A-sha Hakka Flat Noodle-Vegetarian Spicy

One of the things people mentioned to me again and again when I said I was heading back to the U.S. after 23 years in Japan was that I was very likely looking forward to the food, and I was. After getting back, however, I found that the food was not as I expected. It's not particularly bad, but it's also not as good as I recall. Because of this, I've found my eating habits have seriously changed compared to my pre-Japan diet. For that matter, they've changed compared to what I tended to eat in Japan.

The biggest change for me has been that I seem to have lost my taste for meat almost entirely. It's not like I was carving up a cow or tucking into pork on a regular basis in Japan. I mainly ate chicken-based dishes because I don't care for beef at all and, while I'm okay with pork, I don't crave it and it's expensive. The truth is that most days I'm eating homemade vegetarian food because it's what I feel like eating. It helps that I've discovered the processed joys of soy chorizo and the less processed joys of smoked paprika. Vegetarian paella is now my favorite food with black bean stew being a close second. Yes, I know, it's so boring, but I do have to offset the snacks I eat somehow.

I've never been an enormous noodle eater, but since I've been expanding my repertoire, I was happy to sample these "snack noodles" when a representative at Taiwanese company called A-sha contacted me and said, "Hey, do you want some free food for review?" Yes, yes, I do.

I wasn't sure what I was in for when I got the box with two types of noodles because the packages have little in the way of English information. Mind you, they have nutrition information in English, but no description of the noodles or soup. It's no matter really as their web site came to the rescue. I was delighted when I found out that the type I'm reviewing today is spicy ("not for the faint of heart") and vegetarian. This greatly increased my enthusiasm. However, I don't want to mislead anyone. I'm not a vegetarian. I've just lost my desire for meat (maybe it's because I'm getting older). Don't think I've gone and gotten all ethical or anything!

Since I can't read Chinese at all (I assume it's Chinese writing though these are made in Taiwan), I had to guess at the instructions based on the pictures, but this is not a complex process. I've made noodles before and the illustration of a pot with heat lines coming off of it clued me in on the fact that you probably are supposed to boil them like every other noodle on the planet. I am one sharp cookie, after all.

Note that these are "dried", not fried. Most of the ramen that you could buy in similar packages in Tokyo was fried and not particularly healthy. The stats on these nutritionally are actually pretty decent. One packet is 290 calories and has 10.7 grams of protein (22% of RDA according to the package). The total fat is only 1.8 grams (3% of RDA). Of course, with any packaged noodles, the place where you get socked nutritionally is the sodium and these have 1338 grams or 56% of the RDA.

Okay, so I know I'm closer to being on Reddit's terrible food porn site than on Tastespotting, but I'm sure you'll live with it. I'm a writer, not a food pornographer.

I'm not prone to eating large amounts of anything at once, so I planned to only eat half of the package at a time and I paired it with a boiled egg and green onions. That has no impact on how I feel about the taste of them, but it does balance them a bit better as a meal. People who are younger than me and don't have a body that is approaching it's million mile check-up can just gobble down the whole thing without my old person's (I turn 50 this year) concerns.

I believe the instructions are telling you that you can boil the noodles for varying lengths of time depending on how soft you like them (1-5 minutes). I'm a person of pedestrian tastes so I boiled them for 5 minutes. Foodies who believe everything should be al dente would turn their noses up at my food preparation. That being said, the noodles were not flabby or overdone even after the longest boiling time. They held their structure and were pleasantly chewy. The sauce smelled really good with the aroma of chili and sesame oil.

The sauce is where most of the flavor is going to come from, obviously, and this was hot and spicy with some nice depth. My concern was that it would be overly salty, but it was not. It was very balanced and had a complexity which merged into a unified flavor that had heft when it sat on the front or middle of the tongue. It also had heat and burned my lips and the front of my mouth, but it wasn't more than I could bear. Keep in mind that I can bear a fair bit of spice, but I'm not looking to challenge the Scoville scale or anything - I'm not downing raw habaneros or anything. However, these are Asian chili flavors, so like Mexican chili, there will be a build up over time. I was happy for the bland boiled egg addition and to have a soda on the side to give my mouth a rest. I also chased it down with some gelatin dessert to cool my mouth further so this is definitely not for chili wusses.

I really liked this. In fact, I liked it far more than I would have expected. The texture and quality of the noodles was far nicer than I experience with regular pasta and I'd buy the sauce in a bottle and put it on other things if I could get it outside of the little packets. As it is, I'm truly delighted to have had this and would definitely buy it again. It also seems to be healthier than most packaged meal options and not particularly expensive. A-sha is offering a box of 5 packages for $6.99, which makes it more expensive than college-student ramen, but cheaper than a lot of prepared foods. I'd take this with a boiled egg as a meal over any frozen dinner option both economically and taste-wise.

If you'd like to follow A-sha online, you can do so via the following outlets:

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Tyrant Habanero Guacamole Rings (product information)

I can get my hands on no small amount of Japanese snack food. In fact, I could fill this blog with daily reviews if I wanted to and never run out of options just based on what can be had locally. However, that would be problematic because I'd have to eat an entire package of food or toss a lot of stuff out (not to mention that it'd be expensive), so you get two reviews a week and news pieces like this.

