Morinaga Hi-Soft Caramel

 こんばんはみんなさん！

Apologies for long time between posts! I've started a new job and catching up with my friends and family whom I've neglected with crazy operations hours for the past few years. Also, I misplaced my camera's memory card and just realized that technology is amazing and I can upload photos from the internal memory with a cord instead. Back to business as usual!

I recently went to Mitsuwa in Edgewater, NJ, and picked up some fun new items! I've have Morinaga caramels in the past but they were fruity. In all honesty, I bought them because I was young and thought the Hamtaro cell phone charm that came as a prize was adorable and of course I needed to collect all 12 of them. In any case, I figured it was time to give a true Morinaga caramel a whirl.

This box is incredible. I know you may be thinking I'm nuts but my other passion is vintage travel anything (posters, luggage, extinct airline memorbilia) and this color scheme and design is EXACTLY on point.

The back of the inner carton is covered in cute sketches of French themed items. How adorable!

There are a dozen little bricks of caramel in the package. I appreciate the actual box and it makes it easy to through in a purse or bag and share with others. The travel palette continues to the wrappers with the simple silver, red and blue. I cannot mention enough what great design this is!

The caramel is chewy and rich. It has a nice sweet milky flavor. I'm no caramel expert but I did like Glico's version a bit better, they were a tad bit softer and easier to chew. I would definately buy these again if Glico's were unavailable or try different varieties.

Meiji Lucky Stick Cappuccino

こんにちは！

My initial foray into Japanese snacks, like most, consisted of your typical Pocky, Ramune soda and Hi-Chew candy assortment. I always viewed Meiji's Lucky Sticks to be a knock off of Glico's Pocky and so I was rarely tempted to try it. My husband actually picked this out on our last Mitsuwa trip. Cappuccino is not usually my flavor of choice but if I'm going to go for a treat I have been hesitant about in the past, why not go all the way?

The box immediately makes me uneasy as it is all in English aside from the katakana below the logo that reads simply "Lucky Stick". The design on the box is pleasant, English aside. It gives a nice view of the treat and a lovely looking cup of cappuccino.

When opening the bag, I was immediately reminded of a coffee shop. This smelled exactly like a store in my local mall that ground coffee fresh for customers and brewed a mean specialty cup of joe. Isn't it weird how a smell can conjure such specific memories?

Anyway, the biscuit itself was relatively flavorless (as most biscuits in products like this tend to be). The chocolate was creamy and tasted sweet and coffee-like. It was actually pretty good quality and filled with flavor. I would like to try some other varieties of Lucky Stick in the future. This particular flavor did not edge out over Pocky but it was surprisingly close!

Kabaya Quattro Choco Biscuit

こんばんは みんさん！

Thank you for dealing with me during this few week delay! I'm in the midst of changing jobs and have been working for 3 weeks straight between the old and new. It's exciting and very scary and a Japanese treat or two have certainly eased the stress meanwhile.

Today we have a treat from my beloved Mitsuwa Marketplace. This was featured on sale on an end cap during my latest sojourn. It was priced at $2.50.

My experience with Kabaya treats have tended to be along the lines of,  "great idea! poor quality!" and so I was equally excited and nervous to try Quattro. The box is not particularly eye-catching but I suppose it is trying to go for a more mature audience.

The box contains 6 individually wrapped biscuits which is a terrible deal and an even worse one when not on sale! However, this sort of excessive packaging always reminds me of why I love Japanese treats and the pride taken in making sure each individual product is presented well to the recipient.

 

The snack is called Quattro as it contain 4 layers. The biscuit supports a white chocolate layer filled with "thick chocolate sauce" topped by a "bitter" chocolate. Fancy! The complete treat is certainly well done if not remarkable. The biscuit is crunchy, the sauce gooey and the remaining chocolate to standards. However, there is nothing so delicious or distinct to set this apart from the many other variations of biscuit and chocolate.

Meiji Suppai Lemon Gum

 おはようございます！

You might be thinking I picked this up because of the Meiji brand name but it's actually a different Meiji than the beloved chocolate company! If your second thought was that the lemon gumballs with faces were incredibly alluring- you would be correct. I picked these up at Mitsuwa for only $.89.

