Hamumu Games, Inc. Hamumu Games, Inc.
 - Home - Games - Blog - Halloween - About - 
<< < 14 15 16 17 Page 18/125 19 20 21 22 > >>
  Japanese Candy Fest 2013: Strawberry Baked Pie 01:37 PM -- Wed September 25, 2013  


Strawberry Baked Pie
9/10 YUMS
Now here's something different! These are hexagonal pies. Well, sort of. They are hexagons of puff pastry, about an inch across, very light and flaky, just your usual puff pastry. Inside, they are stuffed with - you guessed it - strawberry chocolate. It is most unfortunate that now, as I am down to my last 3 pies, I examined the box closely enough to realize there are microwave directions on here. I've been eating raw pie! No, it's not raw at all, but it apparently is supposed to be warmed up! I just gave one a 7-second cook (I see a 6 next their list of microwave wattages, so maybe it's supposed to go 6 seconds? It's sure not supposed to go 6 minutes, I can tell you that), and it was more delicious than ever. I've got two more chances... I think I'm gonna try a little longer. Hmm, after 10 seconds, the strawberry goo inside is still cold, but I'm scared to go longer.

Let's try it with the last one anyway. 30 full seconds... but wait, is the 6 talking about power settings? Let's give it a while at 60%. Oh wow. Yep. Do it! Thirty seconds at 60% made it piping hot, yet non-lethal, and oh so much tastier!

So what's not to like? You got puff pastry, strawberry chocolate, warmth, and that's that. Yummy pie. I think I'm gonna raise my initial rating now that I've baked my own pie. Deserving a full 9/10 after I nuked it into yumtown. I wanna get these again and cook them up properly next time! I also want to try the chocolate flavor. I'd also love to get these with a jam type filling instead of the strawberry chocolate, because they really do work nicely as little tiny pies.
Comment on this entry...Back to top!
  Japanese Candy Fest 2013: Strawberry Pocky 04:50 PM -- Tue September 24, 2013  


Strawberry Pocky
8.5/10 YUMS
These are a fairly classic Pocky you may be able to find at your local non-Japanese grocery store, although there are (I think if I am remembering right...) two or more kinds of Strawberry Pocky. The kind you're most likely to find is not this one - it's just a pocky stick with plain strawberry chocolate around it. Those are okay. These are much better! They have the strawberry chocolate, but it's peppered with little dots of strawberry seeds (not sure that's a good thing...) and dried strawberries. Yum! As a bonus, or perhaps a minus since it actually means you get less food, the sticks are heart-shaped!

I rate Strawberry Pocky 8.5/10 Yums. It's very tasty, but not the greatest ever. So hard to rate things at this top end of the scale, but as I finish this review munching on my very last strawberry heart-stick, I think I've done it right. 8.5 will do. Oh man, maybe I should've said 9... but I have no more to test! Oh well.
Comment on this entry...Back to top!
  Japanese Candy Fest 2013: Cream Collon 02:51 PM -- Mon September 23, 2013  


Cream Collon
8/10 YUMS
These are a unique candy... it's a wrapper of pastry that is about the same as Pirouline - very thin, flaky, crispy. Inside this wrapper is a substance I've never eaten before. It's like some sort of cream cheese and whipped cream combination, with a little bit of some spice in it that I can't recognize. But mainly it's all about that cream flavor. Perhaps that's why they call it Cream Collon. Or they call it that because if you're lactose intolerant like me, it could cream your colon.

I'm going to give these an 8/10, but it's a tentative rating... they definitely taste good, but there's just something a little odd, and I'm just not quite sure. If I had the equivalent little tube of pastry with actual cream cheese frosting in the middle, I'd be giving it a 10/10, but this is something a bit different!
Comment on this entry...Back to top!
  Japanese Candy Fest 2013: Musk Melon Hard Candy 05:38 PM -- Sun September 22, 2013  


Musk Melon Hard Candy
7.5/10 YUMS
It's hard to review hard candies, because I'm never as excited about them, but at the same time, they always taste really good (unless they don't, which is really bad). If you don't know what the oddly-named musk melon is, it's pretty much a cantaloupe. I researched a bit and I'm still not entirely sure if the cantaloupe is a species of musk melon, or vice versa, or they're both a species of some larger group. Some sources claim they're just different names for the same thing. Regardless, they're not very different, so these candies taste just like cantaloupe, and that's about all there is to it. A hard candy you suck on for a long time to enjoy a sweet cantaloupe flavor.

