I have heard a lot of talk about the chips here. About how the Japanese have tried to replicate the flavour of chips from things you wouldn’t normally associate chip flavours with. Like “Clam Chowder”. Well, I have already tried Pizza Chips, which were disgusting. Dare I try another foreign flavour of chips? Yes, yes I dare. 

HOT DOG CHIPS!!! The company, don tacos, also makes taco chips, but they are not anything to write home about. These hot dog chips were an exciting addition to my grocery cart. I am a big fan of hot dogs, and chips. Could it be? A match made in space? We’ll see…

The chip is a tortilla chip, which I like. Tortilla chips are thicker than your average plain chip, which is better suited for a chip that is supposed to taste like something completely different. The bag of the chip shows a couple of hot dogs complete with condiments. Ketchup AND Mustard?!? Is this seriously what the chip is going to be like? Yes. Yes it was like that. Not only did the chips taste a lot like a hot dog with condiments, but the mustard flavour was more akin to a dijon mustard. It had a bit of a spicy kick to it. This was approaching gourmet hot dog standards. 

The spice of the mustard did kind of overpower the rest of the flavours, but I cannot complain. It was a real relief from a lot of the weird food I eat here. I usually eat with an open mind, but my heart is broken by the end of each meal! Hot Dog chips not only delivered, but they exceeded expectations. 

The hot dog and ketchup flavours were definitely still present, but I think it would have been too sweet if they overpowered the chip. A chip that is sweet is not a friend of mine. Don Taco knows what they are doing. If they continue to keep up a good track record with unbelievable flavours, they may be the Jones Soda of chips. 

RATING: 4.5 out of 5.0.

Today I tried a different kind of snack. It can also be considered a “meal on the go”, but to me, that is not enough for a meal. I am a big fan of the “cup ‘o’ noodles”, although I have tried many here, and they are disappointing, and very hard to describe. I had one that was sort of a spaghetti/taco flavour mashed together in a soaking wet slop? That’s as good as it gets. Whatever you think about that description, it tasted way worse than that. 

Everyone knows the Cup Noodle brand, but the Curry flavour is new to me. I enjoy Curry dishes, and it is my last name, so I thought it would be appropriate to try. The problem with noodle bowl “snacks” is that there is some preparation involved. With most snacks, the only thing you have to do is open the bag (the bags are much more difficult to open in Japan). Here, I had to heat up some water!!!! What a travesty! Actually, it took three minutes. With Cup noodle you don’t have the vegetables and flavour packet stored in different bags… It’s all just in the cup. Very convenient.

There is the finished product. Since I have no idea how to read Japanese, I had no idea what the ingredients were. For a small cup, there were plenty of noodles. A great noodle/water ratio. The noodles were hearty and I think there were little beef chunks inside? Nothing here really bothered me. I have a hard time with some of the textures of food in Japan, so thank goodness they didn’t add a weird fish in here.

Sorry for the blurry photograph but those brown rectangles were the most confusing part of the snack. What are they? Potato? They were kind of soft, and I would compare them to a potato, but the curry overpowered the taste of many the ingredients. 

It was a good Cup Noodle but I found that the smell was very overpowering. My whole room now smells of curry. It was also a pretty messy snack to eat. There was a faint orange blob on my hand after eating. The curry was mild, but flavourful. I prefer spicy snacks, but thinking of the overall population, I think this would be better suited for the larger market. 

RATING: 3.5 out of 5.0

Well oh well…

I decided to try my hand at the baked goods soft snack once again. I have had such bad luck with these foods since I arrived, but this treat looked satisfying, sophisticated, and soft. Of course I still had no idea what I was getting into, which is the point of this blog, but as usual, I was highly skeptical.

Monteur Double Strawberry-filled cakes! They appear to look like marshmallow dessert hot dogs, and they have the usual amount of Japanese characters on the package to make me scratch my head. I wonder if there are any secret surprises contained in that fluff I don’t know about?

Fortunately, the package has a picture of what appears to be a strawberry mousse, which had me intrigued. I do love mousse, and I also love strawberries. A strawberry mousse is just the ticket to get into my ever fattening stomach. 

