Lil' Dutch Maid Dutch Wafer Rolls

I have blogged about "American" things in Japan that were not in any way American. Most of the time, these were what the Japanese believed was American-style, but was actually a distorted version that was modified to suit the tastes of the Japanese market.

This often applied to coffee, which Japanese folks think is super weak if it's "American", but also to things like pizza. The American-style pizza varied from place to place, but it could be anything from frankfurter to French fry toppings on your pie. One thing that it never was was heaping piles of cured meat with great lashings of cheese. That would have actually been closer to what you'd find in the average American pizza place, but it also would have been unpalatable to the Japanese.

At the local big lots, I believe I found some very unDutch Dutch wafers. They lured me in with the illustration on the box which brought to mind Kinder sweets like the Bueno or the Happy Hippos. These are chocolate-hazelnut cream filled wafer treats which I can occasionally find in shops in my area, but generally at a premium price. I figured that these might be a knock-off version of the Bueno, and I was willing to take a chance on them for a mere dollar for a box of four.

To be honest, I had no idea what made these Dutch in any way. Ferrero SPA, which produces the Kinder line, is Italian, so the oncept was seemingly taken not from a Dutch company. I did a little investigating and found that the Dutch part literally applies to the wafers themselves and not the way in which they are rolled, filled or coated. I should have been thinking "stroopwafels" or waffle cones, not Happy Hippos.

I didn't attend to where there were made, but when I got home, I learned that these "Dutch Wafer rolls" are made in Mexico. Uh-oh. No matter. Just because they aren't actually European does not mean that they can't be good. I tried to remain optimistic, but when I broke one in half for a picture of the inside, more than a little pessimism creeped in. It was much more "wafer" than I was lead to believe and far less creamy filling.

Unlike the lovely illustration showing a full great filling with lashings of Nutella-like filling, When you bite into it, the first hit is full-on cheap milk-chocolate-covered peanuts. The wafer adds nothing to the flavor profile at all, but does add a crispy texture. The filling creates a very slight sense of richness and a deepening of the chocoalte flavor, but whatever hazelnut aspects are in it are totally overwhelmed by the peanuts in the coating.

In no way would I say this isn't enjoyable as long as you like milk-chocolate-coated peanuts. In fact, I rather liked this, but it was far from what I expected based on the illustration and my, perhaps, unrealistic expectation that I was getting a cheaper version of a Bueno. Each piece is individually wrapped in a plastic-foil packet, is about 4" x 1" (10.2 cm x 2.5 cm) in size, and is only 110 calories. As an accessible, somewhat moderate bit of candy, it's not bad at all. It's not high quality, but it is more than serviceable if your tastes don't run consistently toward the high end. At the Big Lots price of a box of four for a dollar (about 100 yen), I'd pick this up again. I wouldn't buy it all of the time, but I could imagine a revisit or two in the future.

Good Day Carrebian Nut Instant Coffee Beverage

Recently, I acquired some samples of General Foods International Coffee including the Suisse Mocha variety (one does this by asking for them - it's no great feat). About 20 years ago, I was an enormous fan of the sugar-free Suisse Mocha. It seems that a sugarless version is no longer being produced, but I did want to try the regular version to see if it held up over the years. It did not.

The flavor of that instant coffee seemed thin and despite my carefully measuring the water, it seemed very diluted. My guess is that the coffee didn't really change, but I did I've since spent years drinking real coffee. It's not like I'm guzzling down espresso or black coffee, but rather I tend to mix half a cup of good, strong-ish coffee with a half a cup of almond milk. Still, my diluted coffee is stronger than Suisse Mocha. It disappointed, but it's not like I was thinking about going back to drinking it regularly anyway. Still, I like to have a solid instant coffee option (as well as a hot cocoa one) because sometimes I'm either too tired to make the real thing and I'm not too infrequently in a place where that is not an option.

