Tohato Harvest Sand Biscuits Mont Blanc flavor

Every year, around Halloween, a bunch of sites will do lists of the best and worst Halloween snacks. The "best" usually are anything covered in or mainly comprised of chocolate and/or peanut butter. The "worst" tend to be anything chalky or in the genre of what the British call "boiled sweets" (hard candy). Basic Harvest Biscuits are the boiled sweet of the cookie world. They're what you're disappointed to see served as a tea time snack 95% of the time because they're just plain, flat, not so sweet discs of crispy cookie.

Mind you, being in a category which isn't blow-your-socks-off amazing isn't a bad thing if you are in the mood for something quite crunchy, but not rich or super sweet. The main sticking point with Harvest Biscuits is that all flavors, without fail, taste like coconut. I do wonder if, to that end, the Harvest people have expanded their line to include things like these sandwich cookies which have the architecture ("cookie architect" absolutely should be a career one can pursue in life) of an Oreo. The big question is whether or not the structure and composition of this cookie edifice is sound.

The texture of the "cookie" on these is super crisp and on the harder side. They either feel thicker and harder than the routine Harvest cookie because they're so tiny (about an inche or so in diameter) or they actually are. On the cookie to cracker spectrum, this leans closer to the "cracker" end than the cookie side. The filling is very firm, or at least it is in somewhat cooler temperatures as it is now in my part of the planet.

The main draw of these is the mont blanc filling. Mont blanc, for those who don't know, is a sweet made with a chestnut paste, whipped cream, and either a meringe or cake base. The filling tastes distinctly artificial, or it simply is so intense that it comes across that way. The combination of the strong, fake-tasting filling with the coconutty little crackery biscuit simply did not work for me. I was enormously disappointed in these because I love mont blanc. In fact, I did something I rarely do which is fail to finish the packet.

Source: ZenPop box service

Glico Cafe Au Lait Collon

My brain works super fast. In fact, it makes lightning leaps over stepping stones that often see me starting in one place and ending up in a completely different one such that I can greatly confuse my husband with my leaps from one topic to another. This cafe au lait collon set off just such a sequence of thoughts. I will ask you to bear with me as I insanely hopscotch from point to point.

First, there is the obvious wordplay joke about "Collon" and "colon" that makes all of us foreign folks snicker like the juveniles that we are inside every time we see "Collon" for sale in a Japanese store. That made me think about coffee being used in colonics and how silly that seemed. Then it made me think about food stuffs being used for colonics which brought on a recollection of something that I read in the book Awakenings. That book, for those who don't know it, was made into a movie of the same name starring Robin Williams. 

In the book, there is mention of one of the comatose patients, a very overweight woman whose head had gone completely bald during her prolonged state of unconsciousness making certain demands upon her awakening. She wanted a quart of chocolate ice cream and an olive oil enema. I remember wondering why on earth anyone would want any sort of enema, let alone one with olive oil. 

At any rate, every time I think of the book or movie Awakenings, I remember one of my first experiences in Japan with movie titles that were different there than they were with America. I went to Japan in spring of 1989 and taught at Nova for two years. The movie was released in 1990 and I remember talking about the movie with student's in the conversation lounge ("Voice") that Nova offered. It was impossible for the students to understand the title as I said it, but I learned that the reason was not an issue with the vocabulary, but the fact that the Japanese title was "Leonard no Asa" or "Leonard's Morning".

So, you can see that this product brought about a lot of links in a chain which set me off on the idea of coffee enemas and ended in Japan. You can see where my husband's confusion is based after that sort of jumping about. Add the fact that this all happens in about three seconds (seriously), and you can see that I'm off like a shot and headed in a strange and unknown direction. I guess I'm lucky that he hasn't had me institutionalized yet (which brings me right back to Awakenings as that is set in an institution).

Getting to the matter at hand - which is neither institutions nor colonic irrigation - I found these at an Asian market for $1.19 for an itty bitty box. I'm pretty sure that they had broken up and were selling a pack that was not meant for individual sale, but I wasn't interested in six or eight of these so I wasn't going to turn them in to whatever retail authority is responsible for prosecuting such infractions.

For those who don't know Collon, it's a delicate crispy shell which is layered and flaky filled with a sweet, dense, cream-like filling that is reminiscent of that which is sandwiched between sugar wafers. The textural contrast is a delight, but they are often far too sweet. This one carries an extremely mild coffee flavor as well as little coffee particles in the cream (those are the black spots that you see in the picture). It's tasty and the filling is nice and fatty, but it's just a little too sweet. There is no calorie information on my box, but Collon generally packs a wallop for each small morsel. It's the sort of thing which you have to exercise restraint with, so getting one small box isn't a bad idea.

I like this quite a lot. I think the coffee added some depth to the flavor and off-set the sometimes one-note sense of the sweet filling. I don't think these are better than the basic Collon, but they certainly are just as good and just tad more interesting.

CandyGerman and Koala Milch Cookies

Several Asian snack concerns that offer monthly or bi-monthly boxes or snack surprise packages have contacted me and I've reviewed those services. Recently, I was contacted by a similar service coming out of Germany. Since I've expanded the scope of this blog to include the occasional focus on other countries and their junk food, I was delighted when they offered to send me a (free) sample box so that I could get an idea of their service as well as enjoy what I was sure would be German snack treat delights.

