Milk Chocolate Salty Pocky

 こんにちは！

I apologize for the slightly slower updates the past couple of weeks...I've had quite a bit of hours at my real world job. The excessive hours should be ending this week and so I will update regularly- thank you for your patience!

Though I am a fan of Pocky, I find I don't purchase it that often as there are so many other interesting snacks out there.  I picked this variety up at Mitsuwa for $1.99 due to the fact I enjoy salt with chocolate. On a side note, my first review ever was a pumpkin flavored Pocky. Since it's quickly becoming autumn, I am hoping to find that particular option on the shelves soon. It's really a delicious flavor!

I love most Pocky packaging. The colors are vibrant and eye catching. This blue box practically yells at you from the shelf.

 

I don't know how I feel about their new slogan "Stick to fun!". I guess it's because it is sort of awkward and I don't know what they mean exactly. Is it "stick to fun!" like "you should stick to having a good time, because a bad time is not fun!"?

 

It looks much like your average milk chocolate Pocky but if you look closely you can see small granules of salt. I did not actually taste much salt when I tried it. It's there, but very very subtle. I do not think I would purchase this over your regular flavored Pockys since the salt did not add much to the experience. Now, putting sea salt on Men's Pocky (dark chocolate) would be incredible!

Morinaga Hichew American Cherry

 こんばんはみんなさん！

Today I will review my first Morinaga Hichew! Hichew seems to be a pretty common Japanese candy but for some reason I have never gotten around to trying it. I picked these up for a very reasonable $.99 at the check out counter of Asian Food Market. I'll admit I was curious simply because it was some sort of American flavor.

This treat seems to be in a series of "world fruits". The packaging has a dated postcard looking picture of New York City on it. What makes me curious is why an American cherry flavor has a picture of New York City on it! Being in the shadow of the city, I am fairly certain there are no cherries grown there. I am also fairly certain there are no cherries grown on the east coast. In any case, I actually really like the packaging and it was originally what drew my eye when I spyed it on the shelf.

 

Having never had a Hichew, I naturally assumed I would be consuming a chewy candy. Well guess what folks...I was right! The texture is plasti-cy and takes quite a while to chew. I would compare it to a slightly softer Laffy Taffy.  It was very sweet but had a slight sour note as well which helped with the balance of flavors. I'm not a huge chewy candy fan and I would rate this as a mediocre treat. It's fair enough if your like that sort of thing but I don't think it is much better or worse than other Japanese and American chewy candies.

One Piece Hello Kitty Gum & Magnet

I have a real treat for you all today! When I see something really odd, I get very excited and this Japanese snack was the perfect quirky treat. I picked this up at Mitsuwa for $3.49 which is a little more money than I usually like to pay.

I'm sure everyone is familiar with Hello Kitty. I don't think you have to be a huge anime fan to know One Piece either. Now, combine them and stick them on magnets and VOILA! I'm not sure exactly why this product exists but, honestly, who cares! It's adorable and fun.

 

I love the packaging. It;'s colorful and full of promises of what may be inside. This sort of package is exactly the type that draws my attention on a crowded store shelf.

 

There are apparently 12 different magnet designs and there are 2 randomly assorted sheets in each box. The first one I pulled out is mostly pink and has 4 magnets. One Piece is not an anime I am familiar with so excuse me while I call the one character AntlerGuy. AntlerGuy and Hello Kitty are chilling with their respective skull and cross bones logos.

 

The second is primarily red and has 5 separate magnets. AntlerGuy and Hello Kitty are waving awkward positions. There is an odd assortment of auxiliary magnets including test tubes, a doubloon and a black bag. The magnets are really good quality! They are thick and stick strongly to the fridge.

I've come to not expect much out of these gum and collectible prize combo packs. The gum in this pack continued the trend. It is strawberry flavored and coated in a candy shell. The flavor is not bad it but lasts for about 5 seconds.

Glico Caramel Soft Candy

こんにちは！

If you have read a few of my blog posts, you may be able to tell why I picked this Japanese snack out. I could tell you that it's the first candy that Glico, popular mostly for their Pocky products, made or I could simply say I was in an Olympic-inspired mood. However, those are blatantly incorrect...I really wanted to see what cute little wooden toy I would get. Can you really blame me? Not only is there the promise of a prize, it's WOOD...not a cheap little plastic top.