After the Suisee Mocha disappointment (which would be a good name for a suspense movie), I was very much looking forward to trying this instant coffee which I received from KS Snacks in Indonesia. As some may recall from the "service" review I wrote of them, they sent me a big box of intriguing goodies and this was one of them. There are four flavors of "Good Day" instant coffee and, luckily, this would have been the one I was most curious to try given that I'm a huge fan of hazelnut.

Preparing the coffee is simple. Add 150 ml. of hot water and stir. It's pretty simple stuff. I usually add a touch of milk to instant coffee on those rare occasions when I have it, but I wanted to try this straight up the first time. It didn't need the added milk.

The ingredients list is quite short and simple. It's instant coffee, sugar, non-dairy creamer, and hazelnut flavor. That should give you some idea of the sweetness level of this. It is intensely sweet, but not in a bad way. In fact, my first sip made me think of "liquid Nutella". Though there is no chocolate in it, the roasted flavor of coffee can sometimes take on chocolate flavors and the pairing with hazelnut as well as the high level of sweetness brought that yummy treat to mind.

I don't want to be misleading. This isn't really liquid Nutella. It just brought the notion to mind. There is an intense hazelnut flavoring at the end of a sip which hits you with a strong dose of flavor. If you've ever bought or tried brewed hazelnut coffee, this is it with a milder coffee flavor, more milkiness and more hazelnut.

I liked this a lot, but it is like liquid candy. It's very sweet and intense and more of a substitute for a treat than a beverage. Still, if you like hazelnut a lot, quite sweet drinks, and coffee at least a bit, you should enjoy this. You can get it here for 14,900 rupiah or $1.28 for five packets.  I wouldn't drink this everyday, but I would drink it as a dessert.

Meiji Horohorone Chocola Almond and Candy-san

When I was growing up, it wasn't especially uncommon for girls to be named "Candy". Of course, this was usually short for names like "Candace", but some people just liked to name their kids after confectionery. I guess they wanted a reminder to eat something that would ruin their teeth at regular intervals or were on the cutting edge of naming your kids after food long before Gwyneth Paltrow called her kid "Apple."

If you go to Japan and are, unfortunately, named "Candy", then there's a good chance that someone somewhere along the line will call you "Candy-san". I know that I was called "Shari-san" all of the time, even though they should have been adding "san" to my last name rather than my first one. As an aside, I should mention that those who called me "Ms." would call me "Ms. Shari" rather than by my last name and it always made me feel like I was a character in "Gone With the Wind" (a la "Miss Scarlet or "Miss Melanie").

The reason I'm mentioning Candy-san is that I was contacted by a mail order company by that name and their representative (who is not actually named "Candy") asked if I'd like to sample some of their snacks. Why, yes, I said, I'd love to, and I received a nice package of 4 tasty snacks for review. Before I get to the snack I'm going to review today, I would encourage my readers to check out Candy-san's web site. If you've been looking for a place to locate Japanese snacks at a reasonable price, they've got you covered. I can say this because I've been shopping for such snacks at Japanese markets in Northern California and their prices are competitive with those I've been paying. For example, I bought the Ujimatcha KitKat for $2.19 at Nijiya. Candy-san carries it for $2.03. Most, if not all, of their prices are lower than what I'm paying in shops and their selection is broader, so I hope you'll give them a look. Of course, my treats come gratis so I'm bound to be sweet on them anyway, but that doesn't negate the fact that their prices are lower than what I'm paying at various shops (and believe me, I'm buying the cheapest stuff I can find). 

Getting to the matter at hand, the "horohorone chocola almond" thingy, it was not what I expected from a cursory inspection of the box. I thought it was going to be some sort of crispy shell with a nutty chocolate center. it turns out that it is a tender, floury biscuit which is soft as a cloud hiding a delectable soft almond chocolate interior. The center has just the barest hint of crunchy almonds, but that doesn't matter because its the super soft and rich center which makes it great. It's like gianduja, only with almonds instead of hazelnuts. It is reminiscent of Nutella (and hazelnut paste is an ingredient) but with an almond twist and no pesky need to spread it on something or guiltily lick it straight off the spoon as is the case with Nutella. The flavor of the filling is rich and deep and will leave a lingering taste of nutty chocolate on the back of your tongue.