It's good, and I'll be happy to have these around for months to come, because that's how long they'll last. I rarely even want a hard candy, but they are really nice for getting a sweet flavor without actually having very many calories. Not so good for your teeth, though. The best rating I can guess at here is 7.5/10 Yums, which feels a bit unfair because the flavor is very good, but I just can't get all that excited about a hard candy.
Comment on this entry...Back to top!
  Japanese Candy Fest 2013: Chocolate Wheat Puffs 08:57 PM -- Sat September 21, 2013  


Chocolate Wheat Puffs
5/10 YUMS
I'm making up my own name here, because the only English on the front of the package is "Wheat Chocolate", and the English label slapped on the back just says, in all caps, "CHOCOLATE". Which I can't argue is there, but it really misses the point. These are most definitely Chocolate Wheat Puffs.

Do you know the cereal Honey Smacks? Just like Honey Smacks, this is made from puffed wheat, the difference is that they coated the puffs in chocolate rather than honey. It's really unique and different, but I can't say I'm loving it. It's enjoyable for being different, and it's not unpleasant, but the chocolate is too dark for me. I'm not a fan of dark chocolate, and the wheat inside is also... I mean, it's just wheat, so it's not adding some delicious bonus, it just adds a styrofoam core.

Overall, I'm going to have to give these 5/10 Yums, because I'm willing to eat them in order to get sugar and chocolate into my body. If you like dark chocolate, I think you'll be much better off with these than I am. Sol Hunt appreciates these more than I do for sure. All in all, I'd rather eat Honey Smacks!
Comment on this entry...Back to top!
  Japanese Candy Fest 2013: Pucca 06:16 PM -- Fri September 20, 2013  


Pucca
8.5/10 YUMS
These come from the Hello Panda school of baking. But while Hello Panda is clearly some sort of cookie filled with chocolate, these are actually pretzels filled with chocolate. Very very thin walls of unsalted pretzel surrounding a fairly large blob of chocolate. And of course in the shape of a fish! There are assorted sea life shapes inside, which adds to the fun. As do a bunch of mazes and puzzles inside the box, but unlike your average Japanese 6-year-old, I can't solve the puzzles. It would help if I could read them.

I suppose I should compare these to Hello Panda and pick a winner, but unfortunately I somehow managed not to get any Hello Panda in this giant batch of candy, so I don't really have the proper data to do a comparison. I think these might be the winner if I did compare, actually. The thin pretzel layer is really quite satisfying to crunch through into the chocolate below. It's a little like eating a Peanut M&M, only inside out. Or those special rare Crispy M&Ms, since there's no peanut flavor. Anyway, they fairly deserve 8.5/10 Yums. There's nothing fishy about these tasty snacks.
1 commentBack to top!
  Japanese Candy Fest 2013: Tomato Pretz 06:07 PM -- Thu September 19, 2013  


Tomato Pretz
7/10 YUMS
We have another snack today! You can't eat candy all the time. Pretz is the savory version of Pocky. Just like Pocky, it's a long thin dry cracker stick - the exact same stick used in Pocky in fact. The only difference is what they put on that stick. And in the case of Tomato Pretz, what they put on the stick is a tomato powder. I think I taste a little mustard in there, and of course there's some salt, but mostly it tastes of tomatoes. Well, mostly it tastes of cracker, but cracker with tomato on it. What it really reminds me of is those Chicken In A Biskit crackers.