Here it is! And guess what? It was DELICIOUS! It was a soft, fluffy mousse, although probably made with cheap ingredients, melted in my mouth right away. The fluffy outer cake was like an extra soft pancake which also dissolved with ease. It was a very light-seeming snack with probably about a million calories with each bite. There was a tiny strawberry filling in the middle as well. I was going to take a photo of that mid-bite, but the treat was so delicious that I instantly devoured it. There are only three of these little guys per bag, which I think is fortunate because if there were more, I would continue to stuff my fat face. 

The good thing about this snack was also that I knew pretty much what I was getting. I could see the snack contents through the packaging, and the bag had pictures of some of the ingredients or “flavours” I would be experiencing. Because it tasted like such a harmless, light snack, I did feel like I was getting swindled with how much sugar I was actually pumping through my body.

RATING: 4.5 out of 5.0

Another great snack!

I have been trying a lot of snacks in the last few days, but so many of them are not worthy of this blog. That is not to say they were bad, but they were not interesting enough to post. Most people know what regular potato chips taste like. They taste the same over here. 

Which brings me to my next snack. This is sort of a cheat because I was scouring the aisles for a snack that was similar to the Wagon Wheel or Jos Louis snack. I came across one that resembled the Wagon Wheel, so I thought I would give it a try. “Snackrebleu!” I thought to myself when I saw this treasure. Oh yes, I am going to try and fill this blog with terrible snack puns as much as I can.

Lotte Choco Pie! The cover gives me hope that this will fulfill my Wagon Wheel wish. It looks similar, there is a quaint country house in the corner that says, “hey there son, why don’t you stick around for a while and chomp down on this delicious treat?” 

On the upper-right hand corner, a cartoon family looks impressed with the Choco Pie. Also, a burning planet looks happy to be destroying earth in a manner of minutes. There is also a tiny panda guy hugging the Choco Pie for dear life. You would be hugging your favourite thing too if you knew the end of the world was about to happen.

The side of the box contains pictures of more adorable animals with their Choco Pie’s. What is that first one on the left? A beaver? A bear? I am assuming the one on the right is an otter, but why does he have one sea shell instead of tiny hands? The other two look like they broke theirs, but at least they have hands. 

Well, here must be the reason for all of those cute little guys. You can build your own Choco Pie buddy by cutting up this cardboard guy. It seems like a waste of time, because as soon as you stick the treat in his arms, you are going to want to eat it anyway. Children aren’t patient, especially when it comes to snacks. Neither am I, and I am in my mid-twenties. At least this guy looks friendly. 

Alright, enough bullshitting. Let’s get to the snack at hand. Choco Pie! “Chocolate coated vanilla cream sandwich pie”. That is a lot of words about a single snack. Mostly I have reviewed “Pizza chips” or “Chip Chop”. This one has a good explanation as to what I will be tasting. 

This “pie” looks a lot like a Wagon Wheel treat. It is similar in size, shape, and colour. Even the flakey cake-like crap that the chocolate covers is the same. 

Chomp! It all looks so similar, but has a bit of a richer taste than I remember Wagon Wheels having. The texture was the same. A tiny bit crunchy, but with a cake-like vibe. The chocolate was dark chocolate as opposed to just “brown” or whatever the hell kind of non-chocolate those chemists at the Wagon Wheel factory use. The vanilla cream was more of a cream, or an icing, rather than a marshmallow. It was much more decadent than I thought it would be, for a cheap lunch-time snack. 

I gobbled this down so fast it was an embarrassment to the human race in general. I am glad nobody saw me, or I would have been kicked out of Japan for rude behaviour. 

This snack is awesome. 

RATING: 4.5 out of 5.0.

I have been focusing a lot more on chip-like substances in this blog. I haven’t even bothered to troll down the candy aisles, because the chip section has so much to be discovered! Today I took the brave path down the candy aisle to see what was in store. There was a lot of pretty insane looking stuff, most of it I didn’t even have the slightest clue as to what could be in the mystery bag/box/tube. I decided to start off with a simple candy with an english title. Gum.

SUPER SODA GUM! Check out that guy on the right! He is partying it up in some fizzy water-like atmosphere, which somehow contains massive explosions! He is at the forefront of sea-fireworks parties! 

