Meiji Milk Chocolate Bar

Despite having been in Japan for 20 years, I have never purchased a Meiji plain chocolate bar. There's something about the packaging that never drew me. It could be that it looks a bit like a rip-off of classic Hershey's chocolate bar packaging with the mixture of a dark brown wrapper with a metallic logo, or simply the fact that the wrapper is so ill-fitting. In fact, the paper wrapper seems like it's sloppily too big for the foil-wrapped bar.

I researched the Meiji plain chocolate bar's history on Meiji's site in order to see if the design was perhaps, er, "inspired" by the Hershey packaging. This bar was introduced in 1926 with a deep brick red wrapper and with a similar design as the current bar. That is, it had a similar ornamental border and big text in the center. From there, the wrapper got redder and redder until 1971 when it suddenly became the dark brown number you see pictured above. My guess is that the package change had more to do with the fact that Ghana was introduced by Lotte in 1963 with a red wrapper and Meiji wanted to more clearly distinguish their plain chocolate bar from Lotte's and the change had nothing to do with Hershey's design.

I was inspired to sample this bar because one of my commenters mentioned in her comments on the Ghana holiday bar that she found that the Meiji bar had a bitter aftertaste, so I wanted to sample it for myself to see what it was like. Also, this is a basic bar that has been around for a very long time and is probably a staple of the Japanese candy market so being familiar with it would seem to be a prerequisite for evaluating other products.


The bar is 2.29 oz./65 grams and has 15 segments with the word "Meiji" imprinted on each. The whole bar has 363 calories so each square is 24 calories. This is not too dissimilar from the "cost" of most milk chocolate calorie-wise, but this bar is about .7 oz./20 grams bigger than a standard Hershey bar.

The bar smells a lot like sweet cocoa powder. As you can see by the picture, it does not cleave evenly along the imprinted lines. It is soft and has little snap, yet bits fragment off of it when you break off squares. It's probably the sloppiest chocolate bar I've ever had in Japan. The chocolate is cool and sweet on the tongue and ever so slightly bitter. The chocolate is fairly intense and not all that milky. It's good, but like Ghana, it is pretty strong and not so milky. I think this somewhat bittersweet taste is the result of the cocoa beans being roasted differently in Japan.

The first 2 squares came across as mainly sweet and cocoa-intense. The third started to reveal more of a bitter and acidic aftertaste. It leaves the chocolate equivalent of "coffee breath" in your mouth. It's an aftertaste which makes you want to drink something or brush your teeth. It's not awful or anything, but it's persistent. I intentionally did not eat or drink anything else to see how long it lingered and it seemed to stick around for at least a half hour.

This bar tastes pretty good on the whole, but I don't think I'd want to eat it if I didn't have a drink on hand or didn't expect to have a different snack around afterward. It definitely isn't the sort of thing which you'll want to eat and eat and eat since the aftertaste aspect builds up the more you eat. I don't think I'll buy a Meiji plain bar again, but I'll almost certainly eventually finish eating the rest of this one.

Meiji Black Chocolate Bar

Back in 2009, when returning to America was more of a vague plan than a reality, I decided that I'd do comparison reviews of all of the plain milk chocolate bars produced by major Japanese food conglomerates. This mean Meiji, Lotte, and Morinaga. Lotte's Ghana won and Meiji came in last.

None of them were "bad", but mostly Meiji's had more of the bitter coffee-like aftertaste that is so commonly experienced with Japanese chocolate. I will note that most chocolate in Japan has this note because it has a somewhat bittersweet or semisweet quality. This would be fine if it didn't taste like Meiji's offering was bittersweet chocolate with a bigger dousing of sugar to tamp down the bitterness. It's as if someone hasn't figured out how to mellow out those notes without oversweetening.

I checked out Meiji's page for its current chocolate line up after sampling this "Black" chocolate bar. I noted that the wrapping designs have gone all san serif and lost all of their old-fashioned charm. I figured that "Black" meant it would be dark chocolate. After tasting it, however, it seems more like a description of the color of the wrapper. It tasted very much like the milk chocolate version that I tasted before.

There's plenty of sweetness. Perhaps the bitterness scale was about a 6 and the regular bar a 4 on a scale of 1-10, but it would almost certainly gravely disappoint ardent fans of dark chocolate. The site claims that it has a "sharp sense of cacao" and is "full-bodied". It doesn't have much in the way of sharpness, but it is a little deeper in it flavor profile, but it is just a bit too sweet to really feel well-rounded.