One of the things that I haven't seen available, however, is the line of super spicy Tyrant Habanero salted snack rings. In Japan, I loved these things. They are super hot, and I'd have to be careful not to eat too many (because, as one of my web acquaintances remarked, they taste good going in, but aren't such a great experience coming out), but I really had a thing for them. I tried some of their other products with mixed results, but the rings never let me down.

Tohato has released a line of these spicy rings coupled with the creamy flavors of avocado. As you can see by the pepper scale on their ad above, this is a three out of five, so not as hot as their usual fare. I would be all over trying this is I could get my  hands on it.

If you're interested in a little Tyrant Habanero fun, you can play a Space-Invaders-style game here. You don't need to understand the Japanese. You just click to choose your ship style when the option comes up (and click "skip" on the intro since you can't read it anyway). You can also download some, frankly, pretty ugly wallpapers if you're so inclined. Those can be had here. Note that the top ones are movies. The bottom ones are images that you can download.

Spicy Ocean Snack Dried Roasted Seaweed

Among the many free magazine subscriptions that I acquired when I started poking around for what people will give me for nothing in America was "Us" magazine. Of the freebies that I got, this is the one which I generally regret the most. For one thing, I didn't realize that it was a weekly and I have to toss out more issues than I ever imagined. For another, it's making me sad. It's not that I don't recognize most of the celebrities - though I don't - it's the way in which the material is clearly presented to make people with sad and empty lives feel like their lives are just like those of celebrities and that makes me sad, but that is a point I've mentioned before so I won't belabor it here.

At any rate, the issue that arrived today endeavored to educate the populace on why Gwyneth Paltrow and her husband (whose name I forget and really don't care enough to look up -  I think he sings for some British band like Oasis or whatnot*) have decided to "consciously uncouple". I noted that Gwyneth only feeds her kids kelp and the finest Oxygen molecules that Harrod's has to offer, and it made me think that perhaps I should live a healthier snack lifestyle.

Though I don't have access to much in the way of kelp, I have been seeing a line of "Ocean Snacks" at the local Grocery Outlet Bargain Market. I figured that, while my blogging income doesn't allow me to live a GOOPy lifestyle, it does allow me to purchase nearly expired discount seaweed products from Korea. They may actually be from North Korea, for all I know, and that might mean they're radioactive or contain Kim Jong Il's ashes or something, but they only cost 99 cents for so I can't really complain.

There are three packages with little plastic trays inhabited by the wispiest of seaweed paper. I had this stuff in Japan on occasion, but it was never as thin as this and the truth is that I like it much better this way. Eating it in Japan, whether it was wrapped around a rice ball or just eating it as a sheet, was a lot tougher when it was thicker. This seaweed paper is like onion skin writing paper, only, tastier. Each sheet is a little crispy, has the grassy notes you'd expect from seaweed, and has a little spicy red pepper kick at the end. It starts to melt a little on your tongue, but it doesn't suck all of the moisture out of your mouth. It's really a pretty good experience, especially for being something which gets washed up on the beach along with dead sea life.

In addition to trying this as a straight-on snack, I also made my first onigiri with the intention of wrapping this around it. Unfortunately, my onigiri was a "jumbo" and two sheets of this stuff couldn't wrap around it's enormous girth. It did stick very nicely to the rice, but it wasn't potent enough to add much except a small grassy note to the experience. The pepper got lost in the blandness of the sticky rice, but these aren't designed to wrap onigiri so I'm not blaming the manufacturer. I just need to make less pregnant-looking rice balls next time.

I've heard that seaweed consumption creates rather vile breath and was sure to only eat this when my husband wasn't going to be around and snogging was not a possibility. That is the only drawback to eating these. Well, there's that and the fact that 20 of the 30 calories that a pack contains are fat calories. I don't know how they manage that, but I'm guessing this is deep-fried seaweed or something. With those stats, I'm not sure that Gwyneth would approve, but I do.

*I kid. I know he sings for Cold Play, but since I don't know what either band sounds like and that they're both British bands, I figure they are essentially interchangeable to my febrile mind.

Lays Spanish Tomato Tango Potato Crisps

As children, we are often admonished for our limited palates and our squeamishness about trying new foods. The old "eat your vegetables" business is the most cliched example, but children in general are not fans of adult flavors. I've mentioned before that I believe this is because strong flavors are more intense for children, who have not yet deadened their taste buds with a variety of abuses, but also it is true that they have not developed their palates.

When I was a child, I had certain foods that I hated based on texture, taste, or smell. My parents often gave me grief for this, but the interesting thing is that I understand now that their palates were quite limited as well. They weren't trying to expand my gustatory repertoire, but rather trying to align it with theirs. My parents, as adults, are extremely fussy and limited not only in what they eat, but how they will accept the foods they eat. If meat isn't cooked to the point of being dried out, it's too raw and unsafe. God forbid their chicken show any signs of juice inside! Salmonella! Danger Will Robinson!

