Random Picture #216

For those who don't know my particular regional supermarket options, I'd like to start out by saying that Safeway is a chain of markets that is common in California. It may be available in other areas, but I know it is not on the East Coast as my sister (who lives in Pennsylvania) had never heard of it before I moved to California. It's like Giant Eagle or Kroger's in the East, or Seiyu in Japan. That's my way of saying it's a pretty boring all-purpose market at which you don't expect to find anything especially exotic.

All of that being said, it seems even boring markets in my area carry bontan ame and Pocky. At first, I was really impressed by them, but now I see these items so much that I don't even notice. That being said, a new Safeway opened recently in the Cupertino area and I was shocked to find this Japanese "purin" (pudding) container for sale there. This particular branch also carries bakery items from the Sogo bakery and I'm guessing their range is broader because the area hosts a lot more residents of Asian descent. The lesson for me is to not take for granted that a chain store is a chain store is a chain store. You never know what surprises might be lurking. 

Random Picture #213

Recently, I was talking about Asian bakeries with my sister-in-law. We were talking mainly about a chain called "Paris Baguette" which has a French-sounding name, but is actually Asian and has a focus on Japanese- and Korean-style offerings. Of course, when I talk about baking and Japan, I really mean the European-style confections that Japan has modified for its market's tastes.

One of the things which Japan modified for its tastes was flan, or, if you prefer, pudding, or, even "creme brulee" without the burnt top. I've always been confused about whether this should be called one or the other. As you can see by the side view, this is essentially flan. It has a sweet syrup on the bottom and a thick pudding in the center. Personally, the point at which flan and pudding are separated comes at how thick they are. Flan can stand on its own, though it may wobble a bit. Pudding tends to be a bit more gooey and needs a container to support it. At any rate, the plastic containers of "purin" that you see here were in a supermarket in Tokyo and they have whipped cream as well as chestnut puree (the ones on the right). The ones on the left are "fruit purin", but the curious thing about them is that they have a mini purin on top of the larger purin. It feels like one of those mirror within a mirror deals, only with food.

KitKat Baked Purin (Pudding) mini

I've spoken before about how there must be a think tank of sorts inside Nestle Japan in which they're sitting around trying to figure out what new gimmicks they can use to try and separate their product from the horde of consumer-grade confectionery. The person who decided that they should create a way for something that usually melts to be baked probably got a gold star, and possibly some fairly quizzical looks and disapproving frowns from those who doubted his ingenuity.

Speaking of said ingenuity, I'm not sure what had to be done to these to make them bake-able without making them turn into a puddle of white chocolate goo. The ingredients list includes chocolate, wheat flour (for the wafer, no doubt), vegetable oil, lactose, sugar caramel powder, whole milk powder, cocoa powder, yeast, cacao mass, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, artificial flavor, baking soda, and "yeast food". The final item appears to be "mineral yeast" which is used to alter the way dough works (not as sticky, softer), so I don't know if it is the magic ingredient. My lack of food chemistry knowledge means that I can't pinpoint what keeps them from becoming ooey messes, but someone did some alchemical homework.

At any rate, I'm on the late side to this party because it took awhile for this to reach my shores. I found this at Nijiya market in San Jose. Given the high novelty factor, and my husband's shared interest in trying these, I forked over the $5.99 without a second thought. How often do I get a chance to set my toaster oven on fire in the name of blogging?

The instructions on the back tell you to line the toaster oven tray with foil. It explicitly says that you should not use aluminium cups or foil pans. Apparently, the difference between sheets of aluminum foil and folded containers ostensibly made with the same stuff is another chemistry lesson I need to learn. At any rate, I wasn't going to argue with the people who made the product... at least not until I actually tried the product and had a reason to do so.

Once you have lined your tray with foil and lined up your KitKats - the illustration shows four bars being made at once, but I only wanted to make two so I may be violating the recipe in some fashion - you're supposed to bake them for about two minutes at 1000 W. In Japan, my toaster oven had wattage listed on the instructions. My oven here has temperatures (in both Celsius and Fahrenheit) and food types.

So, I did some research and got myself thoroughly confused about what the temperature should be. Answers ranged from complex formulas that I tried to use, but gave me ludicrous results like I should be using 1000 degrees F. to "watts measure something different and can't be converted to temperature settings".  I decided to take the middle road and use 350 degrees because I'd rather it cooked too slowly then exploded in a burst of sugary molten madness. That temperature seemed to be a good one.

