Bakauke Wasabi Sembei

When I was a kid, my parents used to go on and on about horseradish and how much they loved it. They'd keep jars of white pasty gunk in the refrigerator which smelled awful to me and tasted so overwhelmingly hot that I couldn't bear it.

After growing up, I grew to love really hot food, but I've lived in Japan for 20 years and have never eaten anything with Japanese horseradish (wasabi). I'm guessing part of the reason for this is that I haven't eaten much sushi and another part is that my husband can't bear super hot foods so anything we eat together can't be likely to leave scorch marks on his tongue.


This may come as a shock to many out there, but I just sort of forgot about the existence of wasabi in Japan. It's sold in root form or paste form here, but I am not big on condiments and I never notice the actual roots in produce sections (or they're not there). When I saw this packet of sembei at my local Family Mart, I remembered that 1) wasabi exists 2) I like hot foods and 3) I might like wasabi if I tried it.

This is a relatively small bag at 27 grams (.95 oz.). It has 122 calories and contains a nice amount of smallish (5.5 cm/2 in. x 2 cm./.8 in.) rice crackers liberally studded with wasabi. The portion is just about right for snacking without eating too many calories. I paid about 130 yen ($1.25) for it.

The first bite was intensely hot. The heat really seemed to hit near the front of my tongue. This is rather different from eating salsa which seems to affect the back, sides and center of my tongue. The heat mellows rather rapidly. It doesn't have the tendency to build up like capsicum-based heat does. It hits and passes. There's a hint of the vegetable flavor of wasabi root. It's hard to describe, but it's just the barest sense of chlorophyll or grassiness. It adds depth to the flavor along with the familiar taste of rice crackers.

The crackers themselves are fresh, crispy, and don't have the roasted or overcooked taste that some sembei does. These taste lighter. I ate the first half bag of these without a drink and it started to send the heat up the back of my nose. Once I started drinking between bites, that effect mellowed out. By the way, they're supposedly banana-shaped in order to make them easy to eat with one hand, though I've never had sembei which was so huge that I had to use both hands to eat it.

I really enjoyed these, and I wouldn't hesitate to have them again. They're quite hot, but that's to be expected. If you like wasabi, I wholeheartedly recommend trying these. If you just like hot foods, I think they're worth a one-time sample at the very least.

Incidentally, the two characters at the top of the bag that serve as the mascots are supposed to be a female named "Valine" (in red) and a male named "Borine" (in blue). The company's web site has peculiarly detailed bios for each character including hobbies, birth dates, dislikes, and family structure. Valine is a Virgo born on September 10 and Borine is an Aries born on April 15. I now know more about these characters's lives than I know about some of my friends.

American Cherry Hi-Chew

What is the difference between an American cherry and a Japanese cherry? I'd say about 500 yen (about 5 dollars) per 4 oz. (about 118 grams). Nyuk, nyuk. That may be a lame joke, but it's the painful truth. Japanese cherries are sold in small plastic compacts that hold about 12 cherries for $4 or $5 (between about 400-500 yen). American cherries are sold at Costco in freakishly huge honking plastic boxes for about 1000 yen ($10) for about 4 lbs. (about 2 kg.).

The kind of person who can consume Japanese cherries on a regular basis.

As far as I know, there is no predictable difference in taste between a Japanese cherry and an American one. As was said on Seinfeld, fruit is a gamble and there is always variation in both so there is no uniform difference in sweetness, texture, or acidity that I've discerned. That being said, I'm not wealthy enough to eat Japanese cherries on a regular basis. They are clearly for the monocle and sash-wearing set.

These cherry Hi-chew candies are part of Morinaga's "world fruit" series. The other type is a type of Peruvian cherry called "camucamu". Morinaga is holding a campaign where purchasers of the two Hi-Chew flavors can win some sort of kewpie doll trinket which shows it's oh-so-cute face and hands stuck in some colored plastic balls meant to resemble fruit. If you need more plastic junk in your life, you can send in part of the label and hope for the best.

