Kabaya Doutor Coffee Bean Chocolate

For those who haven't spent enough time in Japan to know, Doutor is a very popular and well-known coffe shop chain in Japan. They are, in my estimation, the Japanese equivalent of Starbucks with, of course, a unique Japanese twist. That spin generally comes in the form of rather more refined desserts and sandwiches which are better made, but smaller, than those that you find in the U.S.

A wedding between Doutor and chocolate sounded a lot like a match made in heaven, so I couldn't pass up a chance to give these a try. Note that I have tried no small number of chocolate-covered coffee beans in my life, but never any produced by a Japanese company. The ones that I have tried have always been imported. The main features of this particular confection has always been that the beans are either so potent that they overwhelm the chocolate or the chocolate is so thick that it overwhelms the bean. It's a delicate balance, and I've had some good ones, though not lately and certainly not often.

The spin on these particular chocolate-covered beans comes from the fact that the interior is white chocolate and the outer coating is milk. I've never seen a two-toned version of this, and the idea, I'm guessing, is to bring to mind coffee with cream as well as a hint of cocoa. It's an interesting idea, which doesn't really pan out well with the candy itself.

On the bright side, the beans that are used are on the smallish side. Since roasted beans are pretty potent, that means that they don't necessarily dominate the scant amount of coating. The white chocolate inner coating doesn't add any milkiness or creaminess, but it does add sweetness and a rich textural contrast to the crunchy bean. The outer shell is really what lets you down, however. It simply doesn't have much in the way of chocolate flavor. It's very shiny, which probably means it is waxed, and that does all the more to mask any of the actual chocolate notes.

It's important to note that I tried this two ways. First, I tried it with no beverage and I could really taste the coffee element. Second, I tried it with a cup of coffee and then I could pick up much more on the sweetness of the white chocolate and the chocolate coating. If your taste buds are acclimated to real coffee, the flavor of the bean tends to recede a lot into the background. I didn't find this to be a bad thing given how it added a different dimension to the experience.

If you want a taste of something with coffee, but are not in the right place to get one, keeping a bag of these in your desk for a nibble (each bean is about 10 calories) is not the worst you can do, but it is certainly not the best. Frankly, this is just a very bland chocolate-covered coffee bean experience and I'd look elsewhere.

Random Picture #179

I've seen these creepy things around before and did not know what they were and, for the life of me, I cannot figure out why they are popular. To my, possibly jaded, eyes, they just look ugly and elicit a very negative response. I learned that they are actually supposed to be ugly in such a way that you may, if you look at them long enough, decide that they're cute. That is, if you don't want to blind yourself before you reach the point at which madness overtakes you and you decide these aesthetically displeasing creatures are attractive.

Someone decided to put illustrations of these on cookies. These are called "kobito (dwarf) zukan (encyclopedia) biscuit". I don't know what Kabaya was thinking unless it was, "if I eat all of these cookies, those horrible faces will go away." No, I did not buy them. I'm sure they're boring little cookies anyway and I wouldn't want one of those things in my house. 

Kabaya Salt Charge Tablets

Now that I only do two reviews per week, I feel somewhat obliged to choose more interesting products. I'm guessing this will last a few weeks then I'll go back to reviewing various chocolates and cookies which are not only more pedestrian, but more readily available. While talk of Japanese snacks often focuses on the bizarre, the truth is that not so much of what is on offer is all that strange...at least not after my years of already reviewing various snacks.

In light of my current mindset, which is somewhat guilty at reducing the number of reviews, I didn't hesitate to snap up these oddly flavored sweets. It didn't hurt that they were only 69 yen (90 cents) at Okashi no Machioka snack shop. The fact that they are plum (ume) isn't really all that odd, but the fact that they position salt as a favorable aspect is. The Japanese clearly aren't as uptight about salt as Americans, who are told constantly that salt consumption is a one-way ticket to a heart attack.