If you look at my picture, the bar (black is shown on top) doesn't even look all that much darker than its milk chocolate brother. The basic recipes seem to be so close as to not really make one distinguishable from the other. The calorie values are also nearly identical with the dark one coming in at 22 calories per square and milk being 24.

The main drawback to me of any plain Japanese chocolate, and some other types is that it's always soft and lacking in snap. Usually, you can taste and enjoy chocolate better at room temperature, but this softness always makes me want to put it in the refrigerator and have it cold. Placing a cool square in my mouth and allowing it to slowly melt is the best way to enjoy these, but I think I'm much more sensitive to chocolate having a "snap" and firmness than most people.

This is a good chocolate bar, but it's not great. I'd sooner have a Ritter Sport dark chocolate bar if I was looking to go to the dark side as I think they tend to be deeper in their chocolate flavor and hit the stronger bitter notes without the added sweetness. I certainly don't regret having this, especially since I only paid 99 cents for it as all Meiji bars were on sale at Nijiya market for that price. It was a good opportunity to try something pretty basic and common in Japan without paying the high import costs as I paid the same for it here as I did there.

If you want to buy this, well, the usual suspects (online sellers) don't tend to carry it because it is pretty basic. The truth is that you'd have to be a candy expert to want to spend the extra dough on these as those who do carry it (largely on eBay) are charging $4-5 for something which is usually sold for 100 yen (about a buck) in Japan.

If you sorta-kinda like dark chocolate but generally find it too intense, this is your baby and if you can pick it up for a lowish price, I'd say it's worth a try. I like it, but I wouldn't necessarily seek it out again, particularly when I have so many other options which I like even more.

For those who are interested in some Japanese papercraft, there is a page dedicated to downloads on Meiji's "candy land" site. It includes boxes, "flags" to put on your cupcakes (print and attach to a toothpick), coloring pages for kids, and a paper tree. The page is here for the time being (I expect the contents will change after Christmas).

Meiji Gold Premium Cacao Fruity Milk

Meiji is one of Japan's oldest companies (founded in 1916) and makes a wide variety of products including pharmaceuticals, vacuum-packed food (e.g., curry), sports drinks, vitamins, salted snacks, and chocolates. Their brand name recognition in Japan is one of the highest, but they don't have a signature product which is well-known abroad. I'm guessing that Chelsea candy might come closest to a fairly well-known Meiji product outside of Japan. Incidentally, the catch phrase for Meiji is simply "Open!" It's supposed to relate to the sound of a box of candy being opened. Yeah, I think it's a pretty lame tagline, too.

In Japan, Meji offers a lot of different chocolate bars in relatively plain wrappers with a big "MEIJI" written across the front as well as sell popular biscuits (crispy cookies) that look like little trees or mushrooms and a line of chocolate covered almonds and macadamia nuts. Aside from their chocolate covered nuts, I've never been all that great a fan of Meiji products. However, when I saw the attractive gold box of "premium fruity-milk", I couldn't resist giving it a try. I wanted to know what was "fruity" about it.


I'm not sure what makes a chocolate "premium", but perhaps I should be suspicious of the quality when it's only 99 yen (about $1) for a box of 12 flat little chocolates (66 grams/2.3 oz.). They come in little individual packages which remind me of the Ghirardelli squares chocolates. In fact, the design is very familiar to a box of Ghirardelli mixed dark chocolates we bought last Christmas at Costco.


Each chocolate is a nicely formed little flat rectangle which does not melt at all when you hold it. A sniff reveals a rather "cheap chocolate" smell in my opinion. That is, it's flat and a bit like run-of-the-mill cocoa powder. When you bite into it, it snaps slightly and comes apart in a little blocks in your mouth. It not only doesn't melt in your hand, but won't melt in your mouth until it's been broken into small bits. I read some time ago that Japanese chocolate companies were trying harder to develop chocolates that wouldn't melt in the summer, and I wonder if this is the fruit of some of those labors.

The taste of the chocolate is somewhat complex. The first sense is of chocolate that is slightly bitter and dry and then becomes a bit creamy and sweet and finishes a bit bitter. It has some coffee notes and a hint of dark cherry. To me, it is closer to a bittersweet chocolate than milk and is somewhat acidic. I didn't detect many fruity notes in it, though the chocolates are made with 100% Madagascar cocoa which is famous for being fruity.

There is something in the texture, smell, and snap of the chocolate which keeps this from having a luxurious feel. It looks great, but tastes cheap. I guess that the cocoa is good quality stuff, but it didn't really impress me. Each square is 30 calories and if I had a choice between spending those calories on a 25 calorie Hershey's kiss or one of these, I'd take the kiss.

