Posts Tagged ‘Reviews’

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Snacks that taste like drinks.

June 17, 2009

There’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.

caramel_corn

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.

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New Cheetos, Pringles, and Koalas

June 14, 2009
Spicy Salami and Cheese Cheetos

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

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

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

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.

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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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Neon Genesis Evangelion Snacks

June 11, 2009

So the newest Evangelion movie is scheduled to be released later this month, so to celebrate, they’ve released all kinds of products with Eva characters slapped all over it. Two years ago, for example, you could get special cans of UCC coffee:

Eva coffee (missing: Rei)

Eva coffee (missing: Rei)

This time around, you can also get 500ml bottles of coffee, and they come with little cell phone straps as well. They also released some Eva-themed snacks.

Garlic Ramen Snack

Garlic Ramen Snack

First up, there’s the “Garlic Ramen Snack”. These just look like they repackaged a standard snack similar to Baby Star, possibly gave it a new flavor, and stuck Rei on the bag. I do like how Unit 00 seems to be wading through a giant pool of the stuff though. I was more interested in these:

AT Field Snack

AT Field Snack

Here we have the “AT Field Snacks”. There’s no indication on what flavor they are on the front, but I just like how they’re kinda shaped like little AT Fields themselves.

Well, kind of.

Well, kind of.

How do they taste? Apparently, AT Fields taste like Funyuns covered in black pepper, which, may I add, is extremely good. I thought I was going to just taste a couple for this post, but I soon found myself inhaling these things like they were going out of style (note: Eva will never go out of style in Japan it seems). For $1 a bag, these are a very good deal.

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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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Yuzu Pepper KitKat review

June 10, 2009

Remember 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.

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Finishing up those Pocky videos

June 10, 2009

Oops. 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:

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Mountain Dew Max Air 3

May 25, 2009

What 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

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.

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.

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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.

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.

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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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