Lotte Custard Cake and Choco Pie

The unusual source of these snacks. This is after my husband toppled two of them into the prize bin.

One of the great things about my husband starting to play claw games for the fun and challenge is that it encourages me to sample snacks for reasons other than they happen to be on store shelves. Last week, we were out for a late night stroll and stopped by the local game center. They had a display of Lotte cakes in one of the machines and he put in a few 100-yen coins and managed to topple two boxes of cakes into the prize bin. Yay! Double review fun!

When he started playing the game, I was mainly interested in the custard cake because I've had the Choco Pies plenty before. In fact, I'm sure they contributed to weight gain in my early years in Japan. The truth is that I hadn't had this version of a Choco Pie (there are so many versions of "choco pie" in Japan) for a very, very long time. It's the most visible and probably the most popular, and it's not really a pie at all except in the same fashion as a "moon pie" is a pie.

Both of these are about 6.5 cm. (2.5 in.) in diameter and about 2 cm. (.8 in.) tall. They're smallish cakes, but enough to satisfy as a snack. The custard cakes are slightly lighter, weight in at 27 grams (about 1 oz.) and only 122 calories. Choco Pies are 32 grams and 163 calories. The feel much heftier with their denser cream filling and generous layer of chocolate coating. The extra calories come from a higher fat content as shortening is the second ingredient for the Choco Pie (third for the Custard Cake, which boasts more sugar).

I sampled the Custard Cake first and the first bite carried a lot of the feel and taste of a cake preserved for long-term storage. If you've had a Twinkie or other packaged cake, you know that there is a particular flavor that sometimes comes along with such things. It's not offensive, but it's not natural and troubles some people. It doesn't really bother me, but those who are sensitive to such things may find these unpalatable for that reason alone.

The cake itself is, like many shelf stable Japanese cables, a bit dense and a little oily. The flavor is lightly sweet with vanilla, orange, and whipped cream flavors. The finish is very similar to that golden sponge cake which is the symbol for all that is nutritionally wrong in the world of packaged foods... the Twinkie, though it is not nearly as sugary and has a lot less filling than it's American cousin. The box touts the "fluffiness" of the filling, but a lot of it seems to be absorbed into the moist little cake. And keep in mind that this is "moist" from fat, not freshness. It's a very distinct difference. That being said, I liked this, but I'm judging it by a very particular standard. If you compare this to a real cake or even a fresh packaged pastry (like a Lawson Swiss cake roll), it falls short. If you compare it to something which you can put in the cupboard or your desk drawer and forget about for weeks or even months and indulge in in moments when you want a bite of cake, this is actually quite good.

The Choco Pie is similarly being held to the same standard and also comes out on top. The cake is denser and the filling thick enough to provide fatty pleasantness on the tongue. There are distinct layers of taste for each component of the pie. The chocolate of the coating, the vanilla of the creamy filling and the floury cakey portion. This places it above and beyond the knock-off choco pie that I reviewed awhile back. While that had a pleasant graham cracker thing, it didn't have as much strong flavor as this nor as good a depth of flavor. This is absolutely a superior product compared to that one, but these tend to cost a bit more as well. Though I got these two boxes for 200 yen ($2.60) due to my husband's gaming skills, the retail price is generally between 250-300 yen ($3.25-$3.90) per box according to Rakuten and Amazon Japan (which sell them in 5 box lots). I've seen them in shops for 270 yen or so. The cheapie knock-off version is a mere 100 yen ($1.30), but I'd say these are worth the increased price.

If you're a fan of packaged long shelf-life cakes to toss into a lunch box, put in your backpack for a hike, or keep around for the occasional sugar-high, I think these are very good options. If you're fussy about your cakes and would rather have nothing if you can't have fresh, high quality cake, then these aren't likely to light your fire. For those who were fans of Hostess snack cakes back home, this is probably the closest you're going to come to a similar product in Japan. I liked these, and if the mood struck me, I'd have them again. For what they are (junk food), they're pretty good.

Random Picture #85

The Japanese dedication to marketing Halloween-themed items grow just a little every year. Though they have gotten the superficial aspects down, such as applying an appropriately cuted-up All Hallow's Eve motif, they aren't quite with it on the deeper execution. All of the snacks that I've seen with themed packaging are the same products as are usually on offer with just a different bag. These choco pies (a nice enough treat on their own as a plain chocolate covered soft cookie with vanilla cream filling sweet) are the same old same old. I don't know why they don't release special editions for the season, but I'm guessing it's because they'd rather sink their specialties into seasonal variations which have nothing to do with the usurping of American holidays.

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.

Lawson VL Choco Pie

There are a lot of things in Japan called "choco pie". One of the most popular resembles a moon pie. It's a couple of cakey slabs with vanilla cream in the center and covered in chocolate. Even though they're not very good, I used to eat them regularly when I first came to Japan. I think I did it because they were relative innocuous looking, and I had not yet developed the high level of gustatory "courage" that I have now.

These Lawson VL Choco Pies are different because, well, they are actual pies. They're puff pastries with a toothpaste squirt size stream of chocolate "cream" down the center. For a mere 100 yen ($1.24) for 4 small pies, I'm not exactly complaining about that or the fact that the pie is rather pale and anemic-looking.

Among the ingredients are flour, "chocolate flour paste" (yummy sounding!), margarine, and shortening. It's pretty clear this is both a carb and bad fat festival. Still, they're only 151 calories of nastiness as long as one limits oneself to one pie.

The pie itself has an extremely familiar taste.There are other types of puff pastry pies on the market which either use the same pastry (but cooked a bit crisper and darker). I'm guessing Lawson's obtains the basic pie material from that company, or that this is the equivalent of "store brand" varieties back home. That is, the store name is slapped onto something which may be sold under another brand elsewhere.

The chocolate cream tastes a little like consumer-level chocolate pudding. This doesn't really matter since there is so little of it that you don't get much of a taste of it at all. That being said, the pie part isn't bad at all. It has a nice "baked goods" flavor to it with a certain floury nature and fatty moistness. If you like the flavor of raw pie dough, there may be something in this for you.

I'm rather torn about this. It's the sort of bad food that I might crave once in a blue moon, but not the sort of thing I'd seek out early or often. I will definitely finish the packet, though I'll probably toss the remainder in the freezer and eat it rather slowly when I get a particular craving for white flour carbs.