My mother and father also never met a vegetable that they couldn't under-season or overcook. If it has anything other than salt and pepper, doesn't come from a can, and isn't pretty much mush, they will turn their noses up at it. My sister, who resides with my parents and does most of their cooking, is constantly frustrated that she can't diversify her menu or eat food flavored in the manner she'd like lest she elicit bitter complaints from my parents about how inappropriate the food is for their tastes.

I don't know if my parents are extreme in this regard, but my father-in-law is similarly limited in what he eats, so it could be a generational thing or an old person thing. All I know is that I'm willing to try pretty much anything and am often on the look-out for new and interesting flavors. One of the reasons this blog exists is so that I can continue to experience unique combinations of flavors. Sometimes, I find new appreciation for the way in which other cultures combine tastes, textures, and aromas, and, at other times, it falls pretty flat.

This is the second in a line of internationally themed flavors of potato chips that Lay's has released for the market in India. My husband bought these "Flavour Team" chips for 99 cents (about 100 yen) at an Indian market in our city. I already reviewed the "Magic Masala" version and was looking forward to trying the Spanish Tomato Tango. Incidentally, there are supposed to be 6 of these and we haven't seen them all, but there is also an "American sour cream and onion" variety. We're unlikely to try that one because it sounds pedestrian, but I wouldn't mind finding the others.

At any rate, the robot arms should have started flailing at the ingredients list which lists "sugar" as the third ingredient after potatoes and palm oil. Any time a heap of sugar is added to tomato flavoring, it signals "ketchup" (or "catsup", if you like). Now, imagine your ketchup flavor with the added twist of ginger, cumin, cinnamon, garlic, and cloves. The cinnamon, ginger, and especially the cloves add a funky spiced dimension to these which simply does not work in the opinion of my taste buds. It's like someone put their chocolate in my sunflower butter instead of my peanut butter. It's not horrible, but it doesn't quite work on some level. Much as I try to be open-minded to new flavor combinations and foods, this was more of a stretch than I could manage - yes, shades of my parents limits come to mind.

Potato chips are not my favorite thing in the whole wide world. I'll admit that. They have to be really, really great for me to decide to indulge in them at all because I'm not big into fried food in general. I'm more of a cracker/sembei/pretzel type of person and the fact that these not only failed to impress but kind of let me down means that I won't be having more of them.

Wagaya Yamitsuki Corn Snack (Hot and Spicy)

"Yamitsuki" means "addictive". That means that this $1 (82 yen) bag of corn snacks has a lot to live up to. I'm not expecting it to take its place next to cocaine or even alcohol, but it should at least edge up to the position held in the aching stomachs of former Twinkie junkies and Lay's potato chip consumers who eat themselves into carb comas. 

Frankly, I was mainly drawn to this because of the promise of "hot and spicy" contents. I found it for a reduced price (but not in the bargain shelves) at the Daiso. I don't know if it being a little cheaper than the standard $1.50 per item price at the Daiso meant anything other than the fact that not every food item has to be the same price, but I could have seen it as an ill omen. The reason I didn't is that food isn't normally something I see in any way as ominous... unless it's something with an expiration date that has passed and may have living creatures reproducing in it.

Getting back to this "corn snack", I always love how Japanese snack foods are so generically called "rice snack", "corn snack", etc. Someone could have called these "hot waffles" or "spicy weaves" (though that sounds like a hair augmentation that is supposed to make the ladies want to dance the tango with you or something), but, no, they are just "corn snack". Actually, even in America, sometimes you find this type of naming convention. Safeway's rip-off of Triscuits is rather pragmatically named "Woven Wheats". I guess that the Japanese market can't be blamed for not trying any harder than the America one, especially when they're writing the name in English.

When I opened the bag, I smelled a vaguely spicy scent which seemed a bit like paprika or tomato. The pieces themselves are actually pretty large. They're about the same length as a standard potato chip, but narrower. If these look suspiciously like an elongated piece of Chex cereal, you're on the right trail. That is very much what these taste like, though they seem slightly different in texture. They even have a fairly high level of sweetness for a salty snack. The fourth ingredient, after corn flour, hydrogenated palm oil, and tapioca starch, is sugar. Clearly, these are nutritionally rather bad news just from that information alone, but it is worse that Sucralose rounds out the list because you need both sweetness and artificial sweetness. 

I am not really daunted by the ingredients as I don't expect junk food to be nutritious. As long as you don't eat too much of it, your body should be able to process the toxins. Of course, I don't drink alcohol, so my liver isn't being taxed outside of the processed snacks I eat and your mileage may vary if you find yourself at frat parties getting drunk into a stupor and waking up full of a sense that you should regret something but are unsure exactly what that might be.

The main problem with these is that they have almost zero flavor depth. Despite listing miso powder, there is a distinct lack of savory flavors. I gave this a good chance to reveal more taste, but all I got was the slightly sweet corn cereal flavor and heat. The "hot" part works at about the level at which you feel it, but there isn't actual pain, but the "spicy" fell down on the job completely.

