Dars Crea Marron & Caramel

Dars is holding a promotional campaign which says "1 chocolate for 1 smile." This is related to an NGO meant to help people in Africa using funds from chocolate sales. There's a desktop picture of a pretty big globe made out of chocolates that you can download if you like. It doesn't help people in Africa, but I guess the whole idea is the globe promotes the concept Morinaga is using to push the Dars brand. There's a screen saver on the same page (near the bottom) if you are so impressed by a world made of small chocolate squares that you'd like to see it every time your computer goes to sleep.


This is the second of the two "Crea" varieties currently available in my area. The other was hazelnut and was fantastic. You can buy these either in boxes of individually-wrapped pieces or in boxes with a tray full of unwrapped pieces. By happenstance, I bought the box this time around, but the candy is exactly the same shape and size and you get 12 pieces. The boxes simply waste more wrapping and allow you to perhaps share more easily or eat them more slowly.

Before I talk about this, I will note that I hesitated to try this one even though I adore chestnut (and Dars) because I was worried that the caramel component might be too strong. Like all Dars, the chocolate and filling are super smooth. This smells somewhat of all components, but not too strongly of any of them. The flavor comes in three waves. First, the chocolate, then the hazelnut chestnut, and finally sweet caramel. The balance is pretty good, though I wish the hazelnut chestnut component was stronger. The caramel flavor, which is the easiest part to screw up, was natural and subdued.

I' definitely recommend sampling this. Open up a piece and bite it in half then allow it to melt on your tongue. It's a sublime experience, but then Dars always is. You can't go wrong with rich, fatty chocolates.

Organic Foods Life "Egg Nog"

Every year around Christmas time, my husband sets forth on a quest. No, it is not a quest for the perfect gift for me, his ever-adoring wife. The truth is that we buy what we want when we want it and don't do Christmas gifts. It's not a quest for the spirit of Christmas or the gift of the magi or any of that other sentimental stuff. He braves the moderately cold, semi-dry Japanese winter and hits all of the import shops to see if there are any cartons of eggnog from America or European countries on offer.

For the record, there are a few big import supermarkets in Hiroo that have carried this Christmas treat in the past, but they seem to have given it up over the past few years. This left my husband seeking a more locally produced alternative. Last year, he discovered tall, glass bottles of "Egg Nog" for about 2,000 yen ($22.45) a bottle at a department store.

The bottles only contain 500 ml of eggnog for a very high price. That's the same quantity as a single serving PET bottle of a soft drink for about 15-20x the cost. For that price tag, it'd better be some damn fine nog. That being said, while my husband bought a bottle of this last year, he didn't buy the bottles I'm reviewing today. He was given two of them as a very generous gift from one of his students.

"Sake well" makes you first wonder if this has something to do with rice wine, but, no, it's just a missing "h" on a label that clearly has not been proofread by a native speaker.

The label lists all of the pertinent information in Engrish on the front (that was not a typo) and Japanese on the nutrition information on the back. I'm amused by the claim that this is "traditional" eggnog, but it contains agar. Yes, there was many a year when grandma whipped up her own special blend for the holidays with a lashing or two of seaweed-derived gelatin to thicken it. Also, I'm pretty sure turmeric is generally not on the list of ingredients for most eggnog concoctions.

The eggnog is thick and tends to develop dark bands as the "sinnamon" and nutmeg drift around. If you look at the bottom through the clear glass, you can see the powders have settled down there and you have to give it a good shaking to get a more uniform color. The liquid is slightly thick, but not too incredibly so. It smells mainly of the fake rum essence.

All I could detect on the first sip was absolutely monstrous sweetness. I don't know how much sugar is in it, but the sugar overpowers nearly everything except the rum essence. Even that is a distant second to the overbearing sweetness. By the third sip, I could pick up some of the spices. Vanilla is the most detectable, followed by many miles by the faint taste of cinnamon and nutmeg.

The texture of this seemed about right. It's nice and smooth, but it was so tooth enamel erodingly sweet that I could hardly manage three little sips to do this review. This is definitely not one of those foreign foods that has been modified for the Japanese market by reducing the sugar level. Perhaps I'm just not a good candidate for eggnog in general. the truth is that I never drank it in the U.S., nor did I sample it when my husband bought it before. A little research on the internet yields information which says that store-bought eggnog is usually super sweet. I have a feeling this might be good at about 50% of the current sweetness level and with some real rum instead of essence. As it is though, I wouldn't recommend it, especially not for the very high price tag.