Yes, it actually looks rather purple rather than red or pinkish as one might expect a cherry-flavored candy to look.

The Hi-Chew itself is pretty much par for the course. The texture is chewy, gum-like and a bit like latex. The chew is long-lasting and flavorful throughout. The flavor is somewhat tart cherry with a good balance of sweetness and cherry bite. To me, it doesn't smell particularly good. It smells a bit chemical-like and reminds me of cherry Kool-aid or Pixie Stix. Fortunately, huffing Hi-Chew isn't really necessary so one can enjoy the candy and ignore the smell.

This is a nice Hi-Chew, and a definite repeater if you're a fan of this type of candy and cherry flavor. I like cherry a lot and would certainly consider this again if I were in the right mood. I'm just not big on the Hi-Chew experience overall.

Variety Friday: Deconstructing Vending Machine KitKats

In America, candy and junk food of various stripes is frequently sold in vending machines. Japan has a plethora of vending machines, but very few (or none) that sell candy. Because of this, selling KitKats in vending machines requires the Japanese to package it rather differently. The picture at the top of this post was taken by my husband while he was out on a sojourn in a shopping district of Tokyo. I have never actually seen a vending machine that carries KitKats with my own eyes.

When he brought back this picture, I wished he had bought one of these vending machine KitKats so I could see what the deal was. The information on the machine says that there are 6 mini KitKat bars for 190 yen ($1.80). This represents adequate value for the cost. A regular KitKat is 100 yen (about a dollar) and it takes about 3 minis to make one regular bar.


I still haven't seen a KitKat sold in a vending machine, but the local 99 yen shop was carrying these jars of KitKats which are obviously designed to be sold in vending machines. Since the vending machines are specialized for beverages, the only way to distribute candy bars is to put them in a container which is about the size and shape of a beverage can. My guess is these jars were stock that hadn't sold or that the coming of summer heat means they believe people won't be buying chocolate from vending machines because it'll melt too quickly when it is carried around after purchase.

The vending machine pictured above has just standard bars, but this jar carries both regular and caramel purin KitKats. I don't need to review the bars themselves because I already reviewed the caramel purin mini and I don't need to talk about a milk chocolate version. I paid only 100 yen (about a dollar) for this. That makes it nearly half the price of what they'd be if I bought them from a vending machine, but this is actually a lesser value than the 6 minis for 190 yen above. This is essentially a regular KitKat plus 2 minis (about one and two-thirds KitKats for the price of one bar).


There's a perforated tab at the top for you to grab and easily tear off the plastic wrapper, but mine splintered off after a pull. The perforation goes all the way down the side. I just gave the rest of it a yank until it fell off. The perforation isn't hard to rip, but the plastic is so tight against the can that the shearing force is in a spiral around the can, not straight down.


The bars are packed in a glass jar with a replaceable plastic lid that easily pops on and off. I find it curious that they chose glass since it's a little heavy and trash cans aren't exactly everywhere in Tokyo. Though recycling bins for drinking bottles and cans are often right next to beverage vending machines, the chances that someone will buy one of these, open it up and deal with it right in front of the machine is relatively low.


The jar's ability to be resealed and relatively convenient size (same size as a 12 oz./350 ml. can of soda) means you might be able to put it to some sort of use for storage. I don't know if it'd be safe for food, but certainly for some sort of office, craft, or tool-related supplies, it'd be handy. At any rate, now my curiosity about how they put together the vending machine versions of these has been satisfied and I'm unlikely to be buying one again. It's cool how they packaged something which wouldn't normally be sold in a vending machine in Japan such that it can easily be distributed without changes to the machine. However, it is rather wasteful.

Yaokin Umaibo Variety Pack

What looks like a label in this package is actually a sheet of paper with 3 stickers.