I had been warned to keep an eye on it by readers who commented on the product announcement and it is a warning I will repeat. This will go from uncooked to nicely browned in the blink of an eye. I didn't burn it, but I'm thinking it will burn fast. Do not walk away from it unless you want to risk it being ruined.

The plain, uncooked bar tastes like very sweet white chocolate and has the nuanced flavor of Japanese "purin" (pudding). It's the barest hint of caramel flavor. Since the bag touts the inclusion of .5% caramel powder, this is no surprise. When I gave it a sniff just after opening the package, caramel was the only thing I could detect aside from the white chocolate itself.

I think this is actually sweeter than other KitKats I've had recently, but that could be because many of my most recent tastings have been the "adult" versions which have tamped down sweetness levels. As an uncooked bar, it's probably a mediocre experience for someone who isn't an enormous fan of white chocolate and a bad one for someone who hates it or very sweet candy.

The sad-looking baked version.

The real question is whether or not it gains something in the baking and the answer is that it does. I sampled this slightly warm and my husband tried it cool. I wanted to try it both ways to see how the texture changed. In both states, baking it takes on a caramelized sugar flavor which reminded both of us of the sauce used in flan. It's not nearly as intense, but the bar is definitely better in its baked state.

This is what happens if you try to pick it up while warm.

In terms of whether you should eat the baked version warm or cold, I definitely say wait for it to cool. If you try to remove it from the sheet warm, it will separate and fall apart. The warm chocolate is an interesting sensation, but you loose the lacey edges which carry much of the intensified caramel flavor (and it sticks to the sheet).

A cooled half - much easier to handle and you don't lose any part of it.

The cooled version not only keeps all of the caramel edges intact, but comes off the sheet cleanly and is easier to handle. Clearly, this was never intended to be eaten warm off the sheet and, if you don't want to risk a burned tongue (I didn't get burned, but it is a risk) or a disintegrating bar, then be patient... not that I was impatient.

At the price I paid ($5.99 for a bag of 13 minis), these are 46 cents per bar. This actually is  not an outrageous price per piece. It's not exactly cheap, but it's not incredibly expensive. In Tokyo, you'd probably pay closer to $3.50-$4.00 (350-400 yen), but it's not really fair to compare import prices to domestic ones. You will always pay between 50-100% more for rare or imported items. These are currently being offered on eBay for $8.54 by someone (including shipping).

A better bet if you want to try these and have no access to an Asian market that carries them is Candysan. They have them for the bargain price of 345 yen at present, but the shipping is 480 yen. However, if you make a larger order, you get a better per item deal on shipping as it scales more slowly (or not at all) after the first item. They also carry other somewhat exotic items which may be worth trying like purple sweet potato KitKats and "big little" orange KitKats. Of course, they have other interesting items as well. At present, I'd say that Candsan offers the best prices on Japanese snacks by mail order in terms of a place that allows you to choose what you receive (as opposed to the services that send you monthly or bi-weekly surprise packages).

In terms of whether or not you should try this, I'd say that it is for people who have curiosity or desire novelty in their food rather than as a "must have" treat. It's a different sort of experience. It's fun and it tastes pretty good as well, but it's not fine quality stuff. I think it'd be a great thing to do with your friends if they're the sort that enjoy unique things and are open-minded. I imagine kids would go crazy for it as a general concept. I have to imagine that since I don't have kids. ;-) At any rate, I'm happy that I tried it, but I'm not sure that I'd go for it again. Once is a good experience, and it's enough.

Kanmi Oribean Custard Purin Daifuku

One of my former classmates, in response to a comment I made on FaceBook, offered to send me some wicked sugary delights in the form of a Cadbury Creme egg. Yes, my fat cells are already expanding in anticipation and my pancreas is nervous. I haven't had one of those sugar bombs for at least 15 years and I wonder if my tastes may have changed such that its poisonous center will be an assault to my taste buds after all these years. Mind you, I'm not exactly dreading the challenge.

As a way of returning the favor, I offered to send him some Japanese snacks. His response was that he's worked with Japanese companies a lot and really prefer not to be subjected to more than he's already experienced. I had to smile at this response. That used to be me some 20-odd years ago, trolling the shops for things which looked like things back home rather than adventurously sampling the weirdness of all gustatory things Japanese.

