Fujicco Chestnut Pudding

Pudding or "purin" as it is called in Japan, is sold pretty much everywhere here, and I tend to pretty much ignore it. It's not that it's bad, but rather that the flavors tend to be pedestrian (vanilla, chocolate, and coffee) and also I'm not the biggest fan of pudding. There's also the fact that most of these little cups of thickened goo are full of fat and carry a high calorie punch for their size.

This caught my eye at the local Peacock supermarket for 108 yen ($1.33) because 75 grams (2.6 oz or about 3/4 cup) is only 91 calories and it is "kuri" or chestnut-flavored. Granted, chestnut is a common flavor in autumn and winter in Japan, but I never noticed it in pudding before. That's probably because I wasn't paying attention rather than because it wasn't on offer before. I was probably distracted by all of the chocolate in the next aisle.

This is made by a company called "Fujicco" and it was my first experience with a product of theirs. The company makes a vast array of foods for markets including "Caspia" yogurt (greek yogurt), health and diet foods, nata de coco, and vacuum-sealed bags of things which look like they have been regurgitated by a bizarre sea creature. The last item is my way of summarizing "food that is used in Japanese cooking which I don't consume."

The texture is surprisingly decent considering that it breaks up like a gelatinous blob rather than as a smooth creamy pudding. The smell is really quite nice with a roasted chestnut aroma that also brings coffee to mind. It is the roasting that brings about this comparison, not the actual presence of coffee.

The flavor is incredibly good. Chestnut is a flavor that is easy to screw up because too much is gag-inducing and too little leaves you shrugging. To me, this had the perfect balance of chestnut flavor and sweetness with a hint of something that reminded me of the brandy so often used in mont blanc desserts. I truly enjoyed this, and that surprised me.

As a great fan of Mont Blanc, I really loved this. It was like eating just the top off of a pastry except with a bit more intensity and sweetness and a lot less fat. I will definitely have it again, and would recommend it to anyone who is a great fan of chestnut paste or chestnut pastries.

Iwatsuka Soy Sauce and Nori Sembei

Readers who follow the trends of what I review may have noticed that there was a time when I was reviewing pretty much one type of rice cracker (sembei) a week and that lately the frequency of such reviews has dropped greatly. This isn't because I got far fewer comments on the sembei reviews than any other type or that I perceived that they were of the lowest interest to most of my readers, though frankly I believe that is true. It is because I'd pretty much sampled most of what I wanted to and wasn't going to start buying things of dubious interest (particularly shrimp-flavored crackers) for the sake of keeping up the appearance of having an interest in sembei. I'm not a sembei poser, after all.

The only reason this is being reviewed is that it was included in the supermarket fukubukuro that I bought. This isn't the sort of thing I tend to gravitate toward though I also won't recoil from it in horror. The little flecks of nori (seaweed paper) tend to turn me off. It isn't because I hate seaweed, but rather because it can be too strong a flavor and I'm not that great a fan of the sense that I'm gnawing on chlorophyll. Since you can never predict how intense the grassiness is going to be when you have a snack with seaweed, it's easier just to pass, especially when the choice is to buy such a big bag.

It turns out that these are actually pretty mild on the seweed and have a nice savory flavor influenced mainly by soy sauce, but also by bonito (which is used for Japanese fish soup stock). None of the flavors are pronounced or individual but they tend to all come together in one mild savory mix which isn't too grassy, fishy, or salty. There are 14 two-packs in this big bag, and two crackers are 46 calories. This makes them an excellent option for a quick salty snack treat.

I was surprised that I liked these as much as I did, and I'd certainly consider getting them again. The main problem for me is that these types of "traditionally" flavored rice crackers carry a particular scent that my husband finds very off-putting so I can only eat them when he's not around. If your mate doesn't mind such things, I'd say give these a try. Since I got mine as part of my New Year's grab bag, I can't say for certain what the price is, but I'd guess they are between 180-240 yen per bag and can be had at a supermarket.

Random Picture 47

(Click this picture to see a larger version)

You can tell that "it's that time of year" again in Japan when the KitKat releases and displays start revving up. "That time" means that kids are taking or have recently taken entrance exams for various educational institutions and Nestle Japan is pushing to get parents to buy celebratory or encouraging candy bars. I took a picture of this display at NewDays convenience store and, oddly, it doesn't feature anything new. There are "gokaku" mugs with KitKats and instant coffee, "adult sweetness" KitKats, plain big bars and regular KitKats, mikan and strawberry Big Little KitKats, and a bag of white and milk chocolate minis.

The display does include something I personally hadn't seen before and that is a "present". If you buy two KitKats, you can get a "clear file" showing a young woman holding up a KitKat amongst a frame of cherry blossoms. This one says, "I'm going to campus", as if she passed her exam and is going to attend the college of her parents' dreams, but I can't tell if it was written in an empty speech bubble by the staff of NewDays or if that's what all of these say. At any rate, I didn't get one because I don't need more useless office supplies, but those in Japan who are KitKat collectors may want to march on over to NewDays while they last.

