Tarami White Jelly

I keep talking about summer in my reviews, but with people melting onto the pavement and sweating in the intense humidity of the rainy season, and the various food companies pandering to all of us, how can I ignore the fact that the heat drives snack product introductions. That means less chocolate, more lighter, fruitier options, and especially more things that go down smooth and easy from the refrigerator case. That leads me to "jellies" (or, as we call them in the U.S., gelatin). There has been an explosion in the number of individually packaged gelatin options and most of them are pretty mundane fruit options. This "white jelly" caught my eye, because I don't know what "white" tastes like. That phrase could really be taken the wrong way...

I found this for 178 yen ($2.28) at Family Mart for 290 grams (10 oz.). That's on the expensive side, but it is a pretty large portion size. This is zero calorie jelly and I'm guessing the large amount is to fill a belly that wants to be full without any risk of weight gain. There are more and more of these products in Japan all of the time as the quest for an alien body image has spread here from the West to the East.

The company that makes this, Tarami, specializes in making a wide variety of gelatin desserts. Their main business is doing the kind with sugar based on fruit and real fruit flavors. Their zero calorie lines are split into two sizes with the smaller ones being fruit flavors and the bigger ones adding more esoteric varieties like cola and "white" to the line up. Their web site shows farms and lots of orange trees, but somehow I doubt their 400 or so employees are working the farms to fortify their gelatin desserts.

As for what "white" tastes like? It tastes like a sweet, slightly fruity Asian fruit cocktail and is somewhat yogurt-like. It's both a little tart and sour, but the flavor is on the mild side with no overwhelming sweetness. Since I'm accustomed to artificial sweeteners, this didn't bother me. In fact, I'm nearly immune to the chemical cocktails (Acesulfame K, Sucralose, Aspartame) that are used to formulate diet foods.

The part where this shines is in the texture. It's a cool, soft and slick jelly with chewy bits of nata de coco in the bottom. The textural variation that comes from the nata de coco is quite welcome and lends the illusion that you're eating something with a bit of substance. I should note that many Japanese gelatins like this include blocks of konnyaku jelly or nata de coco.

I liked this just fine, but I wasn't mad about it. The truth is that I can make more flavorful zero calorie jelly myself using plain gelatin, packets of artificial sweetener and whatever flavoring agent I want (coffee, tea, lemon, lime, etc.). That doesn't mean I couldn't see myself buying this again and it was perfectly pleasant. However, I'd only purchase it under the most unique circumstances because the size is bigger than I need and the price higher than I'd prefer to pay. Chances are, I'll never sample it again.

Just a gentle reminder that there is a contest running for two weeks to win a few snack and snack-related goodies. If you'd like to enter, the details are in this post.

Random Picture 69

My husband and I dropped by a market designed to sell products in bulk to restaurants and people with big freezers and little cash to pick up a jumbo pack of their smoked chicken. We don't have a big freezer, but we do have fairly little cash. The market also sells a lot of "off brand" items at discount prices (39 yen for some generic cola when cans of Coke retail for 120 yen). The canned coffee pictured above caught my husband's eye because of the message printed on it.

I'm sure it is meant as a gentle promise, but to me it comes across as a command. The impulse to look obediently at the can and say, "yes, master," was hard to resist.

Just a gentle reminder that there is a contest running for two weeks to win a few snack and snack-related goodies. If you'd like to enter, the details are in this post.

Mister Donut Cinnamon Chocolate Madeleine Donut

Most people face their moments of cowardice in times of crisis. Do you run into a burning building and save the cat, or do you let kitteh find his own way out? Do you decide to give a speech at your former high school or call in sick because the idea of talking in front of a bunch of bored little snots make you go weak in the knees? The confirmation of my cowardice comes in a far less challenging arena, Mister Donut. Faced with the prospect of boldly sampling a spinach or other vegetable-based donut from the madeleine series, I wussed out and chose a "safe" flavor which was almost certain not to offend my Western tongue. Yes, when the going got tough, I ran in the other direction toward the warm, loving embrace of cinnamon and chocolate. I dwell in a bottomless pit of shame, but at least I have a nifty bit of cake down there with me to help me forget my character flaws.