Gelee Pure Peach Gummys and Meiji Gummy Candy

When I received both of these in ZenPop's Peach Festa box, I figured it was only reasonable to pit them against one another. I constructed a tiny battle arena and placed each in one corner of the ersatz ring. One of them had a shelled pistachio for a coach and the other a crusty old corn nut. Both touch old snacks did their best to prepare them for the battle to come. When the bell rang, I ate them both.

In terms of appearance, the Pure are definitely the more attractive-looking candy, and not just because the shape whispers that it will love you back if you choose to love it. The frosty white exterior reminds one of sugar, though it actually is part of the sour and sweet combination that this candy offers.

The Meiji Gummy is much more pedestrian in appearance and more straightforward in its flavor profile. It has a pure, sweet peach flavor that tastes fresh and natural. Eating one of these is like eating a very flavorful peach in terms of taste. In fact, both gummies get the peach flavor amazing "right." I just happen to prefer the flavor depth of the Pure's sour combination along with the sweet.

The texture of both candies is slightly tough and quite chewy, though they soften as they are warmed by your mouth. Neither has an edge when it comes to texture. Because they seem to be made with less sugar than some gummy-style candies, I found that they don't tend to stick in your teeth quite so badly.

Also, and this means a lot more in Japan than it does in the U.S., they both contain collagen. In my copious experience talking to Japanese women about skin (as they were always remarking on my "creamy white skin"), I know that they're a little bonkers for anything which they can supplement to improve their skin quality. Collagen is supposed to improve elasticity so you can have skin that snaps back like a rubber band if you eat enough of these gummies. (Note: I made that up. Neither company makes such a promise.)

The packaging is a little different in that Kanro's Pure gives you nutrition information for each candy (11.4 calories and 135.4 mg of collagen) and Meiji gives you information on the entire bag (155 calories and 2200 mg of collagen). Though they are tasty, I think Meiji is more than a little optimistic if they think you're going to chew your way through an entire bag.

The winner is: Pure. This is largely due to the added flavor depth from the citric acid powder on the outside, but they also just feel like a nicer candy in terms of the whole experience. That isn't to say that the Meiji gummy isn't tasty. It really is, but I'd buy Pure if I had to choose.

Meiji gummy rating:

Pure gummy rating:

Morinaga Milk Chocolate Bar

Three of the biggest snack food producers in Japan each have their own plain milk chocolate bar. These types of bars would be the equivalent of a plain Hershey bar back in the U.S. I've sampled Lotte's Ghana and Meiji's milk chocolate bar so I decided I'd go for the trifecta and sample Morinaga's as well.

The Morinaga bar resembles the Meiji one rather closely both in terms of the outer wrapper design and the foil inner wrapper that is consumed by the oversized paper outer wrapper that fits it like pants that haven't been hemmed properly. Both bars look and feel cheap when you compare their packaging to the solid red box a Ghana bar comes in. The only difference is that Morinaga's currently sports a poster illustration by Raymond Savignac. There are 20 different poster designs meant to add novelty to the wrapper's design, but I only saw one design available at my local market. There's also a blurb on the bar about the "Angel Smile Project" which is designed to help out children through sales of chocolate around the world.


The bar looks and feels almost exactly like Meiji's bar with it being separated into 12 squares (at 28 calories a square for a total of 340 calories for the bar) and having the company's name pressed into each one. If they weren't two fairly great rivals, I'd wonder if the bars weren't made by the same company and distributed with slightly different wrappers. The taste is a little different though, so I'm sure they're not the same. The Morinaga bar tastes a lot like hot cocoa and seems to have less cocoa butter than its competitors, particularly Ghana which is a richly fatty bar.

The Morinaga chocolate is solid, but has a soft snap (hence the reason the squares tend not to break along the lines cleanly). There is an element of bittersweet chocolate in almost all Japanese chocolate (except plain KitKats) and often an aftertaste associated with it. This bar was no exception, but it wasn't as unpleasant as the aftertaste from the Meiji bar.

I will note that Morinaga is the only bar that overtly states that the cocoa beans they use are from Japan. Lotte's beans are from, rather unsurprisingly, Ghana, and Meiji doesn't say where its are from and just talks about the roasting process.