These are, for lack of a better word, "serviceable" in that they are salty, crunchy, and hot. They're also light. The whole bag (1.94 oz./55 grams) is 240 calories, which doesn't make them much lower on the calorie totem than chips, but they feel nice and light. You can eat more of them compared to chips because they're puffier and have holes in them. This does not a great snack make though, and it is miles and miles away from addicting anyone.

Yawataya Mini KitKat

When I was given wasabi KitKats, I remember having a discussion about chocolate with one of my students in which I mentioned that putting chili in chocolate was fairly common in America. She was shocked, and grossed out, at the idea of this combination. Of course, she thought that including wasabi was also pretty weird, but accepted it as something reasonable as a regional variation for novelty value. This is one of those rare cases when a combination is actually a bit stranger in Japan than in the West. I've been reading about American releases of chili paired with chocolate on other blogs for years.

If you look at the top of this box, you can see that there is an old-timey picture in sepia (because that's how we can tell it's "old-timey"). This is because this flavor is supposed to represent what was popular in the Shinshu area during the Edo period. The origin of the hot pepper that is used is thought to be the Amazon basin rather than Japan. It's a transplanted flavor that is commonly called "togarashi" in Japan. Apparently, we have Columbus to thank for spreading it all over the globe, first to Europe and then to Asia. I doubt that makes up for all of the stuff the Spanish did to indigenous peoples nor does it make up for the fact that he is seen as discovering something which was hard to miss and probably was located by many explorers before him, but, hey, credit where it is due. He spread some hot peppers for us all to enjoy, especially the folks in Nagano (formerly the Shinshu area).

I picked this box of 5 mini KitKats up at the airport on my way out of Japan. I don't remember what I paid, but the retail price according to Nestle Japan's web site is 350 yen ($4.38). As is so often the case with these types of KitKat, it represents significantly bad value for the quantity, but one does not buy these for the volume, but rather the novelty. Each KitKat is two mini fingers (about the size of one and a third regular KitKat fingers) and has 67 calories.

When I opened the packet on these, I smelled a very pleasant bittersweet chocolate smell. I deeply inhaled the scent of the bar to try and detect any spiciness or hint of the chili pepper, but there was really no hint. My first bite yielded a mild, slightly sweet bittersweet chocolate flavor with the usual crispy wafer freshness of a KitKat. Only after this did I get a bit of heat on the tongue. Each subsequent bite was the same. It was a one-two punch with each flavor hitting quite distinctly.

This is a pretty nice tasting KitKat, largely because it is a slightly dark, bittersweet flavor which is not too sweet and pairs well with the wafer's crunch. However, the spicy portion seems almost superfluous. It does not detract from the chocolate, but it seems to add nothing. It's like eating a candy bar and then a little hot pepper alternatively. 

I think this works best as what it is, a novelty. If you're in the area (or at the airport) and want to take something back for your friends to try which won't make them gag, but will surprise them, this ought to fit nicely. The heat isn't so intense that someone will have a burning mouth. You'd have to be extremely sensitive to hot pepper to suffer for sampling this. Though I'll finish this box (slowly), I don't think there would really be any reason to buy this again. 

Tohato Tyrant Habanero Spicy Cheese Crackers

Have you ever kept a pepper in the refrigerator for far too long? They get all soft and shriveled up. In the end, you've got a flaccid item which is a shadow of its former self. If the red pepper graphic on this bag were truly representative of the flavor of the snack inside, it'd look like one of the aforementioned aged peppers. 

Of course, I was unaware of this when I decided to pick up this discounted bag of salted snacks at "My Basket". I figured it was part of the Tyrant Habanero line which generally does a good job of burning my mouth until I get an endorphin rush. For the discounted price of about 66 yen (85 cents), it was hard to not buy them, especially with the promise of "spicy cheese" with some heat. I should have guessed that there was a reason that they were discounted. On the bright side, there are only 215 calories for the whole bag.

These crackers have a modest cheese flavor which is heavy on the sour powdered milk flavor and weak on the delicious cheese pungency. That is chased rather meekly by a bit of a hot pepper bite. It's actually not so much a bite as a half-hearted nip at the air rather than draws any blood. The crackers are hollow, but not as crispy as their American cousin, the Goldfish cracker. There are also a smattering of peanuts mixed in, but not enough to give you some with every small mouthful. They also are so much heavier than the crackers that they fall to the bottom so you can't really eat them as a mix unless you empty the 45-gram (1.6 oz.) bag into a dish or burrow to the bottom of the narrow bag. 

These are not bad at all, but with the evil jack-o-lantern pepper on the front and the promise of "habanero", I expected something in the way of flavorful teeth. If you are the type of person who wants to fool yourself into thinking you can handle hot peppers, this is the ticket for you. If you want something that'll leave your mouth burning for a little while, give them a pass. Personally, I wouldn't have them again. 

Dong Won Hot Tuna

My husband and I made a repeat visit to the "Korea town" area of Shinjuku in Tokyo last week and dropped in on a supermarket this time. My husband picked up several snacks, and I couldn't resist this tuna because of the name. I'm sure that it's all pretty tame stuff in Korean, perhaps the equivalent of "Trader Joe" there. To me though, I had to titter at the connotations. Besides, even without the awesome name, I would have considered sampling this since I do like tuna and spicy food. 