The Guardman Nodo Ame

As long-time readers may already know, I'm a sucker for interesting packaging. In fact, I think that sales to foreigners who find packaging with weird English or bizarre graphics to be of paramount interest could quintuple if the marketers started playing to that particular angle. I would recommend things like "The Rice Farmers Daughter" sembei shaped like 8's (to resemble breasts). Those would do well.

Though this doesn't have a funny English name attached to it, the characters say "The Guardman" nodo ame or "throat candy". The combination of the name and the fierce-looking fellow on the front of the package as well as the price to sell (100 yen/$1.20) and the fact that these are sugar-free piqued my curiosity. It also reminded me a lot of a statue that I saw at Mt. Takao of a red guy who I christened "angry flower nipple man". Look at the picture above and you'll have to agree that the resemblance is uncanny. Perhaps that fellow escapes the blue picket fence he's trapped behind at night and slips off to his own factory to make throat drops for people with scratchy throats. Maybe the herbs are from the very same flowers that he attaches to his nipples for his day job in front of the shrine.

I don't know why this strapping figure of an angry man is on the cover of these throat drops, but I know that they are fiercely medicinal and definitely have the power to keep a sore throat at bay. Unlike a lot of the "nodo ame" that I've had in Japan before, these are not minor variations on a lollipop pretending to help you with a scratchy throat. They're packed full of intense herbal extracts including ginger and Eucalyptus and include catechins, which are supposed to act as antioxidants. The entire bag has 186 calories, which I calculated out to be about 9 calories per candy.

I found these at a local supermarket and haven't seen them anywhere else since then. If you are the type of person who likes strong herbal drops, these are the bee's knees. Even if I don't have a sore throat, I occasionally like to have something like this as an intense flavor experience. However, I'm guessing most people would only want them if they were actually sick, or liked really weird packaging.

Ito En Tea's Tea Manhatten Milk Tea

Usually I don't take pictures of my garbage to illustrate a review. Generally, I take a picture of a full bottle of a beverage if it is a transparent container, and a picture of the drink poured into a glass if it is opaque. So, one may ponder why I'm using a picture of an empty bottle this time.

Actually, I'm guessing that if I hadn't mentioned it, very few of my readers would even have noticed that the bottle was empty, but there is a point to be made. Of course, I take the scenic route to any point because otherwise my reviews would be little more than short descriptions about taste, texture and smell, and there's really no fun in that. Let's just start by saying this bottle didn't actually come from anywhere that even resembled Manhatten despite the product's name.

I should mention that I had no intention of purchasing any of the Tea's Tea line of products nor reviewing them. There were two reasons for this decision and neither relates to the quality of Ito En's beverages. The primary reason is that I can make damn fine tea with a teabag, milk, and some sweetener for a fraction of the price and far less waste than buying bottled tea. The secondary reason is that my husband told me that Tea's Tea is a brand that is sold back home and I try not to knowingly review products that are essentially sold in the same form in the U.S.

It turned out that this type of milk tea, which is made with a combination of cow's milk and soy milk and is calorie-reduced, isn't marketed back home. However, that wasn't enough to get me to try it. The thing that convinced me to try it was the fact that you can't brew a cup of tea while you climb a mountain, and hot tea from a vending machine (which you can find on mountains in Japan, of course) makes a great hand warmer on a chilly day.

On December 28, my husband and I climbed Mt. Takao (aka, the mountain for sissies who can't climb) and that is where I secured this 275 ml. bottle (9.3 oz.) for the inflated price of 150 yen ($1.80). Note that the vending machine prices incrementally increase the higher you go up the mountain. They start around 150 yen for 500 ml. bottles at the bottom then climb to 170 ($2.03) then finally are 200 yen ($2.40) at the top. This makes no sense at all because it's not like a sherpa is hauling cases of drinks up the mountain and charges more to go all the way to the top. The same trucks are hauling them to each progressive spot. I know because they kept driving past us while we struggled up the steepest path to the top of the mountain.

The vending machine I got this from was about 2/3 of the way to the top and near an area studded with shrines. It could also be called "the part where you stop climbing super steep inclines and start climbing about 1000 steps to get to the top". This caught my eye mainly because it has a big "zero" on the front and that generally means no sugar. Indeed, this is made with the sweeteners Sucralose and Acesulfame K. The entire bottle is 49.5 calories, but that comes entirely from the milk and soy milk.

In addition to being pleasantly warm on chilly hands, this is also very tasty tea. It is well-balanced in terms of its sweeteness and milkiness with pleasantly floral tasting black tea. In fact, I was so impressed that I have considered buying it again despite my cheapness and desire not to drink PET bottles of beverages that can be made at home. This is damn fine tea, especially if you're stupid enough to pick the hardest trail the first time you climb a mountain at 46 years of age with a bum knee and want something hot, slightly creamy, and rich in quality tea flavors. And, yes, this was the very bottle I brought back down the mountain. I hung onto it for a few weeks just for this review. ;-)