Japanese Snacks and Sweets (Haul)
Inevitably when travelling, sampling local food becomes a large part of assimilating with the cultures, giving an insight to both the everyday routine and the overall lifestyle of how the other half lives. Also inevitably, when I live in New Zealand and visit overseas, everything becomes a whole lot more reasonable in price, especially when it comes to that of convenience stores - hardly dense in population even in Auckland, convenience stores become more of a side thought than an actual necessity, located in areas such that neighbourhood inhabitants can avoid driving 10 minutes to the local supermarket, or dorm-residing students can get a quick fix on heavily overpriced goods. But there are too many faults: stock is so minimal, and I haven't managed to express enough how pricy items can be: at $3.50 for a box of Pocky, it becomes the closest definition to legal robbery I've encountered in my short and naive life.
Thus: it becomes a world of wonder to encounter so many processed and ready-made foods at such low prices three times a block and every corner imaginable. Especially more interesting is the range of products available, and the idea of Japanese-made snacks had all of my family and me prepared to spend more than is truly necessary on anything that looked even marginally interesting.
Some snacks, sadly, lack photos, partially from forgetting and partially from eating it not long after purchase. One primary example was the Big Katsu Stick, a flat, breaded piece of what appeared to be heavily-processed meat with the texture of jerky and the taste of okonomiyaki sauce. While it was one of our more interesting experiences, it had been recommended by a friend such that we ate it promptly after walking out from the convenience store, making it a very short-lived (but nonetheless strange) experience. While it was not the best thing we ate, it was definitely a must-eat due to the wackiness and novelty.
MORE DAISO GOODS:
Chocolate squares (name unknown)
With two flavours in each pack these are really good for souvenirs or as a snack in general. Generally just peanuts in chocolate, but pretty good to eat. Also on sale were strawberry chocolate versions, and a mochi strawberry version, but this was by far my favourite.
Green Tea Collon
Unfortunately named, its shape lives somewhat up to its name, a short tube-shaped cookie filled with an unidentifiable green tea-flavoured filling. It wasn't the most delicious green tea snack, but my love of matcha meant it was relatively high on my list of to-try snacks in Japan. Bought in Daiso, there are a range of green tea-flavoured snacks in each branch of the store that are only ¥108 in price.
Flavoured sugars
The intention is to have a cinnamon-toast-esque meal made easy using a pre-blend of sugar and powdered flavourings. Also available were strawberry, almond, vanilla, and melon bread amongst other things, and a savoury powder range that included garlic, cheese, and curry. While I didn't purchase these, they seemed a really good idea.
Torotto
A supposed chocolate biscuit or brownie-type exterior with a strawberry filling, its strawberry flavour mostly overpowers the outside. It's nice enough, if you like typical strawberry-snack frosting flavours.
Milky (Matcha)
Milky sweets taste somewhat like NZ milk bottle candies (or so I was told). The green tea one tastes like the green tea latte of Day 8 in Osaka... I regret not buying more.
OREO SNACKS:
Green Tea Oreo Bits
These were found in the Daiso green tea sections as well. Somewhat more bitter than an Oreo is expected to be, the filling was quite thick and made it satisfying to eat only 2-3 at a time. These are really good for those who prefer things not so sweet, or those who generally enjoy green tea.
Crème Brulee Oreo
Less of an Oreo than a miniature chocolate bar with a layer of cookie, it tastes like the caramlised top of a crème brulee, white chocolate, and the general chocolate Oreo cookie. These were really good, but quite sweet.
Soft Cookie Strawberry Oreos
This was found in Hong Kong on the layover returning to NZ. It has a cakey cookie and a chewy strawberry centre part, and while novel it wasn't all that impressive. (Nonetheless it tasted pretty good.)
RITZ CRACKERS
Peach Ritz
The peach cream filling was too artificial for my liking - it tastes like a typical peach candy, but a little too strong to be enjoyable between crackers. My sisters liked it, however.