If your notions of German treats comes from The Simpsons, in which we've seen (German exchange student) Uder eating "marzipan Joy Joy (mit Iodine)", then you've got the wrong idea. Think chocolate, gummy, caramel, and sugary delights. There was no marzipan in the box (though I would have been delighted if there had been), and, most fortunately, nothing which was fortified with Iodine... that being said, I did get a goiter in Japan so maybe I could use some Iodine in my snacks.

The assortment I was sent was not only broad, but large. CandyGerman, like many such services, chooses a variety of items and sends the box to customers. You don't choose what you get, but it is a good system if you like surprises. I don't generally have access to a lot of German candy, but some of these items or ones similar to them can be purchased at places like CostPlus World Imports. It would cost me about the same as a subscription fee to CandyGerman to buy this many European snacks locally, and I wouldn't be able to get every type of food that they sent in the box (not by a long shot). So, I pronounce this a pretty good deal based on my current shopping options. Of course, any person's shopping mileage may vary. If you've got a cheap German market down the street chock full of goodies - and, if you do, I envy you - then this may not seem like such a sweet package.

I received this package soon after they said it would ship and in very good condition. As you can see by the peanuts, it's packed well. None of the fragile items that were inside (cookies) were damaged in any way. Considering that it also included wafer-based "Happy Hippo" confections and they arrived in beautiful condition, I think that their packing passes any reasonable test.

If you think I was sent a "special" package with more or better items, then you can check on what they normally send by looking at/following their Facebook page. They're relatively new, but have posted some pictures and it looks like every box is as generous as the one that I received. I should note that the people who corresponded with me were polite, friendly, and prompt. I'm confident that if you have questions or problems that they'll work with you to make you happy. Their contact information with an e-mail address is on their site.

My conclusion is that the service is not "cheap", but it's not "expensive" for what you get either. You can have a box for around the price of a couple of decent chain delivery pizzas. However, I guess whether or not that comparison makes sense to you depends on what you believe is "decent" and what part of the world/country you live in. If "Little Caesar's" $5-8 pies are what you're finding fills your belly with fun-to-eat carbs, fat, and meat-like substances, then this may seem steep to you.

Over time, I will be reviewing individual items from the box, but I wanted to start with a curious one that overlaps with a Japanese snack since that is the name of my game most of the time. I was stunned to see a box of Koala cookies which is clearly the German variation on Koala's March (as they are sold as in Japan). I've tried several takes on this cookie (Hello Panda, Pucca, and a few different flavors of Koala's March) and I can say that, hand's down, this is the one that I've liked the best. I don't speak German, but I concluded based on the taste that "milch" is "milk". Also, I'm not a total dumb ass and realized that the two words sound similar long before I opened the package.

The basic look and feel of the cookie is pretty similar to all of the copies and the original, but there is a "cookie" flavor that these have which is much more prominent. The Japanese variation has a rather bland outer shell with super sweet filling. The shell on this German variation carries a sugar-cookie-style flavor and has a sweet milky white chocolate center. I don't like Koala's March enough to buy it most of the time, but I liked these a fair bit. However, be warned that they are quite sweet. Given that they are marketed toward the child market, this is no shock.

The company that makes these is not Lotte, but Kuchenmeister. My guess is that there is some agreement between the Korean/Japanese maker and the German one to allow for the packaging and product design, but the cookies have been modified to suit German tastes. There are two flavors - milk and chocolate - and it seems that they put a toy featuring a version of their mascot inside the boxes. Mine has a vampire motif, but the current one pictured on the web site has an ancient Olympic one featuring the mascot variations in togas. If Kinder Eggs have taught us anything, it's that Europeans aren't nearly as hysterical about toys with food marketed at children as Americans are. I tend to see this as a good thing, but I didn't bother to procreate so my opinion on this matter doesn't carry a lot of weight.

The cookies definitely get a happy rating. If I weren't such a sugar wuss, they might even get a "very happy", but they're a little too sweet for my aging palate. Nonetheless, they are tasty little cookies.

Random Picture #209

I have a love/hate relationship with Sonton and their peanut spreads. One is a bit of an abomination. The other is a dollop of heaven. The question about these "peanuts cookies" is which end of the spectrum that they represent or if they occupy a unique space between. These are the result of a pairing between Mr. Ito and Sonton. Mr. Ito is a maker of some of the less refined shelf-stable cookie products out there. His name is not encouraging. I do note that an unexpected contributor to this enterprise. It seems that Mr. Peanut's little brother has been used to come and stand in as a mascot. I'm sure that the folks at Planters are more than happy to allow their property to be "borrowed" in such a fashion.

Reko Pizzelle (Vanilla, Anise, and Lemon)

The idea that a food is better in another country than its country of origin is not an alien one, though I do believe it's something which would be hotly debated. The idea that "Authentic" cuisine using the ingredients of the country in which the dish was developed is superior to any adaptations in other countries tends to be debated. In fact, at the moment, I'm hard-pressed to come up with any food in America that people (other than Americans) think is better here than in its home country. This could reflect the limits of my imagination, of course. Readers may feel free to share their thoughts.

Reko, the company in Cananda that makes today's focus of a review, asserts that their pizzelle are so good that they export them to the Abruzzo region of Italy. That's the area in which pizzelle were reportedly formulated. They boldly say Italians think their pizzelle are better than native offerings.

