7-11 Tomato Sandwich (product information)

Image from 7-11 Japan.

When I was growing up, my mother used to eat food which I felt was pretty disgusting. The worse was just bread with raw green bell peppers with butter. The second worst was the same sandwich, but using tomato in place of the bell peppers. This sort of one-vegetable sandwich was bad not because of the veggies themselves, but rather because of the shallow flavor profile and the unpleasant textural combinations, especially when you pair cheap soft, gluey white bread with crunchy raw peppers and squishy butter.

This new sandwich from 7-11 seems to be something after my mother's heart, but with a little more sophistication and depth. Those are biggish chunks of tomatoes glued into the sandwich with egg salad mixed with broccoli and carrot. A few reviews that I've read proncounce it "unusual" and "crunchy". I wouldn't exactly call those encouraging words.

Glico Tomato Cheeza

Just after graduating from college, I was desperate to get a job as my guaranteed student loans were going to require their first payment come August. With a B.A. in Psychology in hand, I was ready to take on the universe, but the universe wasn't exactly clamoring for my "expertise". As a stop-gap job, I took work at a Lutheran summer camp as a "crafts counselor". The irony of being called a "counselor" at a job which was essentially a sort of babysitting and teaching kids how to put together pre-packaged kits as a holder of a newly minted psychology degree was not lost on me.

The truth is that I was rotten at that job for several reasons. I have never been good with kids and I was impatient and sometimes angry with them. Another was that I was inexperienced and immature. I barely remember what I did, but I do know that I was oblivious enough about my poor performance that I asked the camp heads for a reference when I applied for my next job. I got that job, but they didn't exactly praise me. They said that I scared the kids. I guess I was lucky that the next job, which was directly related to my degree and far more fulfilling and appropriate for my personality, decided to take me despite the poor referral. Fortunately, I've gotten a bit better with kids (and all people in general) through time.

The reason that I am starting a review with this slice of my personal history is that there was something that happened during my time at that camp which reminded me of these crackers. One of the other counselors had to have her wisdom teeth pulled and was unable to eat solid food. On "hoagie day" (that's submarine sandwiches), she really wanted to have one, but was incapable of chewing one up. She asked the lunch ladies to puree one for her so she could drink her hoagie. After she sipped some of it, we asked her how it was. She said it tasted as you'd expect, but it was all wrong because of the loss of the textures and layers.

To me, that is a pretty good summary of this Cheeza release. This combines the tangy flavor of tomato with Camembert cheese. If I were to eat a cracker, a wedge of cheese, and a tomato, I'd think that was some good eating. In this configuration, the distillation of the cheese and fruit into powders that are pressed into the cracker seems awkward. It isn't helped by the fact that the Camembert, which is usually a mild cheese, seems incredibly intense and pungent. Camembert cheese powder is the first ingredient, and you can really taste the truth in that order.

I found this at Okashi no Machioka discount snack shop for 100 yen ($1.21). That's rather cheaper than supermarket and convenience store prices which tend to run closer to 147 yen ($1.78).  That gets you 42 grams and 214 calories of little crispy, fresh-tasting crackers. Cheeza crackers always taste cool on the tongue as the result of some alchemy I cannot fathom.

Usually, I like intense cheese flavors, but there's something about this which just doesn't work very well for me. Cheeza boasts its high cheese percentage and that is generally a good thing. I rarely find that I dislike their flavors, and I did eat the entire bag of this. However, I wouldn't buy it again.

Bourbon Petit Chili Tomato Crackers

In the wake of quake-buying frenzy, I've found that my snack options are somewhat limited. That is not to say that I don't have many options, but rather that they aren't quite as "limitless" under current conditions. At the moment, I'm at greater risk of not having something to wipe my behind with than running out of snack blog fodder. Frankly, for a country that is mad about washlets, I don't understand why they need so much toilet paper. Getting back to the point though, sembei or rice crackers tend to be pretty popular purchases right now as it is good for hoarding, but Bourbon recently released several additions and revamps to their line of "Petit" snacks and my local supermarket had refilled their supply on a day in which I was especially jonesing for salty snack goodness. I chose several interesting looking new specimens and revisited an old favorite, Cheese Rich arare.