Now that I've had all three bars, I'd rank them as follows:

1. Ghana
2. Morinaga
3. Meiji

If you're in the mood for a plain chocolate bar, probably any of them would do if you had a glass of milk or coffee around as a palate cleanser, but if you have a choice, I'd suggest going with Ghana because it has less of a bitter aftertaste and is so rich. They all cost about the same, though I can get Ghana for about 10 yen (10 cents) less than the other two bars most of the time.

Meiji Double Choco Pucca

If the Japanese were as infantile and competitive about trivial lifestyle choices as some Americans seem to be (e.g., "Coke vs. Pepsi" battles), there'd be one camp for Meiji's Pucca chocolate and pretzel combo and another for Glico's Pocky. On the Pucca side, there is a wafer-thin fish-shaped unsalted pretzel which has a buried treasure of creamy sweet filling inside. On the Pocky side, you have a similar pretzel rod coated in a sweet chocolate-based coating. What you like depends on personal tastes, but I've always loved Pucca and been relatively okay, but not had any particular passion, for Pocky.

Since returning to America, I've seen Pocky a fair amount in run-of-the-mill supermarkets, but generally only in two flavors - regular chocolate and strawberry. They're also pretty expensive relative to the Japanese price, but I guess that is to expected since they are imports on this side of the planet. I've never reviewed either of these basic flavors, though some day I should. Pucca is a far more elusive catch, but I found this double chocolate flavor at the Daiso Japan in Mountain View, CA. It was not only a delight to find an old favorite on offer, but also very reasonably priced at $1.50. That beats the best Pocky price I've encountered by at least a buck.

I checked Meiji's site for Pucca and they don't list this double chocolate variety as being available in Japan, though I'm sure it has been on offer at some point in the product's history. As an aside, I'll mention that "honey milk" is the only flavor on the site in addition to the regular chocolate kind in a plain pretzel wrapper. The box, which is multi-lingual and lists information in English, Chinese, and Arabic says that this was made in Singapore. The thing is, I'm not sure that the Pucca made for the Japanese market also isn't made in Singapore, Taiwan, or some other country in which labor is cheaper. It isn't uncommon for products in Japan to say, "made for (name of company)" rather than "made in Japan." 

The question is, is this the same sort of Pucca that I enjoyed in Japan and the answer is absolutely, "yes". The flavor of the chocolate is stronger than regular Pucca, as is to be expected with double chocolate. This masks some of the rye flour flavor of the pretzel (which I love), but that's okay because it gives back a slightly intense semi-sweet chocolate flavor. It even carries that familiar coffee-like aftertaste of Japanese chocolate that I know so very well. The center is creamy and smooth and, if you don't gobble this down too fast, it will melt decadently on your tongue. These are insanely fatty and eating the whole box of 18 thumbnail-size fish at once will set you back 264 calories. The flavor is so nice and strong though that I was satisfied after 4 or 5, though it would be easy to just consume them all.

The good news is that I found an on-line resource for these which is economical and accessible to many. You can buy these from a place called eFood depot for $1.19 a box (cheaper than what I paid!) or a 4-pack for $4.60. They also carry Pocky and Pretz if your door swings that way. However, I'll stick with the Pucca.

Image from Meiji's Pucca web site. 

There's a cute little character gallery showing Pucca characters made up in different ways on Meiji's Pucca web site (including a somewhat politically dubious "afro Pucca"). If you're into cute Japanese characters, you might want to give it a peek. 

Meiji Lucky Stick Cappucino

I've read that the name "Pocky" came as a result of the sound that is made with the stick is snapped. I'm guessing that Meiji named this "Lucky" because it was close in sound to "Pocky" (sharing the basic "vowel+cky" sound), but wasn't going to get them sued by Glico. In Japan, I don't recall seeing "Lucky" sticks, though this is clearly identified as being a Meiji product and therefore released by a Japanese company. The box says these are made in Indonesia for Meiji Japan and are to be marketed to Canada and Singapore. I'm not sure how they end up in America, but I found them at Daiso Japan for $1.50 (147 yen). They are incredibly international for such a simple thing as is evidenced by their multi-country origins and the presence of 3 languages (French, Japanese, and English) on the box.

I don't recall seeing a product by Meiji called "Lucky Stick" in Japan. Their Pocky rip-off over there (as far as I personally noticed) is "Fran". Fran tends to have more sophisticated offerings than this simple cappucino "cream" on a stick version. The types available at present include macadamia cheese and macadamia chocolate. The cheese one would scare me and I'd never buy it, and the chocolate one would be too boring to sample. Also, I was never intrigued by a product that seemed to be named for a particularly bossy aunt. No, I didn't have an Aunt Fran, but it just sounds like the type of aunt who'd leave a big lipstick smudge on your cheek when she kissed you hello, talked too loud, and probably drank bad coffee and smoked cigarettes.