Look at all of the possibilities! And yet...I got the lamest of them. My little prize box contained a "face puzzle". I can't even really figure out what to do with the 4 wood squares. I understand the eyes but not the triangles.

 

Despite the let down, there are other interesting things about this snack. According to a little research...Mr. Riichi Ezaki was inspired by a seaside town whose children seemed very fit due the the large amount of oysters in their diet. By adding glycogen from oysters, he aimed to create a healthier treat.

  

(Under ingredients it lists "oyster extract")

 

There are only four individually wrapped caramels in the second box but I wasn't really buying it for the candy itself. The caramels are rich and chewy and have a sort of citrus note to them. I really enjoyed them! Don't worry, there are no oyster notes. The whole box was $2.99 and 64kcals. All in all, I would purchase these again. They appear to have different prizes occasionally and I will happily try again for something less lame.

Sanko Cheese Kibun Senbei

 こんばんはみんなさん！

I've finally gotten enough willpower mustered to try another senbei. Senbei are Japanese rice crackers that are, in my opinion, very plastic-y and flavorless. You can see my review of Befco's Bakauke cheese senbei here.

I don't exactly know what prompted me to purchase these Sanko senbei...fate, perhaps? I found them for $3.69 at Asian Food Market. They really are very good for you for a salty snack food....only 35 kcals for a pack of 2!

Now the name gets me...I'm absolutely NOT fluent in Japanese despite my years of study in college but by my calculations kibun means mood or feeling. I can only assume this product should be translated as Sanko's "cheese feeling" flavored senbei. Awesome.

 

They are packaged quite well, a couple of individual senbei were cracked but not many.

 

Now on to the taste...I don't know that I've completely overcome my distaste for senbei but these were not bad! The texture was crunchier than Befco's senbei but thinner, which resulted in a more satisfying chip-like feel (kibun maybe?). The cheese was your typical fake cheese flavor but not terrible. I'm not sure I'd purchase a whole bag again but these will certainly be a valid replacement for other salty snacks until they run out.

Amehama Soft Green Tea Candy

 おはよう！

In addition to Japanese treats and confections, I am a huge fan of tea. I take up way more shelving in my kitchen than I should for tea, mugs, mesh tea balls and whatnot. I must have had green tea flavored treats in the past...it is a pretty common flavor in Japanese chocolates and sweets,  but I cannot recall any specifics. I decided to spend a little bit more ($3.49) at Asian Food Market for a bag of soft green tea candies.

Matcha (it would be spelled maccha if you translated it exactly, but I often see it spelled matcha in English) is a very fine, high quality powdered green tea. If you drink a matcha, you mix a small amount of the powder directly into the hot water. The kanji on the front of this bag says that the flavor is matcha, not just a normal green tea flavor.

 

I love how the Japanese use diagrams to explain their candies....the outside is described as matcha powder and the inside a matcha milk candy.

The candies come individually wrapped and sport the kanji for matcha as well as "soft" spelled out in katakana.

The candy is much as described in the diagram. The outside is the bitter raw matcha and the inside is a slightly sweet chewy candy. I liked the candy, though I'm not sure that I loved it. I like green tea and this candy tasted just like it. The problem I suppose is I can't figure out the appropriate time to consume this candy. It's not sweet enough to dampen your sweet tooth...it's tasty but not satisfying.

Meiji Pokemon Chocolate

こんにちは！

I like Pokemon...I know, I know, I'm a professional young woman but I was raised right and I played Pokemon Red for more hours than I should have. I lost interest, however, and did not pick the games back up until Diamond. I've always had a soft spot for candy and snacks that feature the characters and it's not so difficult to figure out why I picked this up during my last Mitsuwa trip. That, and it was only $.69....and it's made by Meiji.

The chocolate is tiny, maybe 2 inches long and 1 inch wide. It's perfect for that chocolate craving when you don't want to be tempted to indulge too much. The packaging is bright and fun and features Tepig and Axew. I had to look up the latter Pokemon...it seems rather obscure to feature on the chocolate.

 

Even the back is cute with Pikachu popping up!

Tepig was featured on my particular chocolate but I'm lead to believe there are 7 different characters possibilities by the text on the front. The image is very clear and well molded! The chocolate was good quality. It met my expectations as a Meiji brand product. I'm not a huge milk chocolate fan (I prefer dark!) but this was a fun little treat.