The Bourbon Petit line offers sleeves of small snacks, usually around the diameter of a 100-yen coin or American quarter. They offer both sweet and savory options that sell for about 100 yen per package, though these were available for a mere 78 yen (96 cents) each. I love these snacks to pieces. I wish that a similar type of thing was sold back home because they are cheap, easy to handle and store, and provide a lot of flavor options. Most of the snacks whether savory or sweet come in around the 200 calorie range so you can eat it all without feeling it's a major pig-out, though usually half a sleeve is quite sufficient for me. If I were still working in an office, I'd want to keep a couple of these in my desk at any given time for snacking. In particular, I recommend the kinako wafers (which are sweet and delicious).

The chili tomato crackers package provides 38 itty bittycrackers and 192 calories. The crackers smell peculiarly fishy, but that could just be my confused olfactory senses as a result of allergies. The ingredients don't indicate anything fishy going on, but rather include cheese, chili, and tomato powders. The flavor is decidedly heavy on a tangy tomato flavor with extremely subdued chili notes. If you're a "chili wuss", these are definitely the cracker for you. The crackers are crispy and a bit hard and not as flaky or fine as some offerings. Ritz crackers, these are not, but that doesn't mean they're bad.

I enjoyed these because they were flavorful and I love tomato flavor. These have a slightly "ketchup" thing going on because they're also a little sweet, and I dislike ketchup in general but these were fine regardless. That being said, I could have used some spicier (read: hotter) chili flavoring and a little more salt. I would, however, buy them again despite these desires. These would be great as an accompaniment to certain types of soup or as a midday snack when you're in the mood for something savory. While not a "must have", these are certainly a "will enjoy".

Hokunyu Fruity Tomato Yogurt

When I was a kid, I loved tomatoes so much that I'd eat one like an apple. I'm guessing that back then they were better tasting tomatoes than they are these days, but I still eat raw tomato several times a week, if not everyday depending on how the prices are looking. 

I mentioned in some previous posts that tomato seems to be a fad food in Japan at present and you'd think I'd be happy about that, but the Japanese can take something as pure and fabulous as a tomato and pervert it into something bizarre and disturbing. There are tomato gelatin desserts, candies, and caramels. The caramels are an especially scary concept as they are packaged and presented like these Kabaya caramels that I reviewed previously. 

I think that there was potential for this to be good depending on how things came together. Plain yogurt, especially Greek yogurt or yogurt cheese, could go decently with tomato. It's not out of the realm of possibility that this would be nice. Well, it isn't!

When I peeled off the foil and gave it a sniff, it smelled like regular yogurt. The texture is quite firm and betrays the presence of gelatin to thicken it. Among the other ingredients are tomato puree (12%), orange juice, and sugar. The taste is like a strange combination of sweetened yogurt with a tomato aftertaste. I ate the entire container which afforded me 78 calories of energy and little else besides this review.

The main problem is that this is just a freaky mix of flavors, especially with the strong tomato puree aftertaste. It's like mixing yogurt, sugar, and tomato paste together and this tastes as good as that sounds. The company that makes this sells other dairy products including a few of types of pudding which are supposed to be like a famous cheesecake and chocolate cake maker named Tops. I've had Tops cakes before and they are delicious. I hope that Hokunyu does them better justice than they did this unholy marriage of tomato paste, sugar, and sour dairy.

Bakauke Tomato Curry Sembei

Much to my surprise, tomato is coming on as one of the summer's hottest flavors. Tomato gelatin is on offer in convenience stores, for instance. I'm not sure who decided it would be the fruit du jour in the summer of 2010,  but I think they made a good choice. I love tomato. When I was a kid, I used to eat them as a hand fruit. Yes, I was a strange kid. I wonder if tomato may be touted as the flavor for summer because it contains lycopene and that is supposed to help your skin handle UV rays. Of course, I'm probably giving the food manufacturers too much credit.

Given my love of tomato, I snapped up this bag of Bakauke (Befco) tomato curry sembei when I saw it for a mere 139 yen ($1.58) at Okashi no Machioka. The bag has 15 medium-size crackers at 34.4 calories each. These are the sort of super crispy, deep fried sembei which are meant to help a person drink more alcohol by putting more fat in the stomach (and on it, most likely). Frankly, I don't favor this variety in general because the frying oil is often a bit overbearing in the flavor profile, but you never know until you try.

The front of the bag tells us that there are 29 spices in these. A list of all of the spices is not given in the ingredients. I'm sure it's a trade secret or something, but tomato powder, chicken extract, wheat germ, Sucralose, and sugar are included.

The crackers are pebbly and crisp. They do smell like frying oil and baked rice with the barest hint of some sort of spicy smell. The first taste didn't reveal much of anything except the usual oil and sembei flavor. The second hinted more strongly at tomato with a whisper of curry. I was really disappointed that these were so bland when there is such promise in a stronger flavor from both tomato and curry.