Milk Tea Ritz
This was a strange snack. It tastes like what milk tea generally does, but as I normally expect Ritz to be savoury, the sweet taste of the milk tea threw me off. It's like alcohol; it was unpleasant to eat but inexplicably became increasingly nicer the more of it was eaten. Would I recommend it? Yes, because it's different. It's a love-hate relationship in which I perceive it to be both good and bad at the same time.
Strawberry Ritz
A sour tang accompanies the buttery biscuit; the cream isn't all too abundant, making it a bit dry, but it's not too bad overall.
BAUMKUCHEN
Much like cheese, the Japanese have a strange obsession with baumkuchen, a cake which is baked on a pole into multiple layers. It has a long history in Japan, with a particular baumkuchen maker being so pedantic in the process of making it he often had his students redo them if the layers became uneven. Baumkuchen comes in all sorts of shapes and flavours, but tastes like a typical fluffy, eggy cake surrounded by a layer of sugar. It's delicious.
MEIJI COOKIES
POCKY
Here's where we get down to business. Pocky is a famous snackfood not only in Japan, but internationally. While I had anticipated different Japanese snacks I had forgotten to consider that there would be variations of Pocky in Japan that is not available elsewhere.
Mango
Such a disappointing flavour! Despite it smelling nicely of tropical fruit (passionfruit with a hint of mango), there's really no flavour to the snack itself. Even the frosting was tasteless, being too waxy, which made it unenjoyable. I wouldn't recommend this one.
Taro Midi
For anyone who likes taro desserts, this is the best Pocky ever. Because it's short and fat, the icing around it is more flavourful than a typical Pocky stick, and the taro flavour makes it one of my favourite desserts. This one we found in Hong Kong. I'm disappointed I couldn't get more.
Giant Rainbow
At ¥1,500 in price, this was a snack we were hesitating to buy - but its novelty won out and we purchased it in Kansai airport a couple of minutes before we were due for boarding... It turned out to be a fantastic buy. Containing three of each of the seven flavours, they weren't joking when they claimed it to be giant.
Flavours (from top):
Chocolate: it was unexpectedly dark chocolate, and good for anyone who doesn't like anything too sweet.
Green Tea: slightly bitter, but not overwhelmingly so. A good matcha flavour, but not as strong as some of the others.
Banana: Has a fragrant banana scent, but less flavourful than expected (still good).
Melon: Tastes quite strongly of melon, which was pleasant
Strawberry:
Grape:
Vanilla: General vanilla frosting taste
MISCELLANEOUS
Crunky
These come in several flavours, and are surprisingly really good. A particular favourite was the dark chocolate Crunky.
Tiramisu Balls
These are great! The outer layer is like a white chocolate with a hint of cream cheese, and altogether does taste quite similar to a tiramisu. A good snack and cheap personal souvenir to enjoy the taste of Japan's snacks.
Takoyaki Balls
These are amazing. They genuinely taste of the brown sauce that comes with takoyaki. Only spotted in Tokyo, we were searching for them in other cities and regretted not buying more.
Van Houten Chocolate
These chocolates aren't the highest quality but taste pretty good by itself. They taste like a mix of milk chocolate and the chocolate used for Yan Yan dipsticks.Good, but not the best high-quality chocolate I'd heard about for Van Houten.
Bake Creamy Cheese Snacks
These are inexplicably strange. Tasting vaguely of the cheese in Ritz cheese crackers and vanilla frosting, they have a firm, crumbly texture which melts into a cream cheese texture in the mouth. This is undecided in its rating amongst the family, but definitely an interesting one to try.
Wasabi Sashimi Chips
The chips themselves are flavoured faintly of seafood and wasabi, but adding the extra seasoning sachet really brings out the wasabi flavour. The powder is the same green as the packet, and the smell of the horseradish is really strong. The chips themselves are light and very crispy, which is fantastic, making it an interesting snack, but I would recommend it for those who like the spicy green paste.