These are a rare treat in that they are old things that are put together in a new way. I've had soft cookies. I've had this type of filling. I've had almonds. However, I've never quite had anything like these soft little balls of biscuit with a creamy filling. They feel like they melt in your mouth, but also have some enough heft to have a textural hit which satisfies. They're unique, but still quite approachable for foreign palates. 

There are 8 of these to a box, and each is about 40 calories. As far as I know, you can only get these via importers like Candy-san as I have not seen them in local Asian markets. If you're a fan of Nutella or gianduja, I'd absolutely recommend giving these a try.

KitKat Senses Hazelnut

There are a lot of facts out there of little or no importance to the public at large. They're the sorts of things that may end up as a Trivial Pursuit question or only be asked when someone is a niche blogger who notices small things which aren't really worth noticing. Though others were already aware of this, I finally figured out that KitKats are made by two different companies and this may account for the way in which American ones differ from those around the world. Hershey's makes the U.S. version and Nestle makes the rest. A good comparison and explanation can be read here.

I worked all of this out because I was pondering why America generally has only boring KitKat flavors (white, milk, and dark) and thought perhaps that I should research whether or not there are some varieties that I didn't yet encounter. That's when I discovered that Hershey's runs the show in the U.S. and they make it the most boring show ever. I guess the fact that KitKats are the best selling candy bars in the world makes them complacent. Frankly, I feel taken for granted, Hershey's, and I refuse to buy any of your boring KitKats even though I am back in America again.

I tried to figure out or research why these are named "Senses", and it seems it is nothing more than implying this will delight your senses. The commercials seem to emphasize the lower calorie nature (165), lightness, and the added "surprise" of the hazelnut cream. There is another variety, which may or may not be on the market, which includes caramel cream instead of hazelnut. I can't understand why anyone would think that was a good idea.

Clearly, this is not an American bar since it is hazelnut, which is really not the most exotic flavor out there, but it is very attractive to those of us who can't buy a jar of Nutella for fear that we'll eat half of it at once with nothing more than a spoon. I found this at "Zad Grocery", a place that I saw while my husband and I were driving around near his former childhood home and decided to stop at because it had Arabic writing on it. It was, unsurprisingly, a(n awesome) Middle-Eastern/Indian/African food shop and this bar held appeal because it had Arabic writing on it. However, it was made in Poland. So, I guess that this is an international bar. If you want to get one of these, I'm guessing you can find one easily in Canada or Europe in most shops. In the U.S., I've seen them at Cost Plus World Market and you can find outlets to buy them online.

This bar has 5 little segments so that you can break off small portions. My picture doesn't do a very good job of showing this, but there are wafers on the bottom and a light whipped hazelnut cream on top. It's all covered with the milkiest of milk chocolate. It's very European in taste and smell and closer to Cadbury chocolate than a Hershey's Kiss. The flavor is rich and the texture is very light, but the hazelnut is less a flavor addition which is distinct from the chocolate and more of a modifier of the overall chocolate experience. It is quite sweet, even though it is not American. Frankly, it made my teeth ache a bit when I ate a square, but I loved the taste.

This is a very good bar if you like hazelnut cream, milk chocolate and the crispiness of wafers. If you're familiar with the Kinder Bueno bar, this is like a slightly heavier version of one of those. The Bueno has more hazelnut cream and wraps the wafer completely around the creamy center. This stacks the wafers and puts the cream on top and has a thicker amount of milk chocolate. The Bueno's chocolate coating is a bit inferior to this (and tends to flake off the wafer). In a contest between these two similar bars, I think that ones mood would dictate the winner (sweeter and heavier or lighter and less sweet). I'd definitely have this again though, and it means I have one more chance to tell Hershey that I'll keep patronizing Nestle if they can't justify my KitKat love.