Now, even the "weird" seems mundane and appealing to me. Take these small balls of mochi (pounded rice cake) encasing a bizarre-looking center of caramel whipped cream and goo. Finding these was a delight for me, not a moment to dread. I've come to really love daifuku and all the more when it's in a flavor my husband will also enjoy.

Each little blob of soft slightly chewy mochi is slightly bigger than the diameter of a 100-yen coin or quarter. The cutaway picture on the bag shows this attractive little bit of filling pooching out, but the real thing is far less pretty. Frankly, it looks like an infected wound, but don't let the way it appears inside color your judgment. This is delicious. The texture is a great combination of chewy with soft creaminess. This is well-coupled with the combination of the bland pounded rice flavor and sweet caramel center. I thought the center was rather potent, like the caramel sauce on top of flan, but my husband said he would have liked it even stronger.

This was very tasty. It wasn't as good as a fresh daifuku or even some of the larger ones I've bought as souvenirs, but it's definitely more accessible and cheaper. I found this at Seiyu supermarket for 168 yen ($2.07). There are about 8 or 10 individually wrapped pieces (at 43 calories each) in the bag so it's good value. Unless you're really sensitive about fake caramel flavor, I'd suggest giving these a try. I really enjoyed them.

Fujicco Chestnut Pudding

Pudding or "purin" as it is called in Japan, is sold pretty much everywhere here, and I tend to pretty much ignore it. It's not that it's bad, but rather that the flavors tend to be pedestrian (vanilla, chocolate, and coffee) and also I'm not the biggest fan of pudding. There's also the fact that most of these little cups of thickened goo are full of fat and carry a high calorie punch for their size.

This caught my eye at the local Peacock supermarket for 108 yen ($1.33) because 75 grams (2.6 oz or about 3/4 cup) is only 91 calories and it is "kuri" or chestnut-flavored. Granted, chestnut is a common flavor in autumn and winter in Japan, but I never noticed it in pudding before. That's probably because I wasn't paying attention rather than because it wasn't on offer before. I was probably distracted by all of the chocolate in the next aisle.

This is made by a company called "Fujicco" and it was my first experience with a product of theirs. The company makes a vast array of foods for markets including "Caspia" yogurt (greek yogurt), health and diet foods, nata de coco, and vacuum-sealed bags of things which look like they have been regurgitated by a bizarre sea creature. The last item is my way of summarizing "food that is used in Japanese cooking which I don't consume."

The texture is surprisingly decent considering that it breaks up like a gelatinous blob rather than as a smooth creamy pudding. The smell is really quite nice with a roasted chestnut aroma that also brings coffee to mind. It is the roasting that brings about this comparison, not the actual presence of coffee.

The flavor is incredibly good. Chestnut is a flavor that is easy to screw up because too much is gag-inducing and too little leaves you shrugging. To me, this had the perfect balance of chestnut flavor and sweetness with a hint of something that reminded me of the brandy so often used in mont blanc desserts. I truly enjoyed this, and that surprised me.

As a great fan of Mont Blanc, I really loved this. It was like eating just the top off of a pastry except with a bit more intensity and sweetness and a lot less fat. I will definitely have it again, and would recommend it to anyone who is a great fan of chestnut paste or chestnut pastries.

Kubota Pudding Mochi

Mochi, or pounded rice cake, is a fairly common component in many traditional-style Japanese treats. It doesn't tend to show up that often in the more "glamorous" snacks that are familiar to English-language speakers. Nestlé Japan has made KitKats with "mochi puffs" (that taste like mothballs), but has never made a real "mochi" KitKat. When mochi gets used in chocolates, such as Tirol's mochi sweets, it tends to really just be a bit of a gummy blob and not actual mochi. I believe this is because the texture is delicate and it can go hard, tough, or moldy easily.

Real mochi has a very fine textural element that you can't easily incorporate into things like mass produce chocolates. It's soft, slightly chewy, and delicate when used as a shell to wrap some other filling. It's a bit like a fine dough. You can see why many Japanese people prefer wagashi, traditional sweets made with a variety of indigenous ingredients including mochi, over other types of sweets because the ingredients are used in a way which maximizes their appeal rather than bastardizes them for mass production.