Other than typical snackfoods found in convenience stores and supermarkets are also the sweets normally bought as souvenirs. The Japanese are famed for their particularity in finding a perfect gift with nice packaging, and the elegance in packaging and the gorgeous appearances of the snacks resulted in us buying some higher-end products amongst the convenience store ones.
TOKYO BANANA TREE
These stores are situated all over Japan. We visited the one in the Tokyo Skytree, visible right from the train platform as it stopped in the basement of the building. They offer a selection of delicate sweets that is often banana flavoured, but some just follow the banana theme.
Half-Moon Cookies
Very crisp wafer with a thin frosting that tastes almost of cotton candy. They came in a couple of flavours (banana and green tea included) and were delicious and elegant. The packaging was also very cute.
Banana Chocolate
Tastes vaguely like New Zealand Perkynana without the marshmallow centre, it's pretty good, but not mind-blowing.
La Gaufrette Delicieuse
Translating to "(small) delicious waffles", the name perfectly describes this snack. A light, crisp wafer with a delicate frosting sandwiched between, these are delicious with tea. The frosting tastes vaguely of candy floss, making a strange, but pleasant, snack.
ROYCE CHOCOLATES
Green Tea Wafers
Much like a Kit Kat, these wafers are made with a crisp wafer, filled with famous high-quality Royce chocolates, and coated in matcha chocolate. Strong in matcha flavour, the chocolate and tea go well together, and a personal favourite of mine.
Maccha Almond Chocolate
Like scorched almonds, with green tea. The almonds are crispy and the taste of the green tea is good, but the chocolate is waxy, meaning the flavour doesn't come through as much as it could have. While it's good, it's not particularly great.
MISCELLANEOUS
Malebranche Langue De Chat
Another cookie very delicate in texture and flavour, these have a strong matcha flavour balanced nicely with the sweetness of a white chocolate centre. Excellent for souvenirs and gifts, these don't last long enough.
Tokyo Milk Cheese Factory Biscuits
Another delicately light tea snack, these, like the others, consist of a crisp, langue de chat-like cookie with a creamy, cheesy filling. Surprisingly strong with the flavour of cheese, it went well with the sweet cookie, making it the favourite amongst the family.
Thus: it becomes a world of wonder to encounter so many processed and ready-made foods at such low prices three times a block and every corner imaginable. Especially more interesting is the range of products available, and the idea of Japanese-made snacks had all of my family and me prepared to spend more than is truly necessary on anything that looked even marginally interesting.
Some snacks, sadly, lack photos, partially from forgetting and partially from eating it not long after purchase. One primary example was the Big Katsu Stick, a flat, breaded piece of what appeared to be heavily-processed meat with the texture of jerky and the taste of okonomiyaki sauce. While it was one of our more interesting experiences, it had been recommended by a friend such that we ate it promptly after walking out from the convenience store, making it a very short-lived (but nonetheless strange) experience. While it was not the best thing we ate, it was definitely a must-eat due to the wackiness and novelty.
MORE DAISO GOODS:
Chocolate squares (name unknown)
With two flavours in each pack these are really good for souvenirs or as a snack in general. Generally just peanuts in chocolate, but pretty good to eat. Also on sale were strawberry chocolate versions, and a mochi strawberry version, but this was by far my favourite.
Green Tea Collon
Unfortunately named, its shape lives somewhat up to its name, a short tube-shaped cookie filled with an unidentifiable green tea-flavoured filling. It wasn't the most delicious green tea snack, but my love of matcha meant it was relatively high on my list of to-try snacks in Japan. Bought in Daiso, there are a range of green tea-flavoured snacks in each branch of the store that are only ¥108 in price.
Flavoured sugars
The intention is to have a cinnamon-toast-esque meal made easy using a pre-blend of sugar and powdered flavourings. Also available were strawberry, almond, vanilla, and melon bread amongst other things, and a savoury powder range that included garlic, cheese, and curry. While I didn't purchase these, they seemed a really good idea.