Getting to the matter at hand, which are the "lucky" sticks and not Aunt Fran's cancer sticks... If you take a moment to smell these, they smell like instant latte powder. I know this because I was given a free box of Nescafe latte instant coffee at Safeway and it was 140 calories of disappointment. These sticks are very reminiscent of that very coffee, though they do have some advantages. They are sweet, but not overly so (unlike that instant latte powder) and they have an excellent crunch factor. The coffee part of this is extremely subdued and comes across more as an aftertaste of coffee than true coffee bitterness. The milkier elements, which taste like fairly decent non-dairy creamer come through more strongly, so these might be a nice alternative if you are a coffee wuss. The biscuit stick itself is very bland, but if you eat the small part which is not coated, it has a floury taste which reminds you of very bland, dry cookies. I actually rather like that flavor, but it comes across poorly to most people.

These are not bad at all, but I can't personally get past the fact that it is so reminiscent of non-dairy creamer and instant coffee. I ate the whole box over time (probably a few sticks here and there over 5 days), which means that I spread the 220 calories over about 5 days. It also means that I wasn't so drawn to these that I scarfed them down or had to stop myself from eating them. While I'm not the world's biggest fan of these coated stick snacks to begin with, this definitely rates lower than even standard Pocky and absolutely pales in comparison to things like "Winter Pocky". I wouldn't buy them again, and, unless you're a fan of powdered coffee-like beverages, I wouldn't recommend them.

Meiji Petit Assortment

There are bins full of kid's treats that I keep meaning to get to, but I'm distracted by all of the adult-oriented shiny things and never get to them. Pushing myself to review this Meiji Petit Assortment forces me to deal with a lot of them at once. This assortment is very petit. If it were a woman, it'd be Nicole Richie in her less than zero size dress. Each box has about 10.5 grams (.37 oz.) of candy and about 6 cm x 2.5 cm x 1.5 cm in size (2.4" x .98" x .6 in.). I picked these up for 139 yen ($1.54) at Okashi no Machioka discount sweets shop. The entire pack is 277 calories, which averages out to about 55 calories per box.



Since these are designed for kids, Meiji sweetens the pot a little for them by making the back of the boxes super cute little cards (called "trump" in Japanese). They call these rock-paper-scissors cards and you'll see tiny little hands in circles in the corners of the cards. I'm not sure how one is supposed to use these both for kiddie poker nights and viscous rock-paper-scissor battles, but I'm sure young imaginations will certainly prevail.

Here are reviews of each of the components. Note that the pictured quantities are exactly what is inside of every tiny box so you know what you're getting:

Choco Baby:

Choco baby are tiny little pellets of candy. They're so small that it is difficult to pick them up with my fumbling adult fingers. Some of them have little stars on the end of them and a few have smiley faces, but most of them are plain. I'm not sure what the point is of this because they all taste the same. I guess it's just to tickle kids' fancies (possibly a felony in some states, but clearly legal in Japan). Note that the stars are not nearly as clear as those shown on the box, and that there were only 5 or so of the star-style ones in my box (and two smiley faces).



The candy itself is pretty much standard Meiji milk chocolate with more of a glossy exterior. It's solid chocolate pellets. If your hamster could crap chocolate (and wouldn't that be some hamster), it'd be Choco baby. This was fine, but really nothing special. Note that these can get to look pretty nasty if you don't get them fresh. Candy Yum Yum has a picture of them after they've seen some miles here.

Coffee Beat (milk coffee):

If you ever said to yourself, "self, I'd really like some coffee M & M's", then Meiji heard your wish. Coffee Beat are lovely, shiny little candy-coated chocolate bits that have a really good balance of coffee bitterness, sweetness, and milk chocolate. You also get a real sense of a nice candy shell coating.

These are not just a coffee M & Ms, but about the best version of one that I think you can imagine for a consumer-level product. By far, these were my favorite from this assortment.

Apollo Chocolate:

Apollo are tiny little ridged cones of chocolate and I'm guessing they are named for their resemblance to Apollo spacecraft. That's irresponsible, but harmless speculation. I have no idea why they are called what they are.

