Sweet Box Choco Pie

There used to be a game show in America called "To Tell the Truth" in which three people claimed to be a particular person and the celebrity guests had to guess which one was telling the truth. At the end, they'd say, "will the real (name of person), please stand up." In Japan, one might ask that the real "choco pie" stand up, since there are multiple products with exactly the same name.

I already reviewed the Lawson VL "choco pie" which is an actual pie with a smidge of chocolate goo in it. If you go back to the linked review, you'll see that that choco pie does not resemble this one in any way. This "choco pie" is the more common type in Japan that resembles a moon pie, though this one is not like the most common variety because the filling is marshmallow rather than cream.

I found this for 100 yen ($1.19) at Lawson 100. For a box of 5 pies that are about the diameter of a large chocolate chip cookie, it represents excellent quantity for your yen. The maker, Sweet Box, has disappointed me before when it comes to sweets but pleased me when it comes to sembei. My expectations were therefore quite low. Note that Sweet Box's food is produced in Korea, but their products are widely distributed in Japan for low prices.

The box touts these as "fluffy" marshmallow sandwiches, and I'm not sure if that refers to the cake-like exterior or the marshmallow filling, but I'm pretty sure that it doesn't really accurately describe either. The sandwich parts are like a cake version of a graham cracker. It's soft, but slightly dense. The texture is satisfying and the flavor subtle but still quite nice. The marshmallow compliments the modest graham flavor well, but is also on the mild side. Likewise, the chocolate coating is so thin and mild as to be more of an aftertaste than a strong flavor component.

I liked these pies quite a lot, and at only 124 calories each, they are a very conservative treat. That being said, they win me largely by texture (which is a bigger draw to me than taste or smell) and the allure of the graham-cracker-like flavor of the cake/cookie. For those who want a stronger mix of flavors, these will likely disappoint because the chocolate and marshmallow represent so modestly on the tongue. Frankly speaking, these seem to be designed for the palates of children, who don't like intense flavors as much as adults.

I am giving these a "happy" rating because I personally liked them despite their subtle flavors. However, I wouldn't recommend them to anyone who had to get them from an importer or who has a more refined sense of taste. If you're the sort of person who is buying dark chocolates or artisan marshmallows with specks of real vanilla bean in them, this is going to monumentally let you down. If you're the kind of person who is happy slapping a few crackers together and cramming a marshmallow with a slab of consumer chocolate between them and then microwaving it for a minute, then this might be good for you to have around for nights when you feel your sweet tooth aching.

Sweet Box Chocolate Cake

One of the things that I occasionally miss about being in the U.S. is the ease with which you could pop into a store and pick up something like a box of Little Debbie cakes for a pittance when you were in the mood to destroy your body with empty calories and blood sugar spikes. Mind you, I didn't do that very often. In fact, I can say that I would probably need both hands to count the number of times I indulged. However, I've been sent the peanut butter "nutty bars" twice since coming to Japan and rejoiced in their bad for me splendor.


That being said, I think that not being able to find something makes it seem more appealing. Let me say that it's very rare to find any sort of Hostess-style pre-made snack cakes in Japan. You can buy lots of sugar and carb bombs of other sorts, but not the cream-filled, chocolate coated things you can back home.


Occasionally, I will see something which appears to be along the lines of those types of cakes, and 99 times out of 100, I'll pass it by because I know that it's not going to be very good. Most of the time the cakes are dry and the coating is relatively tasteless. Once in the bluest of moons (every two years or so), I'll give something a try.

I found this box of three individually wrapped cakes at a local 99 yen shop. That's about 33 cents per cake. These are made by "Sweet Box", which may sound like the name of a company that makes a lot of confections, but they're actually the same company that make the kaki no tane (persimmon seeds) sembei with peanuts that I reviewed previously.

The ingredients list reveals that these are made with corn syrup, margarine, grape sugar, and cocoa powder (among other things). It's not a very encouraging list. The cakes smell very faintly of cocoa and have a thin, relatively brittle but soft coating. I had to be extremely carefully when I cut them in half so as not to shatter the coating. The inside has more chocolate cream filling than is pictured on the picture on the box, which is an interesting change of pace. Usually, the box exaggerates, but this time it undersells.

The coating has very little taste and the cake is quite dry and also relatively flavorless. The filling is sweet, fatty and quite nice, and has a light cocoa flavor. However, the filling can't make up for the shortcomings of the coating and cake. Each cake is about 6 cm (2.36 in.) square and 138 calories. If they were lower calorie, they might be worthwhile, but the pleasure to calorie ratio just doesn't make them worth it in my opinion. If you're desperate for a snack cake and have completely forgotten how decadent such cakes can be back home, these might do. Otherwise, I wouldn't recommend them.

Sweet Box Apple Pie

Several months ago, one of my husband's students brought back a box of "apple pie" from Korea and gave it to my husband as a souvenir. That box had about 10 or 12 little pies in it and he slowly ate them. I had just one.