I can't speak for Italians, but I can speak for me. The truth is that I have consumed very few pizzelle in my life. For those who are even more unfamiliar with them than me, they are a thin, crispy, waffle-like cookie. They are less deeply browned and crispy than a waffle cone used for ice cream, but do have the same flavors in their mix.

These cookies were available at Cost Plus World Imports. The main reason I ended up buying them was that there was a basket of samples of the dulce de leche flavor on hand. I don't even like dulce de leche, but I liked the sample so I picked up the three other flavors that sounded even more appealing to me. I figured if the one I didn't like was good, the ones I liked would be even better.

I paid $3.50 per box of 30 cookies. There are three packs of 10 in each box (which greatly reduces the risk of them going stale) and the nutrition information says that a serving is five cookies. For me, I tend to try to keep it to three or four, tops, but I can see how easy it would be to get carried away given that they are crisp, light, and only 23 calories each. You can put away quite a few for the calorie price of less than two and a half Oreo cookies.

All of these cookies have the same basic mix and prominent flavor profile. They have a slightly carmelized flavor which says that flour, fat, and sugar have come together in a toasty orgy to create a more appealing offspring. All of the flavors are relatively subtle and come through as a secondary flavor after the overall "waffle/cookie" taste. Of the three flavors, lemon is my least favorite for not other reason than it seems to add a little too much of a citric sourness and not quite enough of a floral sense. That is not to say I dislike it. I do, but vanilla is my favorite with anise being in the middle of the pack.

The shining star of these cookies is the texture and subtlety. They are the perfect light accompaniment to tea or coffee as a light treat. The web site and packaging show them with fruit toppings, cream fillings, and chocolate between them like a waffle sandwich, but I love them plain. I think that appreciating them as a simple treat while attending to the delicate flavors is a treat and I'll definitely have them again.

Weiss Anis-Plätzchen

I like to ask people questions that, perhaps, no one has ever asked them before, or, at the very least, ask a question which tells me something that I don't know about them. It's a good game that allows you to know things about your friends that you might not otherwise ever know and can shed some interesting light on to their past or perspectives. Here's a question that I'm pretty sure I have never asked anyone, but these cookies brought to mind. The question is, "what was the first German word that you ever learned?" Of course, this only works if you are not actually German. If you are German, you probably don't remember your first German word.

I asked my husband this question and he said his was "zugzwang". Her learned it when he was 12 or 13 from reading books on chess. See, you have already learned something about my husband from that strang question and answer. My sister said that hers was likely something heard on the old comedy, "Hogan's Heroes" and she guesses it might be "schnell." This tells you something about what she watched on T.V. as a child (re-runs of shows that thought being a prisoner of the Nazis was a great sitcom idea). I asked my friends on Facebook and they gave an obvious one which I completely forgot about, "gezundheit." I think they were raised with better manners and around more mannerly people than me. The same goes for the friend who said it was "danke" ("thank you").

My first word in German, to my best recollection, was "hasenpfeiffer." I recall hearing it again and again in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Now you know something about my mispent youth. Among the words that I did not know was "plätzchen". It turns out that it means "cookie" in German. I think that would have been a far more appropriate word for me to know as a child than hasenpfeiffer as cookies were much more to my tastes at that time than rabbit stew. And, for what it's worth, the only other person besides me who knew a food word as their first one knew sauerkraut. That told me something about his early exposure to German food in a manner which made me feel bad for him. No, I'm not a fan of sour, wet cabbage that looks like it spent some time in someone's dirty sock.

Let me apologize for not having an actual picture of these cookies. You can see them through the window of the bag, but that's substandard cookie-viewage. They do actually look the same as the illustration, though the actual cookies are quite tiny. Each is about the diameter of a nickel (or five-yen coin).

This close up of the window of the bag is from Amazon Germany's picture - it's pretty clear and it makes me feel less bad about not having a proper picture. 

These are two layers and the top is an anise-flavored meringue dome with a crispy little cookie base that lends textural contrast, but very little in the way of flavor. Most of the flavor comes through in the little meringe top and it is lovely if you're a fan of anise. The combination of the meringue crunch and sweetness with the spice of the anise is a big winner in my book, but I'm a sucker for anything meringue. Some people find this type of cookie too hard and dry.

I loved these. I really did. In fact, I'm definitely going to pick up another bag next time I'm at the little European shop in Palo Alto that carries them. If you can get your hands on a bag, and you like anise, I can't recommend them highly enough.

Country Ma'am Banana Bread and Brownie Cookies (product information)

Country Ma'am is releasing two new flavors, one of which is a bit on the unusual side for Japan. The web site mentions that "banana bread" is "like pound cake" in the U.S. That's not quite right, and it actually is irrelevant to the cookies, but the fact that they feel it is necessary to explain that shows just how unusual banana bread is in Japan. It's not strange to find the occasional "banana cake" or muffin, but not "bread". The promotional material tells us that the banana version is made with Philippine bananas and has the smell of wheat. The brownie version boasts California almonds and, again, the promotional material asserts that mixing nuts in brownies is an American thing.