This is part of a series of "tablets" Kabaya is releasing to meet various needs. Others include Calcium, grape sugar, and amino acids. The Calcium is to help you not grow old looking like a question mark and the grape sugar is to fuel your big brain's function. Amino acids are to help with muscles. All of them are positioned for people engaging in sports, except Calcium which appears to be for old people who do stretching exercises and mothers pushing babies in prams. I guess the salt charge is to help you replenish precious sodium that you've excreted through your pores during your vigorous workout. Since most Japanese folks I know exercise once a month or so, I can't imagine much demand for these except for those people who think a plum-flavored salt lick is a good time.

Though these are called "tablets", they are balls. I think "tablet" in Japan merely means it has some pressed powdery component, which these do. The outside is a hard suckable candy and the inside is pressed citric acid powder, salt and sugar. Besides supplying you with precious salt, they also offer Vitamin C, B2 and amino acids. The whole bag provides 150 calories and there are 14 little balls in the bag, so about 10 calories each.

In terms of the taste, the outside tastes a lot like the Mintia plum mints that I liked so much. It's both sweet and sour in a fairly balanced way. It tastes funky, but good. The inside, which takes several minutes to reach, is white powder which is quite salty, but also tart. It's not bad, but I could have done without the middle and stuck with the outer shell.

These aren't bad, but they are weird. They're the kind of thing you might find enjoyable in exactly the right frame of mind, but you're more likely to take if you really feel you need the "health" benefits of the additives.

Kabaya Rispy Basil and Chicken Crackers (QR)

In the interest of making my "quick reviews" even quicker, I've decided to label them as "QR" rather than to write out "Quick Review" in the title. I'm also sure that it will add a layer of confusion for new readers and require me to put another FYI post on the sidebar. All of the explaining about quick reviews probably will initially take me longer than writing a full review, but that's all part of the fun of blogging.

I bought these crackers at the local Inageya supermarket because I liked the name. It reminded me of "raspy", though I know that this is just a play on the word "crispy" in English. It has also been awhile since I've seen anything resembling a new potential product line, especially in the salted snack realm, so I figured they'd make for a somewhat unique experience. Forty grams (1.4 oz.) cost me about 130 yen (~$1.50) and will set you back 200 calories. The back of the bag shows a glass of bear beer next to a plate with 5 little crackers. Since each is about the size of the tip of a particularly large thumb (though not quite as big as Sissy Hankshaw's), I imagine most people would eat more than a measly five of the approximately thirty pieces.

The flavor combination on these, basil and chicken, sounded like a winner, and I wasn't disappointed. They are very savory and have a nice blend of saltiness, chicken, onion, and garlic coupled with just enough basil to leave a faint impression on the tongue. Since basil is pretty easy to overdo, this is a very welcome turn of events.

The main selling point of these is how crunchy they are, and they live up on that front as well. Each is a slightly thick, but not in the least bit tough, pillow of crackery goodness. This is thanks to a high level of fat which manifests in ever so slight oiliness, but nice flakiness in the crackers.

These are quite a nice little treat and I'd recommend giving them a try if you come across a bag despite the goofy effete little fellow illustrating the bag. I'm not sure what someone who looks like one of the 3 musketeers has to do with crispy basil chicken crackers, but perhaps we're supposed to think that he's French and they're renowned for their crispy bread. It's a pretty tenuous connection, though the crackers are made to resemble loaves of bread.

Kabaya Chocolat Galette

There are so many refugees from my New Year's fukubukuro to review that I'm not likely to need to buy much of anything to review for at least a month. And there are so many of them that I'm going to be eating them for at least 3 months. These "chocolat galette" cookies were one of the first things that I tore open and partook of because they are chocolate, and, they are cookies. I'm only human, after all.

Despite carrying two of the key elements of a good product, I have to say that I would not have bought these of my own initiative had I seen them in the store. The primary reason is that these sorts of individually wrapped cookies are a real crap shoot in terms of flavor. Many of them taste like crispy bits of nothingness. They don't deliver on flavor so much as on appearance and texture. This is especially true of crispy cookies that come in the "Chips Ahoy" mold. That is, the types that are crisp and have some sort of melted chocolate poured on them or chocolate chips.