Strawberry Hazelnut Petit KitKat

I swear not to buy another strawberry KitKat, but then here I am. I bought the bitter strawberry one, and now this one. In my defense, I was at work and wanted something small and sweet for a pick-me-up and the petit KitKats fit the bill. Also, this has hazelnuts, and I am a card carrying fan of Nutella and all things which mix filberts with any sort of chocolate. Yeah, that sounds like a pretty lame defense to me, too. I admit it, it's hard to resist a new KitKat flavor, even a lame one.

I found this at Family mart for 158 yen ($1.99). It's absurdly expensive for such as small portion. There are only 6 in the box and each is about the size of 1/3 of a single KitKat finger. Given the size, it's no surprise that each individually wrapped serving is only 25 calories. This compares favorably to similar consumer chocolates like  Hershey'sKiss (which is also 25 per). There was also a "cookies and cream" variety on offer at the same time, but I passed on it for the time being as it was even more boring than this one. If it had been "cookies and hazelnut", you'd be getting two reviews instead of one.

When I tried this at first, it was on the heels of sampling some jalepeno chicken thing my husband bought at KFC. No, I don't like KFC, but I took a few bites to try it (loved the spicy heat, hated the greasy chicken). Unfortunately, I think that affected my ability to detect the subtle flavor of the hazelnut. Spice-fried taste buds don't have good sensitivity. The second sampling revealed just the tiniest bit of hazelnut. It mainly served to cut through some of the cloying sweetness of the strawberry flavor.

Other than the vaguest hint of hazelnut, this is your standard white-chocolate-based strawberry KitKat. It's too sweet, the strawberry isn't very realistic, though at least it's not "perfumey" as these things can sometimes be. I wouldn't buy this again, but I'm happy to finish the box because the sweetness can't build up to a strong level when you're eating so little at once. This isn't bad, but really isn't all that impressive either.

Meiji Fran Whipps - Hazelnut and Bitter Chocolate

One of my friends told me that Pocky taste like stale pretzels dipped in chocolate. While I don't quite have his low estimation for the exceedingly popular stick-based sweets, I'm not over the moon for them either. It takes a fairly enticing looking flavor and the promise of a more generous coating on the stick to get me to toss a box of Pocky (or Pocky-like) sweets in my basket and pry my hard-earned yen out of my hand. That's why Pocky is perhaps under-represented on this blog. If you are looking for more Pocky than I am offering, I recommend adding Pocky Watch to your reading list (if you haven't already), which by its very nature is going to give you more pretzel stick love as well as other reviews of many interesting things.

Fran is Meiji's take on Glico's popular Pocky. I rarely take note of Fran in the shops because the flavors don't tend to grab me. However, anything with hazelnuts is like a magnet for this talking flower. I believe that Nutella is the food of the gods, after all. So, when I found this at the local 99 yen ($1.12) shop, I tossed it in the basket. It helps that each serving is only 89 calories so I can snack sensibly.


The box contains 4 foil packets with 3 sticks in each. The sticks are cocoa flavored and double-coated with white and somewhat bittersweet chocolate with a few pieces of hazelnut embedded in them. I should note that Fran sticks seem more like cookies than pretzels to my taste and texture senses. They smell pretty much like cocoa powder. When I first bit into it, I had a profound feeling of disappointment. It seemed to mainly taste like cheap chocolate and had a bit of a taste which I associate with preservatives. By the time I reached the second stick, other flavors started to come out. Primarily, there was a whipped cream flavor from the white coating that started to really bloom. Unfortunately, the hazelnut flavor was so weak as to nearly be absent.

While I was disappointed in the lack of hazelnut flavor, I'm as much a fan of whipped cream as those particular nuts so I really liked this once the taste of cheap chocolate vanished and the mixture of bittersweet chocolate and heavy cream took over. One of the many things I've learned about tasting from snack blogging is that your tongue grows acclimated to flavors or takes awhile to warm up to them so you have to give things a bit of a chance to develop before you reach a conclusion. This was definitely one of those experiences where my initial sense of the product was bad, but it seriously grew on me.

