Posts Tagged ‘info’

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New Assorted Snack Flavors

June 11, 2009

So 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

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 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'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

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

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

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

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.

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Green Tea Diet Coke

June 11, 2009

Well, this caught me by surprise. I simply went to the store from some milk, and ran across this:

Coca Cola plus Catechin

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.

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Lemon Vinegar KitKats. Finally!

May 24, 2009

It only took a couple weeks to track them down, but I finally found a few bags of the lemon vinegar Kitkats.

Lemon Vinegar KitKat

Lemon Vinegar KitKat

I’d like to get this reviewed, as well as the ten or so flavors of chips that I have yet to get taken care of in the last couple of weeks.

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Cayenne Pepper KitKats and Teriyaki Doritos

May 17, 2009

Another friend of mine, Nickola, went traveling recently, and she also brought me back a region-exculsive flavor of KitKats.

Cayenne Pepper Powder KitKat

Cayenne Pepper Powder KitKat

The brand name is 八幡屋礒五郎 or Yawataya Isogorou which is a temple in Nagano City that has been making a special “Seven Spices” pepper blend since the Edo period. There are many different kinds that they sell, and these KitKats are based on the spiciest (大辛) kind of cayenne pepper powder that they sell. I only have two of these, so I’m going to hold of on eating them until I make a video review.

While shopping today, I found these:

Teriyaki Doritos

Teriyaki Doritos

I tried these right away. They taste like regular plain doritos corn chips with a hint of teriyaki flavor. You can recognize the flavor right away, but it fades once you start chewing, and there’s no real lasting teriyaki flavor or aftertaste. There’s a teriyaki burger pictured on the left, but don’t let that fool you. These don’t taste like a teriyaki burger by any means. There is a certain brand of potato chips that have a “Teriyaki Mayo” flavor, and those taste exactly like a teriyaki burger. These do not. They just taste like corn chips with a hint of teriyaki at the beginning. Kind of surprising, seeing how a lot of Doritos flavors usually load up on the flavor powder to try and force the flavor on you. Good nonetheless.

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The creepiest snacks in Japan.

May 17, 2009

I bought a bag of these curry flavored puffed Cheetos (basically), because the bag is just so damn creepy. Look at this:

*shudder*

*shudder*

Apparently, these are snacks based on the Oriental Instant Curry brand. Curry flavored snacks? Nothing new here. What first caught my eye was this guy:

Albino racist tribal chef?

Albino racist tribal chef?

What is this? It looks like the classic black racist caricature, still easy to find in Japan, with big hooker hoop earrings and, of course, a chef’s hat. As confusing as this is, it’s still not as bad as…

"I'm coming to kill you."

"I'm coming to kill you."

Look at those cold, dead, eyes. He’s looking at you, but not your face. He’s eyeing you up and trying to think of the best way to prepare your flesh in a way that would best compliment his (or the albino chef’s) latest curry recipe. His spoon is ready and waiting, and he’s already drooling at the thought of knocking you out and stuffing you in his giant pot. It’s already simmering and ready for the secret ingredient: YOU!

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New KitKat, Doritos, and Cheetos

May 13, 2009

It seems that the best place to check for up to date info on what new KitKats have gone on sale is Nestle’s nutritional information page. Even if stuff has been on sale with no mention on their homepage, they still add the nutritional facts online.

I was coming back from getting some ice cream, when I decided on a whim to stop into a Family Mart to see if they had some lemon vinegar KitKats. They didn’t, but they had three things I had never seen before instead, and they are:

"Uji" Green Tea

"Uji" Green Tea

This is the same “Uji-macha” flavor that was earlier released in the ripoff combo packs, but apparently you could also just buy these separately if you wanted to only try the green tea flavor. This is the first time I’ve seen these since they’ve apparently been on sale.

Garlic Soy Sauce Cheetos

Garlic Soy Sauce Cheetos

$5 says that these Garlic Soy Sauce Cheetos are guaranteed to give you bad breath. I almost didn’t recognize them, because the Cheetos logo was hidden in the upper left and was hard to see it on the shelves. It says that is uses garlic from Aomori Prefecture, and might have been a special Aomori exclusive, but that’s apparently over and done with, because I just walked into a convenience store in Gunma and found them.

Sweet/Spicy Chili Doritos "stick"

Sweet/Spicy Chili Doritos "stick"

YET ANOTHER new shape for Doritos, and this time, the shape is a “stick”. It’s called Sweet/spicy Chili flavored, but there’s a picture of a taco right there on the bag, so I’m wondering how these compare to the taco Doritos that you can always find here. That will have to wait until tomorrow.

Ugh, these are piling up faster than I can review them.

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Kyuushuu KitKats

May 8, 2009

My friend Jess just got back from spending Golden Week in Hiroshima and Fukuoka, and she brought me back some Kyuushuu-exclusive KitKats!

Yuzu Pepper

Yuzu Pepper

It’s called 柚子こしょう or Yuzu Pepper. This is what all of the the KitKat “gift” boxes look like. You can usually only buy these in souvenir shops.

The inside of the box.

The inside of the box.

Inside, there’s space for 12 “mini”-sized bars.

A yuzu, jalapenos, and some green stuff?

A yuzu, jalapenos, and some green stuff?

I’m not sure what to expect here. When they usually say こしょう (koshou),they’re referring to your standard black pepper, but I don’t see any in the picture there. Is that green stuff a mountain of wasabi? Is it ground up jalapeno (what I assume those peppers are)? Will it taste peppery, spicy, citrusy, all, or none of the above? I look forward to finding out.

It looks like you can buy these region-exclusive flavors from Nestle’s online shop, so I might be ordering one of everything just to try them out. It’s certainly cheaper than running all around Japan.

On an unrelated note, I gave away a bunch of the leftover Pocky the other day, and they all looked really nice when they were lines up on some nice plates.

Can you tell them apart?

Can you tell them apart?

Fancy macro shot

Fancy macro shot

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