On the left, we see a cartoon version of the thing I will be eating. A blue square filled with a white substance. God, it better not be goo.

Here it is: the square. I couldn’t get very good photos of this snack, because it was too tiny for my camera to focus. Sorry. Anyway, in my hand, it felt kind of dusty. It did not feel like a snack I should have been chewing on. BUT! I chomped it down and BOOM! a huge hunk of white flavour crystals blasted forth into my soul. Flavour crystals! Not goo! A point for the Super Soda Gum! There were many crystals and they heaved the flavour forth like a big fizz-bomb. I thought I was going to become rabid, but to no avail! 

The flavour of the gum was some sort of berry mash-up. I wasn’t really able to tell, because of the fizz blast, and the gum flavour only held on for a few seconds, before becoming dry. The gums with the most amazing flavours usually disappoint in the longevity department. Oh well. 

I ate the package of gum extremely quickly, because of how quickly the flavour dissolved. It was fun, but not tasty for that long.

RATING: 3.0 out of 5.0.

Let’s get serious for a second here… My experience with baked goods in Tokyo has been horrible. What is the deal with the baked treats here? Why do they have to put a disgusting jelly into a perfectly good bun? Everything is filled with some sort of gross goo, or some other disgusting surprise. I saw a swiss chocolate roll in a shop the other day, and although I was tempted, I didn’t buy it because it was probably dipped in fish eggs. I am totally over exaggerating, but I just can’t get into the stuff over here!!!

I do love soft treats, cookies and cakes, but where to go? I will continue to eat these experimental baked things until I am satisfied. Just give me a goddamn Jos Louis and make me happy, okay?

I did try a cookie-like treat from a box:

Chip chop! I wonder if they meant to say, “Chip Chomp!”? That would be more fun. Anyway, the colours of the box and the chocolate triangles reminded me of Dunkaroos, the kangaroo cookie with the insane icing blob you used as a dip. I also noticed the caramel cubes on the front. I am a big fan of caramel (especially on ice cream), so I thought, “what have I got to lose?”

Apparently the caramel goo is inside the triangle. See? There is always some gunk inside food. I am sure the diagram explaining what is happening does a way better job than me. “There’s some shit inside the chip/cookie triangle”.

Here is the chip/cookie triangle I ate. Brown? yes. Chocolate? Kind of. It was very dry, and kind of tasted a little bit cardboard-y. Not a ton of flavour on the outside of these things…

Now, that doesn’t look like much, but that “caramel filling” is a huge burst of flavour. Unfortunately, it doesn’t taste like caramel. It tastes like you just stuck a rectangular prism of butter down your throat! It is this insanely sweet taste that is almost hypnotizing. It hypnotizes you into eating the whole bag in a manner of seconds. It’s not even that great of a snack! Just… butter.

This snack blew my mind, but not in a positive light. Or a negative one! I as on the fence. It wasn’t that great, yet that “caramel” was very addicting. It felt like I was getting away with murder. Eating a hunk of butter, without eating a hunk of butter.

Here is a diagram to help me close the box. I never needed to, because I ate the whole thing in one sitting.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5.0

I have loads of snacks stacked up ready for review! I hope you enjoy these.  

 -Jeremy Curry

With Christmas coming up, Tokyo is a hustle and bustle of bad Christmas “MUZAK” playing in the supermarkets (I have already heard a muzak version of Wham’s “Last Christmas” twice in one day), Christmas lights, and of course, tons of Christmas advertising. It is a topsy-turvy version of Christmas, focused more on the advertising components, and little on the actual “meaning” of Christmas. I like this better. People just go out and buy gifts for their friends, and that is that. It’s not as much pressure. “Buy stuff if you want!” feels like the motto here. 

Without further ado, I bring you Grandpa Christmas Snack!

This is some of the cutest packaging I have seen. I knew what I was getting, because it said “Caramel Corn” on the top of the bag… Or did I? There are bells of Holly and a present on the box, which I am assuming is some sort of contest you can win if you buy Grandpa Snack.

The peanut is showing me that yes, there will be nuts in this bag. He is also licking his lips (peanuts have lips?) to indicated that yes, this will be a tasty treat. Let’s get this show on the road!

