Haitai Chocolate Cookie Bar

If someone decided to create the written equivalent of esparanto, that is, a writing system that everyone could use as a common form of  communication, but was no ones native language, would you want to learn it? Would you be willing to memorize the characters and learn to type and write them? If it were possible, what are the chances that we could get all the peoples of the world to make the effort? I can't speak for everyone, but I'm pretty sure that a lot of the English speakers wouldn't trouble themselves since they currently possess the dominant language for international exchanges. Why should they bother?

I think about things like this when I look at a package like the one this candy bar came in and think about the fact that I can't read anything on it. Unlike the Japanese, the Koreans don't alway splash a bit of English here and there to give us a clue of what is going on. And, unlike Japanese, I can't understand a single Korean character, but my brain tries to shape them into Chinese ones in an effort to try. This does not work at all, and only increases the depth of the furrowed wrinkle between my eyebrows that becomes more pronounced with each passing year.

I picked this up at a Korean market for a mere 79 cents because the concept reminded me of a Japanese candy I've had and reviewed before called "Black Thunder." This is a kid's candy which is fairly cheap and had a surge of popularity around the time that I was leaving in March 2012 because the maker, Yuraku, hitched its wagon to the Japanese men's gymnastics team and I believe a particular athlete (whose name I do not know) said it was his favorite candy. He may have been a baseball player. He may have played soccer. I don't know. I only know that he wasn't a sumo wrestler and I'm pretty sure that getting your candy endorsed by one of them wouldn't necessarily be perceived as good for the brand as no one would want to think candy has the chance of making you gain weight.

At any rate, if you compare the pictures from my review of Black Thunder to this bar's pictures, you'll see that they are quite different inside. Black Thunder has much bigger chunks of cookie and some cereal. This is smaller, denser bits of cookie bound by chocolate.

The chocolate candy portion is not especially sweet and mainly seems to serve as a somewhat dryly finished bonding material for the cookie bits. This is not a bad thing as the cookies carry a lot of the nice somewhat bitter chocolate flavor of the sandwich cookie that an Oreo has. The textural contrast is also pretty good with some solid, but not brittle, crunch from the cookies and some yielding, but firm sense from the chocolate. Even though there is no "cream" portion, there seems to be somewhat of a similar flavor in the bar which carries the same sweetness.

I think this bar is better than the Japanese one because the chocolate is less waxy and the chocolate flavor more pronounced. Both have great textural qualities, but the cocoa seems to be a bit higher quality in the Haitai cookie bar. For 170 calories for a relatively lightweight bar though, this packs more of a calorie cost. It'd be a toss up which I'd go for. This wins for taste, but Black Thunder is lighter and wins for the calorie to enjoyment ratio. Either is a good deal and I'd recommend picking one up if you can - especially if you're a fan of the cookie part of an Oreo.

Karel Capek Sweets Teatime Set (product information)

During the holiday season, I was drawn to the gift baskets and packages that I saw on sale. I don't know how other people regard them, but I am always fascinated by the way in which items are chosen for these package deals. The obvious combinations like cheese, crackers, and shelf-stable cured meat, don't hold a great deal of appeal, but the ones that mix things up a bit pique my curiosity.

This set from designer tea maker, Karel Capek, is less interesting in what it includes than in the little fairy tale that is woven around the choices. They say this is a "once upon a tea time set" and talk about a Nordic King's caramel scones. It includes five kinds of tea, cookies, raspberry muffins, cherry jam, and a special bowl for the jam.

The set will set you back 4,200 yen (about $40). That's a pretty penny for 25 bags of tea, a jar of jam, a little pot for the jam, and a handful of cookies and muffins... and it's not even a particularly interesting assortment. 

Random Picture #199

I've mentioned my feelings about Gari Garikun on my other blog. I find him one of the more disturbing mascots. His enormous maw makes me want to go through the freezer case and turn all of the boxes around and it certainly dissuades me from making a purchase with his visage on the package. That being said, apparently having a mouth that big creates an enormous gravity well into which bits of food are sucked so there is some sort of benefit to such a deformity.

At any rate, this is a nashi pear (Japanese/Asian pear) flavor ice pop. It's an interesting flavor option, but it says only 2% of it is pear juice so you're mostly getting sugar and water. 

Calbee Seaweed Mashed Potato Chips

Picture from Calbee.