If you've never had Country Ma'am cookies, they're known for being crispy on the outside and a bit soft and fudge-like on the inside. If you pop them in a microwave for a short time, then they heat up as something akin to a fresh-baked cookie... or akin to a freshly baked mass-manufactured shelf-stable cookie. They're actually pretty good and occupy a unique niche in the Japanese market. These two varieties are sold currently in small five-packs. My guess is that they are most easily located in convenience stores and I'm unlikely to encounter either variety at Japanese markets here. If I find one though, I might give it a try.

Five Grains Cream Sand Biscuits

When I shopped at the Daiso (100-yen shop) in Tokyo, I used to look at the cheap products on sale there and investigate their country of origin. On the packages, it often said very prominently, "PRODUCT OF JAPAN." I took this to mean that this item was manufactured in Japan. It turns out that saying something is a "product of (country)" has nothing to do with where it was made. It just means that the country it was marketed for is the given country.

I realized this after careful inspection of these cookies, which I purchased at Daiso Japan in Cupertino for $1.50 (156 yen). As an aside, I should note that I rarely buy snacks there these days because their inventory so rarely changes. These were the first new product that I was drawn to there in quite some time.

Getting back to the point, this says "PRODUCT OF JAPAN" just as I've written it here in all capital letters and right under it, it says, "Country of Origin: China". I have to wonder if the all caps is intentional. It's the equivalent of "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." It's not that I'm particularly troubled that my cookies are from China. I'm very egalitarian about such things, but I do think that it's a wee bit on the naughty side to label things as they are on the package.

Packaging aside, and as another aside, a recent study says that packaging matters a great deal to people so is it any wonder that I'm droning on about it, let's talk cookies. I was drawn to these because of the "five grain" aspect. Those grains are corn, black sesame seed, peanuts, oats and black soy beans according to the front of the box, but the first ingredient is actually wheat flour.

Note that ingredients are listed in order of volume in the recipe and, listed after salt, are black soybean, peanuts, and oats. That means there are fewer of those ingredients than salt. I'm pretty sure that means somoene tossed a peanut, a thimble of oats, and a black soybean into the vats and that there are trace amounts of them. Well, if these are insanely salty, then I may be wrong.

As it turns out, these cookies are not incredibly salty, nor are they super sweet. The outer biscuit is earthy and mainly tastes of black sesame with a whole wheat sense in the background. The vanilla filling doesn't come through much at all with the stronger grain flavors and it mainly adds texture. I think you'd have to unsandwich the cookie, eat half and place the filling against your tongue to get a sense of it, but I didn't bother to do that. I'm a purist and will eat it as it is presented.

This is an interesting cookie because it has a lot of flavor depth and feels more like a health food biscuit than a sandwich cookie. It still carries Oreo-level calories at 67 calories per (they are bigger than an Oreo though by about 25%). No doubt a lot of those calories come from the second, third, and fourth ingredients: sugar, refined palm oil, and shortening. Those make it clear that, while this may sound like a health food, it's got plenty of bad fats in it to spoil the whole grainy goodness. Still, this isn't a blog which concerns itself seriously with nutrition when it comes to snacks. I'm not complaining and merely noting that the multi-grain nature is not related to these being nutritionally sound.

As someone who actually prefers brown bread to white bread and stronger, earthy flavors to the blandness of white flour, I enjoyed these. I'm not sure if I'd buy them again, but I certainly wouldn't rule it out. The fact that the black sesame dominates is an enormous plus for me. If you enjoy whole grains and black sesame, then you may want to give these a try.

Aling Conching Native Products Special Uraro

As some of my readers with detailed memories may recall (that is to say, probably no one), I don't make New Year's resolutions. That being said, I did have a recommendation for my Facebook friends for the coming year. It's not something I personally can resolve to do because I already do it. That recommendation is to try and do something new every week. In fact, I said it would be a good idea to make a numbered list from 1-52 and write down the new thing that you had done to motivate yourself to keep doing it.

One of the reasons why I've started to review non-Japanese food every Friday is to try new things. I haven't tried every Japanese thing on the planet, but I have tried a lot of them. Since I'm fortunate enough to have access to a plethora of Asian markets (and ethnic markets in general), I'm blessed with new snack food potential at every turn. It was in the spirit of trying something completely new that I picked up these "special uraro" cookies. I had not idea what they were. I only knew that they were cheap (about a dollar/105 yen) and from the Philippines.

It wasn't until I got home and looked them up that I learned that they are arrowroot (cassava) cookies. That would mean more to me if I knew what arrowroot was. Looking it up on Wikipedia told me a lot about the history of it and informed me about its potential for gluten-free diets, but it didn't really give me any idea of what to expect from these tiny little cookies. Each is a little bigger than the diameter of my thumbnail.

Each cookie is very dense and crumbly. They smell vaguely of coconut, though that is just my nose trying to find a similar aroma to that of arrowroot/cassava. The ingredients list for these is very short. It's just cassava flour, cane sugar, and butter. Clearly, there is no coconut in there.

The cookies are stored in 4 wax sleeves, but given how dry and crumbly they are, they keep pretty well despite having a fairly "airy" packaging. I've had these around for awhile and did not have them sealed up after opening and they stayed pretty much in their original state of crispness.

These are an unusual experience. The flavor is reminiscent of coconut and they don't come across as very sweet at the start, but get sweeter on the second bite (and each cookie is at most two bites). They also have a very chalky flavor which matches the texture to some extent. The texture is a cross between a shortbread cookie and a Tums antacid tablet. Each cookie is 23 calories.

