Lotte Crunky Chocolate Bar

こんにちは！

I admit it- I bought this chocolate bar for the name! How could I not? Crunky just SOUNDS like crunchy + funky. Any chocolate bar with that sort of sound has a good shot at being weird or delicious.

(I see a lot of sweets with the term "sakusaku" on it-it means crispy)

I find chocolate bars from Japan to be very very expensive. This one was $2.49 at Mitsuwa while some Meiji brand bars were as much as $3.99. Crazy! On a side note, Lotte is actually a Korean company but this bar was made in Japan.

Crunky looked to me to be the Lotte equivalent of a Crunchy (similarity?) bar. I'm not into Crunchy bars so much but I figured this was worth a chance.

The bar is packaged beautifully. It is sealed in foil and placed inside a nice little box. Maybe that why they are so much more expensive than America's little plastic and minimal foil wrapped sweets.

The bar is milk chocolate and chocked full of malted rice puffs. The size and placement of the puffs are different than a Crunchy bar. They are a lot smaller and there are a lot more crammed into the bar. I enjoyed this much more than the Crunchy bar as well. The texture was crispier and the chocolate tasted a bit richer. While still not my favorite chocolate concept, the quality of Crunky is high and I would suggest giving it a go.

Shigekix Gummy Cola Candy

こんにちは！

I hope it's as beautiful of a spring day for you that it is here! It's the perfect day for some Japanese treats...but since I'm attempting to consume less sugar on the whole I picked my little pack of gummies rather than the awesome looking chocolate bar I have stashed for a future post. Next time!

I picked these up at Mitsuwa without analyzing the package too much. I knew it was cola flavored and cheap ($1.29) , but that's about it.

(Shige is one of the most unimaginative looking characters ever....what is he?)

The pirate-looking brown blob character is Shige. I was hoping Shige had a little medallion prize in every package like the ones shown on the back, but such is not the case. I'm pretty awful with kanji, and not getting any better since Spanish is slowing replacing Japanese as a second language in my head (darn you life, getting in the way of my interests), so I was unable to decode what the deal was with the medallions. I'm assuming it's a contest or collectable program. I really, really wanted a little medallion though...

Moving on! There are about 30 interestingly shaped candies in the package. Right off the bat, I knew I was wrong about this product. I assumed it was going to taste like the cola ramune but it was actually very sour. I didn't see "sour" advertised on the packaging anywhere so it took me by surprise. The gummies were tough to chew and one was enough. This candy wasn't my thing, if you are a sour gummy fan I'm sure you would enjoy them. Shige won't be making his way into my Japanese treats collection again.

Anpanman Peach Lollipop

こんにちは！

Anpanman is a super popular series of children's characters in Japan. I've seen Anpanman EVERYTHING...pastries, cookies, chocolate, etc. It's inevitable that through my journey of Japanese treats, I will encounter many Anpanman themed items. Today I tried one of them- an Anpanman peach lollipop.

Again, Japanese packaging is great. American individually sold lollipops (Blowpops, dum dums) are not nearly as fun to buy and open. Packaging aside, at about $.80, it was a nice little addition to my Mitsuwa shopping trip. This particular package has a character named Dokin-chan on it. I'm assuming there were other varieties, but I grabbed this quickly without taking too much stock of the flavors.

The pop itself has Anpanman's face on it. It may be a little hard to see in the photo, but it's actually really noticeable. The flavor was surprisingly good for a cheap kid's lollipop. I'm not usually into this kind of candy (It's either chocolate or swedish fish for me!) but I enjoyed this. Of course it was sweet, but the peach flavor wasn't crazy overpowering like sometimes peach flavored things can be.

For the price, novelty and taste, I'd actually consider trying the other flavors if they are still around at my next Mitsuwa sojourn.

Hokkaido Milk Soft Candy

こんばんは！

This week I tried one of my purchases from Disney's Epcot's Mitsukoshi. I didn't really know what to expect from this product and really, I don't even know WHY I picked it up. Maybe it was the cow.

This product mentions Hokkaido...I don't know if it's actually from there but to the best of my knowledge, that region is known for farming so perhaps there is some correlation there. All sorts of yummy things are mentioned on the front including cream and butter. In English, it talks about how there is calcium and that it is healthy. Do not be fooled, my friends, for the nutrition facts inform me that there is only 1% of the daily requirement of calcium in one candy.

