Rock'n' Winter, Doritos Style

As anyone who has read any of my blog entries before knows, Japan has crazy versions of well-known Western foods. (They also have crazy versions of food not sold in Western countries, but that is for another time.) If you have never read my blog before, you may already know of these crazy flavors that sometimes exist, because, you know, the internet. If you had no idea that Japan did this, prepare to have your eyes opened!

The Japanese branch of Frito-Lay loves to do crazy things, such as Pepsi flavored corn puffs. I'm sure more special, magical flavors of snacks exist than I can even pretend to guess at. However, sometimes I come across such glorious things in my little piece of the Japanese countryside, and then I get to share them with you! How lucky is that!

One of Frito-Lay's biggest sellers here is Doritos. Now, while Doritos may be easy to find in any store in America, they can be hit or miss here in Japan, (at least where I live,) and are usually only sold in 2 flavors, Tacos, and Nacho Cheese.

Would you like your corn chips with fake cheese flavoring, or spicy fake cheese flavoring?

Now, that is not to say those are the only flavors in existence, far from it. Those are just the flavors that seem readily available year round. I used to see "corn flavored" Doritos, also know as a normal corn chip with no powder flavoring, but I haven't been able to find those lately. Which is really too bad, as they were my favorite flavor, (or lack there of. I find I don't like nasty artificial powders getting involved with my salsa or guacamole.) In addition to these main flavors, there are limited time and regional flavors available if you know where to look. Or, in my case, someone else finds them for you.

Just in time for the winter holidays, Frito-Lay released a special limited time flavor of Doritos. They are cute! They are shaped like little pine trees! They are green!

Behold! It's a Christmas miracle!

Best of all, they are Corn Cream Stew flavored. Introducing, for a very limited time only in Japan, Doritos Rock'n' White Corn Cream Stew tortilla chips. How's that for a name. What's that? You didn't know you wanted your slightly Mexican inspired snack food to taste like a heavy winter meal? How could you not?! The flavoring powder is even white, so it will look like snow on the trees!

Can you see the "snow"?

Now, I'm not sure what corn cream stew, or any stew for that matter, has to do with tortilla chips or any winter holiday really. Perhaps the Japanese people truly appreciate a good, artificial stew flavor. (See previous post about stew flavored ice pops.) That being said, the shape alone is pretty adorable. My friend bought these for his Christmas party, so we all got to try them.

Taste wise, it's amazing how much these taste like corn cream stew. If you were blind folded, you may possibly think it's actually stew, except for the texture. It's not creamy like a stew. It's crunchy like a chip. (There's an idea, let's go confuse all the blind people of the world. No really, let's not. That's mean.) It's a salty flavor, but it's not over kill, just slightly salt happy. Once the powder is gone, it immediately reverts back to tasting like a normal corn chip. I thought the after taste was rather "meh." It's not horrible, but tangy in an unpleasant manner. That being said, they seem to have the same magic as other strange flavored snack foods, that once you finish eating it, you immediately want another one, even though you didn't particularly love it as you ate it.

Of the other party goers, 3 other people tried the chips in my presence. Joe and Matt both liked them. They thought the flavor was accurate, just like corn cream stew. Matt enjoyed them for the shape, and thought they were good for novelty value, but probably wouldn't purchase them again. Joe would buy them again if he had the chance. Ken hated them. He thought they were bland and "not good." Personally, I agree with Matt the most. They were interesting, they weren't disgusting, but I wouldn't go out of my way to eat them again.

They seem to want to set you on fire. Beware of the Doritos!

GariGari-kun Returns! (with Milk!)

So, I was just going along, doing some grocery shopping, and I decided to check out the ice cream section, because, you know, ICE CREAM. Little did I know a magical surprise awaited me there. A new special flavor of Garigari-kun Rich!

Milk! Nice piercing, Garigari-kun!

Why yes, yes indeed. It's a milk flavored ice pop. I figured this would either be disgusting like the others, or just taste like frozen milk.

By the time I bought it, drove to my friend's house, and opened it, the melting process had begun.

Looks so delicious and not solid!

Not to be discouraged, I dumped it in a plastic tray and bravely carried on. I tried to pick up the stick...

Stick only please! Thank you!

... and it came right through. So I ate it using the stick as a tiny thin spoon. My friend also tried it.

Despite the melted consistency, this was actually rather delicious. It was a mixture of vanilla soft serve and milk. The local mountain here, 大山 (Mt. Daisen), is famous for it's milk flavored soft cream, and this tasted just like that. Sweet milk. I would definitely eat this one again, hopefully in a more solid frozen form. If you want something with a lot of flavor, this is really not gonna do it for you. But if you want a subtle, sweet flavor, or really love milk or vanilla ice cream, you would probably enjoy this.