Based on the picture on the can, I expected this to be bits of tuna with little hot peppers sprinkled among it. My first surprise was that when I popped the seal and tried to "drain" the tuna, a red fluid ran out. After removing the top, I caught a whiff of that "dog food" type of smell that you sometimes get from canned meat products, even when they are for human consumption.

Looking inside, I could see something that resembled hash more than canned tuna. At this point, I was experiencing some pretty serious buyer's remorse. I wasn't sure it looked like something I'd want to put in my mouth, but I'd already forked over my 240 yen ($2.82) so I decided that I was going to, at the very least, get a review out of it.

It really doesn't look much better in a sandwich, except to the extent that you can see less of it this way.

Tentatively, I dipped my fork into it and speared what looked to be a tiny cube of white potato and gave it a sample. It tasted slightly spicy and modestly flavored with tuna. Actually, it tastes pretty good. Heartened by the sampling, I pondered exactly how I was going to eat it now that it wasn't what I thought it was. I was thinking I'd make some sort of spicy tuna salad by mixing it with mayo, but this isn't that sort of thing. There is a lot of sauce in it so it's not like dry, flaked fish. In fact, this appears to be a salad that is pre-made and canned so I just slathered half of it on a cheese croissant roll I had in the freezer and chowed down.

The tuna flavor is very present, but tamed by the spicy flavors of the red chili sauce and diluted by what look like carrot, onion and potato pieces. You can't really taste the vegetables though because they are very tender and well-cooked as well as well-marinated in the chili sauce. The sauce is only mildly hot and spicy, and slightly sweet. Keep in mind that there was no Japanese translation over the ingredients and I can't read Korean at all so I can't determine anything about the ingredients. That's actually a little refreshing for me since I can just rely on my senses rather than having to do research.

This was surprisingly good right out of the can and didn't betray much of the "canned food" taste that some of these sorts of foods have. I'm guessing that has to do with the tuna and chili sauce having strong flavor profiles. At 190 calories for the whole can (and one can offering two servings for the likes of me), this was a surprisingly tasty and low calorie lunch option. The only problems with it are that it's slightly expensive and  that I can only buy it at Korean supermarkets and they aren't exactly frequently dotting the landscape. That being said, I'd definitely pick up a can if I was in the area. It's a nice novel taste experience and a tasty quick meal.

Sanko Seika Japanese-style Curry Sembei

I'm coming up on two years of this sort of Japanese snack food reviewing and you'd think there would be some lessons I would have learned about having food lying around all of the time, especially in the 5-month long "summer" in Tokyo. If you don't finish up a salted snack food rapidly, it's going to go stale in the heat whether it is completely sealed up or not.

I left two of the six packets of sembei in the bag for about a month before I got around to them and they started to go stale despite being well-sealed both in their individual packets and a Ziploc bag to boot. Stupid heat! The fact that they sat around for about a month is an indication that these were not something I was crazy about or that I was really lazy about getting around to reviewing. In this case, it was mainly the latter as I've found far too many salty snack treats this past month and couldn't eat them all up.

If you look at the picture on the front of the bag, you'll see that it is not Indian-style curry but rather Japanese. Japanese curry is more like a spicy stew than actual curry. It's heavy on the beef or pork gravy and usually lacks some classic Indian spices (like cardamom) and includes some Japanese components (like soy sauce, though not always). Among the ingredients for this are apple juice, black pepper, soy sauce, pork and chicken extract, and chicken oil.

There are two parts to the sembei, a flat curry flavored cracker and a small ball which is shrimp flavored. If you eat them separately, the shrimp balls are quite sweet and the curry crackers rather savory. I recommend eating them both together for the best effect. They smelled nicely spicy, and carried a lot of the flavor of curry powder with some good cumulative black pepper heat. They have a lot of good savory flavors in them, but somehow seemed a bit flat in flavor regardless. I think part of the problem is that the peppery nature and curry powder flavors saturate your tongue too rapidly and mask any other tastes (like garlic).

These were good, and I think fans of rather mundane curry (as opposed to authentic Indian curry) would probably enjoy them. I liked them fine, but I wasn't over the moon about them (as their approaching staleness testified to). I found them at Okashi no Machioka snack shop for about 160 yen, and I certainly don't regret sampling them, but I would have been happier with about half as many packets as come in the pack (six, at 86 calories per pack). These have a nice sweet/spicy thing going on, but they just didn't blow me away.

"Extremely Spicy Mania" with Death Sauce

If someone did as that little guy did and really downed a bottle of sauce, I think he really would die.

Recently one of my students and I were discussing curry. In Japan, curry can be ordered with different grades of heat from 1 to 10. She said that she chooses a "3 and I told her that I go for an "8". I've actually had a "10" before, but the heat was so hot that I couldn't really taste the flavor of the curry after awhile. I offer this information to allow for the fact that I'm no chili wuss, though I'm also not the most advanced consumer of high powered chilis.

