Oyatsu Break!

Search

Review: Kit Kat Big Little Adult White Chocolate

Review: Kit Kat Big Little Adult White Chocolate
Purchased: November 2012
Best Before: September 2013
Review: January 2013
Manufactured by Nestle Japan

nestle.jp/brand/kit/

Given the infinite variety of the Japanese combini, you’d think I’d be big enough to not hold the White Chocolate Kit Kats in utter contempt, for their ability to sit on store shelves where other, more interesting flavours might end up. You’d be wrong. They cleared some of them off the shelves when they released the phenomenal Adult Raspberry last year, but somehow Adult White Chocolate and Adult Dark Chocolate have become fixtures alongside the standard Kit Kat, consistently successful and available in a way that even Japanese sweets flavour Green Tea is not.

Worse still, there are now multiple iterations of White Chocolate Kit Kats on store shelves, mini’s and regular sizes and these Kit Kat Big Little’s, essentially a ball of Kit Kat, for some reason. The Kit Kat Big Little’s do get exciting flavours onto shelves where they might not otherwise–I think I bought an orange flavour in Japan that I can’t find now–but for the most part it just seems to be exactly the same as the flavours already available.

So lets review them.

Packaging: The packaging is to Kit Kat’s usual high standard, with a large bright logo, clear imagery of the ingredients, and of the product itself. There’s no English on the package, but the printing on the silver foil packaging is well-done and quite eye-catching. There’s some lovely use of transparencies to create gold accents, and to give the front of the package a nice shimmer. Really, Kit Kat’s production and design folks deserve some sort of award.

Scent and Taste: The only scent is of Kit Kat’s standard White Chocolate, which is disappointing. I was kind of hoping some of the chocolate/cookie might come through. The website and packaging seems to promote the high-quality Hokkaido milk involved, but it doesn’t smell like any Japanese milk candy I’ve had.

The taste of the Big Little Bite is a bit more complex than a standard white chocolate bar, thanks to something milky in the white chocolate, and the chocolate cookie crumble is nice, but ultimately these little bits are pretty boring, and perhaps surprisingly bland stuff.

Worse still, these are essentially ‘cubes’ of wafer that would normally be in a Kit Kat, but because they’re coated on all sides with the white chocolate, the balance is completely off, creating a one-note sweetness that overpowers the other flavours.

Verdict: Utterly mediocre.

I know, I know. I knew going in that I probably wouldn’t like these, but I’d never tried them and thought it was worth a shot.

It’s not as badly put together as the Air-In Kit Kats which were just gross, but it’s worse than even the standard Adult White Chocolate Kit Kat. I’ve learned my lesson though, no more second chances on this flavour, and I’ll continue to hate it every time I see it on the shelves.

Review: Cheeza 50% Camembert Basil

Review: Cheeza 50% Camembert Basil
Purchased: November 2012
Review: January 2013

cheeza.jp/

I don’t know how much of a surprise this review this will be, considering jussssst how effusive I was about Cheeza crackers during my previous reviews:

51% Smoked Cheese
52% Cheddar
51% Camembert

But there’s always the possibility of too much of a good thing, right? That adding anything, like basil or tomato, would be tampering with perfection. Right? So, how will this newest iteration of the Cheeza line live up to my incredibly high expectations…!?

Packaging: Much the same as other iterations of Cheeza, these packages are essentially perfect. They feature large product images, as well as large images of the primary ingredients (gorgeous camembert, healthy green basil). Also like the previous Cheeza flavours, this is a resealable bag for multiple servings, although the possibility of eating only part of a bag is generally laughable.

The only thing that might be confusing is that there’s also a glass of wine on this package, and for the uninitiated you might think there’s wine inside! Not so, it’s just a serving suggestion, and suggesting it with wine (instead of beer, how otsumami are more traditionally served), hints at its ‘sophistication,’ which matches the addition of basil to an already popular snack.

Scent and Taste: As soon as I cracked this package, I realized that I wouldn’t be disappointed with this new flavour. The scent of Cheeza 50% Camembert Basil is, frankly, incredible. Bold and big, you get a nice baked cheese smell and the unmistakable aroma of basil, it’s really wonderful. My mouth actually watered.

It tastes even better than it smells, packing in all of the intense flavour of the regular Camembert Cheeza with nothing lost at all. There is a lovely hint of basil in the taste of the crackers, and a close examination will see flakes of basil in the cracker themselves. It’s not overpowering, though letting it rest on your tongue really brings out the basil flavour. The basil stays present even in the face of the powerful Camembert flavour, and the entire bag builds in an amazing way as you continue to snack and drink your beer, wine, or in my case lemon chu-hi. There’s no unfortunate aftertaste at all, and despite my having a very strong, flavourful drink, each bite of the Cheeza flavour came through loud and clear.

Verdict: Camembert was already my favourite of the Cheeza crackers thanks to its intense, full flavour, and the addition of basil to this cracker is totally welcome; a wonderful variation on a classic. Considering some of the other Japanese cheese crackers I’ve tasted, I almost can’t believe this exists.

It pains me that most of you reading this will never get to enjoy this essentially perfect snack food, but it pains me more knowing that when the packages I’ve got on hand disappear, there’ll be no way to restock until I head back to Japan. One of the J-snack importers has got to get on board with these fantastic products.