The entire contents of the little box are pictured above. These smell a bit like strawberry and have an even fainter scent of chocolate. The flavor at first is rather harsh strawberry mixed with bittersweet chocolate, but that gets muted quickly and you're left with a very flavorful chocolate morsel (about the size of an M & M). The strawberry flavor fades and seems to just add depth to the chocolate flavor. Even though I'm not a big fan of strawberry chocolates, I did like these.

Marble Chocolate:

I expected these to be just like M & M's, but they are actually a little different. They are definitely sweeter and the candy shell has more of a generic "candy" flavor than M & M's. In fact, the chocolate flavor is so subdued as to not register much at all. It's more of a faint aftertaste.

Among the items in this variety pack, this was probably the one I was least thrilled with. There weren't many of them, so I ate them all, but I wouldn't have finished off a larger portion and I wouldn't buy these as a separate item. It's not that they bad, but they just weren't that good, and I really wish there had been more chocolate in the "Marble Choco."

Marble Chocolate Strawberry:

There's not much to the strawberry version of the "Marble Choco". It's really just your standard, fairly sweet strawberry chocolate. It doesn't have any nice tangy or sour strawberry notes. It's dominated by the strawberry and the interior is pink, so it is white chocolate-based rather than milk.

These were by far the least appealing of the assortment, and even though the portion was very small, my throat burned from the sugar after eating them.

Everything that is in this assortment can be purchased in a larger portion in individual packages. I could definitely see buying the Coffee Beat again on its own. I wouldn't bother with the Choco Baby because it's just chocolate in a different form and there's not much in that for me. I'd be just as happy with chocolate in bar form and see no point in the pellets. Though I liked the Marble Choco and Apollo and I enjoyed eating them, they didn't wow me enough to want to buy them again. They weren't unique enough for a repeat buy (though I do like the tiny portions which facilitate calorie control), but I certainly have no qualms about recommending others give them a try.

I'm giving this a conditional happy rating. Though I don't expect to buy this particular assortment again, I did enjoy it all to varying degrees (the least would be the strawberry Marblo Choco), and I will buy Coffee Beat again. I have to give it a happy rating for that if nothing else.

Meiji Orange and Bitter Marble Choco (50th anniversary)

These candies were released on July 7 in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Meiji's "Marble Choco" brand. I am concluding logically that it is the product's anniversary, and not Meiji's since the company if much older than 50 years. Meiji's web site doesn't make it easy for me to research this type of special release. Doing a search on any of the key words leads me to nothing but dead ends. You'd thinking they'd want to shout a little louder about something which has survived shifting consumer tastes for as long as this has, but no, I get no results when typing in "orange & bitter" (in Japanese) and only get taken to the regular "marble choco" pages when typing the product name in in Japanese.

I'd like to take a moment here to say that one thing I have learned as a Japanese snack reviewer is that I hate the manufacturer's web sites for the most part. Most of them are full of flash animation and yield no or few results on searches (either via search engines or Google). Most of the text is embedded in graphics so key words aren't available. It's horrible design both in terms of load times, gummy animations, and searches and I wish the Japanese manufacturers would get with the program. Unfortunately, I know from experience working in Japan that most of the "higher ups" just pay some other agency to do these things and have no understanding of the value of text-based information over graphics-based information.  The web site and graphic-making agencies do what is easiest for them and what everyone else does. Consumer needs are tertiary, when they are considered at all. It's all about style over substance.

I picked these up at Okashi no Machioka for about 120 yen ($1.38). It's a small box at 30 grams (1.05 oz.), and rather caloric at 160 calories for 24 candies. Being a "marble chocolate" (aka M & M's), they don't smell like anything. Biting into one causes the entire candy to fracture so I couldn't get an interior shot which was worthwhile, but they do look like the illustration on the box. That is, orange-flavored chocolate on the inside with a thin inner coating of brown chocolate surrounded by a candy shell.

My first bite reminded me of the same flavor as the orange M & M's that I reviewed previously, but by the start of the third candy (I ate 6 at once for this review), the bitter notes and a deeper orange flavor came through. I think it takes awhile for the tongue to start to perceive these subtler notes as compared to the immediate sweet orange flavor.

I liked these, but I think they'd be more enjoyable if you're the sort of person who is inclined to eat the entire box at once and therefore really allow the flavors to develop on your taste buds. I'm not the type to gobble down too much at once, but I'd still probably buy these again if I was in the mood for orange chocolate or M & M-style candy. These are definitely going to be a limited edition, but they'll probably be around for at least 6 months. I haven't seen them at many shops though, so you may have to hunt a bit to locate them.

