Karu Edamame Snack

My stroll through the ZenPop box is one that I'm hoping will be far less leisurely so, with any luck, I'll be posting one review a day until I wear myself out, get called in for grand jury duty, or put on too much weight from an abundance of appealing Japanese junk food.

When I first saw the box for this snack, I assumed that the snacks inside were just pretzels flavored with edamame (young soybeans). It turns out that I was mislead by the little brown marks on the sticks (from where they've been baked, not fried, as the box tells me) and the shape. These are actually crispy tubes made of potato, edamame seasoning, and a plethora of other things which, if I listed them here, you'd only want to eat them less. And these are delicious so I don't want to reduce the chance that you'll try them.

The texture is crispy and light. The hollow tube design makes you feel like you're eating an expertly rolling potato chip that is perfect in crunchiness. The flavor has a bit of depth as the front end is a little salty and slightly potato-like. The back end is pure edamame with its verdant qualities. It's exceptionally well-executed to bring the target flavor to mind.

The box has 36 grams at 185 calories. I ate half at one sitting as a side to a tuna sandwich, but I could easily see going through the whole box at once with a cold drink on the side. It takes more than a little self-restraint to not do that.

Bourbon Kinako Chocolate

Have you ever thought about what you owe to the existence of fire? Oh, I'm not talking about such pedestrian things as keeping your naked ass warm, generating energy for your gadgets so you can be a techno-zombie, or making sure that every burger you eat isn't tartare. I'm talking about something bigger and more important - the contribution it makes to the taste of the food you eat.

Since most of us are naked apes who enslave machines to do our dirty work (and occasionally people, but this isn't a political blog so let's not go there), we don't think very hard about how our food gets to be what it is. Roasting, which involves, you know, fire, is part of what makes some of the best things in life good. I'm not even talking about the type of "roasting" that involves cooking food, I'm speaking of the type which makes the things used in cooking palatable. In particular, coffee, nuts, and chocolate all come into their own through roasting. Soy bean flour is another one of those things which blossoms into something special through the magic of fire.

One of the reasons that I like kinako so much is that the roasting brings out a nutty flavor. It is reminiscent of peanuts, but has its own special qualities. I'm guessing that it tastes like peanuts in large part because the roasting cultivates similar qualities in soy bean and legumes, but I'm no expert on this. All I know is that kinako is good. When I found these for about $2.00 at Niyiya market, I snapped them up.

Bourbon is best known for making tubes of tiny packaged cookies. Some are pretty good and some are quite boring. They do have other products as well, but they aren't as ubiquitous or well-known (except for the Alfort line of cookies with chocolate). I'm certain this particular product is a temporary one which will vanish when the cherry blossoms arrive in spring, if not sooner. Kinako is a winter flavor for reasons unknown to me, but I'm guessing it has to do with the harvesting season for soy beans in the distant past.

These are little nuggets of kinako bliss on multiple levels. First, you are hit with the nutty joys of the toasted soybean flour on the outside with the slightest bit of creamy white chocolatey flavor and texture. Next, you get the airy, crispy wafer shell and finally you are rewarded at the end with a roasted peanut. Each element unfolds both as an individual flavor (the peanut mainly as an aftertaste) and as a melange of flavors. For a tiny little thing, this packs a load of depth both in taste and texture.

Clearly, I loved these. Each package is supposed to be one serving of 190 calories, but I think I can stretch that over two or three portions given that there are 34 little nuggets in the bag (yes, I counted). They're too good to pop in your mouth by the handful and chomp down on rapidly. I recommend savoring each individual bite for it's flavor depth and mixture of textures, preferably with a drink to cleanse the palate between nibbles. If you like kinako, you will love these. If you've never had it, these are a very good introduction to a flavor that is known and loved by many Japanese people and that I wish were common in America.

Zunda Pretz

I have three words for you: Funky Monkey Babys (sic). No, they are not my new pets, but it'd be awesome if they were. And, no, I don't listen to them, as they are actually a Japanese music group. And finally, they are only tangentially related to this review (but, yes, still related). It's simply an extremely cool name for a rock group. Frankly, I think they should promote "Crunky" in Japan ("The Funky Monkey Babys present Crunky.")