Nonetheless, when I saw this bag of Frito Lay "Extremely Spicy Mania with Death Sauce", I couldn't turn it down. I discovered it at Family Mart, and I have since lost the receipt, but I think it was about 160 yen ($1.82). I've never had death sauce, but anything that threatens my very existence with its heat draws me as a flame draws a moth. Also, this was a spin-off of the "Mayo Mania" snack I'd had before and there's something about the whole "mania" thing which is hard to pass up. Insanity and snacks just seem like a match made in heaven.

For those who don't know, "Death Sauce" is an American product which is made by a company called "Blair's" (which is ran by a man named Blair, imagine that). I've never had the actual sauce, but how deadly can it really be? Their marketing claims that they make the hottest sauces in the world and are in the Guinness Book of World Records. Ironically, their slogan for their "death sauces" is "feel alive". I was undaunted by their claims, and measured out half of the 60 gram (about 2 oz.) bag for consumption. I put them in a bowl and it left little bits of red oily residue on the dish where the rings touched the ceramic.

These are nice crispy, light corn-based snack rings. They smell a bit funky though. It's hard to pin down the scent, but the ingredients list includes "beef extract" and I believe that was what I was getting. You can also get a hint of the garlic and paprika used in them as well as, of course, the habanero.

The first bite was hot and savory. I could pick up some of the spices and they were pleasantly salty. The heat is quite strong and I drank some water. I ate about half of them, and the cumulative effect of the peppers on my tongue got to reach the point of "too much." It was painful, but generally in a good way. The whole point of super hot foods is to feel the burn and to release some endorphins. That being said, I stopped at about half the portion I had served myself because I knew it was going to get worse and also I couldn't really taste much past that point.

In the end, I didn't have to get something cold and creamy to sooth my tongue, but I wanted to and was glad that I had a frozen banana in the freezer to make into a smoothie. I was doubly glad because my stomach burned. In fact, it burned for about an hour after I ate a half ounce of these despite the fact that I had eaten grapes before these rings and a frozen banana smoothie with ice and low fat milk after them.

I don't know if these can actually burn your stomach with their ferocity, but I wasn't keen on the long-term nature of that warm feeling in my gut. Since people have been known to drink the sauce straight (for reasons I'm not sure of but it may go back to the whole "insanity" and snacks thing I mentioned earlier), I'm hoping that no real damage can be done. I'm also... concerned... about how this is all going to feel when it makes the journey through my digestive system. I've eaten Tyrant Habanero snacks before (in greater quantities) and experienced less stomach burn and residual warmth.

I liked these in terms of the texture, taste and the heat, and I have to credit them with giving me an incentive to exercise strict portion control. The whole bag is 310 calories and I think I could only manage a quarter at once, and even then that felt like more than necessary. These are tasty and should make fans of very hot foods quite happy. I think these types of things are the ultimate "otsumami" (food to be consumed with alcohol) in Japan because anyone who eats them will likely want to guzzle down beverages to deal with the fire in their mouth and stomach.

Though I'm not absolutely certain that I'd buy these again, I really did like them and I think I'll eat this bag very slowly - maybe two or three rings at a time and always with food. Mainly, my reservations only relate to the stomach burn. Note that there is a warning about the possible discomfort you can experience from eating too many at once and a recommendation not too many at the bottom of the bag so approach them with caution. This was made with Blair's "Sudden Death" sauce which seems to be the hottest in their index. After eating these, I concluded that I'm probably a chili wuss after all, but I'm still going to (at least) finish the bag, and I probably would buy more in the future if they remain on the market.

Meiji Very Hot Curry "Karl"

In Japan, you don't have to settle for a "hot Carl". You can get a "red hot Carl".

One of these days, I need to have a contest in which I post a food item and ask readers to enter their ideas about the ingredients in that item based on the sometime esoteric inclusions I've mentioned in former posts. It's easy to guess that something like curry, chicken, and onion flavors are in a baked corn snack like this one, but what are the chances of guessing that it includes "pineapple powder"? Ah, Meiji, you tricky devils!

"Karl", or as we might say in English, "curl", is a popular brand of salted snack from Meiji. In various flavors, sizes,  and packages, these can be found in most convenience stores and markets. When I was working, I often saw them sold in foil lined paper cups like Calbee's Jaga Rico. They were first introduced in 1968 in a cheese flavor and a curry version first came out in 1969. There's an interesting scrolling photo history of all of the flavors, designs, and packages since the product's inception here.

There are instructions on the back of the bag telling you how to tear it down the seam if you're offering these at a party.

When I saw this bag of corn snacks perched outside of Okashi no Machioka in a box labeled "69 yen" (75 cents), I jumped at the chance to try it. Not only was it marked down in price, but it was also new to may area and it has flames all over the bag. Little encourages me more than the chance of something red hot. It doesn't hurt that the entire 48 gram (1.7 oz.) bag weighs in at 246 calories. That's a bit on the low side for a salted snack food of this sort in Japan considering their penchant for high fat counts. The size is such that I felt quite full after eating just half of it.

