because it was processed cheese and my knee-jerk reaction is to believe that is bad, but I didn't find this too bad at all. If I were looking for something a bit more substantial and less junky than sweets or salted snacks, this would definitely be a contender. I won't be picking it up frequently, but I could see revisiting it when I was in the mood for cheese and nuts.

Pepsi White

I once had a conversation with a student of mine where I mentioned to her that the Japanese snack makers didn't seem to have much success with their varieties since they kept changing their products and trying out new variants rather than finding flavors the consumers enjoyed and continued to purchase. She responded by saying that, when she last went to the U.S., she felt sorry for Americans because they were always offered the same old things and didn't get a chance to sample as many varieties.

The perspective each of us held summed up pretty well the difference between the Japanese consumer view and the American one. The Americans generally look for something great to add to their regular rotation of consumption. The Japanese are looking for something novel to try before they move along to the next interesting thing.

Enter Pepsi White. A lot of people who have sampled this drink and blogged about it have wondered why it exists at all. They figure Pepsi is trying too hard or trying to be too wacky. What Pepsi is doing is building brand name recognition and interest in their drinks through offering short-lived varieties. The consumer is not supposed to love Pepsi White (nor were they supposed to be great fans of the previously released Pepsi Cucumber). They are only supposed to be curious enough about it to buy it until the limited distribution of it peters out.


Keeping this as well as the bad reviews of Pepsi White in mind, I decided to give it a try. It's rather difficult to find since I couldn't locate it at any supermarkets. I could only get it at a 7-11 (which I rarely patronize). This fits in with the idea that the drink is for novelty. They expect people who are perusing a convenience store for a snack or drink to be more open-minded than the housewife looking to buy ingredients for tonight's menu.

The convenience store price for a 500 ml. beverage is about 150 yen ($1.60 USD) so this was an expensive experiment. The packaging for the bottle looks pretty nice with the white label and little Pepsi logos. The ingredients list reveals that it contains fructose syrup, flavoring, citric acid, preservatives, and caffeine. No calorie information is offered, but I'm guessing it's the same as standard sugared soft drinks.

A sniff reveals strong hints of lemon with a weaker hint of yogurt. The lemon element is likely from the recipe for original Pepsi as regular Pepsi contains lemon. The first sip offers the taste of Pepsi with a yogurt-tasting finish. The flavor is actually multi-layered at first, though after a few sips, it seems to come together into a funky combination followed by more of a taste of Pepsi with a odd yogurt aftertaste.

This is definitely a peculiar drink, but it is exactly what it sells itself to be. That is, it's yogurt Pepsi. The question isn't whether or not Pepsi successfully merged the flavors together, but rather whether or not they should have. As a curiosity being marketed in a country where yogurt drinks are very popular, there is some sense in offering Pepsi White. As a drink a person is supposed to drink and enjoy, it doesn't work at all. Still, it'd be interesting to see if the sales of regular Pepsi were favorably impacted by the release of strange novelty flavors like this.

KitKat Mini Caramel Purin Flavor

The Japanese don't celebrate Halloween, but they have all the trappings of wanting to do so. Scary television programs are scheduled in line with the holiday. Some shops sell decorations and many of them sell candy as if kids were going to be going door to door begging for sugary niblets. The bag of mini KitKats pictured above has all the earmarks of being the sort of candy you'd buy and pass out when kids in costumes ring your doorbell. However, no kids are going to go out and mooch for candy in Tokyo on October 31. It simply isn't the sort of thing the Japanese would do.

The bag design for these Kitkats has ghosts, witches hats, stars, bats, and a pumpkin on it and is in traditional Halloween orange. The individually wrapped small bars inside also have a similar theme. When you open the bag, you smell artificial caramel immediately. This was a bad sign in my opinion. If the sealed packets can't contain the smell, how strong must it be?


After opening a packet, I was heartened to see that they are covered in milk chocolate rather than white chocolate. That means that the coating probably is just regular milk chocolate and not infused with the artificial caramel purin flavor. Despite the intense smell, the bars themselves have a good balance of smokey caramel purin flavor and chocolate. Purin, by the way, is really just custard with a burnt caramel sauce on top of it (like flan or créme caramel). This bars taste exactly like one of those custards covered in milk chocolate and the taste is quite enjoyable. I'm guessing they succeeded because the flavoring is kept in the cream between the wafers where it belongs rather than mixed in with the chocolate.

One side note about the mini bars is that they seem to melt quickly when you hold them. I'm not sure why the melting point of these should be so low, but I'd recommend refrigerating them. Room temperature bars will melt on your fingers and make a mess.


There are about 14 or so little individually wrapped bars in one bag. The packets all have different messages on them. One of them said, 'Halloween is the time when children's dreams come true.' I'm guessing a lot of Japanese kids dream of not learning thousands of Chinese characters or cramming for brutal rounds of entrance tests more than candy, but I'm thinking such dreams are unlikely to be fulfilled.

I don't believe you can buy this flavor in a "single serving" bar size, but it could simply be that they are not sold in that form in my area. Each bar is about half the length and about the same width as a conventional Japanese KitKat bar. There are 66 calories in one mini bar. If you'd like just a little something sweet, they're just the right size.

While I wouldn't rate these higher than a classic KitKat, they are definitely one of the better flavored variations that I've encountered lately. If you want a change of pace, or want something you can share around the office, these would be a good choice.

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Here are other reviews of this bar which you may enjoy:
badmoodguy in paradise: Nihonjin Nibbles: Halloween KitKat and Jen's KitKat Blog.

The Japanese Snack Food Review