"Umai" seems to have several different possible translations, though the general meaning is always the same. It's used to refer to some food being tasty, though sometimes it means sweet and sometimes it seems to mean savory goodness. At any rate, if you watch any Japanese cooking show (and if you come to Japan, there are hundreds of them to choose from on a single night of T.V. viewing - yes, I exaggerate), someone will be sampling a dish and saying, "umaiiiiiii". I've told my husband that you could probably serve them a fossilized bit of dog poo on one of those shows and they would dip it in soy sauce and exclaim, "umai" (delicious!). They are paid to say everything is fabulous regardless of what it's really like.

This kid's pack of 7 snacks and a sticker was on offer at the local 99 yen store, so this cost a little under a dollar. It includes a collection of "bo" (stick) snacks that you can generally buy for 25 yen each and two small packets of salted treats. The variety pack gives you a little more value for your money than buying the individual snacks by themselves.

These snacks are made by a company named Yaokin which specializes in a wide variety of snacks which are cheap, small, and largely marketed toward children. They also sell small toys like balloons. A lot of their kid's snacks and these sticks have a cartoon character that is a knock-off of popular ear-less anime cat Doraemon on them. There's a very colorful catalog of all of their products available for download on their web site. You can get it by clicking on the catalog download text "2009年カタログ ダウンロード on the page I linked to in the previous sentence.

Each stick is a different flavor. One of the reasons I don't review this sort of item often is that it's a lot of work talking about and photographing each item, but the appeal of something with so much variety for so little cash is irresistible on occasion, so here we go.

*****

First, the sticks:

Note that all of the sticks are the exact same thing with different flavor powders. They are all a corn-based tube that is light, puffy, and pleasantly crispy. They are about 12 cm. (4.7 in.) long.

Salami:


The smell of this was a little off-putting. It did smell like salami seasonings, but something smelled a bit strange. The stick is covered with parsley flakes and you can really taste it. There's also pork powder and oil flavoring, but neither of these comes across very distinctly. Mostly, I tasted garlic, parsley, and a nondescript fake meat flavor. This was one of the lesser sticks of the bunch, though it wasn't really bad. I just found the mystery taste and smell to make it less appetizing.

Note: There's an illustration of a Sony AIBO-style robot dog riding a scooter on the packaging as well as a mention of a "campaign" (contest) on the company's web site. The campaign is for free gifts for 1000 people who send postcards with a portion of the packages from these sticks. Kids can win 2 GB USB thumb drives, an umaibo video game, a puzzle, or a battery meter. I'm not sure what kid wants a battery meter, but there you go.

Mentai (marinated pollock roe):


This looks very red so you expect it to have some heat, but the truth is that it's simply bathed in liberal amounts of paprika in order to simulate the color of pollock roe (which is what mentai means in Japanese). It smells and tastes fishy with a heavy kick of paprika, garlic and salt. The web site information on this says that mentai is the most popular of their stick snacks, but I'm not a great fan of fish-flavored food. That's probably because I'm not a fan of fish in general. I think this isn't bad, but I didn't finish it. I'm guessing someone who enjoys fishy things would find it more appealing.

Corn potage:


Corn potage is a soup of corn, onions, and cream that usually includes garlic and parsley flavors. It's sold as a powdered mix in nearly every market and convenience store in Japan. This tube of corn snack smells exactly like the powdered soup. It also tastes like it. It's immensely savory with all of the soup flavors and just a touch of sweetness. I really liked this. In fact, I think this is a different shaped variation on the corn potage snack that I previously reviewed and enjoyed.

Cheese:


The scent of this one is very familiar. It smells like the Marui Cheese rings or like planters cheese balls. In fact, this is like a puffier version of the cheese rings. Since Yaokin seems to have a relationship with Riska, which makes the Marui Cheese rings, it could be the same flavoring. This was nice, though I could have gone for a little more cheese flavoring for the volume of crispy corn tube. Nonetheless, the taste was zesty, fake cheese like you would expect on a salted cheese snack and it was pretty good. Note that this is slightly greasy and left marks on the tissue I put it on.

