Tohato All Azuki Cookies

I once said that I was on a quest to sample all of the "All (Fruit)" line of cookies and then I promptly forgot that this was one of my snack blog missions. In fact, I forgot that I had any missions of any sort, but perhaps all of the incessant commercials playing in Shinjuku station for the newest Mission Impossible movie sparked my memory. I must say that I wonder if it costs more to run ads in a station that about a million people walk through than it costs to run ads on television in Japan. That has nothing to do with these cookies unless Tom Cruise decides to appear in ads for them in the future. That's not outside of the realm of possibility, but I think that he's unlikely to smile and bite into cookies that smell a bit like mold or dirt, as these ones do.

That's right, these cookies smell pretty rank. Their unique bouquet reminded me very much of the dreaded oshiruko KitKat. Still, I'm nothing if not game to sample new foods, especially when I've already forked over my 100 yen ($1.24) to procure a bag of them and the only other option is to toss them and forfeit a review opportunity. I found these at Lawson 100, but you can find them pretty much anywhere that carries the All Fruit cookies. They are seasonal and will vanish after winter and reappear next autumn. So, if you want some cookies that smell like a zombie's armpit, act before it warms up.

All derogatory comments about the aroma of these cookies aside, they are actually quite enjoyable. The basic cookie used in the All Fruit line has a good flavor and texture. They are slightly flaky but soft. They're like a cross between a biscuit and a pie. Sandwiched between them are bits of moist sweetened azuki beans. There is also kinako  (toasted soybean powder) and black sugar syrup flavoring added, though the influence of these two ingredients are so subtle that you can barely detect them. They're like a voice in the next room that you can't make out, but they are nonetheless, present and contributing something to the overall taste. For all I know, they're also adding their own personal touch to the funk coming off of them as well. 

I'm not an enormous fan of red beans. The truth is that I like white bean sweets more than red, but I bought these believing that the moist nature of azuki would lend itself well to these cookies. That theory is supported by the taste, though there really should be more beans in them. It seems like Tohato continues to scale back the "fruit" portion of this line all of the time and you get more basic cookie and less of the filling then I recall in some of my previous reviews of these. Still, these are good and I recommend them. Just hold your nose when you open the bag and put the portion you want to eat on a plate so that the smell isn't so powerful.

Mister Donut Snow Doll (Man) Donut

How cute... there's snow on his nose! Wait, that's not snow...

I hope everyone enjoyed the togarashi mayo rice chips review on Monday. I chose that to offset the utterly bland and typical nature of today's review of a new Christmas donut offering by the fine folks at MisDo. They're offering several flavor variations on this snowman concoction, but none of them is really something to get all worked up about the oddness of. There is chocolate, green tea, strawberry and angel cream. Because none of these is very exotic, at least not for Japan, I went for what I love, angel cream. That is to say, plain old sweetened whipped cream. If you want me to put something in my mouth, all you have to do is slather it in whipped cream... and, no, that's not how my husband won me over. 

Besides these little snowmen, there are also some vaguely modified versions of other standard Mister Donut offerings such as a churro "wreath" with white chocolate frosting and a few candy-coated bits for holy berries and two (strawberry and chocolate) frosted versions of the venerable "pon de ring" donut with sprinkles. I think that it's probably too much to expect that any chain store is going to invent an entirely new concept for the holidays. It's easier just to slather new frosting on an old one. If it's good enough for Krispy Kreme, it's certainly good enough for Mister Donut.

This is actually two small donuts of different types rather than one. The smallness of them is reflected in the fact that the whole thing is still only 253 calories. The top piece is a ball of yeast-raised dough with frosting and some supremely sweet cherry-flavored M-&-M-style candies on it. When fresh, it's a nice enough morsel, but a little too sweet for my tastes. The bottom isn't actually a donut, but rather a chou. If you don't know what a chou is, then you haven't lived in Japan in which chou cream are everywhere and the results of a long ago food fad. It's an area, slightly tough and chewy pastry which seems mainly geared toward acting as a receptacle for cream or pudding.

The chou base is pretty much like every other consumer-level chou I've had in Japan and as I described it in the aforementioned paragraph. A "scarf" (or "wreath) of whipped cream cements the top and bottom together and about 1/3 of the chou donut has cream in it. The rest is just plain old chou. I don't know if this is how it is supposed to be or if I got a defective one that had cream inside that it shouldn't have had or lacked cream throughout the interior as it should have had.

Experiences like this are hard to rate because this was a pretty nice donut. I enjoyed eating it, but given the other options, I wouldn't buy it again. That assertion is a reflection of how much I like other donuts, not that there is anything bad about this at all. The regular angel cream at Mister Donut has as much whipped cream, fewer calories, and has a more tender donut exterior which is superior to either of the donuts in this concoction, but I certainly did enjoy this so it gets a "happy", despite my feeling this is the last time I'll sample this. 