I knew from my experience with the orange version of this line of "donuts", that this was going to actually be cake. The cinnamon chocolate version isn't quite as moist or decadent as the orange madeleine one that I reviewed previously. It has a good strong cinnamon flavor with a hint of chocolate, which is a little surprising since strong cinnamon historically hasn't been my experience with snacks in Japan (save the Meiji cinnamon chocolates). The first bite reminded me a bit of cinnamon French toast, but the truth is that this is incredibly intense and flavorful. The sweetness balance was just about right.

I liked this, but even for a cinnamon lover like me, it was a bit on the strong side. The cake's texture is agreeable enough, but I had an odd sense of it being oily moist rather than moisture from eggs, sugar, or pureed fruit or vegetables. Oddly, the "safe" choice may not necessarily have been the tastiest one, though this is still pretty good. If I get brave enough before they stop carrying madeleine donuts, I promise I'll go for something on the riskier end of the scale. However, if I were you, I wouldn't count on my rescuing your kitty.

Just a gentle reminder that there is a contest running for two weeks to win a few snack and snack-related goodies. If you'd like to enter, the details are in this post.

Glico Cream Collon

Back when I was in junior high school, we had a classmate whose first name was "Colin", but it wasn't pronounced the way it is in the U.K. ("call-un") but like the punctuation ("coal-in"). Even though we were responding to any mention of the word "come" with a titter due to raging hormones wrecking havoc on our young bodies, we didn't find his name funny. At that point in time, words that resembled anatomy which wasn't linked to sex didn't really make us laugh, though I guess these days "colon" may indeed be linked to sexual activity.

At any rate, "collon" is one of the darlings of the "Engrish" community and packages of it are pictured all over various web sites featuring Japanese objects which have funny names in English. Despite this, I haven't reviewed it because I've usually seen it only in big packages and wasn't willing to buy a relatively large amount for sampling. Dame fortune smiled upon me when I saw a tiny packet available at a 100 yen ($1.24) shop available in a bin of snacks that were 3 for 100 yen. So, this cost me a mere 33.33 yen (41 cents).

Sorry for the crappy picture. Getting light-colored food to take a decent picture is always a challenge for my crappy camera and poor photography skills.

I expected these to be like a sweet version of a Combo, those pretzels that are stuffed with flavored pastes of various types. That is, I thought they might be hard on the outside with a fairly solid filling. It turns out that they are actually quite delicate. The outer shell is flakey and like thin layers of wafer cone. The filling is very soft and fluffy and not in the least bit dense. They are quite sweet with a potent vanilla flavoring. I can see how these are much more likely to be designed for kids rather than adults given the sweetness level.

These are delicious with a very satisfying textural combination, but the sweetness is really intense. This is actually not a bad thing since a mere 7 little pieces of them (15.5 g./.5 oz. bag) have 89 calories. For a one bite treat, 12 calories per isn't insubstantial, especially when they practically melt in your mouth. The fact that they are so sweet makes it easier to eat a small amount and feel it's enough. Frankly, by the second one, I was thinking I was closing in on cloying, and was good to stop.

Collon are what my husband calls "very wrong" which is to say they are a bit too right. They are super sweet, fatty, and a serious indulgence. I'd definitely recommend giving them a try as long as super, super sweet things don't turn you off.

Just a gentle reminder that there is a contest running for two weeks to win a few snack and snack-related goodies. If you'd like to enter, the details are in this post.

Variety Friday: Yebisu Beer Museum

The front of the museum. (Click any picture to see a much bigger version.)

Those who are paying attention to what I write may recall that I don't drink alcohol. So for those who stalk me and ingest every personal detail of my life as if it provided life-sustaining nourishment and those with impeccable memories and lives of their own, it may come as a surprise that I went to a beer museum. Fortunately, this place provides an experience for those of all dispositions be it the young, liver-damaged, or simply too pious for alcohol. Personally, I do not fit into any of these categories. I just think all alcohol smells foul and have no interest in it.

The view down the steps to the lower area, where all of the good times roll.