Tonkatsu (pork cutlet) sauce:


The smell is a non-descript savory smell, mildly reminiscent of soy sauce. The taste is very, very sour as if someone has mixed a teaspoon or two of soy sauce with vinegar. Subsequent bites are spicy and it grows a little hot, but in the way that garlic can be hot rather than red peppers. This was a bit intense, but not bad. I think fans of salt and vinegar chips might enjoy this. Note the "pigs in space" motif of the packet.

Snack packets:

Corn and corm puffs:


This is "morokoshi wa taro" or, essentially, "corn and corm rings". Among the ingredients are corn, taro (a Japanese corm), vegetable oil, and spices. They don't smell like much of anything and taste like an airier, relatively flavorless Chee-to. I'd call these rather inoffensive to mildly pleasant because of the texture.

Seafood (Umaka Chanpon) corn puffs:


The graphic on this bag reminds me of the American animated comedy, South Park. Specifically, it looks like a crude 3D rendering of the character of Stan Marsh. The character looks angry, like the offspring of some sort of rightist radical. I'm not sure why he's so worked up. His corn snacks are pretty tasty. They don't have a smell that is easy to pin down. That's probably because there are so many spices mixed up in them including pork, chicken, garlic, and seafood extracts. Mainly, the garlic stands out with a bit of a meaty, savory aftertaste. They're pretty salty with a hint of sweetness. My only reservations about them relate to the texture. They are slightly soft and it'd be nice if they had more snap in their crunch. There are only 12 grams (.4 oz.) in the bag, but that makes it a nice size to accompany a sandwich.

*****

Though these are packaged for kids, the snacks themselves really have little to do with children. They're all pretty normal salted corn snacks. I ate them one at a time over about three weeks time and largely enjoyed sampling them. Since the price is so low and the portion sizes rather modest, I think these would be good for someone to just have on hand for satisfying a craving for something salty, though it is pure junk food. I also think they'd make good souvenirs for people back home since they are cheap, colorful, very Japanese-looking, and contain the sort of food that most people can tolerate at worst and may enjoy at best.

Double Cream Brown Sugar Sembei

I've been questing to find a combination of a salty-sweet sembei marriage that pleases my picky palate. I knew it was out there somewhere, and brown sugar and cream (two-thirds of what makes caramel what it is) seemed like a good place to look for my edible salty-sweet fiance.


This particular bag of sembei didn't make the trip from the store very well. Several of my packets were smashed and the crackers broken. I'm not sure if that is how the shop got them, or if that is what I did to them when I crammed them into my backpack with 8 bottles of Diet Coke. At any rate, this bag has 24 large crackers packaged in 2-cracker packs for about 170 yen (about $1.70). Each two-pack is 62 calories and that doesn't seem too bad for something streaked with what appears to be sugary frosting.


The crackers are the "soft" or puffy type of sembei rather than the brittle thin type. They clearly are made by folding over the dough and are a little hollow in the center. They smell of brown sugary goodness and are nice and crispy. When you bite into them, they tend to let loose with a lot of little hard crumbs though so I recommend eating them from the packet and allowing the flotsam to fall back in the bag.

The taste is at first a bit of a "burnt" brown sugar flavor which is reminiscent of molasses followed by a clearly discernible, but not overpowering hit of salt. The combination seems to be in perfect balance. I can't really taste the cream, and to be honest it isn't high up on the ingredients list so I have my doubts about the volume of actual cream in them, but I don't think these need more of anything. They are great as they are.

I loved these and think they'd make an excellent substitute for a cookie if you were in the mood for something sweet. After I finished the bag, I wished I had bought another to have around. While I was able to control my eating for the most part, it was extremely easy to eat 6 crackers in one sitting when I was hungry and throwing caution to the wind. By all means, give these a try.