Lotte Pepero Nude

I didn't know this when I bought this snack, but apparently November 11 is "Pepero day" in Korea. According to Wikipedia, the original purpose of this day -an opportunisty holiday created by Lotte in order to sell more of their snacks - was for people to become taller and thinner. The irony of exchanging sweets to become thinner was apparently lost on the marketing folks at Lotte. The date was supposed to relate to this tall and thin image as well as the product's appearance ("1111" for November 11 - I bet that loved 11/11/11 when it rolled around).

These days, the holiday is supposed to be similar to Valentine's Day, or at least the Japanese version of it. That is, it's about showing affection for friends and family. There's an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal blog about this holiday and how Glico created a "Pocky day" to counter this rival's invented holiday. Again, there is irony to this as Pepero is a rip-off of Pocky and then Pocky ripped off the Pepero holiday. They're just a couple of happy thieves stealing each others ideas.

Pepero nude is called such because the normal version has the chocolate on the outside like a Pocky. Since I hadn't really seen Pepero much before I picked this box up for 89 cents (about 90 yen) at Ranch 99 Asian Market, I had to learn about the fact that this is not their usual version from my research rather than experience - such is the studious life of a snack blogger.

These remind me in terms of their concept of Koala's March or Pucca. They're essentially an inverted Pocky stick. The good point of this is that you can use a softer filling because the chocolate coating isn't on the outside where it can rub off. The bad part is that that chocolate flavor is not going to reveal itself quite so fully.

The latter is part of the problem with these snack sticks. There's a very nice pretzel shell on the outside which has a pleasing earthy flavor from whole grain flour. The chocolate flavor is very muted even when you get to the center. Part of the reason for this is the overall construction. The other is that it's neither sweet nor salty enough to enhance the cocoa flavor. If there was a little more sweetness on the inside and some grains of salt on the outside, this could be a powerhouse. As it is, there's a touch of bittersweet chocolate flavor, a tiny bit of fatty richness from the soft filling, and a whole lot of pretzel.

Anyone who has read my blog regularly knows that I am not a fan of sugar bombs and this doesn't have to be insanely sweet to satisfy me. I know that tastes vary from country to country so I'm guessing that Koreans like their sweets low on the sweetness - even lower than the Japanese. Since this claims to be "Korea's No. 1 Brand", I'm guessing it is well-suited to their palates. It's just not finely tuned to mine. At 15 calories per stick, it's a pleasing option for the hips, but it's not doing nearly as much for the taste buds as I'd like. I'll slowly finish this package (17 sticks were in mine), but I wouldn't buy the "nude" version again.

Crunky Ball Nude (Gianduja)

Despite the highly provocative naming of this particular line of confections, I have been resisting the allure of the Crunky balls. This is mainly because, while I love the malty crisped rice nature of the basic Crunky, I have been disappointed in at least half of the variations that have been on offer. Those that I did like tended to get by based on format alone. That is, a chocolate covered Crunky almond couldn't lose because it's an almond and a wafer bar won me over because it was a wafer and I love those. The addition of Crunky wasn't much of a merit.

The thing that "got" me to buy these balls was the fact that they are gianduja, or made with hazelnut paste. No, it wasn't the fact that I could make enough verbal hay out of the "nude balls" name that I could metaphorically line all of the stables at the Kentucky Derby, though that certainly would have been a reasonable motivation. Frankly, I would like to know why these are called "nude", but short of having a conversation with someone at Lotte, I'll probably never know for sure. Let's just assume that it's the filthiest possible explanation we can imagine and move on.

I found these for 100 yen ($1.30) at Lawson 100 convenience store, but you can find them pretty much anywhere these days. Note that with the yen growing oddly more powerful, the prices when translated into dollars continue to see inflated, but things are pretty much the same in Japan. One box is 57 grams (2 oz.) and has 27 balls about the size of a largish malted milk ball. Each morsel is about 11 calories and the entire box is 292 calories.

When you pop open the foil package and give it a whiff, it smells like regulation consumer chocolate. If they're cool, the outside is dull looking. Mine melted at room temperature in the Tokyo summer and then looked good and shiny, but also created a big mess all over my hands. I suggest storing them in the refrigerator if you're an anal retentive type and don't want them to melt and reform into a large mutant mass of malt puff and gianduja.

The first bite provides some potent hazelnut chocolate flavor. The bulk of the candy is made up by a giant malt puff inside which is light and crunchy and seems fairly flavorless at first. The second bite brings across a sense of coconut, though I think this was my taste buds fooling me about a mix of nutty and malt flavors. I enjoyed the first bite, but was less a fan of the second.

These are not bad at all, but I set the bar pretty high on gianduja. Nutella and anything made by Ferrero. In fact, I wonder if these are to some extent inspired by Ferrero Rocher, a ball-shaped candy which is made up of a thin wafer shell filled with hazelnut paste and coated in milk chocolate and nuts. This is like a low-rent version of that in which the delicious wad of hazelnut paste is replace with puff and used sparingly on the outside coating and malt puffs replace the more expensive nuts. Maybe they have nothing to do with each other, but I think there's more "crunk" and too little gianduja for my tastes. I'll finish this box, but I'll keep buying Crunky mini bars instead of this latest variation.