Good job Garigari-kun!

GariGari-kun's Food Flavors (of doom)

GariGari-kun is a brand of popsicles here in Japan. Or ice pop I guess I should say, as Popsicle is a brand name.You can walk into any conbini or super market and purchase yourself one of these for anywhere from 60 yen to 150 yen, depending on where you go. (Conbini products having a higher mark up and all.)

"Gari gari" is Japanese for crunchy. Add the "kun" honorific (reserved for boys), and the ice pop's name is "Crunchy-boy."

Hi there! I'm Crunchy-boy!

Anyhoo, as we all know, the people of Japan love kakigori. (Shaved ice or snow cones for those who don't speak Japanese.) Every summer, restaurants and food stalls at festivals do a roaring syrup covered ice bits trade. The idea behind Garigari-kun was to have a way to eat kakigori in one hand, not in the traditional cup with a straw.

The idea is a harder "ice candy" outside layer keeps the shape and protects the inside, which is the soft kakigori filling. Research on Google suggests that originally this idea, while wonderful in theory, didn't work so well in real life. However, they seemed to have got it right eventually, as Garigari-kun is the number 1 selling ice pop brand in Japan. Their standard flavor is ラムネ (ramune), or soda flavored. They also make many different flavors, as well as limited time seasonal releases, such as watermelon, peach, grape, etc.

But on to the real point of this post, Garigari-kun's "rich" limited flavors.
Somewhere along the line, someone at the company thought, "Hey! Let's make food flavors! Why not?"

Back in 2012, they had a corn soup flavored one. I did not try it, but on all accounts, it seemed to be disgusting. The company, not to be discouraged, especially because so many people bought it on it's weird factor despite the taste, every once in a while come out with a new flavor.

Deciding to be brave, and see what all this was about, I purchased the 2 flavors available to me at the time, "Cream Stew" and "Napolitan Pasta." Not about to do this alone, I recruited my friend Kako, her husband, and her 2 sons to help me.

Yum!

On the left is the Napolitan flavor. It's a tomato flavor ice shell around the soft pasta sauce tasting center. It also has tomato jellies in the center. On the right is the Stew flavor. It's white stew shell around a softer stew flavored center, with real potato chunks in it. Oh yes, potato chunks.

Do we really want to eat these?

First of all, we all agreed they were both disgusting! I think we ended up throwing half of them out because no one wanted to eat them.

I don't like it. Take it back!

That said, let's go over what they actually tasted like, other than nasty.
The stew flavor tasted like salty milk. Kako and her family thought it was better than the neopolitan flavor, (not good mind you, just, not as bad) but I couldn't agree. I ate one bite and thought I was going to be sick. The texture was horrible, though that could because it sat in my freezer for a month or 2 until I got everyone to try them. The potato chunks were cold and mushy and just plain disgusting. The whole thing was a mushy starchy disaster in my mouth.

Don't they seem impressed?

The neopolitan pasta flavor tasted like ketchup. It was frozen watered down ketchup. It was also rather salty, but the tomato jellies weren't bad. Once you got used to the flavor, it was a little easier to eat (for me, not for the rest,) and it had a strangely sweet after taste. I think I managed to eat half of it before I gave it up as a bad job.

In short, it was interesting to eat ONCE. Never again.

Never again!

KitKat Review: バニラアイス味

I found this package of 4 mini kitkat bars in the conbini one morning last month and got rather excited. A new summer flavor! Yay! They're バニラアイス味 or vanilla ice cream flavor, perfect for the hot humid Japan summer, despite the fact that they're actually chocolate, not ice cream, right? Inside the plastic package are 4 individually wrapped mini bars, keeping the Japanese penchant for over packaging alive.

I'm a cute mini bar! Don't the ice cube visuals cool you down and make you think ice cream?

In the heat, we melt just like ice cream!

As you can see from the photo above, despite the fact that you think this is a good summer snack, it's not. Japanese summers are ridiculously hot unless you're in Hokkaido (and maybe it's ridiculously hot even there, I don't know, never been there) and chocolate melts. Sorry to Kirsten who requested pictures of the cross section of kitkat's from now on. I tried to take one, but it didn't look like anything. It's a light tan wafer with white chocolate frosting. Very white, with little definition.