Wait a second…! I was expecting caramel popcorn! What are these prawn-like morsels?! Where are the nuts? I wasn’t expecting any of this!!!

Fortunately, the snack was okay. The prawnish snack was fluffy and light, with a caramel powder flavour sprinkled lightly on top. The powder did not make my fingers too messy, and were simple to clean off (unlike kettle chips…UGHH). Grandpa snack was also highly addictive, and was quite generous with the portions received. I believe I am going to become a fatso with this blog, but at least it is fun!

More fun Christmas themes on the side of the box. I did eventually discover that there were nuts with this snack, but they had all fallen to the bottom of the bag! It seems kind of pointless to make a mix of snacks if one of the ingredients doesn’t even hold up with the other one. 

Anyway, it was a decent snack, although I was a disappointed I was not eating caramel popcorn. Plus, the nuts sank to the bottom.

Rating: 3.0 out of 5.0

-Jeremy Curry

Althought my first snack was disappointing (to say the least!) I am no quitter, at least when it comes to snacking! Pizza chips did seem to good to be true. I do love pizza and I do love chips, so it put tears in my eyes when I found out they were fit only to live in the trash. My next snack better be something special! Well, here is the snack for today:

Because I do not know how to read Japanese, this one is more of a mystery to me. Yes, there is a cob of corn in the upper left corner, and it says “BBQ” on the lower right, but other than that, no info! Not even arrows are guiding me to where the flavour sensations should be! The shape of these things look like shrimp. Shrimp chips? I don’t know. The bag doesn’t look too crazy or full of too many fonts like I see on a lot of snack bags. There isn’t even a little mascot or anything! Just plain ol’ brown shrimp-looking things.

All I know here is that it looks like these snacks don’t expire until 2012. I am safe.

Here is what these little guys look like. Not shrimp. They are pretty much the same length and width as Canadian Hawkins Cheezies. The texture or “crunch” is pretty much the same. I like that. It makes me miss home a little bit! The flavour is kind of like a powdery soya sauce, but not too over powering. A little bit sweet, actually. Mixed with the texture, this snack evens out to have a good balance of flavour v.s feel. It is one of those snacks you can’t really stop eating until they are gone. It did make my throat a little dry, and there was a sweet after-taste, but otherwise a pretty solid snack!

Break one off!

RATING: 4.0 out of 5.0

-Jeremy Curry 

Hi! 

As many of you know, I love snacks. I love experimenting with new snacks, and mixing and matching different kind of snacks to make exciting flavour sensations. I have recently moved to Tokyo, which may possibly be the snack capital of the world. It is also the culinary capital of the world, with more michelin stars than any other city in the world! Unfortunately, they don’t give michelin stars to snacks, so I will have to rate them. 

FIRST UP!

PIZZA CHIPS!

Look at the gooey slice on the front! This was an instant grab, based on the cartoonish pizza blob on the front, and the overuse of the Italian flag littered all over the bag. I don’t understand Japanese, but it seems to be made by a company called, “Calbee”. It was easy to spot that these are also “Pizza Potato” chips. The bag is enormous by Canadian standards. You get a lot of chips for 100 yen.

This is the snack in question. What are those weird orange chunks? It looks like a strange alien mold. Also, green and red specks were present on each individual chip.

Here is a diagram explaining what these things are on the chip!The orange thing is made from orange blocks of LEGO, and there is a comical triangular prism of swiss cheese for a cartoon mouse below it. Unfortunately, no photographs were included on the diagram for the green and red specks. I am assuming pepperoni and green peppers? Whatever!

I tasted the chip and it was completely revolting. The orange blob tasted like hardened cheese whiz, while the specks just tasted like a dusty older version of Ruffles all-dressed potato chips. The hunks of cheese overpowered the rest of the flavours, which I would have preferred. It was a major bummer. I tried about three or four chips before chucking the bag in the trash. I was drinking a beer while eating these chips, and I am still waiting for the gross taste to leave my mouth to finish off my brew.

PIZZA CHIPS- 1.0 out of 5

BONUS:

This guy looks so satisfied… with his egg-pizza-hawk head dress, having a boogie to some disco jams. Too bad his snack sucks.

-Jeremy Curry