If your patience and tastes run similar to mine, you might enjoy this. That being said, I can't say this was a slam dunk "happy" rating. It came a little close to indifferent because having to eat 1/3 of a packet before I could really enjoy the rest is somewhat of a sacrifice. Nonetheless, I could see myself buying these again.

Dars Crea Hazelnut Chocolates

I'm going to go on the record and say that Dars is, hands down, the best consumer level chocolate in Japan. People can argue with me about it because tastes vary, but I have never sampled a variety of Dars which wasn't excellent. This particular variety though, is the best of the best. If I were going to let myself run wild, I'd pop in a DVD of a good old pirate movie like Captain Blood and buy two boxes of these and make myself sick.

Also, I'm going to go on record and say that I have no idea why these are called "Crea". If someone has an educated guess, I'd welcome opinions.


The basic concept of Dars is the same for all flavors. It's a smooth chocolate shell with a softer filling. "Smooth" in fact, is the best way to describe all Dars candies. They're exceptionally fine and this is like expensive Gianduja chocolates. I'd say this rivals the Gianduja from Godiva. For those who don't know, that's chocolate made with hazelnut paste.

I found this at a local market for about 120 yen ($1.34) and it was worth every yen. You can probably find these at some places a bit cheaper though. Each little candy is 23 calories and the whole box (44 grams/1.5 oz.), with a dozen pieces, is 280 calories. If you're a fan of hazelnut (or Nutella), find this, buy as much as you can, and save them to comfort you on bad days.

Airs Felicio Praline Cream

"Airs" brand chocolates by Lotte have been around for awhile and I've largely ignored them. Part of the reason for this is that they tend not to be sold in flavors that I favor and perhaps the other part is that paying for chocolate with air intentionally introduced into it is less attractive than paying the same price for chocolate which is solid. The one type I did try in the past was some weird Chinese fruit pudding concoction. The texture was odd and the flavor very strange. That particular variety was a "regular" type. The "Felicio" variety, which is just a few letters away from being a hilarious "Engrish" name for a product, is a premium version. It not only comes in a fancy box which is almost impossible to photograph well because of the shiny, highly reflective areas, but cost 58 yen (about 55 cents) more than the mundane variety.


The concept of the "Airs" chocolate is the same for all variations. A "cup" of aerated chocolate is filled with some sort of flavored filling then a little more chocolate is poured on top of the flavoring to complete it. This makes the chocolates look and feel cheap when you compare them to some of the better-looking molded chocolates. Because the chocolate is full of air pockets, the candies are very light and probably a little lower calorie than a dense chocolate of the same size. Each piece of this was 23 calories.


These chocolates are full of praline, which is to say hazelnut and almond paste. They smell sweetly of chocolate and have an intense chocolate flavor. Mainly, you can taste the chocolate shell when you bite into this at first. It takes a second bit to reveal the flavor of the filling to a mild extent. This is rather disappointing as I love praline and I feel that the chocolate flavor, which is actually very good, overwhelms the taste of the filling. There are 2 ways in which you can get a really good sense of the center's flavor. One is to hold the candy in your mouth long enough to melt off the exterior coating and leave only the center blob to be tasted largely by itself. Since there is a good amount of cocoa butter in this, letting them melt in your mouth is a decadent experience. The second is to keep eating more of the candy until your taste buds start to lose their sensitivity to the taste of the chocolate shell. This happened around three chocolates for me, but it also started to reveal a subtle aftertaste in the candy which I uniquely associate with Lotte's Airs brand.

Despite the subdued nature of the praline filling, I liked these a lot. The flavor is really deep and rich. There are 12 candies in each box and they cost 158 yen (about $1.50). This makes them somewhat expensive, but if you're a fan of praline, I'd certainly recommend picking them up at least once and giving them a try.