These are not especially bad, but they really weren't particularly good. I think that they are designed largely to be shelf-stable and to cater to rather basic tastes. I believe there are probably lots of far better cassava cookies out there and I plan to look around for a more expensive variety in the future as a point of comparison. As a starting point for "uraro" cookies, I'm glad I picked them up, but I really can't see finishing even the small portion that I purchased this time.

Mr. Ito Marron (Chestnut) Tart Cookies

A few days after Christmas, I wanted to make the rounds of the three major Japanese markets in my area (Marukai, Nijiya, and Mitsuwa) to see if any of them had their New Year's preparation on. I was very disappointed to see that they had very little in the way of traditional New Year's decorations and the only food options were extremely expensive "o-sechi ryori" deals in which you'd have to pre-order your repast for the holidays. The only exception was over-priced balls of shelf stable kagami mochi and a woman selling roasted chestnuts outside of Mitsuwa several yards from a man roasting those chestnuts.

As my husband and I walked near Mitsuwa, he said he smelled something which he strongly associated with living in Tokyo. It was a burning smell that we both recalled being similar to that which came around tea shops that roasted their own leaves. In this case, we were smelling the roasting of the chestnuts. It resembled burnt coffee.

I've written before that roasting is a bit of a unifying flavor force. One of the reasons that kinako (toasted soy flour) tastes a bit like peanut butter is that both the soybeans and peanuts are roasted. I've learned that things made with chestnut often take on an almost coffee-like flavor because of their roasting as well. When I gave one of these cookies a pre-tasting sniff, the first thing I thought of was coffee with strong caramel notes.

My nose did not lie to me. These have both coffee- and caramel-like notes to them, though there is also some chestnut flavor. The outer tart is crumbly and like a butter cookie. It provides some of the flavor, though in fairly muted margarine and flour flavors. It's not especially sweet, though not really bland. It brings more of a textural contrast and a balancing of the sweeter, softer, and just short of gooey filling. In fact, the filling's sweetness and texture are pretty perfectly complemented by the cookie base. The only thing I could say is "wrong" with it is that it would be nice if the ratios were slightly different. There could be a little less cookie.

That's in no way an indictment. I liked this quite a bit. This cost about $3.00 at Marukai market and I felt it was slightly expensive for 8 small cookies (each is about the diameter of an Oreo). My husband actually had to talk me into spluring on them and I'm glad he did. Though I probably wouldn't dash out and stockpile them, I was happy to buy them and look forward to eating the rest. They aren't exactly a chestnut lover's dream, but they're fine cookies nonetheless and a good shake-up to the holiday parade of gingerbread, pumpkin, and sugar cookies that I experience at this time of year.

Astor Skinny Roll (Peanut Butter)

I wonder if naming your product "skinny" improves sales because it leads consumers to believe that you will lose weight by eating it. In the case of these snacks, which are only 19 calories per roll, there's not much chance that you'll get skinny unless you exercise the most judicious of portion control.

Note the one-eyed mascot on the cover. His physique is not only quite rounded, but he also seems to have gained a Miley-Cyrus-like tongue control issue. I guess it must be some sort of issue that musicians suffer from. Too much music or singing must cause some sort of tongue muscle flabbiness tha results in unpleasant lolling on occasion.

This snack comes from Indonesia and is made by a company called Astor and distributed by Mayora Inc. In addition to these snacks, they also distribute the ever present Kopiko coffee candies. They also have some very spiffy-looking wafer snakcs called "Zuperr Keju" and "Beng-Beng". With such awesome names, how can they go wrong?

When I received these "Skinny Roll" snacks as part of a package of goodies from KS Snacks, I expected something similar to "Pepero". That's the Korean pretzel roll snack that is like an inside out Pocky stick which left me less than impressed. It turns out that I was very wrong about what I was getting and in the best possible way.

For starters, the sticks are not pretzels. They are wafer rolls similar to Pirouhette cookies. They are delicate and crispy. Though they don't add much to the flavor except for the mildest of sugar-cookie-style flavor, the filling happily does all of the heavy lifting in that regard. Though it looks a lot like a hollow tube, it's actually lined with a sweet, peanut-cream-like filling that carries just the right level of sweetness without being cloying and enough peanut power to leave you happy without being heavy or overbearing.

This is, by far, one of the best "finds" I've had since returning to America. It's damn tasty with an excellent texture. KS Snacks is offering them on their web site and I strongly recommend that anyone who is a peanut fan give them a try.

Random Picture #191

One of the possibly dubious benefits of having lived in a particular Asian country for quite some time is that, while I can't read other Asian languages, I can tell what they are. For instance, I can tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese even though they use the same characters. Though the concept of an "office lady" was one that I was introduced to while living in Japan, this package of "cookie rolls" let me know that the idea is not confined to that country. These are Chinese (made in Taiwan) and I'm guessing they are trying to say that office ladies love these things.

In Japan, office ladies were well-known for their love of sweets and kept an ample supply in their desks or the break room for a quick nosh. This sort of thing tells me that they likely are not alone in their habits.

Random Picture #182

When I was a kid, I recall wanting my parents to bring me back something every time they went out without me. The whole "Did you get me something?" business was a part of my childhood behavioral pattern. That being said, my parents rarely went anywhere interesting so the best they tend to offer was a small bag of chips. If I was lucky, they were barbeque, but often they were plain chips or I got nothing at all.