Random Picture #91

Regional KitKats would be a lot more impressive to me if they were actually confined to the region they supposed spawn from within. As it is, no one is exactly zealously guarding carrying them over the borders of one prefecture into another. In fact, no one seems to be stopping them from being sold at every major station in Tokyo and in particular at Narita airport. That's okay. I think the whole regional food thing is overplayed in Japan anyway and if you want to get on your yubari melon KitKat (a Hokkaido version), all you have to do is good enough at a claw game ("UFO Catcher") to knock the box into the hole. Trust me when I say it is easier said than done.

Kameda Seika Togarashi Mayonnaise Rice Snack

Since I was a psychology major and continue to study psychology of my own volition to this day, I often run across various studies and theories about human behavior. One of them is that choice is good for people, but too much choice is very stressful for them. Having three types of chip to choose from is good. Having 20 is just going to make you stand in the aisle biting your nails trying to decide what to buy.

Apparently, most American manufacturers don't know about such studies as there are eleventy-billion (that's an "imaginary number" in every sense of the term) varieties of everything back home. How fortunate for me that I live in Japan where the only thing they saturate me with choice about are fish, tofu, panty fetish items and anime characters, none of which is of any particular interest to me. While there may be a ton of Kit-Kat flavors, more than three are rarely offered at once. These "Okome Kitchen" ("Rice Kitchen"), a brand made by my favorite sembei maker Kameda Seika, snacks come in three varieties, too. I found these on the shelf at a little market near my house for 100 yen ($1.24) per bag and had my pick from among red pepper and mayo, garlic and black pepper, and wasabi and salt. I choose the mayo because I figured it'd be the hardest child to love in this little snack family.

A good whiff of the freshly opened bag gives you the familiar scent of mayonnaise, as should be expected. The first bite, as is so often the case, is the best because you get the depth of flavor most acutely with a clean palate. The flavor of Japanese mayonnaise with it's eggy and rich taste comes through potently, but not overwhelmingly followed by a nice spicy hit of red pepper. The blending of these two components is damn near perfect as the mayonnaise taste is cleaved beautifully by the pepper's heat. There are also some savory flavors added in to provide a better backdrop including cheese, vinegar, pepper, chicken and seafood. These components don't come through as individual tastes, but as a melange of seasoning. This blending of savory spices with hot pepper stops this from tasting like you're sucking on a tube of mayonnaise.

The chips are light and cripsy and have the feel of being baked rather than fried, though vegetable oil is the third ingredient after rice and rice flour. This is like a cross between sembei (rice cracker) and a processed potato snack, but in a good way. They're a bit on the smallish side, at about half the size of a standard chip,  so it's easy to find yourself popping two or three in your mouth at once. Fortunately, the entire 60 gram (about 2 oz.) bag is only around 300 calories so you can indulge fairly freely without paying too heavy a price.

I was surprised that I really enjoyed these. I think mayonnaise flavoring is something which is quite easy to overdo and get very wrong, but felt this was well-balanced. While I can't say I was over-the-moon about these such that I'd be buying them again and again until they're taken off the market (and ultimately, they won't be around because that's the way it is in Japan), but I'd definitely buy them again.

Yaokin Vegetable Salad Umaibo

Some time ago, I bought a variety pack of Yaokin salted snacks which included 5 varieties of "umaibo". "Umai" is "delicious" and "bo" means stick. I figured that this would cover pretty much all of the umaibo I'd ever want or need to sample. These are very cheap kid's snacks, and tend to be a bit greasy, nicely crispy, and fairly flavorful. Their main appeal is in the texture, which is a large airy corn puff, and their relatively strong natural corn flavor. Though they come in different flavors, but are generally a similar experience with a backbone of savory flavors like garlic, onion, chicken, beef and pork with another flavor layer added into the mix as the dominant one. Their main appeal, frankly, is that they are incredibly cheap and come with sometimes amusing package designs.

The reason I find myself reviewing another umaibo is not that the package is claiming that they have added more deliciousness (umai uppu!), but rather that my husband was handed a magazine in a plastic bag that also included this umaibo. Free snacks! All you have to do is be on the right street corner when someone is handing out a magazine which is almost all advertising and almost no actual content. If you want to buy one for yourself, they'll set you back about 10 yen (13 cents) at most supermarkets or snack shops.

Though this claims to be "vegetable" flavor, it smells rather fishy. I'm not sure why that should be because it doesn't taste fishy. In fact, it's hard to pin down what it tastes like at all because there is a general melange of spices. The ingredients list includes cabbage, onion, bell pepper, potato, and garlic seasonings. It tastes pretty good in the way that things that are very, very bad for you can taste. There is so much oil on the exterior that placing it on a tissue to take a picture left an oily spot on it.

Since I didn't buy this, I can't really speak to "buying it again", but if someone gave me another one for free, I'd certainly eat one again. All of these Yaokin snacks are economical salted snack niceness. There's no nutrition data on these, but I imagine they're made with damaged fats and have little of redeeming value. Still, the portion size is smallish and the texture is good and they are flavorful. Next time someone gives you one for free, I recommend taking it.