I expected a waxy, nearly tasteless chocolate coating and a bland cookie interior, but was pleasantly surprised to find that these have a very nice, pleasantly deep without being too bitter chocolate flavor and they are not too sweet. The cookies also taste fresh and have excellent snap without being too brittle. Each cookie is rather small though, at only 4.5 cm (1.8 in.), but only 49 calories. I'm torn between the guilt I feel at creating so much trash for a tiny morsel of pleasure and how effectively these preserve the cookie goodness and encourage portion control.

Though very tasty, these do contain two types of "bad fats" (margarine and shortening). Looking at the ingredients, I believe the flavor is enhanced by the inclusion of almond powder and at least a bit more cocoa than usual. I'm sure that you can find these in many supermarkets, but I'm afraid that I didn't make an effort to price this bag of just 8 cookies (yes, and small). I'd be surprised though if they cost less than 160 yen ($1.94) or more than 220 yen ($2.67).

On the flavor alone, I'd recommend these. On the other aspects, I'm a little torn. I enjoyed them thoroughly, so I'm giving them a happy rating, but I'd say that considering the packaging, likely price, and small quantity, I wouldn't recommend them to anyone unless they were jonesing pretty hard for a crispy chocolate cookie.

Kabaya Hone Hone Saurus Chocolate

Every time I got to Seiyu supermarket, I peruse their ample kid's snacks section for anything new and interesting. One thing I have realized about these sections of cheap, small treats is that they don't see much updating when compared to more adult-size snacks. I guess the kids market isn't as fickle as the older set. Among the small packets of bubble gum, seaweed snacks, and cheap chocolates, the odd packaging of this Kabaya chocolate caught my eye. For 50 yen (60 cents), this 27-gram (about 1 oz.) bar was mine for sampling.

The name of this product translates essentially to "bonesaurus". It's the sort of name that a company could never give a product back home because of all of the snickering the idea might bring on from those for whom "bone" carries a certain hormonally-linked meaning. It would have been beyond awesome if someone had named this product in English instead of Japanese.

The bar is divided into three segments and each has a white chocolate representation of a dinosaur's head on top of a bittersweet shell that that hides a softer milk chocolate center. When you bite into it, you discover that there are also little crunchy bits in it. The combination of various chocolate flavors and textures creates a lovely sensation. The bittersweet chocolate intensity is stronger than most kid's candy bars, but not too strong. This is perhaps because it is tempered by the white chocolate and soft milk flavors.

This is an excellent little candy bar and I strongly recommend giving it a try if you have a chance. It's 157 calories for the entire bar and well worth it. I wouldn't  hesitate to have this again.

Note that this candy is related to a series of plastic toys that Kabaya sells. You can see those toys here.

Careme Cacao Time Quattro Orange

When I was a kid, we only received three television channel's signals - ABC, CBS, and NBC. We were located in the boonies and our old wire antenna was too far away from the Pittsburgh transmitting station to get the PBS channel or the really cool channel that showed re-runs of Star Trek (TOS) and the best repeats of old shows. Occasionally, we'd get a grainy PBS show, but that was usually just Mr. Rogers. Due to my television deprivation, I didn't grow up with Sesame Street. Being deprived of that seminal show means that I wasn't exposed to the Cookie Monster.


While I haven't done a psychological study on the emotional impact of being deprived of the Cookie Monster during ones formative years, I speculate that my general lack of enthusiasm for cookies relative to other types of sweets is a result of not being able to get PBS on the tube when I was growing up. My husband certainly is a lot crazier for cookies than me, and he grew up in Silicon Valley with all sorts of television viewing options.

Despite this lack of indoctrination into the way of the cookie, I was intrigued when I saw this box of orange chocolate cookies at the local 99 yen shop. The main thing that dissuaded me upon first viewing is that each cookie is 57 calories and they're quite small at 5 cm (2 in.) x 3 cm (1.2 in.). This makes them more candy than cookie. That doesn't have to be a bad thing, of course.


Thee are three layers to the cookie - a bland, crunchy little butter-cookie type biscuit, orange-flavored chocolate, and bittersweet chocolate. There's also an orange "sauce" in the middle of the chocolate layer. You can smell both the orange and chocolate when you give it a sniff. The bittersweet chocolate and orange flavors are intense and blend very well together. The cookie portion is mainly there for texture and is a fairly hard. One of the big points about these cookies is that they are made with Valencia oranges, and the flavor does taste real.