These are pretty good. They're not going to blow your mind, but you can sit and snack away any old time. But then again, why buy expensive exotic Japanese crackers when you could get stuff like Chicken In A Biskit here in the US for a tenth of the price? I give this 7/10 Yums for its actual yumminess, but I don't recommend you get it, because it's cheaper and easier to get a local equivalent. This isn't doing anything you can't get elsewhere, except being long and skinny.
Comment on this entry...Back to top!
  Japanese Candy Fest 2013: Crunch Chocolate 11:02 AM -- Wed September 18, 2013  


Crunch Chocolate
9/10 YUMS
"Baked Chocolate Snack" or "Crunch Chocolate" is all the name I can find for this (given that I can't read the actual name printed right on the bag!). These are a really strange endorsement deal... it's a Japanese candy, covered with Suzy Spafford's art. She is a well-known American cartoonist who just sort of makes happy cute animals. I didn't know Japan had a shortage of those, but apparently they do, so they imported Suzy's art to emblazon this treat with.

But the wrapping isn't what's important! What is inside? Well, it's a baked chocolate snack. Pretty much, it's that thing you can make where you take Corn Flakes and pour melted chocolate over them and stir them up and let them cool (like Krispie Treats, but subbing in chocolate for marshmallow and Corn Flakes for Rice Krispies). That's about it. The ingredients refer to "corn grits" but I bet that's a mistranslation of corn flakes. So it's nothing really surprising and new, it's just something very tasty. You probably know what corn flakes and chocolate taste like together, and now you can enjoy it in a little bag with a cute animal on it!

Like Tomato Pretz (oops, I changed order - you'll learn about those later), you can achieve these flavors quite easily locally. But these are really yummy. I give them 9/10 Yums because yay. They remind me of Gzacky a lot, and I like to be reminded of Gzacky, but they are clearly inferior to it as well. If you're going to get a baked chocolate snack from Japan, get Gzacky. You won't regret it!
1 commentBack to top!
  Japanese Candy Fest 2013: Panda Pocky 12:15 PM -- Tue September 17, 2013  


Panda Pocky
6.5/10 YUMS
Instead of the standard plain wheat Pocky stick, these Panda Pocky have a chocolate cracker stick, a little bit like the 'bread' of an ice cream sandwich, but more dry. Then the coating, to make it a panda, is a cookies & cream substance - white creamy stuff with chocolate cookie bits in it. I think the bits are actually Oreo material, but it's also possible they're just bits of what the stick is made of in the first place, which seems like a rip-off. As a bonus, the bags inside the box are decorated with very lovely cartoons of pandas waving Panda Pocky around.

This sounds like such a great idea, but it turned out to be a real disappointment. This is one of my least favorite Pockies! The chocolate sticks are not particularly sweet (regular Pocky sticks aren't sweet at all, but then they're not chocolate, are they?), and they break like crazy, they aren't nearly as sturdy as your standard Pocky. Then the coating is okay, but nothing special. There is a very distinct Oreo flavor to it all, but not nearly as tasty as actual Oreos. Almond Crush Pocky all the way, I don't need these pandas.

I give them 6.5/10 because they're okay, but other Pocky is so very much better.
1 commentBack to top!
  Japanese Candy Fest 2013: Cheese Potato Snack 05:50 PM -- Mon September 16, 2013  


Cheese Potato Snack
6/10 YUMS
Look, it's a snack instead of a candy! These are pretty straightforward: Take Cheddar & Sour Cream Ruffles and roll them up instead of laying them flat (and wavy), and you have Cheese Potato Snack. They taste the same, with that really strong artificial cheese flavor which is salty and sort of good and sort of disturbing, and other than that they're potatoes. Each one is sort of a straw made of potatoes, empty in the middle.

These are kind of enjoyable, but that fake cheese flavor is at once both good and off-putting, so I rate them 6/10 Yums. Incidentally, the fake cheese flavor is at least partially cheese, probably mostly. But it still tastes fake to me!
2 commentsBack to top!
<< < 14 15 16 17 Page 18/125 19 20 21 22 > >>
Copyright 2021-2025, Hamumu Games Inc.