Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
More “drink” snacks: Ramune KitKats
June 17, 2009It looks like KitKats are also getting in on the “snacks that taste like popular drinks” bandwagon. Their drink of choice? Ramune.
Ramune KitKat
The artwork on the bag suggests that these are the special flavor for Tanabata, but I don’t really see the connection. If memory serves me correctly, the Tanabata flavors for last year and the year before that were both banana, so yeah, I have no idea. I’m guess that it’s just because it’s being released around the same time.
As shown on the bag, the KitKats themselves are light blue. They have kind of a strange smell to them. A friend of mine said that they smelled like “erasers”. Luckily, they don’t taste like erasers, but pretty much like Ramune. Unfortunately, they taste more like Ramune candy than they do the actual drink. The chocolate itself tastes a little bit like Ramune, but it’s not very pronounced. They unfortunately didn’t mimic the carbonation effects from the cola caramel corn snacks.
The real flavor comes from a powder that they mixed in with the cream that’s inside of each stick. They mention that it’s supposed to be “bubbly” and taste carbonated, but it really just tastes like they crushed up the Ramune candies and mix those in with whatever cream they put inside. It doesn’t really mix well with the rest of the KitKat. That’s not to say that it’s bad, but you just end up noticing the two flavors separate from each other. At first, you taste the outer chocolate, and then, after chewing for a while, you taste the candy/powder but it’s as if you just put some of the candy in your mouth and not like a “ramune KitKat”.
If the cola Caramel Corn hadn’t beaten them to the punch, I might have been more impressed with these. I don’t feel that the powder was necessary, because it just tastes like you’re eating two separate things rather than one well put together one.
Snacks that taste like drinks.
June 17, 2009There’s a snack in Japan called, simply, “Caramel Corn”, and it’s a cross between actual caramel corn and a cheeto. It’s cheeto-shaped, but is very light and crispy. The normal flavor is, of course, caramel, but there’s always new flavors coming out. There are two special flavors that just came out for the summer: Vanilla Shake and Cola.
Vanilla Shake and Cola
The vanilla shake ones taste like a vanilla version of the caramel corn, and that’s very good. I remember the vanilla bean KitKats being one of my all-time favorites. It has a hint of the standard Japanese “milk” flavor in there, but not enough to make it tase much like a shake. It’s fine as it is as a vanilla-flavored snack.
The cola ones are a bit more interesting. They have a powder on them that instantly dissolves as soon as it touches your tongue, and it does a really good job of replicating the feeling of carbonated drinks as you drink them. I’ve given samples to a whole bunch of people over the past couple of days, and every single one of them has had the same “Whoah!” surprised reaction upon tasting them, myself included. The flavor is also pretty spot on. If I had to choose, I would say that it tastes close to Coca-Cola if you were to get it from a fountain machine. The flavor itself is very sweet and, combined with the carbonated effect, does a really good job of tasting like cola. This is something I didn’t expect from a “dry” snack.
New Cheetos, Pringles, and Koalas
June 14, 2009
Spicy Salami and Cheese Cheetos
Unlike the BBQ/Chili Cheetos Combos, these I just found in a regular convenience store right next to:
Cheetos mix: Wild Cheese
The full name is “Chester Cheetah’s Cheetos mix”. It looks to be a combination of regular Cheetos sticks and those shaped like paws. I’m pretty sure this is the first time they’ve used Chester Cheetah in Japan. On the bag, they have a little biography in which they state that his birth date is February 2nd, 1986. The starburst says that these are “Wild Cheese” flavored, and the text above Chester says that they use red pepper to spice things up. If I hadn’t been disappointed so much in the past, I might still cling to some hope that these will taste like Red Hot Cheetos.
Beef Kebab Pringles
These Pringles are based off of the, apparently, Turkish beef kebabs. There are small shops and trucks that sell these all around Tokyo and throughout Japan as well. Imagine slices of beef, lettuce, tomato, and some sweet sauce in something close to a pita, and that’s what these things are in real life. You might hear “kebab” and expect pieces of meet on a skewer, but that’s not what these are.
Milk Pudding Koala's March
Lastly, are the new Milk Pudding Koala’s March. These taste milky and somewhat creamy, but I didn’t taste anything resembling “pudding” and the texture did lend anythign to that area. They are still yummy without it.
New Assorted Snack Flavors
June 11, 2009So there’s always new and exciting products being released, and I’ll try and list of a couple that caught my eye recently.
Soft packs of Pretz
Here we have three flavors of Pretz: Purple Potato, Tomato, and Asparagus. While these have been around since last fall, I still think they deserve some recognition. These are also the only flavors I have seen in these “soft” packages.
Hai Chu display
“Hai Chuu” is a pretty popular snack similar to taffy. They just started releasing a bunch of flavors under the “World Fruits” banner. In the above picture, you can see the new “Dragon Fruit” and “Blood Orange” flavors.
Koala's March
“Koala no March”, known as Koala Yummies in the U.S., just came out with these two flavors: Strawberry & Milk (with honey) and Banana Crepe.
Almond Pocky
The new Almond Pocky seems to put the almond flavor in the cream itself rather than sprinkle the real thing all over it like the Crush Almond Pocky did.
