Yaokin Fluffy Softmallow and Dora-Choco

The next step down the path of reviewing food from my ZenPop box (the "Peach Festa") is paved with things for children. Both of these dagashi (kid's snacks) are made by a company that most people know best for their savory corn snack sticks.  I have to admit that I don't recall every having seen the pastel marshmallow barber's pole that is the "softmallow," but I have a hazy memory of the little tiny dorayaki. Since I left Japan six years ago, I imagine I'm going to continue to have hazy memories.

The softmallow looks like something someone would try to recreate on Instagram or Pinterest, and then someone else would try to recreate it and it could be an epic Pinterest fail. It's adorable enough to be snipped into little pieces and be used as unicorn cow pies as part of a cake decoration.

So, the marshmallow has definitely won the remains of my twelve-year-old self's heart in terms of looks, but what about taste? It is indeed very fresh and soft, but soft like a pillow that gives and then rebounds. The marshmallow is lightly sweet and has no other flavoring added, but it is a nice flavor. I'm pleased to say that most of the Japanese marshmallow's that I had in Japan had a strange aftertaste that is absent in this one. The only difference between this and an American marshmallow is that it's less sweet and just a hair more "rubbery," but not in a way which is off-putting.

The dorayaki has an amazing smell that reminds me of freshly-baked cake. The chocolate filling is so similar in appearance to red bean paste that I forgot it was chocolate until I put it in my mouth. The cake is surprisingly moist for a shelf-stable product and does have a more "cake-like" taste than regular dorayaki which tends to be like a pancake which is a bit dry.

In terms of the filling, it's not super flavorful on the front end (the cake dominates), but hits on the back end when you get a little burst of chocolate that falls somewhere between dark and milk. The filling is nicely fatty and adds to the texture to some extent. This was shockingly good for a kid's snack and reminded me of a less cloying version of a Hostess snack cake.

Softmallow:

Dora-Choco:

Yaokin Strawberry Cream Roll Cake

This is the first item from the ZenPop Sweets box that I previously reviewed. I chose it mainly because I wanted a small dessert and it looked small and like a dessert. That being said, this is a "kid's snack" in Japan and sold for a mere 20 yen (20 cents), so it's unrealistic to expect it to be as refined as larger, adult-marketed shelf stable pastries. And, of course, shelf-stable pastries are a completely different category from actual fresh pastries.

If cakes were to be compared to movies, the real deal would be a comedy like "Grand Budapest Hotel," and this type of product would be something by Adam Sandler which didn't do well at the box office. Note that I've never seen a good Adam Sandler movie, let alone a bad one. However, while I distrust most of what the internet tells me, I have some faith that their disdain for a movie that failed to make money that also featured a guy who irritated the crap out of me every time I saw him on "Saturday Night Live" is appropriately placed. So, don't expect some finely made performance a quirky, beautifully executed manner. This is more pratfalls and dumbassery. All you can hope for is that it'll make you smile anyway.

There was no nutrition information on the packaging, so I can't tell you how many calories it is. It can't be many though because it is small. The packaging is very deceptive in that the actual cake is less than half the width and only a little over half of the length of the package. It's also not exactly what you'd think of as a Swiss cake roll with moist sponge cake and whipped cream frosting. The filling is a somewhat cream-cheese-like frosting and the "cake" is somewhat doughy and quite moist. It's more akin to a slightly damp pancake.

When you open it, the strawberry scent is potent. The flavor is not super sweet, which is actually a bonus. The cake has a nice flavor, but the doughy texture is a little disappointing as it feels like you're noshing on a slightly underbaked item. Still, there is something appealing in it's qualities and the flavor of the cake is decent.

The interesting thing about this is that, if you are expecting Ralph Fiennes instead of Adam Sandler, this will disappoint, but it's actually not a bad shelf-stable snack. It needs to be placed into its own category and I felt it was closer to a low-rent version of a dorayaki (a traditional Japanese snack which looks like two pancakes filled with red bean paste).

I wouldn't buy a case of these, and I wouldn't want to eat one every week. If I still lived in Japan though, I could see me buying one occasionally and keeping it in the my desk when an urge or craving hit. I think the fairest thing to say is that I wouldn't want to see this in every box I got from a snack box service, but I wouldn't mind seeing one show up once a year or so. That actually makes it something I'd want to see more frequently than any Adam Sandler movie.

Source: ZenPop box service

Yaokin Ebi Mayo and Chicken Curry Umai Bo

You can probably tell that the one on the left is the chicken curry since there's a picture of a chicken on the package, but I'm going to tell you anyway because I'm pedantic like that.

