Lotte Harvest Sesame Crackers

As is so often the case when I buy a product that I can't read the label on, I failed to look at the English on this until I got home. For the record, this is a Korean snack that is made by Lotte, not a Japanese one. That being said, it's very similar to the Japanese product called "Harvest Biscuits".

At first, I thought that this was the Korean version of that product, but I looked back and found that they are made by Tohato. They're also covered in sugar in Japan, so it's clearly a different deal. I did research Lotte's web site to see if they make such a cracker for the Japanese market, but, if they do, it's not on the site and I don't recall eating one in Japan.

I do remember trying the Tohato sesame Harvest Biscuits in Japan and being relatively unimpressed. The problem was that, though they were labeled "sesame", I recall that coconut was the dominant flavor and the sugar sprinkled on the top tended to hurt my teeth. They were okay, but just didn't "work" on the whole. I think they were really just too one-note.

I bought these at a Korean market for a few reasons. One was that I was suckered in by the cute illustration of the amiable farmer with his scythe and the little grain graphic that is part of the product name (which, obviously, I could not read as it's in Korean). I'm a fan of whole grain flavors and their earthiness. I see white flour as a palate onto which other flavors can be spread and whole grain flour as bringing its own taste to the mix. Some people don't like that, but I do.

Had I known these were called "Harvest Crackers", I probably wouldn't have bought them as I would have confused them with the Japanese ones I had already tried. Of course, the other reason I bought them was that they were only 50 cents (about 49 yen). It's not much of a risk.

The crackers are very thin and immensely satisfying in their crunch. I don't think you could device a nicer textural experience. The flavor is complex for such a cheap and readily available treat. It incorporates coconut and a solid, nutty hit of cinnamon along with the right amount of salt. There is a hint of sweetness as well as some savory mixed in. The complexity is achieved through using an impressive list on ingredients including coconut powder, almond powder, roasted soy bean powder, and black soybean paste. The artificial flavorings include "milk" and "coconut".

I'm not saying that this cracker is going to set your soul on fire, especially if you don't like coconut or sesame. However, it is a very enjoyable and light tea time treat which has a lot of taste, excellent texture, and a modest calorie profile at 12.5 calories per rather large cracker. This is something off the beaten path and if your tastes run toward Chips Ahoy and Oreos, this is going to be an enormous letdown. If your tastes run more toward rice crackers and ancient grains, then you may find this to your liking as well.

Ginbis Tabekko Animal Biscuits Coconut

When I was growing up and it came time to wrap a gift, I got out the paper, scissors, and wrapping paper and did a very basic wrapping job. One of the cool things about living in another culture is that the possibilities of carrying out even a small activity like wrapping a gift are expanded. Not only did I learn that there were all sorts of paper-saving nifty ways in which to wrap gifts that the Japanese employed and Americans hadn't thought of, but I learned that you didn't even have to use paper. 

Traditional Japanese wrapping cloths, furoshiki, can be used to wrap a gift in such a way as to make the wrapping itself a part of the gift. What is more, it can be reused by the receiver to wrap a future gift if he or she so desires. While it is possible to reuse wrapping paper if you're careful about how you unwrap, it's got nothing on a piece of nicely designed material.

Behold, my bunny folded-furoshiki. 

The awesome thing about furoshiki isn't necessarily the fact that it is ecologically sound and unique, but that you can wrap things in a wide variety of ways. This makes wrapping oddly shaped things easier and more interesting. Recently, I decided to use a furoshiki to wrap a gift. This was mainly because I didn't have a proper box, but also because it seemed like a more stylish option to boot. Among the choices was one in which you could tie it up like a rabbit. Though I'm not particularly good with tying knots, I did manage to pull off a rabbit-like wrapping. Trust me when I say that it's not as easy as it looks, but it's also not as difficult as doing origami.

Why am I talking about furoshiki in a review of Ginbis biscuits? Well, I was thinking about how I could have chosen a wide variety of folding techniques, but the one that appealed to me most was one that resembled an animal. I was also thinking about an episode of Archer in which he's carrying around leftovers in a foil-shaped swan. And just yesterday, I read a review of taiyaki on Serious Eats in which they were saying it was better than imagawayaki because it was shaped liked fish. Things are better when we shape them like animals. 

Perhaps it is a form of playing god (behold, I have forged an animal with cookie dough and my mighty, mighty hands) or simply the sense that we've created a low form of art, but humans have been trying to make animals out of food-stuffs and material-stuffs for many moons. In the middle ages, they used to grind up the meat of one animal and shape it into another animal ("farcing"). 