Since I can buy wagashi at many places in Tokyo, I have less of an impetus to buy mass-produced mochi sweets. Frankly, the same applies to Japanese people so the market shelves are not overflowing with a wide variety of them. I've only reviewed two sweets (Yukimi daifuku, yuzu mochi) which used traditional-style mochi. I found this latest entry at Seiyu supermarket for 198 yen ($2.24). There are 10 pieces in the bag and each is about 44 calories for a blob which is about 3.5 cm (1.4 in.) in diameter (that's an average since they're not circular).

These are made by a company called Kubota, which is yet another one of those small snack food makers which squeezes an occasional product onto market shelves and of which I have never heard. Annoyingly, they don't have a web site. I'm guessing their target customer is at an age at which this new-fangled "computer" stuff might seem to only be accomplished with the aid of ghosts or demons in the metal box.

The ingredients for these include barley sugar, sugar, mochi powder, gelatin, eggs, and carotene (for coloring, no doubt). The fact that the list starts with two kinds of sugar should clue you in that these are pretty sweet. When you open a packet, you don't smell anything as mochi is really just rice so it has little smell. After you cut it open, you can smell the rich, eggy pudding inside. If you've had flan or custard, you know what it smells like. I expected this to mainly be a nice textural experience. This is not only because of the soft, chewy mochi, but also the marshmallow lining around the little soft pools of custard pudding.

It was, indeed, a very nice mixture of textures, but it also tasted very good. The pudding itself was more flavorful than expected and the sweetness made up for the bland mochi. You can also actually taste the soft marshmallow. In fact, this is impressive because every component can be detected on the tongue. Everything was soft and seemed very fresh. My feeling about these after sampling one was that these would make a great souvenir for folks back home because the flavor is familiar and palatable to all but the pickiest types, and they remain uniquely Japanese because of the mochi.

The only caveat I can offer to someone before buying this is that they are rather sweet and won't suit those who are sensitive to such things. That being said, these are truly lovely to have as a little treat with a cup of tea. The fact that they are packaged in such a way as to remain fresh over a longer period of time allows you to have a wagashi-like experience without worries about them going hard or stale rapidly. You can keep a bag around for awhile and sample at will. Note that I bought these on July 12 and they're good until September 28, 2010.

Tirol Chibi Maruko-chan Marshmallow Purin Chocolate

Chibi Maruko-chan is a Japanese cartoon character. This is not one of your nasty, silly, big-eyed, spiky-haired anime characters, but a little girl and her family. The cartoon's target audience would seem to be children and possibly families. These candies from Tirol are probably targeted toward kids and people who have a sense of nostalgia about the cartoon, which aired in the early 90's.

I found these at a 7-11 convenience store which is rather distant from my apartment (as opposed to the other two 7-11's which are close to my place) for 32 yen (35 cents). There are a variety of wrappers depicting the faces of all of the characters in the television show. I chose one with Chibi Maruko-chan intentionally (to illustrate the title character for my readers), though it was tricky to find one since the box was only about 1/4 full and had been seriously picked over. Clearly, these were rather popular at the shop I found them in.

As is the case with all Tirol Premium chocolates, this is about a 1-inch (2.54 cm.) square block of rather soft chocolate. It has a light brown base, a white dome, and a marshmallow filling with a deep orange sauce on it. When I unwrapped it, it smelled of caramel. That's no surprise since "purin" in Japan is essentially flan or custard with burnt caramel sauce.

I ate this at room temperature on a day when the weather was typical for spring back home, which is to say on the cooler side for Tokyo (73-75 degrees F./23-24 degrees C.). The chocolate and marshmallow were very soft. In fact, there was really not much in the way of a distinct texture despite the mix of elements. The flavor was most heavily influenced by the sauce, which did indeed taste like the burnt caramel sauce on flan. The white chocolate is where the vanilla pudding flavor resides, but it's relatively muted. You have to intentionally rest that part of the candy on your tongue to get a sense of it. It you just bite into the whole thing, you're just going to get the caramel notes.

This is very, very sweet, but that really is to be expected because this is likely geared toward the tastes of kids in Japan. While many Japanese chocolates and candies aren't as sweet as Western-made ones, things that are aimed at children are sweeter. I was really interested in this for the marshmallow aspect. I love marshmallow-based sweets, but the marshmallow part really didn't do much for this either as a texture or in flavor. This was nice enough and is a decent way to satisfy a craving for something sweet with only a 51-calorie "price". Don't get my "indifferent" rating wrong. I enjoyed this well enough, but I wouldn't eat another because it's just too sweet and I'd rather have real flan than a candy that is similar to its taste.