Mini Stop convenience stores is offering this abomination before the potato gods for a limited time. The concept is potato-chip-like shells with mashed potato filling inside. This type of carb-on-carb action reminds me of when I was a kid and used to make "mashed potato sandwiches". However, this version seems quite a bit more incestuous than the wedding of bread and mashed potato.

A cup of this treat can be yours for about $2 (198 yen). The fact that the inner potato is yellow orange (and as far as I can tell, it's not sweet potato) is a bit scary, but otherwise, this may offer some kinky textural qualities.

Meiji Meltyblend Creamy Chocola

Everything in life carries a price, and I'm not talking about just money. When you are young, and you don't have an income, you tend to see things mainly in terms of whether or not you have cash in pocket. In fact, yesterday, I overheard a conversation between two boys which illustrated this very well.

I was in "Dollar Tree" investigating the cheapest of the cheap when it comes to Valentine's options. Please note that I wasn't doing this to make an actual gift purchase. This was sociological "research" of a sort which I am prone to doing. A handful of college-age women were standing in the aisle goofing on the Valentine's items and that itself was worth the trip. It's more than ironic to hear them make fun of things which they will more than likely purchase. It's also exactly the sort of thing I did at that age when I was too cool for the things I actually liked and could afford.

There were also a couple of boys, around the age of 10 or so, who came in and headed for the candy aisle where I was contemplating a bag of "Red Vines" (for my husband, who loves all sorts of licorice). They were talking at length and explicitly about exactly what they could buy. One of them was saying that one could buy two items and the other could buy one because of the taxes. The other was saying tax was included so they could each get two things. The first kid seemed dubious of this assertion and nervous about going to check-out without the extra scratch to cover tax. Their exchange made it clear that they had $4 only between them, and one of them said they needed to get things that would last. In other words, they wanted to buy the biggest snack for their buck. Value for their limited dollars was the only price they considered.

Now that I'm older, and I have a few more dollars at my disposal than the average 10-year-old, I know about other expenses like nutrition and calories. There is the value that comes from how pleasurable something is. My husband has called this the "calorie to enjoyment" ratio. It's when you learn as an adult that your body is not a garbage disposal and you care about how good something is rather than how much of it you can get for your cash. When you're a kid, and money is scarce and the body is nearly invincible, such concerns aren't even on the radar.

In America, the concept of overall quality rather than only quantity is a little out of place. Most people are looking for how much they can get, not how good what they get is. I grew up very poor, so I more than understand this as a fact of life for many folks. Nonetheless, even people who have more money view "value" as something they get only if there is an enormous amount of something (hence the outsize portions in restaurants). In Japan, well, they see value based on a variety of factors including how it is packaged (for both convenience and style) and what the experience of eating it is like.

Meltyblend, which I swear is called Melty Kiss in Japan, is a product which goes for quality over quantity. The reason the "Melty" line is popular in Japan is that it is perfectly formulated for the market's interests - individually wrapped bits of
not-too-sweet chocolate with unique textural properties. They are truffle-like confections served up in tiny sizes. They are rich, chocolatey, and melt in your mouth. The best way to eat one is to place a firm little square in your mouth and allow it to dissipate into fudge-like goo. It's a textural and taste delight which is wasted otherwise.

The flavor of this "creamy chocola" version is a little lacking in complexity, but is still well worth it. The chocolate part hits you up front because of the dusting of cocoa powder. As it melts, the sweetness reveals itself in increasing layers. This works in part because it off-sets the somewhat bittersweet nature of consumer-level Japanese chocolate and it even goes some distance toward mitigating the sometimes unpleasant (coffee-like) aftertaste of Japanese chocolate. Incidentally, this type of Meltyblend/Melty Kiss (creamy chocola) is ranked the most highly on Meiji's site.

Without a doubt, Meltyblend is the best consumer level chocolate I have ever had. I found this for $1.98 (about 200 yen) at Marukai market. I was very lucky that it was on sale because usually these are $3.98. For 15 small pieces (each is 25 calories and about the volume of a Hershey's Kiss), it's quite expensive, but definitely worth it if you savor the experience. This is the sort of thing which makes an excellent gift for someone who you want to offer a unique, mid-range chocolate gift to. In fact, it would be a great Valentine's day treat, even at full price - especially if you can pair it with a Japanese Valentine's day card of some sort. ;-)