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. 

McDonald's Japan International Burgers (product info.)

I'm on the fence about how I feel about fast food places incorporating what appear to be higher class ingredients into their offerings. On the one hand, it's kind of nice that they want to mix things up a bit. On the other, they almost always dumb things down in such a way that they're not really all that one might expect. I've read far too many reviews of sauces which are little more than mayonnaise mixed with some core ingredient to simulate an international flavor without straying too far from what a pedestrian palate will tolerate. We want our fast food to be only marginally more interesting than what we're used to because nobody goes to McDonald's for adventurous cuisine, not even the Japanese, who generally will tolerate a wider flavor range than the average American. 

In the case of McDonald's international burger options, they're offering the following:

All images from the McDonald's Japan web site.

Le Grand Tomato:

A beef patty on ciabatta bread (which is Italian, not French, right?) with mozzarella cheese (again, Italian), gravy, butter sauce, lettuce and tomato. This burger seems slightly more on the international side, or at least it suffers from a bit of a nationality identity crisis.

Le Gran Sausage:

A beef patty on ciabatta bread with mozzarella, mustard sauce, and sausage (German?) with the requisite lettuce and tomato.

These sandwiches are currently available and were introduced on July 18. 

Hot Gold Masala:

A bun topped with cornmeal houses a crispy chicken patty with tomato, lettuce, onion, cheese, and a spicy curry sauce.

Mild Gold Masala:

This is the same bun with a mild curry sauce flavored with honey and a mayo chutney. What was that I said about the special sauces just being something mixed with mayo?  However, McDonald's recommends this for chili wusses. (These sandwiches haven't been introduced yet and will be available from August 2.)

Aussie Deli:

Aussie beef pastrami on a bun that has been steamed to plump it up. Yellow mustard, possibly with stone ground seeds, is added to boost the flavor profile.

Cheese Aussie Deli:
The same as the aforementioned sandwich, but, with, you know, a slice of cheese. (These sandwiches haven't been introduced yet and will be available from August 3.)

Chicken nuggets with basil sauce:

Your favorite chicken-like product with mayonnaise mixed with basil. (Introduced on July 18 and currently available.)

Chicken nuggets with curry sauce:

And the same thing mixed with curry. I must admit that I would actually buy this if they served the nuggets on a silver tray as pictured here. (To be introduced in August)

Any time that an international version of any food is introduced, it's a reflection of a foreign country's perception of another country's cuisine as well as their own tastes. In America, anything labeled "French" which is not a fry would be served on a croissant or a baguette. In Japan, I'm guessing ciabatta bread is the closest they can come to something which isn't a regular burger bun which is easy to store and handle (and cheap to produce). The inclusion of sausage and mozzarella cheese on the French sandwich mystifies me, but I am a dumb American with little exposure to true French cuisine. It's all butter, long loaves of crusty goodness, cold potato soup, and pastries to me. For all I know, mozzarella is the national cheese of France (though I would've expected it to be brie) and they are sausage sucking fiends (read into that what you like).

The Australian option reminds me of Arby's, except without the American beef option. As I've mentioned before, the whole mad cow scare was amplified to the point where the dial was definitely at "11" in Japan so the local consumers don't feel comfortable with cows that were born in the U.S.A. The Fukushima situation has them none too thrilled with the idea of native beef, but they have strong confidence in not being somehow poisoned by cows that like to add a "y" to the end of most of their words (choccy, prezzy, grundies, etc.).

All in all, I would not be compelled to buy fast food because of these new options, though if I already had a hankering for something, I might try one of these out. If I were even slightly tempted, I'd want to try the hot gold masala, if only because it sounds like slang for a disgusting sex act. ;-)

Random Picture #123

Last year, when energy conservation measures were first implemented to help compensate for losing nuclear power, Kirin introduced beer that you could put ice in. My husband wanted to try it, but never got around to it and it vanished from the mark. As a teetotaler (a status which amused some of my students, especially a few of the men, to no end), I'm not really sure why beer shouldn't have ice in it. I figured it smells horrible no matter what you do with it and you couldn't water it down enough to make me want to drink it. All I can say is that it must have been a fairly decent product for Kirin since it's back again this summer.