As for taste, I find these pretty disgusting actually. I'm sad, because I had high hopes as I love ice cream and kitkats. Maybe someone who actually likes white chocolate would like them more. They're super soft, though that may be the summer heat, and kind of taste like vanilla ice cream that has been left in a bowl and melted hours ago, that you dipped a thin wafer cookie into. It's not a strong vanilla flavor at all, and for some reason it makes me think of cream cheese. I don't like cream cheese, so I don't really eat it, so I'm not sure how close the tastes are, but that's what comes to mind when I eat vanilla ice kitkats. I will definitely not be eating these again. I need to find someone to take the 2 in the package I didn't eat for this review.

Ice Cream is pretty cool, ish

In this country, they have many delicious snack foods that I quickly get obsessed with. They also rotate flavors seasonally, or randomly it sometimes seems. A couple of months ago, I stopped at my local conbini Family Mart to grab my favorite ice cream snack at the time, a crunchy banana chocolate ice cream popsicle thing. Unfortunately, the season had ended for those, I haven't seen the banana flavor since, only normal vanilla, and last week coffee. Delicious! but I digress.

Since they didn't have what I wanted, I was left with a hard decision, forgo the ice cream or get something else. I thought long and hard about it for about 3 seconds and decided to get something else.

When Steve and I were in Kyoto in the spring, he bought ice cream that you "drink" that I remembered thinking wasn't bad. There it was, sitting in the cooler in a tasty looking Cappuccino flavor. I decided to try it out.

Behold, the tasty treat: Coolish!

Mmm, coffee flavored frosty

What in the world is Coolish you ask? A very good question. The packaging calls it "飲むアイス" or ice cream drink. Drinkable ice cream. When you get it, you have to let it melt a little bit, and then you suck it up through the nozzle at the top of the package. If you don't let it thaw out a little bit, you will give yourself a massive headache and a sore jaw, and still not to get to eat (drink?) it until it thaws. Be careful!

Coolish is not technically ice cream. It's what some people call milk ice. It's like milk with tons and tons of tiny pieces of ice in it. Basically, it's a frosty in packet form. As a former Wendy's employee, frequent Wendy's eater when in America, and avid Wendy's misser (is that a word?) when in Japan, I was filled with joy at this discovery! Plus, since it's milk ice, not ice cream, it's fewer calories. Nice!

Obviously, I have quickly become obsessed with Coolish, especially now that it's getting so darn hot and humid here. Of course, in typical Japanese flavor fashion, there are 2 flavors of Coolish at a time. Vanilla, and whatever the flavor of the moment is. Sometimes if you visit stores like Wellness or grocery stores, they haven't sold out of all of the previous flavor yet, so you have a choice of 3 flavors! Lucky!

That's how I got to sample the Belgian chocolate flavor. It was out before Cappucino, but I found one hidden in with the Cappucino flavor at Yayoi (a local grocery store.)

It was a rich chocolate flavor. Not my favorite, but not bad.

One day, I went to get a Cappuccino Coolish and was sad to discover they were gone, replaced by the next flavor, Strawberry yogurt. True to it's name, the consistency was a little more yogurty, and it tasted like yogurt. As in a yogurt cup that was frozen, not frozen yogurt. There's a difference. I wasn't a fan.

If I wanted yogurt, I'd buy yogurt! I want ice cream darnit!

The next time I wanted Coolish, they still had the disappointing yogurt flavor, so I decided to try the original vanilla flavor that's always available. It was basically vanilla soft serve. Pretty good, nothing special.

Vanilla, always a classic.

Anyway, you can imagine the joy I felt when I walked in to Family Mart and discovered the newest flavor this week. Perfect for summer, it's Soda flavored Coolish!

Who decided soda is the color of windshield wiper fluid?

This blue soda flavor is pretty popular in Japan. There are lots of soda flavored candies, soda flavored soda, soda flavored I don't know what. I'm not really sure what soda flavor actually tastes like... It's kind of like Sprite but not so lemon lime. Maybe it's like cream soda? It's no cappuccino, but it's pretty tasty. And it's that fabulous blue color that makes me feel like I'm five again. The perfect summer treat!

KitKat Review: 桜抹茶ラテ

I bought these little KitKats at the beginning of this year, when many sakura (cherry blossom) flavored products appeared in the stores. If green tea kitkats aren't special enough for you, you can have a green tea latte kitkat! And to make it even better, let's throw the essence of cherry blossoms in there! The box came with 6 mini mini bars. Mini mini means they're even smaller than the regular mini bars.  That must be why you get 6!