I really liked this and would definitely go for them again. That being said, the strong flavors might be off-putting to some, especially if you favor milk chocolate. I love strong flavors when they are in good quality ingredients, and both the chocolate and orange appear to be so.

Kabaya, which makes the Careme brand, offers these in other flavors and shapes as well. The other two types listed on the web site are caramel and chocolate and bitter chocolate and white chocolate. Oddly, the orange chocolate version is not listed on their web site. If you'd like to download a wallpaper of their mascot, you can find a few choices here.

Kabaya Strawberry Crunchy Panda Biscuits

Look at the poor panda on the cover of the packet. He looks as if his cranium is being smashed by two strawberries that weigh as much as an anvil. Either that, or he's having some creepy orgasmic response to the tube of condensed milk in his right paw. Either way, it's not a pretty picture.

Incidentally, strawberries in Japan are frequently consumed with sweetened condensed milk. It's a semi-translucent, milky liquid that is often used in slightly dirty-minded ads and video by dewy-eyed idols. It's supposed to conjure up salacious notions in the minds of those with a more lecherous bent... not that I know anything about that.


Getting back to business though, my husband picked up this packet of cookies from snack maker Kabaya at New Days convenience store. He then proceeded to leave it in his bag throughout a hot day. There were 6 cookies in the bag and 4 of them looked like they'd gone through one of the types of transporter accidents you see on Star Trek. The combined blob wasn't fit for photographic recording, but the two above weren't as badly harmed.

The cookies smell like white chocolate and strawberries, which is no surprise since that is the main selling point. The biscuits themselves are pretty bland and all about the crunch. My husband found the cookies too hard and I found the white chocolate too sweet. The strawberry flavor is not bad. It even has a finishing tang to it which has verisimilitude with consuming actual strawberries. One of the ingredients is "strawberry sugar", so I'm guessing there is some real fruit in them somewhere.

Each cookie is about 30 calories and so sweet that your teeth will ache. They're not bad at all. In fact, I can easily see how someone who is into super sweet cookies would enjoy them, but they just weren't my cup of tea. The bag was finished, but neither my husband nor I would want a repeat of the experience.

Kabaya Jersey Milk Candy

I grew up around cows, and I always thought they were cute. To this day, seeing the image of a cow warms my heart a little bit. I just realized that, if I were a former farm boy instead of a woman, that last line would seem mighty creepy. Trust me when I say that I never had an inappropriate relationships with a bovine, unless you consider the one my family had as a pet until my parents sent her off to become a freezer full of steaks and burgers. (Yes, I cried.)


There are a lot of "milk" flavor treats in Japan. I'm never sure what they're supposed to taste like, and some of them don't seem to taste like anything, but when I unwrapped one of these candies, I knew by the color what it was going to taste like. The candy tastes like sweetened condensed milk. It isn't creamy, chewy, or silky despite having cream powder and cream cheese and boasting a content of 8.5% milk. It is nice hard candy though which you can suck on for awhile and fill your mouth with the flavor of the type of sweet condensed milk that you can buy in tubes in Japanese markets and squeeze on strawberries.

There are 26 candies (at 20 calories per candy) in the bag and I found it for 98 yen (about a dollar). In fact, the price was one of the biggest reasons that I decided to sample these. Normally, I'm not really drawn to this sort of thing, but I thought "what the heck" when I noticed how cheap it was. I was really on the fence with my rating on this, but not because it isn't well-made or enjoyable. "Happy" ratings are reserved for things which I think I'll buy again, and I'm not sure I'd buy this again because I'm just not a huge fan of condensed milk. However, if I were, I'd certainly get these again.

Kabaya Fresh Moist Caramel

I'm sure I'm not the only person who has ever taken a look at the average person next to me and thought there wasn't much to him or her. It doesn't have to necessarily be a matter of beauty, but it could be that you expect somehow to see a spark that would draw you magnetically to a person who you might form a beautiful friendship with. Sometimes sparks don't fly until you actually strike that rock. Until you hit it, it just sits there looking dull.