If you're in Japan and want some traditional holiday libations, I'd say you'd be a lot better off hunting down a promising recipe and making your own than buying this high-priced eggnog.

Variety Friday: Japanese Krispy Kreme Christmas Donuts

Krispy Kreme all over the world offers special holiday donuts at this time of year. It's interesting to compare the fare in Japan to that in the U.S. in particular because of the notion that Japanese people don't like their sweets as sweet as Americans. Therefore, one would expect that the Japanese specialty donuts would be less elaborate and sugary than the ones back home.

Before I get to the holiday donuts talk, I'd like to mention that my research into the nutritional information of American and Japanese Krispy Kreme donuts turned up a curious bit of information. The original glazed donuts, which one might expect to be exactly the same in both countries, are actually 10% higher in calories in Japan than in the U.S. What is more, the chocolate glazed in the U.S. is 250 calories and the Japanese one 299. My guess is that this is related to fat content since Japanese sweets and baked goods often skimp on the sugar but not the fat.

The Japanese menu offers a donut that trumps any of the American offerings in terms of calories. The Thanksgiving special donut, a chestnut glacé number filled with custard, weighs in at 413 calories whereas the highest American offering are the apple fritter and caramel cream crunch at 380 each. So, even though Japanese versions of treats are less sweet, they aren't necessarily less fattening.

image taken from the Krispy Kreme Japan site

For Christmas, Krispy Kreme Japan is offering up two cranberry donuts. One, the "snow cranberry tea" variety, is filled with jelly and topped with pistachio pieces and dried cranberry fragments. The other, the "holiday cranberry ring", is little more than a plain raised donut with white frosting, sprinkles and a few dried cranberries to simulate the look of a wreath. I opted for the less elaborate cranberry ring to sample as it weighed in at 254 calories while the jelly one came in at a whopping 379 calories!

the "holiday dozen box", which appears to be the only way to get the snowman donuts, and only two of them at that (image taken from the Krispy Kreme site)

In America, they're offering a really enticing looking gingerbread crunch doughnut and snowmen donuts. The snowmen are pictured on the Japanese web site and their nutrition information for both "red" and "green" snowmen are on the .pdf for the Japanese donuts, but my husband couldn't find them for sale at the Shinjuku Krispy Kreme that he occasionally patronizes. If you'd like to see the American donuts, you can check out the web site in the U.S., though the holiday specialty items will vanish by the end of the year so you'll have to have a peak soon before the pictures are taken away.


As for the donut I sampled, it was a good donut, though generally succeeded because the basic yeast-risen donut is tasty on its own. I'll note that I didn't eat it fresh, but rather saved it for the next morning's breakfast and gave it about 12 seconds in the microwave to "wake it up" a bit. The frosting and sprinkles were just right to lightly sweeten it. The bite with the cranberries was really tasty, but just one bite. It would have been nice if this had been topped all over with cranberry fragments like the jelly version, but then it wouldn't look like a wreath.

I'd rather have had a shot at the gingerbread donut that is available in America, but I'm guessing the whole concept seems too sweet for Japan. I've noticed that the Japanese donuts are far more likely to use bits of fruit in them or to at least offer the illusion of fruit than the American ones. Though I do love cranberry, I wasn't going to eat a calorie bomb to get more of it and the donut I bought had very little of it, hence the reason I'd rather have had a chance to sample the gingerbread one.

If anyone in Japan has sampled the "snow cranberry tea" version and has the time to offer their opinion in comments, I'd love to hear them. I can't recommend that people go out of their way to try the one I did, though if you are in the mood for a plain glazed Krispy Kreme donut and want to try something a little different this time around, the "holiday cranberry ring" isn't much further off the mark and is unlikely to disappoint.

Kirin Diabolo Ginger Soda

I have a feeling that a lot of the soft drink industry in Japan is driven by the desire of alcoholic beverage makers to make mixers. Very often when I try something off the beaten path, that means non-cola-based, it is too strong and seems designed to be diluted with something.