As you can see, the bars are the same width as other mini kitkat bars, but shorter, making it a mini mini. I'm sorry, I just think calling it mini mini is hilarious. As for taste, it tastes like a slightly diluted オトナの甘さ　抹茶 kitkat bar, I think that's the latte part. There is a little hint of flower, as if you sniffed someones perfume or garden as you took a bite, but otherwise, not much sakura about it. I thought the box was pretty but there was nothing particularly special about these kitkats. If you want 抹茶 (green tea) flavor, just get the オトナの甘さ kitkats.

KitKat Review: 聖護院八ッ橋

Another delicious local taste KitKat. I found these in Kyoto, and they sure are tasty. They are 聖護院八ッ橋 ( Shougoin yatsuhashi, Shougoin is a temple in Kyoto, and yatsuhashi is a type of cinnamon sweet that is a local Kyoto delicacy.) The box was a little bigger with 5 individually wrapped minibars inside, and a spot on the back to write a message, making it a great choice for omiyage (a souviner.) Well played Japanese Nestle, well played.

The bars are made of white chocolate with cinnamon crumbled into it. The wafers inside seem to be the normal wafers inside regular kit kats. These are really delicious, like white chocolate cinnamon cookies. Often cinnamon flavored foods are a little overpowering, i.e. Big Red gum, Altoids, etc, but the white chocolate mixing with the cinnamon makes it just right. Just as the cinnamon tones down the sweetness of the white chocolate so it doesn't make me want to vomit, (a side effect of white chocolate. for reals.) I really enjoyed these KitKats and will definitely buy them again next time I'm in Kyoto.

KitKat Review: ブルーベリー チーズケーキ味

We found these limited edition ブルーベリー　チーズケーキ味 (Blueberry Cheesecake Flavor) at Kawaguchiko station while visiting Fuji-san. It seems they're only available in the Koushinetsu region, so I was pretty excited to find them, even though I had to buy a box of 12 mini bars.

Look at all those blueberry cheesecake kitkats. How fancy!

I thought this was pretty tasty myself. It was a little strange at first tasting blueberries and a hint of cheesecake but feeling the texture of a kitkat, but I got over it quickly. The cheesecake flavor wasn't very strong, more like Jello "cheesecake" than legit cheesecake, but if you know me, you know I like it better that way. I would definitely buy these again, they were really good.  Luckily, I can't get them in Matsue; saves me money and from getting fat!

KitKat Review: オトナの甘さ ホワイト

In Mitaka, we found the 3rd オトナの甘さ KitKat (KitKat for adults,) ホワイト, or white. That's right, it's a white chocolate kitkat with chocolate crumbles or something between the wafers. Once again, the box had 3 individually packaged kitkat mini bars inside.

Steve and I liked this one a lot, we thought it tasted more like cookies and cream than the Big Little Cookies and Cream KitKats did. The white chocolate is a little softer than normal chocolate, but wasn't the strange texture disaster of the Big Little things. I'm not one for white chocolate, but I liked this flavor, probably because it had a little not white chocolate mixed in. If you're looking for a sweet cookies and cream kitkat, go with this one.

KitKat Review: Big リトル Cookies and Cream

On our journey across the country of Japan, Steve and I found a few more KitKat flavors. The first we found is this package of KitKat balls called  Big リトル, or Big Little. Not really sure what they mean by that. Actually, if you look at the side of the package, they have "Big? Little? Big Little!" written on it, so it seems they're not quite sure what they mean either.

Anyhoo, they sell normal flavored KitKats this way too, but I prefer my KitKats in stick form. Steve bought this package and therefore gets to help with the review! Lucky!

There were 7 of these little KitKat chunks inside the package. We didn't really get a cookies and cream taste, more of a white chocolate covered oreo taste. I got a slight hint of cream cheese or something that I didn't really appreciate. Steve felt that the "flakiness of the wafers inside don't match what the texture should be. It's not a good texture." It was strange, I think maybe the outer covering was too thick, or there wasn't enough wafer? I dunno. I do know that neither of us were fans or would be eating these again. Crazy little kitkat balls.

KitKat Review: オトナの甘さ

The latest KitKat Adventure! Kit Kat オトナの甘さ. (Otona no Amasa, Adult Sweetness) Yup, it's another KitKat geared towards adults. From what I can tell, this may have come before the Matcha adult one, and is probably the original "Adult KitKat." Or whatever.

Like the other set, this package has 3 individually wrapped mini bars inside.

 Mmm.... delicious. As far as I can tell, this is a dark chocolate KitKat bar. Other than that, I don't notice anything special. I assume that it's for "adults" because it's dark chocolate, since most children like sweeter chocolate.