Torotto
A supposed chocolate biscuit or brownie-type exterior with a strawberry filling, its strawberry flavour mostly overpowers the outside. It's nice enough, if you like typical strawberry-snack frosting flavours.
Milky (Matcha)
Milky sweets taste somewhat like NZ milk bottle candies (or so I was told). The green tea one tastes like the green tea latte of Day 8 in Osaka... I regret not buying more.
OREO SNACKS:
Green Tea Oreo Bits
These were found in the Daiso green tea sections as well. Somewhat more bitter than an Oreo is expected to be, the filling was quite thick and made it satisfying to eat only 2-3 at a time. These are really good for those who prefer things not so sweet, or those who generally enjoy green tea.
Crème Brulee Oreo
Less of an Oreo than a miniature chocolate bar with a layer of cookie, it tastes like the caramlised top of a crème brulee, white chocolate, and the general chocolate Oreo cookie. These were really good, but quite sweet.
Soft Cookie Strawberry Oreos
This was found in Hong Kong on the layover returning to NZ. It has a cakey cookie and a chewy strawberry centre part, and while novel it wasn't all that impressive. (Nonetheless it tasted pretty good.)
RITZ CRACKERS
Peach Ritz
The peach cream filling was too artificial for my liking - it tastes like a typical peach candy, but a little too strong to be enjoyable between crackers. My sisters liked it, however.
Milk Tea Ritz
This was a strange snack. It tastes like what milk tea generally does, but as I normally expect Ritz to be savoury, the sweet taste of the milk tea threw me off. It's like alcohol; it was unpleasant to eat but inexplicably became increasingly nicer the more of it was eaten. Would I recommend it? Yes, because it's different. It's a love-hate relationship in which I perceive it to be both good and bad at the same time.
Strawberry Ritz
A sour tang accompanies the buttery biscuit; the cream isn't all too abundant, making it a bit dry, but it's not too bad overall.
BAUMKUCHEN
MEIJI COOKIES
These we found in three flavours: Green tea, Strawberry, and Banana (the two latter of which we found in Hong Kong as well). They have a very thick, rich cream centre between two cookies that are quite bitter and floury in texture. While it sounds unpleasant, the combination of the frosting and the cookie is unearthly good. The flavours are so rich it should really be shared - each box contains three packets of two biscuits, and one is definitely enough to satisfy a sweet craving. This is especially so in the green tea Meiji cookie - the frosting is very heavy and quite bitter, such that we decided that half of a cookie would be enough for most occasions.
POCKY
Here's where we get down to business. Pocky is a famous snackfood not only in Japan, but internationally. While I had anticipated different Japanese snacks I had forgotten to consider that there would be variations of Pocky in Japan that is not available elsewhere.
Mango
Such a disappointing flavour! Despite it smelling nicely of tropical fruit (passionfruit with a hint of mango), there's really no flavour to the snack itself. Even the frosting was tasteless, being too waxy, which made it unenjoyable. I wouldn't recommend this one.
For anyone who likes taro desserts, this is the best Pocky ever. Because it's short and fat, the icing around it is more flavourful than a typical Pocky stick, and the taro flavour makes it one of my favourite desserts. This one we found in Hong Kong. I'm disappointed I couldn't get more.
Giant Rainbow
At ¥1,500 in price, this was a snack we were hesitating to buy - but its novelty won out and we purchased it in Kansai airport a couple of minutes before we were due for boarding... It turned out to be a fantastic buy. Containing three of each of the seven flavours, they weren't joking when they claimed it to be giant.
Flavours (from top):
Chocolate: it was unexpectedly dark chocolate, and good for anyone who doesn't like anything too sweet.
Green Tea: slightly bitter, but not overwhelmingly so. A good matcha flavour, but not as strong as some of the others.