Ginbis biscuits are the equivalent of animal crackers in the U.S. and, frankly, part of the appeal of such things is that they are shaped like animals. If the makers of Cheez-its had been clever enough to shape their crackers like elephants or bats, they could have taken over the world (since Cheez-its are superior to Goldfish crackers). Their shortsightedness cost them the opportunity to experience world domination. 

Getting back to the matter at hand, I've reviewed the butter version of these cookies before and found them quite enjoyable. Like their butter counterparts, they are thin and a cross between a cracker and a cookie. There is a light sprinkling of sugar on the top and the flavor is very well-balanced with a strong but not overbearing coconut flavor and a light sweetness which is present enough to say "cookie" but not cloying. Because they are so thin, they are pleasantly crispy and make a great companion for tea. The entire 1.8 oz/50 gram box has 260 calories, so don't let the light nature of them fool you into thinking they're low calorie. Portion control is definitely recommended and will take a bit of willpower considering that the impulse to just toss them into your mouth one after another will be high.

The cool thing about these cookies beyond their pleasant taste and texture is the cultural aspects of them. The names of various animals are written on them in English and the back of the box has the English with Japanese translations. I find it fascinating that someone decided that it was useful to teach Japanese kids what a "macaw" is (confession, I'm not sure of what a macaw is). Each animal listed on the box is represented inside as a blobby cracker shape, and some of them are abbreviated in utterly unhelpful ways. For example, there is a listing for "M-Duck" (which is, I'm sure what is written on the cracker). If you read the Japanese, you see that this stands for "Mandarin Duck". Okay, do kids need to know what a mandarin duck is in two languages?

The funny thing is that I actually learned something by reading the back of the box. One of the animals listed is "peafowl", which apparently is the proper way to refer to peacocks and peahens as a type of bird. So, beyond enjoying these light, crispy cookies, you can educate yourself about names of animals that you may not have known about. I bought these at Daiso Japan for $1 (about 100 yen), but they can be picked up at many Asian markets for a similar price or purchased online at places like the Asian grocer. 

Noodle House Industrial Sesame Cookie Rolls

I love the name of the company that makes these. It seems slightly scary that a food is made by a company which has "industrial" as a part of its name. It reminds me of the episode of the Simpsons in which they go to Japan and the translation they use of various Japanese companies includes "concern" like "Osaka Fish Concern." It makes me wonder if the Chinese equivalent is "industrial".

My experiences with Chinese snacks is rather limited. It's not that I have little interest in them, but rather that, as someone who lived in Japan and operated based on what I could purchase there for many years, I didn't have many opportunities. The Japanese are in an intense rivalry with China and prefer to avoid supporting their businesses, but the food issue is related to perceptions of safety. There were several instances in which Chinese food was reported by the mass media as dangerously contaminated by chemicals, the most widely known of which concerned pot stickers or "gyoza". Businesses in Japan were unlikely to carry Chinese food as consumers didn't trust it based on such suspicions.

These cookies came to me courtesy of a guest who is of Chinese descent. She told me that they were her grandmother's favorites and that she picked them up at a Chinese bakery in San Francisco. The company that makes them makes noodles (surprise, surprise) and dried seafood as well as moon cakes, almond cookies, and other Chinese traditional sweets. Despite my best search efforts, I could not find an online seller of these cookies. However, there are sites which will allow you to inquire about buying them.

The cookies come in a large tin in order to protect their delicate nature. However, despite some plastic inserts for padding, they did tend to break up quite a bit from being transported. I didn't really mind the fact that they broke up a bit as these are very large cookie rolls. I'd guess each is about 5-6 inches long (12.7-15.2 cm). Eating a smaller piece isn't necessarily a bad thing.

The first thing you smell when opening the tin is the scent of coconut. The ingredients list is flour, butter, sugar, egg, sesame, coconut powder, and vanilla. Given that butter is second, it is no surprise that these have a buttery flavor, though the coconut element is the strongest. The sesame is actually eclipsed to a fair extent by the coconut, but it is still quite present. Because they are so fatty, they leave a slightly oily sense on the tongue after you eat one so it is best to have one with tea or a hot drink. They are very crumbly and have a delicate crispy texture which nearly melts in your mouth.