It was good. Nothing special at all really, unless you're in the mood for dark chocolate.

KitKat Review: オトナの甘さ 抹茶

Japanese people love KitKats. What's not to love really, they are pretty delicious. However, in Japan you can find all kinds of flavors that we don't have in America. So, as a reoccurring blog theme, I'll post a review of each one I find as I find them. How exciting!

KitKat flavors are seasonal AND regional, so it shall be interesting to see what I can find.

 The box says "Otona no amasa" which means"sweetness of adults." Basically, it's a kitkat geared towards adults. This is a sub-type of kitkat.

The flavor is written in yellow and says "Matcha." That's green tea.
Under that it says "~kodawari no uji matcha" which roughly translates (I think...) to obsession of Uji Matcha, or green tea from the Uji region of Kyoto.

Shfancy! This box had 3 individually wrapped (of course...) kitkat minis inside.

Aren't they a beautiful shade of green?

Flavor wise, it's not very strong. You mostly taste wafer, and then a strong taste of matcha kicks in and leaves a slightly bitter after taste in your mouth. Pretty much the same way drink matcha does. This is definitely not as strong as drinking matcha tea, and a little bit sweeter.

It's okay. I like it. I wouldn't go out of my way for it.
How do you feel about it. Want to try it?

Sushi train

It's finals week at my high school, which means no teaching, pretty bad test scores, and going out to lunch! I wish my students would study... sigh. Ah well, for our Monday lunch adventure Heather and I went to the sushi train place. It was delicious and entertaining. If dad ever comes to visit, I know a place to take him :)

Sushi train restaurants come in different shapes and sizes. Sometimes there are sushi chefs that stand in the middle and you can order sushi from them and watch them make it. This place was a little bigger, and you ordered sushi from a computer screen instead of a person.

 The conveyer belt with the sushi plates on it. There are 3 separate ones with about 4 or 5 booths on each side. The booths are numbered, and when you go in, the hostess tells you which booth to sit at.

The sushi is on plates in the capsules pictured above. The capsules are stuck to a conveyor belt that is continuously moving. If you see a plate of sushi you want, you grab the edge of the plate through the finger holes at the edge of the capsule, and it pops open.

 If you don't see the sushi you want going by, you can use the computer to order it.

 Heather successfully ordered 1 plate of inarizushi.

 When you order something, it comes in a special red train piece, and the computer announces your sushi is here. This way, no other tables accidentally take your order. If you see something going by on a red thing and want it, simply order one for yourself using the computer.

 Inarizushi. Fried tofu filled with rice. It's delicious!

 You could also make your own green tea at your table. You simply spoon some match into your cup from the container on the table.

 Then fill with hot water from the dispenser built into the table.

 Above the conveyer belt. You can grab cups and little plates for your soy sauce.

 When finished with your plates, you slide into the slot and it counts them. Every 5 plates plays a little movie on the computer, good guys vs bad guys. If the good guys win, you win a little prize. The prizes this time were little wind up plastic cars shaped like sushi. If the bad guys win, no prize for you. Heather and I each ate 5 plates, so we got 2 tries. Sadly, we didn't win anything.

 Tempura onion rings. Really thick onion pieces, delicious!

You can order dessert as well, and it'll come out in a red dish. Lychee choco pudding. YUM!

Making Mochi

Saturday morning, the drum group got together to make an excessive amount of mochi to throw to the crowds on Sunday. Mochi is make of rice soaked in water, which is steamed, then pounded into a dough. You can make mochi the traditional way with a hammer, but since we had so much to make, we used a machine to make the dough. Ah, technology. Once made, mochi looks a lot like cookies, but you don't want to bite into one, as it gets pretty hard when cooled. Instead you grill it or put it in soup, something warm that makes it melty and squishy again. Also, it's basically eating rice, so you probably want something with it for taste.

 The rice is starting to form a dough.

 Yay mochi making machine!

 Even more dough like!

 Once ready, the dough was removed and split into pieces so each table could work with some. The dough is pretty hot and would burn your fingers, but you have to work fast, as once it cools, it hardens.

 You take the dough and stretch it out. The white powder is flour so it doesn't stick to the table.

Next, you chop it up with a flat plastic tool to form small chunks, much like cookie dough.

 Kayla's completed mochi

 The mochi are sat on tables to cool. They are fanned and flipped regularly.

 We also made pink mochi!

An excessive amount of mochi. Messy work, flour was everywhere.