The Funky Monkey Babys were a part of the reason that I received this regional Pretz as a gift. One of my students attended a charity concert for the victims of the Tohoku disaster in Sendai and picked this tidbit up for me. Zunda, as a few folks may recall from a Zunda KitKat review, is mashed soybean and is  used in cuisine in northern Tohoku. When my student gave it to me, I asked her if she had already sampled it, and what she made of it. She made one of those faces which suggested that, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. When she relented and gave an opinion, said it was very salty, and that it was good with beer. Beer makes everything better, it seems. I'm sure it's how men manage to watch interminably boring professional sports. Being a teetotaler, I'll never know for sure, but I'm going to try these Pretz with Coke Zero.

This is a tiny little box of Pretz with zero information printed on the box. I'm guessing it was part of a multi-pack of souvenirs that one could buy and distribute to friends and coworkers after a scenic trip to what I'm sure many believe is a rapidly expanding nuclear wasteland in the general area. Still, it can't be all bad if the Funky Monkey Babys are willing to go there. A little research revealed that this was, indeed, part of a 6-pack for 630 yen ($8.26). Each box is 27 grams (just shy of an ounce). It's on the expensive side for the volume of snacks, but on par for souvenirs.

My expectation was that this was going to be pretty good. My students reluctance to endorse it didn't really daunt me because many Japanese people have more sensitive palates than foreigners do. This is due to the fact that much more food is subtle or bland in Japan rather than flavor blasted. I guessed that what was too salty for her may suit me just fine.

The sticks are half as tall as usual sticks. They are impressively green and smell strongly of edamame. One bite revealed why this is so. They have an strong, but not unpleasant, chlorophyll flavor and are like having a mouthful of edamame. They've definitely done a good job of incorporating the flavor of zunda. The other savory flavors, like chicken extract, build up the flavor profile but don't separate out from the basic soy bean flavor. Despite what my student said, I found these strong and flavorful, but not particularly salty.

I really enjoyed these and would definitely consider having them again if they become available locally. If you really, really love edamame, these should float your boat, but they may not suit all tastes. For me, I found them unique and refreshing.

KitKat Zunda

The earliest charity items for victims of the Great Tohoku Earthquake were T-shirts. Other items are sluggishly following at their heels and these KitKats are Nestle Japan's entry. The sale of each bar will add 10 yen (12 cents) to the Japanese Red Cross's coffers. It's a pretty nice gesture, and I'm sure that if these sell well, a tidy sum could be donated.

These bars are unusual in their distribution because they are a non-standard flavor of KitKat, but on sale at supermarkets. Usually the "specialty" KitKats are mainly available for a limited time in convenience stores, but there was a huge display of them at my local Inageya supermarket. The odd thing was that they are 128 yen ($1.56) at the market, but only 108 yen ($1.32) at Family Mart convenience stores (click the picture above to load a large version which shows the respective displays with their price differences). I'm guessing that someone at Family Mart decided to go with the standard KitKat price rather than some sort of suggested retail price, but that is pure speculation. I'm rather at a loss to explain it, but clearly you're better off buying these from them.

Zunda is mashed green soy beans (or raw edamame) and this particular cuisine is a specialty of the northern Tohoku area. It makes sense that they'd choose something associated with the region the sales of the bar are meant to help. It's also an interesting choice for a KitKat. In fact, it's probably one of the more curious options that have come along in a long time.

In terms of flavor, this is a white-chocolate-based bar and very sweet. Since the flavor is "green" soybeans, it's no shock that the first bite carries a grassy flavor that gives you that telltale sense that you're munching on something with chlorophyll. The soy bean aspect is very mild and by the end of one finger, you pretty much are eating a sweet white chocolate KitKat with a mild soy and grassy aftertaste. Even my husband, who is not a fan of soy or edamame, didn't find this unpalatable because the taste of the main element was relatively mild.