If any beer drinkers out there would like to leave a comment and let me know why ice doesn't go in beer, I'd love to understand. 

Pepsi Black (link love)

You don't have to dress strangely to drink Pepsi Black, but apparently it helps. 

I didn't go out of my way to procure a bottle of Pepsi Black for review, but Marvo the marvelous over at the Impulsive Buy did. I won't spoil the surprise and will simply allow you to click on over there and see for yourself whether or not I should be filled with remorse and regret at not having purchased my own over-priced imported bottle. If you have forgotten what the deal is with Pepsi Black, I wrote a bit about it here.

Shouga (Ginger) Sembei

Modern life is fraught with choice. In fact, I've read that psychologists have done studies in which too much choice causes stress and people need to tune out a lot of the options in modern stores because it is overwhelming to them. In Japan, there were often items in the snack sections that my eyes pretty much slid past. I saw them, but there were so many choices and I knew that I couldn't try them all so some were left behind. As the time of my planned departure drew near, I started noticing all of the things, especially in the traditional/granny's snacks areas, that I had never gotten around to reviewing. I regretted that I couldn't get to them all, but I also know that there are vast swathes of food that I never ate back home either.

Next time you're in a market, take a close look at what you reject out of hand everyday because it falls outside of your regular consumption. You may be surprised at how many items you've never put in your shopping basket because they didn't light your fire compared to other items of a similar nature. We tend to form chains of preferences rather than to step far beyond our circle of likes. Part of what people who review food do for you is tell you about products such that you might feel compelled to take notice and buy outside the box, or confirm that you probably would like to make sure that a certain item never gets into your box.

I saw a lot of these little crackers/cookies. They look like the mutant offspring of a fortune cookie and a frosted flake. Part of what made me dismiss them in Japan was that I had been mislead by streaky white stuff on sembei before which looked sweet, but was just coatings of weirdness. However, during my feeding frenzy at the Daiso Japan, I dived in and bought this 90-gram (3.2 oz.) bag for $1.50 (118 yen). I took the presence of such things for granted, but somehow was not punished for my lack of regard.

I've mentioned before that the Japanese call a wide variety of rice-based crispy snacks "sembei". While western folks who are somewhat familiar think of them as savory rice crackers, largely flavored with soy sauce or sesame, there are a number of sweet versions and this is one of them. They're more like a cookie than a cracker, except that they lack the textural elements of a cookie.

Each little bit of sembei is coated with a hard frosting and they smell very strange, almost like some odd chemical is at work. The flavor is very strongly infused with ginger and quite sweet. This is no surprise as the ingredients include sugar, glucose, fructose, and dextrin. All those sweeteners are held together with a little wheat flour, eggs, and margarine and flavored with ginger. Health food, this is certainly not.

In terms of the sugar, this is probably going to be far too much for people who aren't fans of especially sweet food. However, if you like candied ginger, this is like a crispy version of it. Fortunately for me, I am a fan of said version of ginger, but there are limits to how much one can eat at once before the sweetness and intense ginger start to overwhelm. You can look at that as built-in portion control, or as an impediment to finishing the bag before it goes stale. The latter did occur in my case, but I wasn't eating small amounts daily so it would be possible to have a few a day and still have the last one be crispy.

I loved these, but I recognize that they may be far too strong and sweet for a lot of people. I can't rate it for others, but I wouldn't hesitate to buy this again. That being said, I wouldn't want to have it around all of the time or eat it day in and day out. There's really only so much super sweet ginger that I need in my life, but this has an excellent flavor and great crispy texture. Candied ginger fans should definitely seek it out. Others will want to give it a pass.

These are made by a company called Nanao, but it's my guess that any ginger sembei that resembles this will be much the same. It's one of those companies which is small and has little presence in the market in terms of name recognition. You can buy this particular brand online at Pacific Mercantile Company, or the Marukai e-store, though I got mine at the Daiso Japan shop in Mountain View, CA.