Meiji Chip Chop

There's a scene in the Simpsons where Bart asks his father what a muppet is and his father says,"Well, it's not quite a mop, not quite a puppet, but man... So, to answer you question, I don't know." That is where I'm at mentally on how to classify Meiji's "Chip Chop" snack. It's not quite a chip, not quite a chop. So, I don't know.

I'm not sure what inspired the name of this product, but frankly, it comes across as vaguely racist to me for reasons I'm not entirely sure of. It could be that somewhere in the recesses of my twisted and sugar-addled brain (hey, I have to eat the Chip Chop to review it), I'm associating the name quite inappropriately with "chopsocky" movies, a term applied to Hong Kong martial arts movies which is generally considered racist. 

Getting to the Chip Chop and away from my febrile free associations, the best way I can describe this is a menage a trois between pie, cracker, and cookie. Meiji describes this as ultra-thin dough which has chocolate sandwiched between it. That's a good basic description of the process, but it doesn't account for the way the dough seems to be a little flaky like pie, but to not chip apart or crumble like most pie-based foods. It has the tensile properties of a cracker and the crunch and flavor of a crispy cookie.

The beauty in this is in both the rich chocolate flavor combined with a perfect sprinkling of salt and the crispy texture that makes you almost feel like you're eating a potato chip. The only thing that mars a nearly sublime snack experience is a bit of an odd taste which I associate with processed chocolate. I think it's the same thing which scares me away from crispy chocolate chip cookies as it's common in them. That being said, it didn't put me off of these at all and I am inclined to eat them again.

One 30-gram (about 1 oz.) bag of Chip Chop has 155 calories and is well worth it if you decide to forgo the potato chips in favor of something sweet. It is pretty much a trade-off nutritionally. I got these in my New Year's fukubukuro, so I'm not sure of the retail price but I'd be surprised if they weren't commonly available for 100-130 yen ($1.22-$1.60) for this size. I've seen larger bags than this on offer. 

If you're not put off by the possibility of a certain preserved flavor to your chocolate, I'd strongly recommend giving these a try even if you may have to get them a little more expensively via an importer. The combination of sweet and salty coupled with the satisfying texture is worth a little extra cost. 

Meiji Kaki No Tane Almond Crunch

Back home, people seem intent upon sullying the awesome power of chocolate by mixing in all sorts of weirdness with it including chili powder and bacon. As a former fan (in my misspent youth) of hot, salty French fries dipped in cool creamy chocolate milk shakes, I can conceptualize the appeal of mixing savory or spicy elements with chocolate. However, I really don't find the idea of chili in chocolate appealing.

Despite that, I did finally give in and buy these Meiji chocolate-covered almonds. The outside chocolate coating is mixed with crushed spicy rice crackers (kaki no tane). Since chili is sometimes mixed with chocolate, the general concept behind these (heat with sweetness) isn't entirely alien, but still a little off the beaten path.

When I opened the foil packet, I was surprised at how unappetizing the chocolates looked. Meiji makes incredibly good and polished-looking chocolate-covered nuts. They're one of my favorite snacks in Japan and really help you get through a long day at the office when you need an energy boost. These look like something your dog might leave behind after a bout with a corn cob.

The almonds are encased in a thin wafer and then chocolate mixed with crushed spicy rice crackers. If you hold the chocolate on your tongue, you taste a bit of the salty rice flavor of the kaki no tane, but if you just bite into it, you mainly get the almond flavor mixed with chocolate and something odd. If you didn't know what it was, you'd probably be hard-pressed to guess. On the bright side, the almond is crunchy and fried and has a strong flavor. On the not so bright side, the kaki no tane really isn't doing much for this except adding texture and diluting the potency of the usually excellent chocolate and adding a not unpleasant but not really tasty weirdness of the experience.

I've seen these on sale everywhere for quite some time. The retail price is close to 200 yen ($2.46) but I waited for a discounted price (148 yen/$1.82). I don't think they are selling particularly well based on the sale patterns and the volume that remains in shops. This could be because they simply aren't in any way better than the plain chocolate-covered almonds or that they are unappetizing in appearance and Japanese folks are known for valuing how food looks. Either way, though these are far from bad and I'll slowly finish the box, I wouldn't buy them again.

Crunky Almond Chocolate

Back when I was still working at a Japanese company, I used to fuel my late day energy lag with chocolate covered almonds. Most convenience stores carry at least one of several varieties of them. My favorite was Meiji's. The only problem was that the box was 105 grams (3.7 oz.) and resistance was futile. Buying a box was tantamount to admitting that I was going to overindulge in a big way. Chocolate-covered nuts are very dense in calories.