This is an okay KitKat, and the flavor choice is a pretty enticing one. I wish I could say it was the bee's knees and that everyone should run out and stock up on a load of these before they go away. However, this just isn't that incredible. It's moderately interesting, but rather sweet and mild. If you can pick one up in Japan, I'd say do it to satisfy curiosity, but I wouldn't buy it more expensively from an importer. If you want to help the victims of the tsunami and quake, donate directly to the Japanese Red Cross because it'll probably mean more than 10 yen from the sale of this bar anyway.

Iwatsuka Soft Mochi Rice Snack

I think someone needs to start a Japanese food blog, preferably one about fast food or frozen food, that is called "There's Corn On My Pizza." Someone else should start one called "Sembei Adventures" and focus on rice crackers. Heaven knows there are more than enough varieties of sembei around to devote an entire blog to them and I just don't have what it takes to do that particular job. My husband hates the smell of sembei so I can't even eat it when he's around without causing offense.

While my husband was at work, I sampled this puffy mochi sembei that is studded with bits of roasted soybean. I've been seeing it in various incarnations for quite some time. Sometimes these puffed up crackers are coated with kinako, but more often than not they have black or brown fragments of soy beans in them. This is called "soft" sembei because it's airy inside rather than crispy and brittle.

I found these at Okashi no Machioka sweets shop. They were on sale, 2 bags for 250 yen ($2.74). You could buy two of a favorite or pair one variety with any of a variety of Iwatsuka Seika's sembei. Most of these types of bags are 178 yen ($1.95), so that's a discount of about 53 yen (53 cents) a bag. I chose this and what appears to be a sweet variety because the other types were familiar or shrimp-flavored. It's pretty good value for 15 crackers.


Since this was my first experience with this particular variety of sembei, I was surprised that it smelled like popcorn and peanuts. In fact, the little packets that these come in mustn't be sealed very well because the entire bag smelled strongly before I even breached the individual packets. The texture is a cross between Styrofoam packing peanuts and popcorn. It's a little strange, honestly. Biting through the outer part which is slightly firm and crispy is fine, but the middle is weird. The flavor is also a bit like popcorn, albeit with more of a rice-like hint mixed with roasted soybeans.

I ate two of these and enjoyed the second one more than the first. They're decent enough, but I prefer "hard" sembei which is crispier, more cracker-like, and also more flavorful. These would be more appealing to me if they were more savory, or even just saltier. All that air does mean each 6.5 cm x 3 cm (2.6 in. x 1.2 in.) cracker is only 26 calories, but even that isn't enough to make me want to buy them again. It's not that they're bad at all, and I'll surely finish the bag, but simply that they weren't flavorful enough for me and I didn't like the texture.

Soy Bean KitKat (Setsubun Edition - Big Bar)

Nestle Japan currently makes six sizes of KitKats in Japan. There is this big bar, the regular 4-finger bar sold in boxes, minis, flat single finger minis used in cookie plus bars, flat longer fingers for regular Cookie Plus bars, and "petit" bars which are like 1/2 of a regular KitKat finger wrapped in foil as an individual treat. I've never reviewed the "petit" KitKats because they are simply regular milk chocolate bars in a different package. I imagine Nestle Japan offers these variations in size so that they can recycle a few recipes and offer them as something new by changing the sizes.


The notion that the recipes are being recycled wholesale (as opposed to being offered in small variations) came to mind after I sampled this Setsubun soy bean variety. It tasted exactly like the Ohagi KitKat that I reviewed last September. That is, it has the earthy, mossy, somewhat "dirty" or "moldy" taste that that bar had. I hated that flavor when I first encountered it in the Oshiruko KitKat, and found it more tolerable in the Ohagi one, and have reached a point of indifference after this bar. Next time they roll the same thing out in a new form, I may actually like it, though I'd prefer not to buy it again under a new name and in a different form.

This bar does have a few things going for it. It has a demon on it as a mark of the Setsubun holiday, and it is a big bar with plenty of crispy wafer goodness and nice milk chocolate. That being said, it was very disappointing for the flavor to be a repeat of a previous flavor. If you like the Oshiruko or Ohagi KitKats and regret that they are no longer on store shelves, you can grab yourself one of these at Family Mart for 120 yen ($1.32) and relive the memory. Otherwise, you might want to pass.