Tirol Rilakkuma Variety Pack

Since I'm not one to be obsessed with all things cute, I was relatively unfamiliar with the character of Rilakkuma until I started reading Shibuya 246. The character is the blog's unofficial mascot. To me, Rilakkuma seems like the next in a long line of cute Japanese characters that take people by storm. In my uneducated (about cute characters) mind, the cuteness crown was first worn by Hello Kitty and then passed on to Pikachu, and now is being worn by Rilakkuma. I seem to see more and more merchandise bearing the little bear's likeness everyday.


I haven't bought a Tirol variety pack for a long time because I've been so disappointed in them as of late, and I didn't buy this one either. This was given to my husband as a gift after he shared some KitKats with a student. Gift-giving in Japan is a lot like that. You give people things and they feel they need to balance the scale. I'm not sure what this cost, but a pretty good guess would be 100-150 yen ($1.12-$1.68) for 9 candies that are about 1 inch (2.54 cm) square.


The packet shows three flavors on the front: purin (custard/pudding), mitarashii dango (a type of Japanese sweet) and hot cake. This mix is typical for these variety packs in that there is one new and appealing flavor, hot cake in this case, and a couple of repeat flavors from the past. You have to get a bunch of flavors you've already had or don't want to get the one that you do want. I've seen the hot cake flavor (which is a new one) in other similar variety packs as well.

If you look at the picture above, you'll see that there are 4 chocolates cut in half and three of them are the same. Despite the fact that I opened 4 differently designed packages (one of each in the bag), I got mostly mitarashii dango flavor, one hotcake, and no purin. The packets have different cute pictures on them, but the flavors are not marked so I'm guessing that either by design or by random chance, I got almost all of one flavor.

I had sampled the mitarashii dango flavor before, and this time it seemed rather worse. Maybe it was my disappointment at getting so many of it and it being a flavor I reviewed before. It was identical in terms of texture. It had a gummy center with some dark sauce surrounded by white chocolate. I thought it had a very strong soy flavor mixed with intense sweetness whereas I detected bitter orange last time. It's a very strange mix and not very pleasant.

The hotcake is a white chocolate shell over a biscuit with a little syrup that has been absorbed by the cookie. It was very sweet with a very fake butter flavor and a lot of white chocolate. There was not much of a maple or syrup flavor. The cookie adds texture, but no taste.

I would review the purin, but there weren't any in the package.

I liked the hot cake one, though I'm not sure that I'd buy it even if I could get 9 or 10 in a package by itself. It's very sweet. The entire pack gets an unhappy rating because of the poor balance of flavors which constitutes false advertising and because I wasn't very fond of the mitarashii dango flavor. If you're a super fan of Rilakkuma, you might want to pick this up and keep it intact for the packets and their cute designs. Otherwise, I'd recommend giving it a wide berth.

The hot cake chocolate was also reviewed at Snack Love by ebidebby.

KitKat Purin (Big Bar)

The role that Japanese KitKats play in my life can be seen by looking at my bookmarks. Nestle Japan's KitKat page is the only manufacturer's web site that is bookmarked, and it's also so frequently accessed that I don't even keep it in a folder. For quick emergency KitKat access, I have to be able to select it from the drop-down menu at a moment's notice. Clearly, Japanese KitKats are far too important to my life and perhaps I should seek some sort of mental health assistance. That being said, if I need some medication, Jen at Jen's KitKat blog needs to be committed. ;-)


My husband picked this bar up at a Family Mart convenience store in Shinjuku and delivered it to my desk. The flavor is based on a form of flan or custard with a type of burnt sugar sauce that is popular in Japan called "purin". The flavor of this big bar mainly carries the caramel notes of the sauce, but also has a little of the sweetness and vanilla flavor of the pudding. Most of the flavor comes through as being sweeter than normal, but it a sugary, grainy way rather than in a throat-burning way. This is actually pretty common in these types of big KitKat bars.

This is my third big KitKat bar and all of the ones with a milk chocolate coating have had similar good points. They have fresh, crispy wafers in abundance and a flavorful chocolate coating which is enhanced just a little by the featured flavor. This one was no different, though I'm not sure I'd want to eat the whole bar at once. It's not only that it's 239 calories, but also that I wonder if the sweetness might be cumulatively too much if it is all eaten at once. In my case, I ate a quarter of it for sampling then stopped at that. I'll have more later if my husband doesn't get to it first.