Japanese kids who have a parent who does conventional business travel have much better possibilities in their lives. I daddy or mommy pass through a major hub, treats such as these "train-kun" cookies sold in train-themed tins could be proffered. I've been told that boys love trains, even big ones, so these might actually be more for the pappies in the crowd than their kiddies.

The cookie varieties from left to right are chocolate chip (bullet train/shinkansen), chocolate, caramel, "milk", and fruit. I'm not sure why the old-fashioned train car tin doesn't get a sample cookie propped on top, but I'm guessing making its flavor fruit reflects the fuddy-duddy nature of both the flavor and the container. The regular tins are 650 yen (around $6.63) and the shinkansen one is 980 yen ($9.99). Of course, the bullet train is more expensive. It always is.  

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. 

Glico Disaster Supply Marketing

Image courtesy of Glico.

Glico knows how to survive a disaster. If there's an earthquake, typhoon, or nuclear disaster, all you need to sustain you is several cans of their snacks and curry. In order to make sure that they stay intact, they offer them in vacuum packages and tins. This protects them from air and water and, according to Glico, makes them easier to carry.

As part of this promotion, they're emphasizing that their packets of shelf stable curry are tasty and have a good texture even if they aren't heated. They also mention that their candies will provide quick energy if you're on the run from falling objects and can't get food. The Glico biscuits are easy to eat for the whole family from children to grannies.

Personally, I'm a bit suspicious about the nutrition you'll get from candy, cookies, and curry packets. They assume, I guess, that you're going to also have shelf-stable rice packets or that you'll pour your curry on your cookies or something. At any rate, with the earthquake situation in Japan, it's a good idea to keep food supplies on hand, but I'm not sure this is the mix you're going to want to invest in. 

Tohato All Lemon Salty Biscuits/Cookies

If you look at the design of the "All" on the "All (fruit)" line of cookies, you'll see that the "A" is pretty darn happy. The two "l's" seem to be distant cousins of "Hello Kitty" as they are mouth-less. One has to wonder why the designer came up with this style. Was drawing too little mouths on the "l's" going to make the top set of letters seem like too happy a family next to the expressionless words beneath? Did the designer not have enough ink to draw just a little more? Was he or she suddenly struck down with sadness after drawing the little curve on the "A"?

Personally, I'm not sure why anyone feels it's necessary to anthropomorphize letters and assign them human feelings. It just encourages deviant behavior. If people think letters possess emotions, there might be some ridiculous movement toward giving them human rights and they can refuse to work for us. I'll have to start giving their unions money in order to use them in my posts. If that happens, it's all over, people.

Getting to the cookies, like all of the "All (fruit)" line, there is supposed to be 10 cm. of fruit crammed between two cookie layers. I guess that they are compressed into a quantum singularity of fruit filling for your convenience. There's no fear of getting lockjaw after having to open your mouth wide to bite down on 10 cm. of fruit. Woohoo?

One of the points about the "All (fruit)" line that I like is the texture mix of the somewhat dry biscuit cookie base mixed with moist, sweet dried fruit. The fruit really brings moisture into the equation in most cases, but not in this one. Lemon is not exactly a soft fruit when dried because it has a low sugar content. That doesn't make this bad, but it does make them a bit dry and lower the quality of the experience of eating them.

This is unfortunate because I like the mild lemon flavor mixed with a hint of salt. The salt is very well-balanced from my perspective because it lies in wait until you've chewed the carby, floury cookie base and chewy lemon. It comes in most prominently at the end, but not so potently as to make this unpleasantly salty.

These are fine, but they could be better. There could be more sweetness to boost the overall flavor profile. Though I am not a fan of huge amounts of sugar, I think that it can add to more potent flavors and this can use it. Also, I truly wish the cookie and the filling were moister. If the cookie had a cakier feel, I think these would definite be worth repeating. They aren't though, so I wouldn't have these again.

Montebovi Amaretti Cookies

If someone drops you in the desert with a knife, a canteen of water that'll last one day, a blanket, and three protein bars and it takes three days to get out of there, you're going to have to be pretty creative and innovative to survive. You might even come up with some unique and impressive ways to manage survival that others will find laudable.

Compare this to what would happen if someone dropped you in the desert with just one thing for your survival. In this case, it's a set of keys to a fully-stocked RV that is parked just around the corner with enough gas to get you out of the desert and then some. It even has a GPS. Who is going to care about your little adventure?

I've often felt when I'm playing a game that the most interesting time is when your character has nearly nothing to work with. The challenges are less difficult, but you have less to meet them with so you've got to be crafty. Sometimes, I look at modern cuisine and I think that we have too many options and the results are far less impressive that our ancestors came up with when they were working with fewer ingredients and cruder tools.

Amaretti are small, crispy cookies made with almonds that are sometimes referred to as "macaroons". They were first tracked in Italy during the Renaissance and there are varying recipes. Most American recipes that I've read include almond extract.

They are called "macaroons", what they remind me of more than that are meringue cookies. They have the same sweet crispy quality with the added benefit of nutty richness. Their ingredient list is quite small, usually consisting of egg whites, sugar, and ground almonds or apricot kernels. This simple recipe yields an immensely satisfying cookie which has both flavor and textural delights.