Today's items come to you (and me) courtesy of Skoshbox. These were part of the monthly goodie box that they sent me a free sample of and reviewed last week. 

When I was a kid, growing up in a run-down rural area of Western Pennsylvania, my parents used to "go out" in the only manner in which someone could in the area in which we lived. The only type of social experience that one could have there was at one of several little watering holes. There weren't any restaurants in the town, at least not at that time. You could go out and eat frozen, deep-fried food out of a plastic basket lined with paper and have a beer, you could stay home, or you could drive about a half hour to an hour away and look for something marginally better. 

My sister and I were too young to go out with our parents, and I imagine it would have been a colossal bore if we had; no kid wants to sit around a dark, dank, smoky room while a bunch of men and a handful of women get either quietly or noisily drunk. The highlight of my parents going out was that they'd often placate us for sitting at home with a babysitter who we hated (and we hated all of them) by bringing back tiny bags of Wise potato chips. I remember being happy when my mother would hand over 1 oz. bags of barbecue chips, and annoyed when she'd pony up plain ones.

For me, Wise brand potato chips are indelibly linked to my childhood. It's not only because they were something that I only ate as a kid, but also that they are associated with the region I grew up in. You can't get them in California. I'm guessing that, similarly, Japanese kids might connect their youth with Yaokin's umai bo. It's a salty snack "stick" which is made of puffed corn, comes in a variety of flavors and costs about 10-20 yen a stick, depending on whether you buy them individually or as part of multi-packs.

The fact that these are designed for kids is clear based on the colorful cartoon designs on the outside as well as the fact that no calorie or nutrition data is included. Kids, after all, do not have to worry about calories, right? That doesn't mean they aren't good for adults, though. It's not like there aren't people of all ages out there who are still eating Cap'n Crunch. 

Sorry for the blue cast. My photo taking situation is a bit odd at present.

The ebi mayo (shrimp mayonnaise) stick was the one I started with because I am not a fan of shrimp and I wanted to get the one I was least likely to enjoy out of the way first. I gave it a sniff, twice, and my suspicion that this was going to be very "fishy", or perhaps more accurately, "seafoody" was confirmed. I was encouraged, however, by the large amount of red powder on the outside. I associate that with "hot" and "spicy", but, on second thought, I figured that it is also a color that may be associated with, well, shrimp.

Though this smelled incredibly strongly of shrimp, the actual flavor was more balanced than I expected. The mayonnaise aspect was much more present than the shrimp. It had a nice savory undertone and was ever so slightly sweet as well as salty. Even though I hate shrimp, I really didn't have a problem with this. While I wouldn't seek it out, I wouldn't turn my nose up at it either.

The chicken curry was something I was actually looking forward to as I love both flavors. Just as was the case with the shrimp mayo version, the animal product portion of this was muted next to the other flavoring. Curry is definitely the dominant flavor. In fact, this tasted very much like Japanese curry roux. That is not to be confused in any way with Indian curry, but it is a nice flavor. This has curry flavor on top with a savory undertone and a little sweetness. 

The "umai bo" series of snacks is not meant for adults, but is marketed toward children. To that end, these are not snacks with serious flavor depth or intense or strong flavors. They are still very, very tasty and have a nice, almost fresh, corn flavor with good crunch. I like how airy these types of snacks are. They're giving you texture and the illusion of volume, but are not especially filling. 

I like these, even the shrimp one, and I hate shrimp. This is the sort of thing which I will always associate with life in Japan and a childhood there which I didn't actually experience. They're light, tasty, crispy, and portion-controlled. They're pure junk, of course, but a little junk now and then is unlikely to send anyone to an early grave.

Yaokin Vegetable Salad Umaibo

Some time ago, I bought a variety pack of Yaokin salted snacks which included 5 varieties of "umaibo". "Umai" is "delicious" and "bo" means stick. I figured that this would cover pretty much all of the umaibo I'd ever want or need to sample. These are very cheap kid's snacks, and tend to be a bit greasy, nicely crispy, and fairly flavorful. Their main appeal is in the texture, which is a large airy corn puff, and their relatively strong natural corn flavor. Though they come in different flavors, but are generally a similar experience with a backbone of savory flavors like garlic, onion, chicken, beef and pork with another flavor layer added into the mix as the dominant one. Their main appeal, frankly, is that they are incredibly cheap and come with sometimes amusing package designs.