Crunky Pumpkin Purin

In addition to missing out on American holidays, there are some holiday-related dubious pleasures that I also cannot take advantage of. One of these is the post-Halloween candy sales where everyone goes out and picks up snack-size bags of treats bearing a Halloween motif for a fraction of their former price.

I can say now that I have had my first experience in Japan with buying reduced price Halloween candy, and that it was completely planned. The Crunky Pumpkin Purin (pudding) candy had been recommended to me by a few friends so I went looking for it. When I found it, the 238 yen ($2.65) price for 49 grams (1.7 oz.) rubbed me the wrong way. To offer you a point of comparison, a regulation size Crunky bar is also 49 grams/1.7 oz. and sells for only 100 yen ($1.11). I found this at Family Mart in a bargain basket on November 2 for 119 yen ($1.32).


This variation is essentially a broken up bar with it's squares wrapped in foil packets and put in a nicely designed Halloween themed box. Each square is 3.9 grams (.14 oz.) and 22 calories. It's a monument to wasteful packaging in the service of cuteness. The candy itself is very sweet, as is so often the case with white chocolate-based bars. That being said, the strong sweetness works well with the pumpkin flavor.

I felt the pumpkin flavor (and smell) was very strong in a positive way, and that there was a hint of salt. My husband said he couldn't detect it at all, but something was there that he couldn't identify. I think that was because he was expecting pumpkin pie rather than the squash-like flavor of Japanese pumpkin. The texture is just right with enough malt puff crispy pieces (not rice) to lend texture without undermining the pumpkin flavor.

This is a nice thing to have around for a small treat with tea, but I wouldn't buy it at the original price. I would also warn those who don't like super sweet treats that this is not for them. That being said, I'd certainly buy it again if it rolled around again next year for a more reasonable price.

Pokka Purin Shake

You don't see much in the way of "shakes" in markets in Japan. I guess that they don't go for thick, fatty, sweet drinks the way imprudent Americans do. Being an imprudent American who hasn't seen a "shake" beverage in a shop for a very long time, I pounced on this drink when I saw it at Peacock supermarket. It was a little expensive, about 170 yen ($1.90) for 100 grams (3.5 oz.), but visions of thick, creamy shake goodness loosened up my change purse.

This beverage is made by Pokka, which apparently has been making very popular purin-based beverages since 1991. I don't know where they are sold, but I'm guessing they are mainly dispensed in vending machines since I rarely come across them. This purin is different from their usual variety in that a master chef who has a patisserie supposedly designed it. It's marketed under the label "Furano Delice."


When I poured this into a glass, I noticed that it looked a bit clumpy and was not thick in a uniform way. A sniff revealed a sour dairy smell which is reminiscent of powdered milk and non-dairy creamer plus a slight caramel smell. Taking a sip, I was reminded of tapioca to some extent. The texture is slimy and strange, as if someone pureed days old purin and mixed it with milk but it didn't mix evenly or completely. The basic flavor is like old milk though it has a good sweetness level. There's a bit of an aftertaste which is a good approximation of the caramelized flavor of the sauce in purin.

This was 86 calories that was totally wasted because this was really gross. I can't believe that anyone would enjoy this unless they liked milk that had sat in the refrigerator for quite some time and had clumped up a bit with age. If I were a master pastry chef, I'd be embarrassed to have my name attached to this.

W Purin (Double Pudding) Tirol Chocolates

Japanese manufacturers often get props for their packaging and I can say for certain from experience that how a product is presented is very important to Japanese people. This box of Tirol chocolates is a pretty good example of clever and inventive packaging that can lure you into making a purchase, though the cleverness of it may escape you if your aren't already familiar with the company's standard product packaging.


The box for these candies is shaped like a big version of their conventional wrapping on each individual candy. The box contains 18 small candies and sells for about 300 yen ($3.30). Their usual plastic bags of small candy are 100 yen ($1.10) for 9 candies. That means you're paying 33% more for this attractive box and, with any luck, the better quality candy than usual inside. When I opened the box, I noted that the there's an inner bag which has hearts printed all over it. I believe this means this is intended to be bought for Valentine's Day gift giving, though there is no external indication of such.

Click any picture for a version which is larger and has more detail.

