Chestnut Pucca

Despite my initial reservations about the show, I found that I learned to love the T.V. series "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer". In Japan, incidentally, Fox used to promote it as "Buffy, the cross lover." Fortunately, they gave that promotional slogan as it made sound like she was doing something impure with a crucifix rather than running around stabbing vampires with bits of sharpened wood. 

A lot of fans of that T.V. series felt that the secondary character of "Willow", played by Alyson Hannigan, was more attractive, more interesting, and generally a more appealing part of the show. She wasn't the name character and more people were familiar with Buffy, but she had a quality that those who were paying attention appreciated. I personally had no favoritism, but this situation, in which a more widely-known character is actually of lesser quality than a secondary character, reminded me of the standing of Pucca in the Japanese snack world.

The "Buffy" of Japanese pretzel snacks is "Pocky", but Pucca is a much better presentation of a similar concept. Pocky dips the stick in flavored coatings, Pucca has a crispy pretzel shell full of flavored cream. In my opinion, Pucca carries a much better, earthy rye flour pretzel flavoring and the concentration of the filling inside provides for a stronger burst of flavor. The shell is very crispy and delicate and provides a better contrast (and crunch) than a Pocky stick. 

The only question about this presentation of Pucca for me was whether it was going to do right by me in terms of the chestnut filling. Mainly, was it going to convey the essence of chestnut and be properly, but not overbearingly, sweet. I'm pleased to say that it hits the nail right on the head in terms of conveying a creamy chestnut flavored enhanced with vanilla. The filling is a lot like the cream in an Oreo, though it's a bit more solid. 

You can find Pucca all over the place, and this version will probably be around until the weather turns warm again. It's usually 100 or so yen per box ($1.21) and each box is 46 grams (1.6 oz.). The entire box has 241 calories. While this isn't my absolute favorite Pucca (that honor stays with the original chocolate version), it is a very tasty variation. If it were just a little salty or a little less sweet, it'd be getting a "very happy" rating. As it is, it's still good, but just avoids being great. 

Befco Yuzu and Salt Sembei

Before I started this blog, I was reluctant to sample a lot of Japanese foods. To be perfectly honest, I didn't know what a lot of the traditional flavors were because I just didn't pay that much attention to the food. I've tried a lot of things, and not everything has really floated my boat, but I've come to really be attracted to two flavors in particular. One is kinako, or toasted soybean flour, and the other is yuzu. For those who don't know, it's an Asian citrus fruit with a flavor which is both unique and familiar. It's piquant without being too sour or tart. Every time a new yuzu-based product comes out, I am drawn to it.

In fact, I am so in love with the flavor of yuzu that I was willing to overlook the inclusion of seafood flavors, including shrimp, when deciding to sample this. Shrimp tends to be the equivalent of my own gustatory ipecac, but I had some confidence that it won't be an overblown flavor in these rice crackers. Why? Well, simple logic... There isn't a picture of a shrimp on the bag so, you know, it can't be all that intense. Right? If it was important, they'd definitely show a picture, probably a "chibified" shrimp that looks elated at the idea of being consumed by hungry salt fiends. 

I found them at Okashi no Machioka for 168 yen ($2.09). That gets you 88 grams (3.1 oz.) of crackers. It stocks pretty much every Befco product that comes out, at least for a little while, so it's a good place to find new and interesting flavors. I've made fun of the name "Befco" before because it sounds like the Biffco industries from the second "Back to the Future". The good people at Befco finally explained the naming to me on the back of the bag. It stands for "Beika Frontier Company". I'm not sure what they are on the frontiers of, but there it is... another Japanese company name which is in English and pretty much ignores all logic. 

The crackers smell like a pleasant melange of savory flavors including a meaty scent reminiscent of pork and chicken, yuzu, and seafood. The flavors are multi-layered. The first thing you get is, most unfortunately, oil. These are one of the more heavily fried versions of sembei. The next level is the meaty elements with garlic, shrimp, beef, and crab. Finally, there is an astringent finish of yuzu. The texture is nicely crispy, but still easy to bite into. These are puffy, but not airy. There's just the right amount of salt. Each is 26.5 calories, but they aren't the biggest crackers. They're around half the size of my palm. 

These are good sembei, but for me personally, they didn't make the cut. I'm thoroughly spoiled, however, since I live in Japan and can buy a huge variety of such snacks. It's not that they are modestly enjoyable and don't have an excellent texture, but they are too oily and the yuzu element isn't strong enough for me. I'd still recommend sampling them if you're a sembei fan, but I can't see buying them again.