When I first opened the bag, I caught a whiff of what I could colorfully refer to as "corrupted curry". There are definitely curry elements, but there's more. The curls themselves are puffy and satisfyingly crispy. They have a nice depth of flavor from all of the seasonings that are layered onto them, which include various seafood powders, pork, and soy sauce in addition to the aforementioned ingredients.

Sometimes the heat that is advertised on Japanese snacks is sub par, but these are gratifyingly hot. They also have a cumulative fiery effect that makes your tongue get a better burn as you eat more of them. They may not satisfy the most ardent hot pepper lovers, but they pleased me.

I enjoyed these and would definitely buy them again if I wanted something hot and salty to snack on. I was really happy with the flavor depth as that is something that some corn-based snacks are lacking in my experience. If you want something hot and spicy to have with a soda or alcoholic beverage, I'd recommend giving these a go. You won't be disappointed, and they aren't as fattening as such foods can get.

If you'd like to download some items that have the mascot's theme (the frog and farmer), you can find some message cards, a coloring page for kids, and some tickets here.

Tyrant Habanero Wasabi Sticks

Sometimes I try something and I like it, but there are negative points to it such that I'm not likely to have it again despite actually enjoying it. That was my experience with these Tyrant Habanero Wasabi sticks. I liked them, but there were a few sticky points (not as in actually sticky) that make a revisit unlikely.

I bought these at the same time as the "Tyrant Habanero" garlic sticks at the same place, AM/PM convenience store. The size is the same, 35 grams (1.2 oz.), as are the calories at 175 for the whole bag. These are about 130 yen ($1.44) and have a similar list of ingredients to its brother product. The primary ingredient is potatoes and there are a ton of nice savory spices like garlic, onion, and meat-based flavorings. Of course, this one also includes wasabi.


Unsurprisingly, these smell like wasabi. The first bite is intensely strange and almost medicinal, but that blows off after you eat a few and then it's a nice wasabi flavor with consistent heat that starts to punch you in the back of the nose as you eat more. As is so often my experience with wasabi, it doesn't accumulate heat on your tongue, but punches you nasal passages. I strongly recommend a beverage to mitigate this effect to some extent. The texture is nice and crunchy, not too airy or dense, but there is a bit of a greasy sense underlying them. This greasiness was less present in the garlic version that I reviewed before.

I liked these, and I ate the whole bag at once, but the truth is that I wouldn't buy them again because of the weird medicinal starting flavor and the greasiness which coated my mouth for awhile after I finished. Those negative points overcame the positive ones of the nice taste, heat and texture.

Tohato Tyrant Habanero Garlic Sticks

I studied psychology with a fairly strong emphasis on biology and behavior. One of the things I learned about was how and what stimulates the brain in a particular manner. In particular, the brain responds to pain by releasing counterbalancing pleasure chemicals. This is one of the reasons people like to eat foods that are hot and spicy despite the sometimes painful burn associated with them. It is a way of tricking your brain into juicing you up a bit.

Whatever the reason may be, I love hot and spicy things and the "Tyrant Habanero" product line always catches my eye. You can identify them in Japan by the evil jack-o-lantern red pepper mascot that graces every bag. There are only two things that keep me from having a constant supply of these snacks on hand, the calories and the fact that they taste great going in but are far less pleasant on the way out.


I came across these stick-style garlic habanero snacks at AM/PM convenience store. Those who want them have to get them at "conbini" as they are not sold in other types of shops. I'm afraid that I don't remember exactly what I paid for this 35 gram (1.2 oz.) bag, but I think it was around 130 yen ($1.44). The entire bag is 175.5 calories, and that's not bad for the quantity of salted snack sticks.

When I poured a few of these out to take the picture, I was reminded of some sort of spicy or barbecue snack stick that I had on rare occasions as a child and really loved. I have a strong sense that the brand name was "Popeye" (and a company named "Allens" makes Popeye potato sticks, but their web site is mum about snack foods), but I couldn't find anything on the web that resembled what I recall. Part of the problem is that Popeye's fried chicken is talked about so much that anything with "Popeye" and "spicy" brings up a chicken-related result. If anyone remembers what I'm talking about, I'd love to hear about it.

These sticks are not very long, about 4 inches or 10 cm each. They have a really perfect potato-based snack texture which is airy enough to be light and crispy but not so much as to feel like nothing. The spice at first carries a heavy garlic flavor, unsurprisingly, but the cumulative effect of the heat soon squashes that out of existence if you keep eating. And, oh, I kept eating. I ate the whole bag and my mouth was on blissful fire by the end. These have a great mix of garlic, onion, paprika, and various meaty flavors so the taste has depth until your tongue is too inflamed to detect them.

I adored these. I'd buy them again in a heartbeat, but I'd try harder not to eat the whole bag at once next time. I've heard that some people find the Tyrant Habanero series too meek for their hot food needs, but I found it just about right.

Kameida Seika Barbecue Sembei

Any time I get in the mood for some new and interesting sembei, I head down to the local Family Mart. If you're in Japan and want to have the best access to short-lived, but tasty sembei, that's your "go to" place. By the way, that's, a statement I never thought I'd be making in my life as I never thought one got in the mood for sembei if one was not raised in Japan or by parents of Japanese decent. Ah, how my horizons have broadened due to this blog.