Banana: Has a fragrant banana scent, but less flavourful than expected (still good).
Melon: Tastes quite strongly of melon, which was pleasant
Strawberry:
Grape:
Vanilla: General vanilla frosting taste
MISCELLANEOUS
Crunky
These come in several flavours, and are surprisingly really good. A particular favourite was the dark chocolate Crunky.
Tiramisu Balls
These are great! The outer layer is like a white chocolate with a hint of cream cheese, and altogether does taste quite similar to a tiramisu. A good snack and cheap personal souvenir to enjoy the taste of Japan's snacks.
Takoyaki Balls
These are amazing. They genuinely taste of the brown sauce that comes with takoyaki. Only spotted in Tokyo, we were searching for them in other cities and regretted not buying more.
These chocolates aren't the highest quality but taste pretty good by itself. They taste like a mix of milk chocolate and the chocolate used for Yan Yan dipsticks.Good, but not the best high-quality chocolate I'd heard about for Van Houten.
Bake Creamy Cheese Snacks
These are inexplicably strange. Tasting vaguely of the cheese in Ritz cheese crackers and vanilla frosting, they have a firm, crumbly texture which melts into a cream cheese texture in the mouth. This is undecided in its rating amongst the family, but definitely an interesting one to try.
Wasabi Sashimi Chips
The chips themselves are flavoured faintly of seafood and wasabi, but adding the extra seasoning sachet really brings out the wasabi flavour. The powder is the same green as the packet, and the smell of the horseradish is really strong. The chips themselves are light and very crispy, which is fantastic, making it an interesting snack, but I would recommend it for those who like the spicy green paste.
Other than typical snackfoods found in convenience stores and supermarkets are also the sweets normally bought as souvenirs. The Japanese are famed for their particularity in finding a perfect gift with nice packaging, and the elegance in packaging and the gorgeous appearances of the snacks resulted in us buying some higher-end products amongst the convenience store ones.
TOKYO BANANA TREE
These stores are situated all over Japan. We visited the one in the Tokyo Skytree, visible right from the train platform as it stopped in the basement of the building. They offer a selection of delicate sweets that is often banana flavoured, but some just follow the banana theme.
Half-Moon Cookies
Very crisp wafer with a thin frosting that tastes almost of cotton candy. They came in a couple of flavours (banana and green tea included) and were delicious and elegant. The packaging was also very cute.
Langue De Chat
The one we purchased had milk and white chocolate flavours. Not so heavy on the banana, the cookies were crisp and also very delicious.
Tastes vaguely like New Zealand Perkynana without the marshmallow centre, it's pretty good, but not mind-blowing.
La Gaufrette Delicieuse
Translating to "(small) delicious waffles", the name perfectly describes this snack. A light, crisp wafer with a delicate frosting sandwiched between, these are delicious with tea. The frosting tastes vaguely of candy floss, making a strange, but pleasant, snack.
ROYCE CHOCOLATES
Green Tea Wafers
Much like a Kit Kat, these wafers are made with a crisp wafer, filled with famous high-quality Royce chocolates, and coated in matcha chocolate. Strong in matcha flavour, the chocolate and tea go well together, and a personal favourite of mine.
Maccha Almond Chocolate
Like scorched almonds, with green tea. The almonds are crispy and the taste of the green tea is good, but the chocolate is waxy, meaning the flavour doesn't come through as much as it could have. While it's good, it's not particularly great.
MISCELLANEOUS
Malebranche Langue De Chat
Another cookie very delicate in texture and flavour, these have a strong matcha flavour balanced nicely with the sweetness of a white chocolate centre. Excellent for souvenirs and gifts, these don't last long enough.
Tokyo Milk Cheese Factory Biscuits
Another delicately light tea snack, these, like the others, consist of a crisp, langue de chat-like cookie with a creamy, cheesy filling. Surprisingly strong with the flavour of cheese, it went well with the sweet cookie, making it the favourite amongst the family.
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