These are thoroughly enjoyable cookies and at 107 calories per large cookie, not too hard on the diet. However, I do think that the oily residue it leaves may be quite off-putting for some people. It didn't bother me, and I would be happy to buy a tin of these for myself some day if guests fail to bring me another one as a hostess gift. ;-)

Tirol Summer Assortment

I'm fully cognizant of the fact that it is no longer summer, and that this bag showing sun, seagulls, and palm trees is incongruous with the cool breezes, dying leaves, and chilly air of autumn. Actually, with climate change, I'm not sure that we actually experience fall in that fashion anymore, but for the sake of argument, I will admit that I'm reviewing this seasonal variety pack rather late in the game. To be fair, I bought it recently at Nijiya market in San Jose, CA (it could not be had at the Mountain View branch) and this selection only recently vanished from Tirol's web site. I can't recall what I paid for it, but I think it was somewhere in the $3 (234 yen) range.

This was the sort of thing that I would not buy when I was living in Japan because it includes a very common flavor (nuts crunch), a reissue (mango) with one flavor of interest to me (coconut). Under those circumstances, I would not pop for a bag on non-premium Tirol chocolates. For those who don't know or remember, the Tirol brand is offered in two different sizes. One is a smaller square sold in 9 packs and the other is a larger (about 1 inch/2.54 cm.) size which is sold individually. The premium candies larger size means they are generally more sophisticated in construction with multiple layers of fillings. The non-premium ones, such as these, tend to be simpler as it's hard to layer in much in such a tiny presentation. In general, the variety packs lack the flavor depth and potential of the premium candies. 

The strange thing is though that I thought I'd already sampled two out of three of these chocolates, but reviewing my backlog, I see that I had never tried any of them. I guess that's all for the better then. 

One has to wonder why peanuts wear bow ties around the world. Is this level of formality a genetic inclination?

Nuts Crunch:

I should note that I balk at writing "nuts" crunch instead of "nut crunch". The Japanese generally don't accept or follow the conventions in English in which you do not use a plural when a noun modifies another noun. That's why they say "peanuts butter" instead of "peanut butter". However, the words are written on the package in such a way that I can hardly deny them, so don't come around telling me that I've adapted crappy English as a result of my time in Japan. My English may be crappy, but it's all on my shoddy editing skills, not absorbing Japanese-English. 

Now that we've got that straight, let me say that this is a very tasty peanut and chocolate combination. It is crunchy, but I think the reason it tastes better than some others is that the peanuts were fried prior to having their fragments embedded in milk chocolate. There's a rich roasted quality to the nuts which makes the flavor profile better even with an extremely small portion in the candy. Incidentally, I intentionally photographed this chocolate upside-down so that the uneven distribution is easy to see. I loved this, and if I could buy a big bag of these alone, I certainly would.

Mango:

This smelled nicely fruity with a slightly perfume-like edge. The outer white chocolate is very, very sweet and quite soft. The jelly inside is also soft and has a zesty edge to it which helps cut through the sweet outer coating to some extent. The flavor is like a really rich mango puree mixed with a bit of powdered sugar. As a small bite, it's really enjoyable, but I think that one small candy would definitely be the limit. Any more than that at once and it's just going to overwhelm one with sweetness.

Coconut:

The coconut scent on this is quite intoxicating and I was encouraged by the fact that it had a dark chocolate coating. I can't think of any reason why dark chocolate should pair better, but it's possible that years of seeing "Mounds" bars made me believe this was the proper presentation. Unlike the aforementioned bar, the coconut filling in this is not too sweet and the bittersweet chocolate cuts through what sweetness there is for two complimentary flavors. That being said, I ate this in two bites and it seemed rather intensely bittersweet by the end of the second bite. I liked this, but I wouldn't go out of my way to eat a lot of them.

I like the Tirol concept of mixing flavors in small portions and the fact that the flavors are often pronounced with balanced sweetness. I don't like the fact that the chocolate is often quite soft and that was the case with these. I prefer chocolate with a greater snap to it. That being said, as small bites of chocolate to satisfy a craving, I don't think one can go wrong with these. The flavors are strong without being overbearing and you really do feel that one chocolate is "enough."

Woodsman's Stumps (Coconut Milk) Chocolate Snack

These stumps are another in Bourbon's line of nature-emulating sweets. A lot of Japanese snack reviewers love their line of cookies with chocolate, but I've never been particularly drawn to them. I think this is because they are the kind of treat which seems not to be able to make up its mind. Is it candy? Is it a cookie? Well, it's 50% each, so it doesn't pander to my cravings, which tend to be annoyingly specific.

In Japanese, these are called kikori no kirikabu which means "woodsman's stumps". On the package, you can see the woodsmen and his tasty-looking stumps. A pink bunny seems shocked by the turn of events in the wake of the woodmen's tree-icide. Won't somebody please think of the bunnies!