I think this is the sort of thing where eating a lot at once might intensify your ability to perceive the flavors, but two crackers at once is my general limit. I was really disappointed that these were only a little better than plain sembei. That doesn't make them bad at all. They're still crispy and salty and good quality crackers. They just aren't very flavorful for something which promises 29 spices. I enjoyed finishing the bag, but I wouldn't buy another.

Kagome "Rice Menu Set": Chicken Doria and Spicy Tomato Curry

Kagome Chicken Doria (236 calories)

As part of my attempts to review instant or frozen food on occasion, I picked up these shelf stable "heat and eat" meals at Seiyu supermarket on sale for 198 yen ($2.16). There are several of these in a line by Kagome geared toward weight-conscious women. That's why the calorie information is displayed so prominently on the front of the boxes. These boast not only low calorie counts, but some added fiber through the use of a barley and rice mixture. I chose the "chicken doria" because I have a fond experience with that dish from a local restaurant, and the tomato curry because, well, it's curry.

Both of these dishes have a bowl with a bit under a cup of grain in the bottom and foil packets that contain sauces. The Doria has separate mixtures for white sauce and red sauce. In the end, you mix it all together anyway so I don't quite understand the point of the separation. I'm guessing it's for aesthetic reasons. The tomato curry had one large foil pack only.

Going into sampling these, I knew I would try them alone once, and then I would augment them with leftover chicken breast. These sorts of meals are not well-known for their high protein content. I started with the chicken doria which had microscopic bits of tomato, the odd rare crumb of carrot, and tiny little bits of chicken mince. The red sauce with chicken smells like tomato and not much else. the white sauce has a bit of a dog-food/canned food type of smell. It was not encouraging.

This didn't taste like not much of anything. There's some very mild tomato juice flavor and ever so vague hints of some sort of cheese. You have to strain to taste it though. In fact, I'd recommend invoking the power of imagination and hope that you can turn your desire for cheese taste into reality through the power of your mind. I couldn't taste chicken at all. It's also one of those prepared foods that has a lot of sodium, 350 mg., but you still need to add salt to it to taste anything.

The texture was rather gelatinous. You can tell the sauce is mainly made with cornstarch. While the rice is not bad at all and is relatively firm and decent, good pre-made rice is really not hard to come by in Japan.

This was palatable only because I added 90 grams of leftover chicken breast to it and the rice was fine with it. The sauce mainly added some moisture and texture. I was very disappointed in this and probably wouldn't have eaten it all if I hadn't already mixed the chicken in with it and had nothing else to really consume.

The Chicken Doria gets a well-deserved:

Spicy Tomato Curry (235 calories)

After my experience with the Chicken Doria, I had even lower expectations of this. I felt a bit more hopeful after I opened the sauce packet and smelled it. The aroma was about what one would expect of spicy curry and tomato. You can see how little I expect of these things when they end up smelling like they should and I'm pleasantly surprised.

The base component of this was similar to the chicken doria version. The plastic bowl has about three-quarters of a cup of rather dry rice and barley with a foil packet of sauce. After squeezing the sauce onto the rice mixture, I put it in the microwave with the lid on as instructed and the lid blew off about 1 minute and 15 seconds into the process. Curry bubbled up and splattered on the edges of the bowl before I could stop it.

I took it out and gave it a stir and noticed that it was very, very soupy. The rice seemed rather dry at first, but the texture improved after it sat for about 5 minutes. There are small blobs of soft tomato in the sauce, and no other detectable vegetables. I sampled it as is and it is not bad at all. It's nicely spicy in terms of warmth and intensity of tomato flavor. The curry flavors are rather muted, but it's really rather piquant. It's just a bit salty, but not in a too overbearing manner.

After a taste of the curry "as is", I added 85 grams (3 oz.) of leftover chopped, cooked chicken breast and stirred it in. Because there is a lot more sauce than necessary, this worked quite well. There was more than enough sauce to coat the chicken and the combination was very good. I didn't need to add salt to the bland chicken because the sauce is spicy enough to cover.

I actually liked this. If I were inclined to pick up a prepared meal to avoid preparing all of the components, I'd definitely buy this again. For this sort of food, this was pretty good and the low calorie count (235 calories alone, 372 with the added chicken) is appealing. It's not stellar, but it is tasty enough to be worthwhile, especially if you have no time to cook.