The reason I find myself reviewing another umaibo is not that the package is claiming that they have added more deliciousness (umai uppu!), but rather that my husband was handed a magazine in a plastic bag that also included this umaibo. Free snacks! All you have to do is be on the right street corner when someone is handing out a magazine which is almost all advertising and almost no actual content. If you want to buy one for yourself, they'll set you back about 10 yen (13 cents) at most supermarkets or snack shops.

Though this claims to be "vegetable" flavor, it smells rather fishy. I'm not sure why that should be because it doesn't taste fishy. In fact, it's hard to pin down what it tastes like at all because there is a general melange of spices. The ingredients list includes cabbage, onion, bell pepper, potato, and garlic seasonings. It tastes pretty good in the way that things that are very, very bad for you can taste. There is so much oil on the exterior that placing it on a tissue to take a picture left an oily spot on it.

Since I didn't buy this, I can't really speak to "buying it again", but if someone gave me another one for free, I'd certainly eat one again. All of these Yaokin snacks are economical salted snack niceness. There's no nutrition data on these, but I imagine they're made with damaged fats and have little of redeeming value. Still, the portion size is smallish and the texture is good and they are flavorful. Next time someone gives you one for free, I recommend taking it.

Yaokin Yaki Imo Youkan

Only after typing the name of this blog post did I realize what a tongue twister it might be. Perhaps it would be an enjoyable exercise to attempt to say it five times fast. Perhaps, not.

Youkan is a traditional Japanese sweet which is usually made of jellied beans and sugar. It's sold in brown, green, or yellowish bricks in a variety of shops. I have had red-bean-based youkan before (which looks brownish), though I have never purchased it myself. Salesmen at my former office used to buy it occasionally and give it to the office staff who remained in the office as a treat from whatever city they traveled to for business. Note that this sort of procuring of regional treats for the office-bound coworkers is a very common thing in Japan.

I remember feeling that youkan was okay, but too sweet and lacking in strong flavor. Sure, it tasted like beans, but red beans don't necessarily carry a strong taste by themselves, and less so in youkan form. I think the fact that youkan is made with agar (a seaweed derivative used for gelatin-style foods) dilutes the overall concentration of whatever the main flavoring element is. If you look at the youkan samples on the Wikipedia page, some of them are translucent rather than opaque, which shows that the beans or whatever are thinned and therefore not as intense in taste. To me, youkan tasted a bit like intensely flavored sweetened water drained off of beans you'd cooked.

Since I can't imagine buying youkan in a large quantity (which is how it's generally sold, though not always) for myself, I jumped at the chance to sample this single-serving (26 grams/.9 oz.) sweet potato version when I found it at Seiyu department store. I can't remember the price, but this was in the kid's sweets section and couldn't have been more than 50 yen (55 cents).This is made by Yaokin, a company whose kid's snacks I have reviewed on several previous occasions.

It annoys me that there is no nutrition information on the package or in the company's catalog (which I downloaded specifically in the hopes of getting such information) since I like to keep tabs on the calories of snacks I eat. I found a web site which offers basic nutritional information on Japanese foods which asserts that youkan in general has 89 calories per 30 grams, which would make this snack weigh in at 77 calories (if their stats are correct). The site also asserts that youkan is rich in fiber.

This youkan actually tasted like, well, sweet potato. It's a bit sweeter because it's made with sugar, but it also has an intensity or aftertaste to it which is either a result of the processing of the youkan, or the way in which the sweet potato itself is handled. It's not a bad taste necessarily, but it takes some getting used to and may not appeal to everyone. It tastes like concentrated Japanese sweet potato skin, though only as an aftertaste, so it's not too overwhelming but I could easily see how some might actively find it unpleasant.

The texture is one of the main reasons to choose to consume youkan. It's smooth, easy to bite into, and a bit like very firm, finely grainy gelatin. I think that it's supposed to be appealing in summer if you chill it, though I ate this at room temperature. It's good, but may be an acquired taste.

I was rather torn about this as a treat. I enjoyed the flavor and texture, and felt the sweetness balance was just right. The main problem I have is that the second ingredient (after sweet potato) is sugar and the aftertaste issue. That being said, if I were in the proper mood, I could definitely seeing buying this again. I can't say that it has inspired me to sample all sorts of youkan, but this sweet potato version is worth a revisit.

If you'd like to share your experiences with weird foods and enter a contest for a chance to win a silly prize, please read this post and make a comment.

bon o bon Chocolate and Vanilla Cream Bonbons

All 100-yen shops are not created equal in Japan. Some of them mainly carry food and are like tiny, cheap supermarkets selling food in small portions. Some carry novelties, housewares, and other things that you're not supposed to put in your mouth (let alone swallow). One chain which has a blue sign with the words "100 yen" written on it in white carries both snacks and a large number of housewares. That was the shop where I found these varieties of bonbons. It's a bit further afield than my usual haunts, but it had things I don't often see so it was work the trek.