Random Picture #85

The Japanese dedication to marketing Halloween-themed items grow just a little every year. Though they have gotten the superficial aspects down, such as applying an appropriately cuted-up All Hallow's Eve motif, they aren't quite with it on the deeper execution. All of the snacks that I've seen with themed packaging are the same products as are usually on offer with just a different bag. These choco pies (a nice enough treat on their own as a plain chocolate covered soft cookie with vanilla cream filling sweet) are the same old same old. I don't know why they don't release special editions for the season, but I'm guessing it's because they'd rather sink their specialties into seasonal variations which have nothing to do with the usurping of American holidays.

Gateau du Mont-Blanc KitKat

Lately, KitKat offerings have been uninspired yawn-fests. With the exception of the  Tohoku special Zunda KitKat, it's been a steady parade of dark chocolate, white chocolate, and strawberry offerings with the occasional re-issue of a seasonal flavor. If Japanese KitKats were a television show, it'd be a sitcom in which each week the story is basically the same but the characters crack the same types of hackneyed jokes or a boring re-run. The show would be amusing enough on occasion that it'd manage to stay on the air, but generally keep viewers out of a sense of familiarity rather than the show's true entertainment value.

When I saw this box of Mont Blanc KitKats in a Natural Lawson convenience store, I felt like I was seeing the most enticing "preview" that I'd seen in a long time. Though this is not the most creative flavor idea for Japan (there are plenty of mont blanc treats here), it is still novel enough to get this lover of chestnut sweets excited. I forked over my 168 yen ($2.20) and prepared for what I hoped would be a novel experience.

A sniff revealed coffee and caramel notes. This is fairly typical for chestnut sweets because the roasting of nuts often causes a similar aroma to that of roasted coffee beans. The  caramel scent, unfortunately, comes from the artificial flavoring that is used. These have an intense sweetness and the finish is definitely of chestnut, but the first hit really is more like fake caramel. The chestnut element is gotten from powder rather than actual chestnuts.

This is an okay, albeit very sweet KitKat. I wish the depth of flavor were better. This might have been achieved by dialing back the super sweet aspects, but this is a candy bar and a white-chocolate-based one at that. Real mont blanc cakes are sweet as well, but not as overpowering as this. They also have a richness that they get from the fatty filling which is utterly absent in this bar. Though I will finish the box, I wouldn't buy this again.

Antonelli Cocoa Cream Italian Croissant

There's a multi-lingual message on the back of this package which says: "The pictures shown are pictures of a fantasy that does not represent the contents of the package itself." You have to respect that they put some truth on the package, even though I missed this message when I first purchased this and expected something a little closer to what was pictured. Absolute truth in advertising would require that this not be called a "croissant", though it is genuinely Italian.

Though these have Japanese writing on them, they are made in Italy. Though I tend to favor reviewing items actually produced in Japan, sometimes it's hard to resist an odd offering from another origin. I found these at Okashi no Marche discount snack shop for a mere 100 yen ($1.30) for a 1.76 oz./50 gram serving. If these are even halfway decent, that's a pretty good price. You can get 100 yen pastries in Japan, but most of them don't have a shelf life of about 7 months. This has an expiration date of May 26, 2012.

The "croissant" portion is really a sort of cake-like bread. It's like a slightly buttery hotdog bun. When I opened the package, I got a whiff of something vaguely familiar and the flavor also had an essence of something I'd had before. I realized that it was the same scent and taste that I'd had with some lemon chocolates a student brought me back from Italy some time ago. I thought that it was a part of the flavoring in those candies, but now I think it might be something else. It's not a bad thing, but it is very distinct.

The bread is soft, but still seems a bit dry. This is common in bread products that are prepared for long-term preservation. It tastes slightly sweet and a little rich. This is likely from the high amount of egg in it. The cocoa cream filling is dotted through it and doesn't have a very strong chocolate flavor. Mainly, it adds a fatty dollop of texture and extra sweetness. There were also lemon and strawberry versions available, and my husband sampled both of them and found them reasonably good, though not amazing.

I try to accept products for what they are rather than what I might hope them to be. These are extended shelf-life (ESL) baked goods and it's unfair to expect them to be like a fine quality fresh-baked pastry. For something which you can put in an earthquake survival kit, toss into a backpack, or just keep in a cabinet or desk drawer for just that time when you just want a bread-based breakfast but don't want to feel pressure to eat it at any given time, this is actually pretty good. The bread has a nice flavor by itself, the filling has a decent texture (though there could be more of it), and it's only about 200 calories for a good-sized bun. It's kind of a good "bad" food. And, yes, I'd buy it again.