The Yebisu Beer Museum is located in Ebisu in Tokyo (on the Yamanote line) and is a well-appointed place to learn a bit about the history of beer in Japan and the Yebisu brand in particular. I should note that my husband's favored brand is Yebisu and that was part of what compelled us to visit the museum and its accompanying "tasting salon". That's where the snack part of this sort of comes into play.

A poster showing how Yebisu used to be corked instead of using metal caps.

The museum is located through Mistsukoshi department store in a wide and well-tended area populated by tony shops and restaurants and largely European-style structures. There's also a Krispy Kreme and Burger King for us plebs who can't see our way clear of paying an arm and a leg to go to Joel Rabuchon restaurant. A student of my husband's had dinner there and the meal with 2 bottles of wine was 80,000 yen (about $991, I kid you not). If you're chintzy, you can skip the wine and just eat for 40,000 yen ($495).

Yebisu coins from the vending machine.

The museum entrance has some displays, but the meat of it is on the lower floor which is divided roughly into 5 parts: a lounge for those taking the guided tour (500 yen/$6.25, including beer tasting) in Japanese, a museum with photos and artifacts (with bilingual descriptions so its tourist friendly), a tasting area for tour groups, a souvenir shop and a "tasting salon". The most interesting part for me was the museum itself because I have an interest in how culture and a particular zeitgeist are reflected in cuisine and advertising of the age, and the museum has a lot of interesting things to offer in that regard. However, this is a snack blog and I'm going to focus on the food and drink aspects. If you want to experience the sociological aspects, you'll have to visit the museum yourself. ;-)

The tasting salon is essentially a spacious, stripped down bar with taps. The clerks don't handle cash, so you buy tokens for 400 yen each from a vending machine. Sampling one of their beer offerings is one token, a meatier snack is two tokens, and a lesser snack is one token. My husband opted for a beer which is only available on tap at bars (which he does not frequent in Tokyo) or seasonally by the can. We also chose the cheese plate as our accompanying snack. It came with three types of cheese in small portions. One was a mild cheddar type (though I'm guessing not actual cheddar), another a crumbly, pungent, soft,  salty cheese and the last a cream cheese obviously removed from a foil packet. The last one was flavored oddly and my husband wasn't keen on it.

The tasting salon menu with sausages, salted snacks, Japanese pickles, cheese and tripe. 

Since I don't drink beer, I can't tell you how it was, but my husband enjoyed it. He said that Yebisu is good because it has a very clean "beer" flavor. The selling point of Yebisu is that it is made on imported German equipment and is Japan's attempt to mirror that country's beer. In the past, even the ingredients were imported from Germany, but I don't know if that is still true.

Since I'm not a beer drinker, I availed myself of the vending machine full of Sapporo-produced soft drinks and bought a grapefruit soda. It says it has zero calories, but actually has 17.5 calories for the entire can. The flavor was very well-balanced between the sour/bitter grapefruit and sweetness from artificial sweeteners. I couldn't even detect an aftertaste. I'd definitely pick up this refreshing drink again, though it did make an odd pairing with the real cheese we were eating.

The tasting salon staff were very friendly and professional, and the atmosphere of the entire museum was quite elegant and civilized. You can take pictures anywhere in the museum, including the shop, which is quite unusual. Those who are interested in snacks can find some at the museum shop, which carries Sapporo's Potekaru baked chips, some sembei and nut mixtures, and the item that I purchased, medetai chips. "Medetai" is Japanese for sea bream and these fish-shaped crackers are red to resemble that fish rather than as an indication that they are hot and spicy. They are actually quite sweet and a little bit fishy. The ingredients include wheat starch, sugar, vegetable oil, shrimp and black sesame. I can't taste the sesame, and the shrimp must be the slightly fishy bit I picked up on. They're good, but I probably wouldn't buy them again as they're too sweet for me. They are very nice and crunchy though.

Even as a non-beer-drinker, I found visiting the museum a very interesting and pleasant experience. The area around the museum, Yebisu Garden Place, is wonderfully welcoming, clean and full of trees and places to sit. If you're coming to Tokyo, I'd strongly recommend giving the area a visit and hitting the museum.

Just a gentle reminder that there is a contest running for two weeks to win a few snack and snack-related goodies. If you'd like to enter, the details are in this post.