These are distributed by snack manufacturer Yaokin, which I know well from it's salted snack foods designed for the Japanese kid market. At the time that I researched the company for other reviews, I downloaded a catalog in .pdf format which included a plethora of snacks that I had never seen before and these bonbons were amongst those previously undiscovered treats. These chocolates were produced in Argentina, and are sold under the brand name Arcor. They are sold in the South American market, and are a bigger deal there than they are in Japan. There is a cute animated commercial for them on YouTube.


So, it ended up being the case that these are not Japanese, but they are marketed in Japan so that makes them fair game for me. Each is about 4 cm (1.6 in.) in diameter, and there are 6 of them in each bag (for 99 yen or about $1.10). There is no nutritional information on the bag, but I'd guess they're 80-100 calories each. The ingredients include sugar, peanuts, cocoa powder, cocoa butter, and cocoa mass.

I first bought the chocolate cream variety and my husband and I gave them a taste. They're a little like a cheaper, bigger version of a Ferrero Rocher hazelnut chocolate. They smell like cocoa, with a hint of peanut. Each is a nice blob of soft, creamy filling with a thin wafer shell dipped in chocolate. The chocolate flavor is rather weak, and you can tell it's either designed for a market which is dissimilar from that in Japan (where chocolate is bittersweet) or it's just cheap chocolate. That doesn't make it bad at all. It just makes it a better choice for those who like milk chocolate than those who like dark or strong cocoa flavors. The chocolate is creamy, but has some grain to it.

The peanut element is much more present than I anticipated. In fact, it borders on a chocolate peanut butter candy which makes it fantastic in the eyes of us foreign folks who are missing our Reese's peanut butter cups. Mind you, this is no peanut butter cup, but at least the peanut and chocolate combination can be tasted. For the record, peanut butter and chocolate combinations are extremely rare in Japan. Most Japanese people respond to the idea with the equivalent of "ewww".


The vanilla cream flavor bonbon is very similar to the chocolate one, but the flavor is a little "cleaner". I wanted to try the vanilla variety mainly to see if the peanut butter shined through more intensely when the filling wasn't full of cocoa goodness. It turned out that it wasn't any stronger, but it still was good. It was sweet, creamy, and had mild but detectable hints of peanut. There wasn't much of a true "vanilla" flavor, but it was still good.

I really liked these, though they clearly are not a premium candy and lack the refined quality that Japan-made chocolates have. They have a lot going for them in terms of the textural elements and the peanut and chocolate flavor combination. The center is rich and fatty, but rather light. The wafer makes a nice contrast with the soft center.

I can not only say that I would buy these again, but that I went out and bought three more bags of them after the first one was gone. For 100 yen each, these are really great. The only down side is that you might want to eat the whole bag and regret it.

Yaokin Umaibo Variety Pack

What looks like a label in this package is actually a sheet of paper with 3 stickers.

"Umai" seems to have several different possible translations, though the general meaning is always the same. It's used to refer to some food being tasty, though sometimes it means sweet and sometimes it seems to mean savory goodness. At any rate, if you watch any Japanese cooking show (and if you come to Japan, there are hundreds of them to choose from on a single night of T.V. viewing - yes, I exaggerate), someone will be sampling a dish and saying, "umaiiiiiii". I've told my husband that you could probably serve them a fossilized bit of dog poo on one of those shows and they would dip it in soy sauce and exclaim, "umai" (delicious!). They are paid to say everything is fabulous regardless of what it's really like.

This kid's pack of 7 snacks and a sticker was on offer at the local 99 yen store, so this cost a little under a dollar. It includes a collection of "bo" (stick) snacks that you can generally buy for 25 yen each and two small packets of salted treats. The variety pack gives you a little more value for your money than buying the individual snacks by themselves.

These snacks are made by a company named Yaokin which specializes in a wide variety of snacks which are cheap, small, and largely marketed toward children. They also sell small toys like balloons. A lot of their kid's snacks and these sticks have a cartoon character that is a knock-off of popular ear-less anime cat Doraemon on them. There's a very colorful catalog of all of their products available for download on their web site. You can get it by clicking on the catalog download text "2009年カタログ ダウンロード on the page I linked to in the previous sentence.

Each stick is a different flavor. One of the reasons I don't review this sort of item often is that it's a lot of work talking about and photographing each item, but the appeal of something with so much variety for so little cash is irresistible on occasion, so here we go.