This bag cost me $3.99 and there are about 10 candies inside. Not great, deal-wise but now we get into the best part- the candy itself. Man oh man did this unassuming white blob surprise me. It's DELICIOUS. It's soft and chewy and tastes just like sweet cream with a little bit of butter richness. I've never, ever had a candy like this and can't equate it to any American candy I've had. I could eat, like, the whole bag, but in the interest of calories, I'll hold off (26ish for each candy).

If this is what I get for picking up rather boring looking, random products then I better do it more often.

Kasugai Strawberry & Yogurt Ramune Candy

こんにちは！

Sitting around the apartment with a fever today...and it was not made better by Kasugai's Ramune Strawberry & Yogurt candies. I don't know what it is but if it's related to ramune I'm bound to think it mediocre at best and disgusting at worst.

I picked these up at Mitsukoshi in Disney's Epcot for $1.29. Not a bad price considering most stuff at Asian Food Market/Mitsuwa is $1.99 minimum, even for a small pack of candy. Mitsukoshi definitely has things I don't see elsewhere...I've never seen these candies up North.

There's about 30 little candies in the bag and they are either strawberry or yogurt (pink or white). Rereading this I see I'm complaining a lot today (maybe it's the fever?) but I typically haven't had luck with asian yogurt "flavored" things. Yogurt by itself it weird and tangy and we tend to add flavor to it to make it less...itself. Why would you want just a candy that is just yogurt flavored? I see it a lot, though, in Japanese treats.

The candies dissolve in your mouth instantly, sort of like the Coris Whistle Ramune candies, into a chalky powder. If that isn't appealing enough, the super fake/chemically tasting flavors will get you next. I surprisingly thought the yogurt flavor a hair more palatable but they were honestly kind of gross.

I know I have another ramune related candy from Mitsuwa in my collection...I may avoid it for a while.

Misuzu Castella Cakes

こんにちは！

I love pastries. They are really one of my favorite things on the planet. If I could eat muffins, cakes, cinnamon buns, etc everyday I would be the happiest person alive...and probably very overweight...and have diabetes. My soft spot for these sort of things found me drooling over these very cool looking individually packaged doughnuts at Mitsuwa. I've NEVER seen them there or in Asian Food Market before and I was immediately smitten. They had retro font packaging and were..I'd sat about 3 inches in diameter. They were also about $6 for only a few doughnuts...and so I found these small (though not round) mini-cakes for $3.49. Yay!

This is like the best of many worlds, my friends. I've already described my enchantment with Japanese pastries in general. These are also small, adorable, and a great pastry to have with some tea/coffee without being high in calories or fat.

There are 4 servings in the pack with amounts to 5/6 cakes per serving. In total it's only 118 kcals! Cool!

The mini cakes are about 1.5 inches in diameter...so about a bite or two each. The cake is sweet and a little spongey and it covered by a nice crunchy layer of sprinkled sugar. They tasted very fresh despite being imported and consumed over the period of a week. I figured this would mean they are chocked full of preservatives (like Entamen's cakes) but the ingredient list is very short and there's not really anything crazy on it.

These are great...one day I may suck it up and buy the expensive doughnuts but for the price, these were a fantastic discovery.

Puccho Apple Cider Candy

こんにちは　みんなさん！

Today I tried one of the many Puccho candy varieties. I've never had one before but there are a ton of flavors. This was an impulse buy from my last sojourn to Asian Food Market. It was $2.29 for the package which contains 10 candies.

There are a lot of bubbles on the package...I don't really know why since apple cider nor chewey candies have bubbles.

The side displays what one should expect of the candy. The main white chewey part is apple cider soft candy, the white pieces are "shuwashuwa kishiritsubu" (I honestly don't know what it's trying to say but I think these were the sour pieces), and the red pieces are just apple gummies.

Despite the fact they are well within the expiration, the "soft gummy" was a bit hard. It took some persistence to chew but it was pretty tasty overall. It was both really sour and really sweet but balanced. I don't know that I would be able to tell any difference between this and just plain apple flavoring though! I may try some of the others eventually...but I still feel like this is more expensive than I wish to pay for a candy.