Posts Tagged ‘kitkat’

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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.

Posted in General Info, New Releases, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

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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.

Posted in General Info, New Releases | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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Apple Vinegar KitKats are Here

May 12, 2009

I was mistaken in my earlier post about the apple and lemon vinegar KitKats when I said they were coming out last week. It was stated clearly that they went on sale on the 11th. I haven’t been able to find the lemon vinegar ones yet, but I did get some apple ones today.

Apple Vinegar

Apple Vinegar

I was expecting these to be really sour, just because of the vinegar in the name, but that, surprisingly, wasn’t the case. They pretty much smell the same as the Nagano apple KitKats, but the scent isn’t as strong.Thankfully, they also pretty much taste the same as the Nagano apple KitKats. There was a slight sourness to the taste, obviously the vinegar part of the flavor, but it certainly didn’t taste like vinegar. In fact, my first reaction was that this tasted more like a green apple than the red apple on the front of the box, and if they had called it that, I’m sure they would meet expectations without having to change a thing.

The whole package.

The whole package.

I have to say that I’m relieved and disappointed at the same time. I’m glad that there wasn’t a horrible kick of vingary sourness, but at the same time, I’m left feeling that this is little more than just another apple KitKat. Expectations were low for these, so naturally, I’m pleased with the results. Maybe I’m just offput by the mere mention of vinegar thanks to having had the pleasure of tasting some of the many “healthy” vinegar drinks they have here in Japan. Either way, I’m sure they would have a hard time marketing these is the west as they are now, but, like I said earlier, they could easily get away with calling these “Granny Smith Apple KitKats” and avoid the whole “Ewww, vinegar?” kneejerk reaction I’m sure lots of people have had.

Also, for those wondering where the video review is, don’t worry, I haven’t stopped doing them. It’s just much easier to take a bite and write this up, especially when I’ve been busy lately. I’ll still work to keep the videos up to date, even if it means that I’ll be eating and reviewing everything twice and repeating myself. Some people just don’t like to read and vice versa.

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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

Posted in General Info | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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Three kinds of Pocky and Men’s Pocky review

May 8, 2009

Here’s the first of the Pocky reviews. I started off simple with three variations of the basic chocolate flavor as well as the dark choclate “Men’s Pocky”.

The next review will focus on the two strawberry flavors.

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Vinegar KitKats on their way

May 3, 2009

Nestle’s Japanese site just listed two new flavors of KitKats that should be in stores tomorrow or Tuesday: Apple Vinegar and Lemon Vinegar. It looks like the apple will be in the standard four bar packs and the lemon will only be available as minis.

While vinegar anything doesn’t sound like a good idea for a flavor, this still is some good news. Checking the page for the lemon vinegar shows that the bag will only contain that flavor and not the crappy milk chocolate combo bags that have been coming out for the past couple weeks. Let’s hope it stays this way.

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Hit the ground running.

May 3, 2009

Welcome to the official blog of JT’s J-Treats! Recently, I’ve wanted something more permanent on the web compared to just a bunch of Youtube videos, and it always helps to have stuff in writing, so here we are! This should hopefully lessen the stress of having to put together a new video every time I find something new just to get the word out, so, without further ado…

I haven’t put up a new video in a while, and, of course, a bunch of new stuff has come out since, and they are:

tea/choco combo kitkat

Green Tea and Chocolate

A new kind of green tea KitKats came out last week, and a disturbing trend has also appeared. Like the “Choco and Rose” bags before them, these green tea “Assort packs” are kind of a rip-off in that less than half of the KitKats inside are of the new flavor. In this case, you get nine regular milk chocolate ones and only four of the new green tea ones.  Up until last month, you the entire bag would be filled with the new flavor, and I hope things don’t continue like this. Moving on…

Kinako "Bar"

Kinako "Bar"

In Japan, the “Big Kat” is known simply as the “KitKat Bar”, and, up until now, they only came in regular milk chocolate. This one is “Kinako” flavored which is a powder made from soybeans. I normally see “kinako bread” in a lot of bakeries, which is just a roll of some sorts covered in this kinako powder. There was already a kinako version of the regular KitKats, and you can get special “Bitter Kinako” KitKats that are only sold in Tokyo souvenier shops.

The newest "Men's hard-fried" Doritos

The newest "Men's hard-fried" Doritos

Two new kinds of “Men’s hard-fried” Doritos have also popped up. The red bag on the left is “Spicy Chili” and the bag on the right is “Black Pepper and Spice”. It also proudly proclaims that there are seven different spices in addition to the black pepper. These are a little bit thicker than regular Doritos, and therefore, they have a bit more crunch in them as well.

Yokohama Shuumai Cheetos

Yokohama Shuumai Cheetos

Shu Mai flavored Cheetos also came out sometime last week. I wasn’t aware that Yokohama was known for it’s Chinese dumplings, but I’m sure Tim did.

BBQ and Chili Sauce Combo Cheetos

BBQ and Chili Sauce Combo Cheetos

They’ve thrown “chili sauce” flavored Cheetos in with standard BBQ ones to make these new “Cheetos Combo” ones. They’ve been out for a couple weeks, but it seems that you can’t buy them in any store, at least none that I’ve been to. For now, it seems that these can only be won at arcades via UFO Catchers or whatever other machines they have. You can me see winning a bag here:

This machine had you shoot the paper holding the bags up with pellets. You get five shots for 100yen. Apparently, I only needed one. =)

Posted in General Info, New Releases | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

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