The package claims to be a sour lemon gum ball- and they were not lying. What you see on the package is exactly what you get (though without fun faces). I've never seen gum packaged so nicely! It's a little bit more fun to try a product that is packaged with care.

 

These gumballs were extremely sour. I like sour things, Warheads were my favorite candy as a kid, but these were intense. At first there was a normal level of sour, followed a few seconds later but a burst of almost-had-to-spit-it-out sour which then evened out into a slightly sour and less flavorful chew. I didn't dislike these but I don't think I would purchase them with any frequency. If you love sour candies than you will be very satisfied!

Kabaya Delicia Chocolate Strawberry Biscuit

 こんばんは！

There seems to be a great variety of chocolate-with-biscuit styled Japanese treats. I have tried a few in the past and I am bound to try some more. The idea is great- similar treats a la "Le Petit Ecolier" are extremely delicious. I believe it was my husband who snuck this particular chocolate-with-biscuit snack into our basket at Mitsuwa.

The packaging design is pleasant if uneventful. I'm sure the feel of the words are lost in translation but the biscuits claim to be a dichotomy of "airy and thick". 

 

While there are not a lot of treats in the box (8 to be exact) this style of packaging is my favorite. I am fully convinced that good packaging predisposes me to enjoying the product. The box opens to reveal a small bit of text about the biscuits and the individually wraps treats inside.

 

I love this shot...the actual treat compared to those great diagrams the Japanese seem to put on nearly every snack. The top layer is milk chocolate followed by a strawberry sauce infused whipped cream chocolate. The biscuit is, of course, a biscuit.

The whole treat was surprisingly good! While I usually don't prefer white chocolate, the "whipped cream chocolate" had a delicious vanilla and cream flavor. The biscuit was hearty and sweet and kept up well with the heavy chocolate. I almost appreciated the parts over the whole but everything combined well. While I have not seen other Delicia flavors, I would consider buying these again in the future.

Glico Strawberry & Choco Pakitz

 こんばんは！

Today we have a Glico product called Pakitz and this particular flavor is a combo of strawberry and chocolate. I have enjoyed Glico products in the past (they are the masterminds behind the ever-popular Pocky line of products) and so I figured I have nothing to lose in this fancy looking chocolate bar. I picked this up at Mituswa for $2.29.

The packaging is the quality I have come to expect from Japanese treats. The bar is wrapped in foil and placed inside a cardboard box. Despite the shipping, it has come into my possession in perfect condition- no cracks or breaking. The box does not have super exciting graphics but it is colorful and happy enough!

 

There are two packs of Pakitz inside the box which is great. The bar is pretty big and I don't have to worry about the other half going stale if I do not get to it right away.

 

Pakitz are...odd. The idea of the product is chocolate with krispies inside of a wafer. The downfall is that the chocolate does not stick to the wafer in the least. The wafer feels more like a mold with chocolate inside and not a part of the bar as a whole. The wafer was flavorless and not a great textural addition. The chocolate itself was just passable. The fake strawberry flavor was very intense and unlike the pleasent creamy strawberry flavor of the ice cream variety. I would not venture into the other varieties of Pakitz, however my love for Glico is still strong.

Meiji Black Chocolate

こんにちは！

I am a big fan of both Meiji and dark chocolate so I've been eying Meiji's Black Chocolate for quite some time. At $2.49 a bar, I kept passing it over but I finally decided to give it a whirl. I purchased this on my last trip to Mitsuwa in Edgewater, NJ.

The wrapping design is simple and appealing. It makes the chocolate seem adult (which is typical of dark chocolate products I suppose!). I will admit the simple paper and foil package itself is more reminiscent of American products that the typical over-packaged Japanese ones. I've come to appreciate the Japanese style packaging so I'm a bit disappointed!

 

I find it hard to describe chocolate as the nuances mean very specific things like when tasting wine. I'll do my best! Meiji's Black Chocolate is a low percentage dark chocolate. It has slightly bitter note but it is also very sweet, even sweeter than Hershey's Special Dark. The texture is waxy and smooth. It's not terrible dark chocolate but it is by no means impressive. This is probably the first Meiji brand snack I have not been head over heels about. Based on my past Meiji purchases, I will continue to try their products but I will probably not pick this one up again.