"Piri" (ピリ) in Japanese means spicy in a heat-related way, as opposed to spicy in a non-hot way. Putting these two characters on a bag of any salted snack treat greatly increases the likelihood that I'll buy the food, and they're on this bag of rice crackers. Of course, the maker of these crackers, Kameida Seika, is also my favorite when it comes to sembei.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, "barbecue" flavor in Japan means barbecued meat or vegetables cooked on a grill so it's not like what it is in the States (a sort of ketchup or tomato flavor which is similar to sauce rather than the grilled foods). These sembei, which are about 32 calories per large cracker, are an extremely satisfying melange of savory flavors including garlic, onion, chicken, paprika, pepper, and tomato. They have a small bit of heat, but nothing too strong. I don't know if they'd do for a chili wuss, but they also don't require a flame-retardant stomach or an asbestos-coated tongue. The texture is the "soft" type which is crispy and puffier rather than the "hard" type which is thin, brittle and potato-chip-like.

I loved these, and I think it's unfortunate that they aren't likely to be around past the end of autumn as they have a 4-month run (and were introduced in August). I highly recommend getting them while you can. Remember, they are only sold at convenience stores!

Hot Cocktail Cheese in Kamaboko (chikama)

Kamaboko is various types of white fish processed and formed into loaves. It's sold in plastic tubes in convenience stores as a snack and the promise of something with three different peppers (jalepeno, chipotle, and green pepper) as well as cheese made me overlook the fact that I hate most fish. I decided to pick up this fish log and give this a try. Incidentally, when cheese is in this and it's sold as a snack, it's called chikama. Kamaboko is generally used in soups rather than eaten as a snack.

This is made by a company called Maruzen, which makes a lot of these sorts of tubular fish loaf products. They also sell a very scary product called "fish sausage". I'm not sure that the Western world is ready for such gustatory possibilities.


The tube is about 16 cm (about 6 in.) long and weighs 60 grams (about 2 oz.). One of the great benefits of fish loaf as a snack is that it's pretty low in calories. If you could choke back the contents of the entire tube, you'd only be ingesting 81 calories.

One might suspect that the little red piece of tape on the plastic would be a way of removing the tightly wrapped fish product from it's poly shell. I removed the tape and only the tape came off. I had to cut off the metal bit holding one end together to get at the fish loaf inside.


This stuff smells like very stinky old fish. The texture is slightly rubbery, but it's easy to bite into. It takes awhile to chew though. This is a bad thing because it means the flavor of old fish is in your mouth until you masticate enough to force it down your throat. The dominating flavor is definitely that of fish, with a hit of heat after you chew it a bit. I don't know how much of each type of pepper is in it, but I don't detect any particular pepper flavors except some jalapeno heat. There is actually very little cheese in it and even if you happen to find a piece with a tiny cube of orange processed stuff, you don't taste anything but the heavy fish flavor.

This was genuinely gross. My mouth rebelled. My stomach wanted to rebel violently. I don't think that there was anything wrong with the kamaboko, but rather that I am simply not a candidate for a rubbery snack that tastes and stinks like very old fish. I threw the rest of this away. The only way I kept my stomach from expelling this stuff in a fit of anarchy was to placate it with French meringue cookies.

Tyrant Habanero "Anbiriba Rod"

The "Tyrant Habanero" brand of spicy rings (by Tohato) has been around for quite a few years and I'm a big fan of them. In fact, I like them so much that I don't buy them because I know I'll eat the whole bag. As has been remarked by more than one person who has imprudently scarfed down a whole bag, they taste great going in, but are really not so great coming out. Ahem.

The rings, which I have not reviewed previously, are pretty much the same as these "rods" except that the rods are rolled out versions. they're thinner, easier to eat, and in a smaller package. The good part about this is that, if you can't stop yourself from foolishly eating them all, it isn't nearly as painful later on. The cup contains 35 grams (1.2 oz.) of small rods and 150 calories. They also do not appear to be quite as densely coated as the rings so they're somewhat less spicy, but it is the same spice coating and mixture.


The spices on these sticks include tomato, onion, garlic, pork, mushroom, and chicken flavor powders as well as habanero puree. Because the habanero pepper is so potent, eating a lot of them (especially the ring version) continuously tends to burn out your taste buds ability to sense anything but heat. If you eat them slowly, you get a better sense of the savory nature of the other spices, particularly the tomato. These are potato-based processed snacks, but you really can't taste the potato much through the spices.

These are thin and crispy and I prefer these rods over the rings both in terms of shape and the ability to bite into them without worrying about the shape of the ring landing awkwardly (or painfully) against your teeth or gums. These are fairly hot so you have to have a slightly strong tongue to enjoy them. I've had hotter things than these, mind you, but they are not for those with a sensitivity to spicy things. I would definitely get these again, but I'm a huge fan of hot foods.

If you'd like to display the evil jack-o-lantern style pepper on your desktop, you can download desktop pictures of it from Tohato here. There's an extra freaky one which looks like a bunch of people worshiping the evil pepper. Let's hope it's not some weird new cult.