The Crunky Almond chocolates come in a box which is more manageable at 37 grams (1.3 oz.). The whole box is 212 calories or 22 calories per candy and cost 99 yen. Because the Meiji box is bigger, it costs about 180-200 yen. Note that Lotte, which makes Crunky products, has their own version of chocolate covered almonds both with and without crispy bits in the coating. These Crunky almonds seem to duplicate their existing product.


The candy looks and feels almost exactly like other types of chocolate-covered almonds. It's smooth and shiny and has almost no smell at all because of the shiny waxy coating. This gives them a very polished look, like part of a good bridge mix.

Despite my affinity for chocolate-covered almonds, I strung out eating this box for quite awhile, eating about one-third at a time. The first time I tried them, I couldn't sense much chocolate taste at all, but I think that was because my sense of smell and taste were suppressed for some reason. Initially, I thought that it was the waxy coating on the outside because sucking on them for awhile seemed to open up the flavor in a way that just crunching on them didn't. The second and third samplings were much richer and more appealing. The chocolate is deep, familiar Japanese bittersweet chocolate. It pairs well with a deeply roasted, crunchy almond.

The "Crunky" crunchy bits didn't do much for the overall experience except dilute the intensity of the chocolate a small amount. There's a hint of their malted puff flavor as a leftover taste, but it's not very strong. The almond and chocolate mostly overwhelm the puffs. The puffs do add a bit more crunch to the chocolates, but I'm not sure that it really needs it since the chocolate coating is solid and a little hard and the almond very crunchy.

These were quite good, but I can't say that they're necessarily better than a regular chocolate-covered almond. The main benefit of these over the other varieties is that the portion control is nicer for someone like me who finds it hard to resist the bigger boxes. I'd definitely buy these again, but if I saw them side by side with the Meiji almonds in the same portions, I'd still probably go for the pure chocolate coating of the regular chocolate-covered almonds.

Meiji Very Hot Curry "Karl"

In Japan, you don't have to settle for a "hot Carl". You can get a "red hot Carl".

One of these days, I need to have a contest in which I post a food item and ask readers to enter their ideas about the ingredients in that item based on the sometime esoteric inclusions I've mentioned in former posts. It's easy to guess that something like curry, chicken, and onion flavors are in a baked corn snack like this one, but what are the chances of guessing that it includes "pineapple powder"? Ah, Meiji, you tricky devils!

"Karl", or as we might say in English, "curl", is a popular brand of salted snack from Meiji. In various flavors, sizes,  and packages, these can be found in most convenience stores and markets. When I was working, I often saw them sold in foil lined paper cups like Calbee's Jaga Rico. They were first introduced in 1968 in a cheese flavor and a curry version first came out in 1969. There's an interesting scrolling photo history of all of the flavors, designs, and packages since the product's inception here.

There are instructions on the back of the bag telling you how to tear it down the seam if you're offering these at a party.

When I saw this bag of corn snacks perched outside of Okashi no Machioka in a box labeled "69 yen" (75 cents), I jumped at the chance to try it. Not only was it marked down in price, but it was also new to may area and it has flames all over the bag. Little encourages me more than the chance of something red hot. It doesn't hurt that the entire 48 gram (1.7 oz.) bag weighs in at 246 calories. That's a bit on the low side for a salted snack food of this sort in Japan considering their penchant for high fat counts. The size is such that I felt quite full after eating just half of it.

When I first opened the bag, I caught a whiff of what I could colorfully refer to as "corrupted curry". There are definitely curry elements, but there's more. The curls themselves are puffy and satisfyingly crispy. They have a nice depth of flavor from all of the seasonings that are layered onto them, which include various seafood powders, pork, and soy sauce in addition to the aforementioned ingredients.

Sometimes the heat that is advertised on Japanese snacks is sub par, but these are gratifyingly hot. They also have a cumulative fiery effect that makes your tongue get a better burn as you eat more of them. They may not satisfy the most ardent hot pepper lovers, but they pleased me.

I enjoyed these and would definitely buy them again if I wanted something hot and salty to snack on. I was really happy with the flavor depth as that is something that some corn-based snacks are lacking in my experience. If you want something hot and spicy to have with a soda or alcoholic beverage, I'd recommend giving these a go. You won't be disappointed, and they aren't as fattening as such foods can get.

If you'd like to download some items that have the mascot's theme (the frog and farmer), you can find some message cards, a coloring page for kids, and some tickets here.