This mass produced amaretti, which I picked up for a mere $2.19 at a Russian market that carried world foods, includes "flavours", milk solids, and baking soda, so it's not quite the classic recipe from days of old, but it doesn't seem to be greatly modified. Whatever the case, these are delicious amaretti that are shelf stable and don't lose their crispiness even after the rather airy package has been opened. They cleave easily and almost melt in your mouth.

They're not as dry as meringue cookies, but have the same textural quality that makes them crumble apart a bit like honey comb. The combination of a good shatter and the melting quality make these satisfying on two fronts in terms of texture. The amaretti flavor can be a bit intense, but I love it, and I loved these cookies.

The truth is that I haven't met an amaretti cookie that I didn't like, but these were definitely more modestly priced than some. They were also the sort of thing which I rarely located in Japan and aren't incredibly common in the U.S., but also not difficult to find either (at least not in my area). I loved these, and I wish I'd bought 3 packages of them, especially since 5 small cookies are only 97 calories and I can feel pretty indulgent.

Some Renaissance cook was dropped in the desert with very few ingredients and made something amazing. I'm glad he or she didn't have more to work with.

Bourbon Alfort Green Tea Chocolate Biscuits

Several years ago, I sent a friend of mine a "care package" from Japan. I should call it, in retrospect, an "I don't care for" package as most of what I sent him wasn't exactly regarded with enthusiasm. Included was a bag of Japanese green tea, since was a green tea drinker at the time, some instant corn potage soup, some small salted snack things, and several chocolate items including a box of Alfort chocolate biscuits. I think he said either the corn potage snacks or the soup "tasted like Cap'n Crunch". I could understand why he'd say that since they are both made from corn and on the sweet side.

The green tea got the worst reception because he thought it looked like a bag of hash. At that time, I didn't know that Americans drank "green tea" which did not resemble Japanese green tea. For many, it was a sort of brownish stuff that lacked strong grassy notes or the scent of chlorophyll. I daresay that was not what he expected, but I did send along a teapot which he liked. He also liked the Alfort chocolate biscuits. They were the only clear winner among the food options.

Alfort is a very common brand of half-cookie/half-candy made by Bourbon and I was shocked when I looked through my archives and realized that I have never reviewed any of these products before. It's not like I scarfed them down with abandon in Japan, but I did have them on more than one occasion and found them quite enjoyable. You can usually find them at Lawson 100 for 100 yen or about a dollar in U.S. currency. The boxes carry a fair bit of heft and 12 little squares of cookie and candy merged together. It's good value for a solid product. The common flavors are chocolate, bitter chocolate, and white chocolate. This green tea flavor caught my eye mainly because, while green tea is a mainstream flavor in Japan, it's not one I'd noticed for Alfort before. That's not to say it wasn't around, but just that I didn't see it.

I found this at Mitsuwa market for a $1.69 (about 170 yen), which is pricy by Tokyo standards, but reasonable by American ones. The packaging says that it is made with "uji matcha", a green tea grown in Kyoto. I daresay that there is a flood of product on the market these days which touts its uji matcha connection and that it is a bona fide food fad now. It's not that green tea is in any way exotic, but just that this particular type of tea seems to have been swelling in popularity over the past year or so.

The concept of Alfort is simple. Half is a bit of chocolate, pure and simple, with a little biscuit stuck on the back-side. All of the varieties of these candies have a picture of a boat on them for reasons I can't figure out. If the box says so, I can't read it as an enormous sticker translating the nutrition information and ingredients is covering most of it. I'm guessing it doesn't say so at any rate, and my search on the word "Alfort" was no help. It's a commune. It's a veterinary school. It's a botanical garden. It's the name of an English cricket player. Most disturbingly, it's the name of a museum of "anatomical oddities". No, I did not try to look at the linked page in regards tot he museum.

I'm just going to look at the ship on my cookie and pretend that it's a pirate boat and that the president of Bourbon is cool enough to put pirates on his chocolate biscuits. That will make sampling them more enjoyable, not that they need a boost in enjoyment. These are pretty tasty little morsels, as long as you like green tea.

As green tea flavors go, this one is certainly more potent than some of the snacks I've tried as of late. The aroma rather strongly hits you when you break the seal and it is the smell that you detect when you open up a bag of green tea leaves. It could be that all of the scent trapped tightly in the wrapper makes it super strong, but it is still very present when you eat the cookie. It's a very good combination of green tea bitterness with white chocolate sweetness. In fact, as I sample more green tea sweets, I think that it works much better with white chocolate than any other flavor. Fruit flavors, for instance, tend to layer sweetness on sweetness. This creates more of a balance.

The cookie itself mainly adds texture, but it's got some heft for its tiny size due to the cookie's thickness and higher than average quality. For a consumer level product, the cookie has better shortbread notes than I'd expect. While it lacks a buttery flavor to add depth, it has a crumbly goodness and some flaky layering that make it a very satisfying counter-point to the somewhat rich and sweet chocolate. Its blandness also helps balance out the chocolate's sweetness.