There are 4 different designs for the individual candy packages, but only two kinds of candy. I'm not sure why they bothered to do this, but my husband and I sampled them all to make sure. The two flavors are custard (orange and white labels on the left) and chocolate pudding (white and brown labels on the right).


The custard flavor is an approximation of "purin". This is creme caramel or custard with a slightly burnt or bitter caramel sauce on top of it. The chocolate one is supposed to be the same thing only made with chocolate custard instead of plain. Each candy has a chocolate coating which is a bit on the soft side (no snap or crumbling when bitten into) and a soft center with a little flavored sauce on top of it.

The custard flavor is an excellent approximation of the type of purin you buy in little plastic containers in markets and convenience stores in Japan. The sauce is liquid and tastes of burnt caramel. The interior looks like and has the texture of pudding. It smells vaguely of coconut, but there is no coconut in the ingredients list. My only problem with it is that it was just a bit too sweet for me, as is often the case with white chocolates. My husband, who has a far greater tolerance for intense sweets than I, loved it.


I was a much greater fan of the chocolate version, which was smooth, creamy, and tasted just like chocolate pudding to me. The coating on the chocolate one is a little firmer, as is the center. The chocolate flavor is very deep and I'm guessing that the sauce in it is chocolate syrup. At only 40 calories per candy, they're a not too naughty indulgence with a ton of flavor.

These are the first soft center pedestrian (available in supermarkets and convenience stores) Japanese chocolates I've felt had a very nice ganache-like center. Most of the soft-centered candies tend to have something missing or something added. A lot of them are too firm or chalky. These were nice, soft, and creamy. They aren't premium candies, but they have the smooth feel and deep flavor of a designer chocolate. I'd definitely recommend these as a Valentine's gift for someone who you don't want to send a strong message of love to, or just buy a box for yourself and eat them slowly.

KitKat Mini Caramel Purin Flavor

The Japanese don't celebrate Halloween, but they have all the trappings of wanting to do so. Scary television programs are scheduled in line with the holiday. Some shops sell decorations and many of them sell candy as if kids were going to be going door to door begging for sugary niblets. The bag of mini KitKats pictured above has all the earmarks of being the sort of candy you'd buy and pass out when kids in costumes ring your doorbell. However, no kids are going to go out and mooch for candy in Tokyo on October 31. It simply isn't the sort of thing the Japanese would do.

The bag design for these Kitkats has ghosts, witches hats, stars, bats, and a pumpkin on it and is in traditional Halloween orange. The individually wrapped small bars inside also have a similar theme. When you open the bag, you smell artificial caramel immediately. This was a bad sign in my opinion. If the sealed packets can't contain the smell, how strong must it be?


After opening a packet, I was heartened to see that they are covered in milk chocolate rather than white chocolate. That means that the coating probably is just regular milk chocolate and not infused with the artificial caramel purin flavor. Despite the intense smell, the bars themselves have a good balance of smokey caramel purin flavor and chocolate. Purin, by the way, is really just custard with a burnt caramel sauce on top of it (like flan or créme caramel). This bars taste exactly like one of those custards covered in milk chocolate and the taste is quite enjoyable. I'm guessing they succeeded because the flavoring is kept in the cream between the wafers where it belongs rather than mixed in with the chocolate.

One side note about the mini bars is that they seem to melt quickly when you hold them. I'm not sure why the melting point of these should be so low, but I'd recommend refrigerating them. Room temperature bars will melt on your fingers and make a mess.


There are about 14 or so little individually wrapped bars in one bag. The packets all have different messages on them. One of them said, 'Halloween is the time when children's dreams come true.' I'm guessing a lot of Japanese kids dream of not learning thousands of Chinese characters or cramming for brutal rounds of entrance tests more than candy, but I'm thinking such dreams are unlikely to be fulfilled.

I don't believe you can buy this flavor in a "single serving" bar size, but it could simply be that they are not sold in that form in my area. Each bar is about half the length and about the same width as a conventional Japanese KitKat bar. There are 66 calories in one mini bar. If you'd like just a little something sweet, they're just the right size.

While I wouldn't rate these higher than a classic KitKat, they are definitely one of the better flavored variations that I've encountered lately. If you want a change of pace, or want something you can share around the office, these would be a good choice.

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Here are other reviews of this bar which you may enjoy:
badmoodguy in paradise: Nihonjin Nibbles: Halloween KitKat and Jen's KitKat Blog.

The Japanese Snack Food Review