*****

First, the sticks:

Note that all of the sticks are the exact same thing with different flavor powders. They are all a corn-based tube that is light, puffy, and pleasantly crispy. They are about 12 cm. (4.7 in.) long.

Salami:


The smell of this was a little off-putting. It did smell like salami seasonings, but something smelled a bit strange. The stick is covered with parsley flakes and you can really taste it. There's also pork powder and oil flavoring, but neither of these comes across very distinctly. Mostly, I tasted garlic, parsley, and a nondescript fake meat flavor. This was one of the lesser sticks of the bunch, though it wasn't really bad. I just found the mystery taste and smell to make it less appetizing.

Note: There's an illustration of a Sony AIBO-style robot dog riding a scooter on the packaging as well as a mention of a "campaign" (contest) on the company's web site. The campaign is for free gifts for 1000 people who send postcards with a portion of the packages from these sticks. Kids can win 2 GB USB thumb drives, an umaibo video game, a puzzle, or a battery meter. I'm not sure what kid wants a battery meter, but there you go.

Mentai (marinated pollock roe):


This looks very red so you expect it to have some heat, but the truth is that it's simply bathed in liberal amounts of paprika in order to simulate the color of pollock roe (which is what mentai means in Japanese). It smells and tastes fishy with a heavy kick of paprika, garlic and salt. The web site information on this says that mentai is the most popular of their stick snacks, but I'm not a great fan of fish-flavored food. That's probably because I'm not a fan of fish in general. I think this isn't bad, but I didn't finish it. I'm guessing someone who enjoys fishy things would find it more appealing.

Corn potage:


Corn potage is a soup of corn, onions, and cream that usually includes garlic and parsley flavors. It's sold as a powdered mix in nearly every market and convenience store in Japan. This tube of corn snack smells exactly like the powdered soup. It also tastes like it. It's immensely savory with all of the soup flavors and just a touch of sweetness. I really liked this. In fact, I think this is a different shaped variation on the corn potage snack that I previously reviewed and enjoyed.

Cheese:


The scent of this one is very familiar. It smells like the Marui Cheese rings or like planters cheese balls. In fact, this is like a puffier version of the cheese rings. Since Yaokin seems to have a relationship with Riska, which makes the Marui Cheese rings, it could be the same flavoring. This was nice, though I could have gone for a little more cheese flavoring for the volume of crispy corn tube. Nonetheless, the taste was zesty, fake cheese like you would expect on a salted cheese snack and it was pretty good. Note that this is slightly greasy and left marks on the tissue I put it on.

Tonkatsu (pork cutlet) sauce:


The smell is a non-descript savory smell, mildly reminiscent of soy sauce. The taste is very, very sour as if someone has mixed a teaspoon or two of soy sauce with vinegar. Subsequent bites are spicy and it grows a little hot, but in the way that garlic can be hot rather than red peppers. This was a bit intense, but not bad. I think fans of salt and vinegar chips might enjoy this. Note the "pigs in space" motif of the packet.

Snack packets:

Corn and corm puffs:


This is "morokoshi wa taro" or, essentially, "corn and corm rings". Among the ingredients are corn, taro (a Japanese corm), vegetable oil, and spices. They don't smell like much of anything and taste like an airier, relatively flavorless Chee-to. I'd call these rather inoffensive to mildly pleasant because of the texture.

Seafood (Umaka Chanpon) corn puffs:


The graphic on this bag reminds me of the American animated comedy, South Park. Specifically, it looks like a crude 3D rendering of the character of Stan Marsh. The character looks angry, like the offspring of some sort of rightist radical. I'm not sure why he's so worked up. His corn snacks are pretty tasty. They don't have a smell that is easy to pin down. That's probably because there are so many spices mixed up in them including pork, chicken, garlic, and seafood extracts. Mainly, the garlic stands out with a bit of a meaty, savory aftertaste. They're pretty salty with a hint of sweetness. My only reservations about them relate to the texture. They are slightly soft and it'd be nice if they had more snap in their crunch. There are only 12 grams (.4 oz.) in the bag, but that makes it a nice size to accompany a sandwich.

*****

Though these are packaged for kids, the snacks themselves really have little to do with children. They're all pretty normal salted corn snacks. I ate them one at a time over about three weeks time and largely enjoyed sampling them. Since the price is so low and the portion sizes rather modest, I think these would be good for someone to just have on hand for satisfying a craving for something salty, though it is pure junk food. I also think they'd make good souvenirs for people back home since they are cheap, colorful, very Japanese-looking, and contain the sort of food that most people can tolerate at worst and may enjoy at best.