Do I think this is the greatest cookie and chocolate on earth? Certainly not. Did I enjoy it? Absolutely. The thing about certain types of flavors is that they play better as small portions for novelty and attentive enjoyment. This isn't the type of product that you'd buy a box of to take to a movie and chow down with, unless you grew up with green tea sweets and that's what you did for your entire life. It's more the type that you'd eat one or two of with a cup of coffee or tea and really savor the flavor balance. For marginally adventurous palates, I'd definitely say that this is worth a try.

Random Picture #172

Meiji's kinoko and takenoko no sato (mushroom and bamboo shoot) lines of cookie snacks is one of the most venerable in Japan. While I always thought that they were fine as a nice little morsel of cookie with some sort of chocolate, they were never the sort of thing I strongly gravitated toward. There were always bigger fish to fry than the generic combination of buttery biscuit and chocolate. For jaded sorts like me, Meiji has upped their game and released Bergamot Milk Tea and Honey Cafe Latte flavors of these snacks. If I were in Japan and could locate these for the usual price of around 150 yen ($1.50), I'd probably give them a try. Here in the U.S., as you can see, they're more than double that price. Since I don't expect a premium chocolate experience, I was unwilling to pay a premium price for them.

If any of my readers has a bigger wallet than me and popped for these, I'd be curious to hear what you thought of them and if they were worth the scratch.

Korovka Butter and Cream Cookies

Cream is in blue and butter is in yellow, as suits the color of butter.

Back when I first started learning to use computers, I felt completely overwhelmed by the volume of things that I did not know how to accomplish. It may seem inconceivable to people who could use a PC before they could make potty somewhere other than their pants, but I didn't even know how to change the sound. In fact, I recall taking my new black and white Powerbook 145b to work and having a Star Trek screen saver installed that kept making sounds. I went into a pure panic when I couldn't work out how to stop the noises that might alert my Japanese coworkers to the fact that I had my own computer there and that it was playing the equivalent of little sci-fi cartoons when it as idle.

Being confronted with a new language or writing system is a very similar experience. The first sense you get is of being overwhelmed and like you have no footing from which to start working things out. When I first went to Japan, this was the space I lived in and it was daunting. The truth is that it's still daunting given how many kanji (Chinese characters) there are, but I muddled through. Now, I can manage dealing with researching and writing about Japanese snack foods. I'm far from perfect, and some critics might even say far from even "adequate" at it, but I feel like I can stumble around and figure most things out.

Dealing with food that is of a completely different origin puts me back at square one. If I review a Korean snack, I have a sense of flailing around in foreign waters without a life preserver. I know zero about Korean and the same is so about Russian. I don't even know if this is Russian for certain. It may be some other Eastern European language which looks similar, but is totally different. At any rate, I'm trying to swim here, but don't be surprised if I end up failing to even doggy paddle my way through this review. It may end up being the equivalent of "mmm, cookies" and little else given my illiteracy in the language of this product.

I found these cookies at a cool shop that is called "Crossroads Specialty Foods" in Palo Alto, CA. I was walking around the area near the dealership that was servicing our car, which was having its fluids drained, replaced, or topped off in celebration of its first birthday, when I saw their sign along the street. The sign is kind of weird and not like what it appears to be on the Yelp page that I linked to. It used to have "World Market" written in the middle in big letters and that was simply painted over so there's a big blank in the middle. Also, from outward appearances, it just looks strange because it doesn't have the feel of a market, but rather of a supply store. I approached with caution because I didn't want to walk in and be asked if I wanted help buying 100 lbs. of basmati rice or a drum of olive oil.

That's "cream" on the left and "butter" on the right, but then you could tell by looking, right?

At any rate, after a careful peek through the door revealed shelves full of cookies and candy, I walked in and was greeted to an excellent selection of European and Middle Eastern food and snacks. The selection included a ton of British chocolate as well as Russian cookies and sweets and things like halvah and marzipan. The prices ranged from cheap to reasonable. Since I'm not especially reasonable and quite cheap, I picked up these Russian cookies for a mere 89 cents per 6.3 oz./180 g. packet.

I was intrigued by the fact that the cookies looked absolutely identical, but supposedly were different flavors. Also, I wondered what "cream" flavor was supposed to taste like and if the "butter" flavor would actually taste more buttery. To test this out, I had my husband do a blind taste test to see if he could tell and he could. This was pretty impressive since he doesn't have as keen a sense of taste as I do.

There is a very distinct difference between these cookies, but they are both very good. The butter one has a very discernible butter flavor. In fact, I think it's a fake flavoring since "margarine" is listed as an ingredient, but butter is not. The "cream" version has a cleaner taste, but has a nice plain butter cookie flavor to it overall. Both are "good", but I preferred the cream one.

With all types of plain cookies like these, it's as much about the texture as the taste. These have a great flaky, slightly crumbly texture and they pair extremely well with coffee or tea. They're the type of cookie that is good to have around for guests or times when you just want a little crispy cookie around that's not too sweet.

I really liked these, but I do like butter cookies and fairly simple tasting things that aren't too sweet. Texture is paramount and what I mainly hope for in a cheap consumer-level cookie like this is that it not resemble a cracker. This is absolutely a proper cookie which has a European feel. Is it the end-all and be-all of cookies? It is not, but it's still a pretty nice cookie and I'd definitely buy it again, especially at the price they are currently available.

I checked online for sources of these cookies, and I couldn't find the exact ones online, but there's an interesting online place for Russian food that sells a variety of these as well as many other products.