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.