I picked up this Diabolo Ginger because the name sounded demonic. I didn't realize that this is actually pretty far away from anything sinister. It's rather sophisticated as the ginger preparation method and origin is in Provence, France (ginger diavolo). This beverage is part of Kirin's "kitchens of the world" promotion. As part of the method for this type of drink in France, sugar is boiled with ginger and honey-pickled lemon. Cinnamon and lemongrass are also used as part of the preparation.

In Japan, the preparation appears to be rather different. They use grapefruit juice and marigold. There is no cinnamon and the lemon has no honey notes. The grapefruit seems to accentuate the ginger flavor a lot. It's extremely strong. It reminds me of the smell I get when I grate fresh ginger root and the juice runs off. It's far too intense to be drunk straight.

The bottle contains 410 ml. of soda and was 147 yen at an AM/PM convenience store. It has plenty of sugar in it. The entire bottle will set you back 148 calories, not that I think most sober people can drink it all at one go. I couldn't get a decent shot of the drink poured into a glass, but it's nothing exciting. It is just cloudy, white liquid which looks like washed out lemonade.

I wouldn't buy this again because it is just too strong and not worth the calories or the cost. It's not that it's bad, really, it just feels a lot like drinking medicine at its current intensity.

Nippon Ham La Pizza Margherita

I have a confession to make. No, I'm not a man. I'm also not really Japanese. And, I'm not a sentient Japanese love doll come to life. This is a confession with a little "c". I like the sort of bad pre-made pizza that you sometimes get in deli and freezer sections. I prefer good pizza, of course, but I have an affinity for any type. That's why you will continue to see the occasional review of such things here.


Since I prefer a good one, I picked up this "La Pizza" brand pizza, by the folks at Nippon Ham when my friend April Marie Claire recommended this line on her blog. She mentioned that you can have a whole pizza for around 600 calories (depending on the type). She also mentioned that they are fresh, and I believe that is true since they have a relatively current expiration date on them and are kept in the refrigerated section instead of the freezer.

I had the choice of several varieties of pizza, including cheese with meat sauce, double bacon, sausage and beef stew. I decided to go for one that didn't have meat because the sausage and ham made in Japan can sometimes taste a bit funky and that's why I'm talking about the margherita one.

The pizza is a lot smaller than the package would lead you to believe. It's 22-23 cm. around (8.6-9 in.), but the package is 30 cm. (11.8 in.) square. The whole pizza has 624 calories if you skip the oily basil sauce packet. You can add in 41 more calories if you add the sauce.


I am trying to limit portions so I only made half of it at once and I cooked it in the toaster oven with a pre-heated tray. That is, I put the empty tray in the toaster oven and get it hot so that the crust is heated up more quickly. One of the problems I have with small Japanese ovens is that the cheese gets overcooked while the crust stays soggy because the heating element is too close to the top of the pizza. I put the basil sauce on one slice and left the other plain to compare the flavor. Because of the way I cut the pizza into 4 slices before cooking it, the cheese slid off onto the tray a bit and the crust stayed soft despite my efforts to crisp it up with a preheated tray.

One thing that I noticed about this pizza as compared to most of the others I've found in Japan is that it has more cheese, though it's still fairly concentrated in the center. It doesn't smell like much other than plain old vague pizza scent. The flavor is excellent though. The cheese is real and actually tastes like good mozzarella. The tomato sauce could be a bit zestier, but it is fine and fills the bill adequately. It's not acidic or too salty. Japanese pizza sauce that is sold in tubes for people to make pizza toast usually is very oily, acidic and tastes odd. This sauce has none of those bad points. The basil sauce, which I was worried would be too much, was excellent and added a very pleasant dimension. I wished I had put it on both slices.

This was a really nice deli pizza. It's by far the best pre-made heat and eat pizza I've had in 20 years in Japan. A big part of that is the cheese, but the basil sauces was also good. The only down side for me was that the crust was soft, but I think that could be fixed by placing the entire pizza directly on the rack rather than putting it on a tray. Unfortunately, I can't do that with mine since I already cut it into 4 slices and the cheese will leak off the edges if I put it on the rack. I add my recommendation to try this pizza to April Marie's. As she says, "it's delish."