The Kabaya fresh caramel packet sat askew amongst dozens of other packets in a cardboard box with its top cut away at a slant for "display". Yaaaaawn, another packet of little buttery caramel squares. Note that the caramels in Japan are excellent for the most part, but how many buttery, tasty little cubes do I want to sample before I lose interest. Also, honestly, I'm just not a maniacal consumer of caramel. It's good, but it's not something I seek out or feel overly tempted by.


My husband is a great fan of caramel so he fished out a packet for himself, remarking that it felt nearly empty and quite insubstantial inside. He knew he wasn't getting much for his money, but we forked over 188 yen (about $1.80) for 40 grams (1.4 oz.). Note that we got this at a discount shop and the retail price is 210 yen ($2.05).

Usually, I take pictures before a package is opened, but I was so disinterested in it that I told him I wasn't going to review it and he could tuck in. When he revealed what looked like little packets full of liquid caramel which he wasn't sure how to eat, I noticed that the boring person sitting next to me was showing some spark.


There are 5 double packets of caramel goo. It exists in a state which is somewhere between melty liquid state and solid form. You can't handle it with your fingers, but it also doesn't slide around like molten caramel. It's like super soft, fresh taffy that never gets firm or hard. You're supposed to pull the packet open and then the whole thing easily peels away and you can pop it on your tongue without even handling it. The volume is small and they are relatively flat and 3.5 cm (1.4 in.) x 2.5 cm (.99 in.) so it's easy to eat all of one at once. I took a bite out of it though to see how it fared. It pulled like super soft taffy.

The texture is smooth, soft, and cool. The flavor is sweet, super buttery, and rich. Note that the first ingredient is real cream. They reminded my husband of See's caramel in Scotchmallows or their regular caramels. See's is a mid-range premium candy maker in the U.S. and this is a consumer product in Japan. He was very impressed and wouldn't hesitate to have them again if they weren't so pricey for the volume.

Hard Stick Vanilla Pretzel Snack

There are so many rip-offs of the Pocky concept on Japanese shop shelves that it would be impossible to try them all unless one were to go on an all pretzel-based diet. Usually, I give the "stick" aisle a passing glance and waltz on by, but this box caught my eye mainly because of the inelegant name. How can I resist biting into a "hard stick"?

These are made by a company called Kabaya which started doing business in 1946. They make a variety of candy and cookies, but they also sell small toys with incidental bits of candy. Most of the toys are cute trinkets in the 200-300 yen ($2.13-$3.20) range and are keychain-size items made of plastic or cloth. The name of the company, oddly enough, relates to hippos (which is "kaba" in Japanese). It's a little like a confectioner naming his business "pig shop" in English and expecting the customers not to draw any conclusions about the effects of consuming their treats on their bodies. Some things work in Japan that would never work in Western cultures.


Kabaya has released three varieties of this "hard stick". My local shop had strawberry and vanilla in stock, but there is also a chocolate version. I chose the vanilla in part because of the promise of German alps rock salt in the mix. Salty and sweet can often be mixed to yield pleasing results.

There are two packets of about 15 sticks in the box, which is really too many in one packet. The entire box has 328 calories, so each stick is around 11 calories. The packets, once opened, are hard to re-seal and I'm guessing they won't be great if they're stale. The sticks are fairly slender. They are not as thick as the average Pocky so the coating to pretzel ratio is bigger.

When you open the packet, it smells of vanilla and sweetness. The first bite is immensely sweet and strongly vanilla. In fact, the vanilla is so overwhelming that it's easy to conclude it's artificial, but there are real vanilla beans in it. If you took a salt-less pretzel and dipped it in vanilla powdered sugar, it'd taste like these. Around the third stick (which is where I stopped eating), your tongue gets used to the sweetness and it seems less overbearing.

These are not bad at all, but they are so cloyingly sweet that I find it hard to enjoy them. They reminded me a lot of canned Betty Crocker vanilla frosting that is sold in the U.S. I was most disappointed in the fact that the salt element appears to be so subdued as to be essentially absent. Still, if you're a fan of strong, sweet vanilla, these might float your boat.