Mitsuya Cider Zero
I always tell people that Mitsuya Cider is a much cheaper, more available, and usually better tasting alternative to Ramune. Now, there’s a zero calorie version of it as well. It certainly does taste like a diet drink. It still kind of taste like the regular version, but, as you would expect, it’s not as sweet, and there’s a strange aftertaste that you don’t get with the regular stuff.
Baby Star Gyouza Chips
I like Baby Star, and I like gyouza, so this seemed like a sure thing. The chips themselves are like little wafers that are like the kind you’d get if you were a Christian and took communion at church. Unless those, these smell exactly like gyouza. Unfortunately, that’s their strongest point. They don’t really taste as accurately as I had hoped and they do have kind of a strange “cardboard-y” taste that lingers as well.
Teriyaki Chicken Pizza-La Doritos
Finally, there’s a new flavor of the long-running “Pizza-La” Doritos: Teriyaki Chicken. I’ll be doing a video review for these, and I hope that they taste better than the recent regular Teriyaki Doritos.
Green Tea Diet Coke
June 11, 2009Well, this caught me by surprise. I simply went to the store from some milk, and ran across this:
Coca Cola plus Catechin
I would guess that the full name is “No Calorie Coca-Cola plus Catechin”. What’s catechin? According to Wikipedia:
Catechins are polyphenolic antioxidant plant metabolites.
and
Catechins constitute about 25% of the dry weight of fresh tea leaf, although total catechin content varies widely depending on clonal variation, growing location, seasonal/ light variation, and altitude. They are present in nearly all teas made from Camellia sinensis, including white tea, green tea, black tea and Oolong tea.
When I first took a sip, I didn’t taste anything particularly special, but it was not as chilled as it could have been, so I put it back in the fridge for a bit. During the second tasting, I still didn’t taste anything close to green tea, so for those who are waiting for a diet carbonated green tea drink, you still have some waiting to do. On the plus side, it didn’t have the normal Diet Coke aftertaste that I’ve come to expect, and not even the kind that’s in Coke Zero. So, while it’s not as sweet as regular Coke, it taste better than the diet varieties, but if there’s anything related to green tea in here, I really can’t taste it.
Yuzu Pepper KitKat review
June 10, 2009Remember when I showed you those special Yuzu Pepper KitKats from Kyuushuu? Well I just got around to uploading the video review last night. Here it is:
They tasted like citrus with a hint of pepper flavoring. They weren’t spicy at all, but the pepper tasted surprisingly good when combined with the citrus flavor of a yuzu.
Finishing up those Pocky videos
June 10, 2009Oops. It looks like I forgot to post my last two Pocky videos after I uploaded them, so here they are:
Dessert Pocky:
If you’d like to know which ones I personally thought were the best, then you can check out this short “wrap up” as well:
Mountain Dew Max Air 3
May 25, 2009What good timing. I was starting to get jealous of everyone back in the U.S., because I’ve heard nothing but good things about Pepsi and Mountain Dew Throwback. I’m also interested in how Pepsi Natural tastes. Things were looking pretty lonely on the drink front. NOT ANYMORE!
Max Air 3
For the third year in a row, there’s a new Mountain Dew “Max Air”. The first one tasted like Mountain Dew, but a little more “crisp”. Max Air 2 was so “crisp”, that it pretty much lost its flavor. You can watch my video review of Max Air 2 here.
As for Max Air 3, it definately has its flavor back. It’s been too long for me to remember what the first Max Air tasted like, but this seems like regular Mountain Dew to me. It doesn’t seem as carbinated as Max Air 2 was, which is what I felt its main problem was. When I make a video, I’ll compare it to the regular Mountain Dew that you can still find in vending machines, and see which tastes better.
The gang's all here.
In anything else, you can bet that there will be a Max Air 4 coming out around this time next year. Pity I won’t be in Japan to get some right away.
Marathon eating session: complete.
May 24, 2009*Whew*
I just got finished filming video reviews for everything I still needed to do, so I have lots of things to keep me busy with this week. In the meantime, here are some short little reviews to keep you satisfied until the videos go up:
Lots of eating going on.
KitKat:
Yuzu Pepper – Tastes like dark chocolate and citrus with a pleasant pepper aftertaste.
Cayenne Pepper – Very little flavor and almost no spice. Disappointing.
Uji Green Tea – “Green Tea Light”. Less bitter than previous versions.
Apple Vinegar – Read about it here.
Lemon Vinegar – Didn’t taste the vinegar. Not too different from other lemon versions.
Kinako – Tastes like peanut butter.
Cheetos:
BBQ/Chili Sauce Combo – Like the standard BBQ ones with a little extra spice.
Garlic Soy Sauce – Pleasant garlic taste with salt added in.
Yokohama Shuumai – Very odd and hard to describe, but interesting and tasty nonetheless.
Doritos:
Men’s Chili – Not much flavor but very spicy as you keep eating them.
Men’s 7-spices – VERY GOOD! A fantastic blend.
Stick (Taco sauce) – Secretly Fritos. Nice flavor though.
Teriyaki – Good flavor, but it fades almost immediately. There are better teriyaki alternatives.