Fast forward to today when my husband and I amble down to the local QQ (99-yen shop) and meander around looking for band-aids and various snacks. Among the pile of snacks elegantly displayed in their original cardboard boxes and stacked at the back of the shop are these Sweet Box apple pies. The style of the box design as well as the picture of the pie on the box looks very much like the Korean pies that he got as a souvenir. Out of curiosity, and because he kind of liked the pies, we picked up a box.

Note that this box only contains 5 pies and cost 99 yen (about a dollar) and the Korean one had twice as many. The origin of the pies is China, but the distributor is Japanese. My guess is that these are exported to various countries with different packages based on their ultimate destination.

One can't expect much from this sort of thing. The best you can hope for is a happy surprise. Of course, I wasn't going to be surprised because I had the Korean ones already. The main problem with these "apple" pies is that the apple portion is so sparse. Most of it is "pie". And by pie, I mean a very dry, flaky crust, which is half pie and half cracker.


The smattering of apple filling tastes a bit like super thick apricot and apple jam, and is not very sweet. Because of the distribution, the first bite is mostly dry pie with the tiniest hint of the fruit. The second bite of filling is a bit better, like a tart apple, but there's so little of it that it's not worthwhile.

On the bright side, each 4 cm by 8 cm pie is only 63 calories. You're not getting much for the investment. I think these might actually be useful for pairing up with ice cream. The texture of the dry pie would probably add something to a sundae concoction, especially if you paired the ice cream with some sort of fruit sauce.

All in all though, these are really not very good. The pie is substandard. The filling is fine, but too sparse. About the only good thing is the price, and even then I think you could do better with your 99 yen on something infinitely tastier. I won't be picking these up again.

Wasabi Kaki No Tane Sembei

Advertising is an interesting art and science. I used to receive a menu for a Chinese restaurant that featured a dish which looked like a whole baby pig, snout to tail, had been roasted and was going to be served to the customer. That grossed me out so much that I never patronized them.

On bags of wasabi-flavored snacks, you often see a green, gnarled root with what looks like broken, scabbed over pustules on it. These roots have never really drawn me to wasabi products, though after seeing them enough, they haven't really repulsed me either. I guess it's a good indication of how cultural experiences shape your perceptions of what is and is not attractive food-wise.


Given my positive experience with Sweet Box's regular kaki no tane (persimmon seeds) with peanuts sembei, I scooped up this wasabi version at the local 100 yen shop. I figured that if the regular kind was good, a hotter, spicier version certainly couldn't be any worse. These Sweet Box packets of snacks are also great value with 6 packets and decent portion control at 120 calories each.


The first bite of these carries a nice hot hit of wasabi. Subsequent bites lack quite the same power, but there are still notes of the wasbi in there. My tongue must have grown accustomed to the flavor after awhile because the heat became more muted as I neared the end of the packet. It's interesting that my experience with these is the opposite of the regular version. The regular type gets hotter as you eat more. These get mellower as you eat more. I guess they use different types of peppers which affect the tongue differently.

I enjoyed these quite a lot. I'd certainly consider buying them again if I was in the mood for a savory peanut-including snack. I wish there was just a bit more wasbi flavor in them, but after my previous wasabi sembei experience, perhaps I should just be glad that it didn't start to burn the back of my nasal passages.

Kaki No Tane ("Persimmon Seeds" Sembei) with Peanuts

This is another one of those snacks that I have seen for years in Japan and never bothered to buy. A big reason for this is that most of the time kaki no tane (kaki = persimmon, no = of, tane = seed) is sold in fairly large quantities. I'm sure there are small packs around, but I just never went out of my way to find them. This is the sort of snack that people buy for their families to nosh on, perhaps while watching television.

There are many companies that produce these. Mine just happened to be made by a company with no on-line profile named Sweet Box, Inc. (株式会社スイートボックス). I found this at the 99 yen shop and figured that this was a relatively small bag and cheap so it was past time to try this well-known and oft-enjoyed savory snack. These are frequently eaten with beer or other alcoholic beverages and are part of the category of snacks to be eaten with alcohol called otsumami.


The bag is 150 grams and contains 6 packets. Each packet is 120 calories. There are generous amounts of peanuts in each bag and that's what you smell when you open a packet. The sembei doesn't really carry much of a scent.


The little slivers of sembei are slick and shiny. They taste like plain sembei, but carry some heat. The heat isn't present on the first bite, but comes cumulatively and as an aftertaste. The peanuts are blanched so they just carry a nice peanut flavor with no heavy roasted or burnt flavors. The sembei is quite crispy and the entire mix isn't salted. The ingredients include peanuts, rice, starch, soy sauce, sugar, dried bonito extract, hydrolyzed protein, salt, sea tangle extract, seasoning, sorbitol, paprika color, caramel color, and spices extract. I'm guessing their savory nature comes from the soy sauce mainly, but also whatever spices are in the final extract.

These are very good, even for someone who isn't mad about sembei like me. I love the mix of the peanuts with the crispy and very mildly hot little pieces of sembei. Even though this was a very cheap brand made by a no name company, it seems very well-made and fresh tasting. This is a snack I'll definitely pick up again some time, particularly at 16 yen per serving.