There are 11 little stumps in the 33 gram (about 1 oz.) package. Each cookie/candy thingy is about 2 cm. in diameter (.8 in.) and is half whole grain cookie and half coconut infused white chocolate. These smell better than most white chocolate because there's a hint of the scent of real coconut. There's a distinct lack of the overly sweet smell you usually experience with white chocolate.

I kept these in the refrigerator because it's been hot enough to melt chocolate into a pile of goo these days, so my sense of the texture is going to be different than that at room temperature. The chocolate was good and firm and the cookie a bit hard, but it wasn't hard to bite into. The cookie doesn't have much flavor at all, but that works pretty well with the coconut base which is relatively sweet. The coconut flavor is subtle but present. It's a very good balance. I think it's not overly strong because it's made with real coconut milk and coconut milk powder.

I loved these and would definitely get them again except for the fact that there is 185 calories in a relatively small portion. As it is, I'm eating 3 or 4 stumps at a time (at 16 calories a stump) to break it up into 3 servings. If you like coconut, these are really delicious and I highly recommend them. They're not easy to find though. I have only seen them at one shop, AM/PM convenience store. Still, they're worth tracking down.

Coconut Island Ice Milk Tea

The hard part was removing the damn label.

(Before I get rolling on this, I'd like to say that I learned about this beverage from Dateline Osaka's review of it. I'm not trying to rip her off, but just trying to mark my impression of this product for my own future reference, because, well, I really liked it.)

After reading Dateline Osaka's write-up, I actively sought this drink because it's coconut-flavored and I enjoy a good coconut confection or beverage. Strangely, I found this drink rather elusive. You'd think that it'd be the sort of thing that'd be easy to track down in convenience store's or supermarket's with large refrigerated drink sections, but it was not to be had in my local 7-11, Inageya supermarket, or QQ convenience store. The fact that it was so hard to find just goes to show that various manufacturers probably have to fight pretty hard for shelf space in small stores.

I finally located a bottle in the unrefrigerated section of Peacock supermarket. It cost ¥153 which makes it pretty expensive for something which is only 350 ml. You'll note that the bottle has a curvy shape that allows the bottle to have the same height and footprint as a standard 500 ml (like 16 oz. in the U.S.), but with a lot less product. For reference, most beverages which are sold in 500 ml. sizes and retail for about ¥150 and a pint-size carton of Lipton milk tea (which is also 500 ml.) can be had for about ¥100-¥130. Of course, specialty beverages are a bit more expensive and this is clearly going to be a limited edition drink which will likely be around for the summer then vanish forever (or at least until next year).

The first thing I did upon unscrewing the cap was to give it a good sniff to see if it smelled of coconut. It didn't. It pretty much smelled like tea. To be fair, I had just consumed a Japanese herbal cough drop and it's possible that my sense of smell had been affected. A much later sniff seemed to reveal coconut scent layered with the tea. My first taste felt incredibly sweet, but this smoothed out as I drank more of it. It's pleasantly and noticeably, but not overwhelmingly, coconutty. There's a good balance of milk and tea flavor, but I think that the tea taste is subdued because of the high amount of milk and sugar.

The ingredients list betray just how much sugar is in it. The first ingredient is milk and the second is sugar (the third is "milk sugar", likely lactose, and the fourth is tea). So, by volume, the sugar is pretty prominant. I think that the pre-made iced tea and coffee beverages in Japan tend to get a somewhat rich and thick look from the sugar. They are far less watery and thin than the standard tea you get when you buy a bottle of "straight" tea (unsweetened) in Japan. The strange thing is that I didn't read "coconut" in the ingredients list, though there was a generic "flavoring" ingredient. It may have been referred to in some string of characters I couldn't read, but coconut is usually written in katakana (as the phonetic equivalnet of co-co-naa-tsu or, in Japanese, ココナッツ) and is easy to find and understand.

If you drink the entire bottle, it's 122 calories. That puts it almost as high as a 12 oz. can of Coke (which is equivalent in size to this bottle of tea) as it weighs in at 155 calories. The tea probably carries a better nutritional impact though since it at least brings a lot of milk along with it whereas the Coke is pretty much sugar, oils, flavoring and carbonation. Of course, I don't drink (regular) Coke since I really don't like to consume beverages with sugar in them.

Despite my aversion to sugary beverages, I'd definitely go for one of these Coconut Island Milk Teas again if they're around in another month or so. It's refreshing and very satisfying, but a little too easy to just knock back all at once, so I wouldn't want to indulge too often. It took a bit of self-control to stop at drinking only half the bottle. I wish they made these types of drinks in two varieties, one with sugar and one with Sucralose, but the Japanese don't go in for sugar-free foods or drinks much because of the chemicals.