First Year Anniversary

This is just a quick post to note that today is the first anniversary of this blog. The first review was of Smile Oven Tamago Pan and there have been 249 posts in total over the past year. That means I've averaged about 5 posts a week since starting (which is no surprise since I post every weekday).

Thanks to everyone who so kindly reads and follows this blog as well as to the people who have linked to my posts and site. If it weren't for you, there wouldn't be a first anniversary at all as I'm sure I'd have given up without your support!

Country Ma'am Chocolate Banana Cookies

Raise your hand if you have never eaten banana bread. Okay, now keep in mind that you are sitting in front of your computer and no one can see if you've actually raised your hand and leave me a comment instead. Anyone who has ever eaten a real banana or a baked good made with them knows what they should taste like. I'm guessing that the makers of most banana-flavored mass-produced snack foods either don't know or don't care because they never taste right.


The fact that banana-flavored items almost always fail is one of the reasons I never buy them for sampling. My husband, on the other hand, is more open-minded and is willing to subject himself to such things. He purchased these Country Ma'am cookies at New Days convenience store for around 120 yen (about $1.20) for 5 half-dollar-coin-sized (100-yen-coin-sized) cookies. Each cookie is 51 calories.


They smell like fake banana oil or esters, but the ingredients list claims they're flavored with banana juice and banana puree. Of course, they're also flavored with "cheese", which is exceptionally weird. The package says they're "the American traditional homemade country cookie", but I'm pretty sure we're not putting cheese in our banana cookies back home.


Like all Country Ma'am cookies, they have a somewhat crispy cookie shell and tender, chewy interior. They're good on the texture front (as always), but the taste is so overwhelmingly strong in terms of the banana flavor that I find them pretty unbearable. My husband, who has a weaker sense of taste and smell than I and likes banana-flavored things, said he thought they were good, but did taste like they had fake flavoring. I have to give Fujiya credit for managing to make these taste like they have fake flavoring even when they have real flavoring. It's quite an achievement. My husband says he'd buy them again. Personally, I ate one half of one cookie and that was all I needed. I've certainly had worse than this, but I won't be fighting him for the rest of the bag.

Morinaga Chestnut Caramels

The temperature outside may not reflect autumn, but the shops are signaling the coming of the changing of the seasons with fall sweets. On August 25, my husband and I were sauntering around 7-11 looking for interesting tidbits and he spied this bag of chestnut caramels. He's not a particular fan of chestnut, but he does love most of Morinaga's high quality caramels.

Fall signals people deciding to observe the Japanese aesthetic notion of "wabi sabi", when they go look at the leaves changing color on the trees as an indication of the impermanence of things and transition. I think that this sense may also partially fuel the way in which Japanese seek out novelty rather than rely on old favorites. I can't know of course, but I can say that, like the autumn leaves, these chestnut caramels will not be around for long.


This bag of caramels cost about 200 yen (about $2) and contains 23 individually wrapped caramels. Each is about 20 calories and slightly larger than the standard Morinaga caramels sold in boxes. They're also less uniform in appearance than the small squares tidily stacked in boxes. Though these are chestnut caramels, the first chestnut-based ingredient is paste which shows up 6th on the list. Fortunately, that doesn't have an effect on the flavor.

These smell like a rather generic sweet with a hint of a brown sugar scent. The flavor is very well-balanced with just enough sweetness and chestnut flavor to provide a rich taste without being too much on any front. The texture of these caramels is slightly different than the normal Morinaga caramels. It's not as slick or buttery, but it's still very good. I think that the chestnut paste adds more heft to them and makes them less slick.

I loved these in every way and will be sorry to see them go once they complete their seasonal run. If you like chestnut and have a chance to get these, I wholeheartedly recommend stocking up on them before they go the way of the fall leaves.

Kameida Seika Fried Wasabi Mochi Puffs

In Japan, no one sells peanut butter cups of any sort. I'm not talking about Reese's brand being absent, but rather no one has decided to offer a confection which mixes chocolate and peanut butter. This is, in part, because these two great tastes that taste great together don't seem like such a powerhouse combo to the Japanese palate. On the other hand, I'm guessing that mochi (rice pounded to a taffy-like state) and wasabi (Japanese horse radish) really are two great tastes that taste great together in the Japanese culinary mindset.


This is a wasabi version of a fried mochi puff that I previously reviewed and liked quite a lot. This bag is a bit smaller at 75 grams, and carries a less daunting total calorie count (429) because of the smaller size. I picked these up at a Lawson's 100 shop which seemed to have an explosion of 100 yen (about a dollar) bags of sembei which I previously could only locate in supermarkets.

These puffs look and smell very similar to the plain ones, which is to say they smell overwhelmingly like cooking oil. In the case of these ones, they were reminiscent of frying oil which has been used again and again. They also, to be honest, taste a lot like them once you get past the first two puffs. There was a bit of wasabi heat, but it was relatively subdued. I had hoped for a richer, more savory and spicy flavor because of the wasabi, but really all I was getting was a fantastic, crunchy texture with a bit of heat and a lot of oil.

I'm not sure what happened with these puffs that didn't happen with the ones I bought before, but I didn't like these as much as the other ones. My guess is that the oil used in the factory starts clean and then is used again and again and I may have gotten a batch which was fried near the end of the oil's usefulness this time whereas my previous experience was with puffs made in cleaner oil.

These were not bad at all, and I think I will slowly finish the bag, but the flavor was too weak and the oil flavor made them less appealing. I don't think I'll be buying them again because I can't trust that the oil issue won't be present again.

Tirol Minashigo Hutch Honey Chocolates

As I recently remarked to Ebidebby on her blog, I've been a bit off of the Tirol chocolates as of late. The variety packs in particular have been letting me down (as opposed to the premium candies which are a bit better). Nonetheless, I was intrigued by this 8-pack of honey based chocolates bearing the animated honeybee character, Minashigo Hutch.


I should note that prior to buying this candy, I'd never heard of this character and its big-eyed, cute presence had nothing to do with my buying the candy. The fact of the matter is that it was the inclusion of a honey yogurt flavor that sparked my mojo into money spending mode. It just sounded interesting. For the record, there are 8 candies in the bag at about 37 calories per candy. Half of them are "honey toast" and the other half "honey yogurt". I paid 99 yen for them at a local convenience store, but I've seen them in numerous places for a similar price.


Honey Yogurt: This smells a little lemony and just a bit like honey. Even though I kept these in the refrigerator, the honey part was a bit liquid-like. The yogurt portion is contained in a somewhat creamy, moist marshmallow. The soft exterior chocolate easily gives way and you bite into a nice little pillow with gooey honey. These are very sweet, but the somewhat sour yogurt flavor goes very well with the honey. I loved both the texture and flavor combinations of this.


Honey Toast: I expected this to be another of Tirol's "Bis" (biscuit) types where they stick a bland cookie in the chocolate and surround it with overly sweet candy. In other words, I expected one-note flavor and a big cookie crunch. It turned out to be more interesting. You can't see it when you look at the picture, but there is a little yellow cookie in this. It's become relatively saturated with the honey topping and isn't that crunchy anymore, though it does add some texture. This tasted a lot like a honeycomb. I don't mean the honeycomb candy bar, but rather a real honeycomb if you've ever bitten into one.

Both of these are quite sweet and have pretty authentic honey flavors. It's not the sort of thing you'd be inclined to gobble down a lot of in one sitting, but they are very good. I could easily go for a whole bag of the yogurt ones because of the marshmallow aspect, but the "toast" was good as well.