Review: Kit Kat Gran Wafer

Kit Kat Gran Wafer
Purchased: October 2012
Best Before: July 2013
Review: January 2013
Manufactured by Nestle Japan

nestle.jp/brand/kit/
nestle.jp/brand/kit/gw/

You know you’ve got great friends when they e-mail you from Japan to go “Hey I just got here and there’s a new kind of Kit Kat called ‘Gran Wafer’, want me to grab it for you?”

The answer of course is yes. It is always yes. The awesome person is Jocelyne Allen, and you can read more about her at her literary review website brainvsbook.wordpress.com/ (lots of manga and Japanese culture there too!).

I didn’t see Gran Wafer very often on my November trip, but it was notably found on the top shelf, with only one or two boxes remaining at any given time. Good placement for this product, I think.

Packaging: Released in special packaging that recalls some of the stranger and more upscale flavours such as “Cheese” and the ‘Air-In’ Kit Kats, the Gran Wafer box is a pretty remarkable piece of packaging, and is probably the most ornate yet. Consisting of a fairly large box with 10 single-stick individually wrapped Kit Kats, the package’s fairly prominent mention of only 26 calories identifies this snack as being for the calorie-conscious eater. In addition, “Gran Wafer” is spelled out on the box in romaji (English), with a katakana translation underneath, and prominent English packaging is a general hallmark of “modern and sophisticated” in candy packaging design.

The printing on the packaging is simply phenomenal, possibly the nicest I’ve seen for a mass-market snack. Extremely hi-resolution images of the Kit Kats are printed with a matte finish on four sides giving a luxurious feel, and every side of the box features spot gloss accents on the Kit Kat logo and the product image, making it pop! But if you want your product to leap off of the shelves, you need foil stamping, and the GRAN WAFER logo is stamped with a standard gold foil too, which would be the height of luxury… if there weren’t another type of foil stamping on the box as well! Yes the intricately-patterned textured gold foil diamond on this box pushes it over the top, as the fold foil diamond seems to exist simply to extol the surprising crunchiness of this product. Amazing.

The box then opens from the back, and up, and is nominally resealable indicating that this is not a single-serving portion of Kit Kat, much like the treasure-chest themed ‘cheese kit kat’ container. The back of the box then contains still more glamour (heh), as we learn that this Kit Kat featured an entirely new way of opening your Kit Kat packaging, involving snapping the package apart at the middle.

I’ve written 3 paragraphs about this before I got to the actual Kit Kat. Can you tell I was impressed?

So, we’re finally greeted with a single Kit Kat stick, wrapped in a shiny gold foil package (complete with the “Wow it’s Crunchy!” diamond), and pictographic instructions printed on the back detailing how to open these new Kit Kats. Step 1: “hineru” or twist. Step 2: “hibbaru” or pull informally. Seriously Google translate said “informal pull” which is awesome. Anyway, maybe I am a dullard, but despite direct instructions it took me 3 or 4 tried to actually get the pulling-apart correct. There are apparently micro-perforations that make it easy to twist and tear the packaging, but if you don’t find one of those, well, you may freak out a little. Anyway, we’re all good now, I’ve become a master at getting into these new Kit Kats, so I can tell you what they’re all about…!

Scent and Taste: The strongest scent is of cocoa, which is a first in my Kit Kat experience. Even the “mature” dark chocolate Kit Kats didn’t have a scent that reminded me of straight-up hot cocoa, and this does. It’s really pleasant.

This is a unique Kit Kat in that it’s the first I’ve ever tried without an outer shell of chocolate. It’s just wafers held together by a chocolate filling, and so my first thought was that the texture was wrong. I mean, not ‘wrong’ wrong, just, not a Kit Kat. It’s like the cheap wafer-cookies that you’d get at the supermarket. That surprise was followed by another—the wafers here are chocolate flavoured and coloured chocolate brown, which is another Kit Kat first for me as usually the wafers are just a standard sort of ‘cookie’ flavour, though honestly they have almost no flavour at all. These tasted alright, not spectacular, but it was nice to get a little something extra. All this before the first bite.

And that first bite? Excellent. It continued the cocoa flavours I’d smelled, and was really rich and delicious. Better still, it wasn’t even close to as sweet as your average Kit Kat, perhaps even less sweet than the “Adult” bars. The bar is also much denser than your average Kit Kat—delivering on its promise of surprising crunchiness, sure, but also delivering a surprisingly satisfying little bite.

Verdict: This is a real success, and it shows that Nestle are finally spreading their wings a little after playing it safe for a few years. This is a mature, complicated flavour, featuring unique textures and with quality, tasty ingredients. I honestly didn’t have high hopes after being so disappointed with their other calorie-conscious offerings, but this was pretty great. It could be argued that chocolate is a safe choice, and a variation on chocolate will be an easy sale… and that’s totally fair. This isn’t going to blow anyone’s mind the way that Pancake Kit Kats did, for example, but this is a pretty big departure for the standard Kit Kat, and I’m pretty excited about it. Thanks Nestle!

Review: Pepsi Salty Watermelon

Review: Pepsi Salty Watermelon
Purchased: Summer 2012
Review: January 2013
Manufactured by Pepsi Japan

So I don’t live in Japan, but I do seem very fortunate in that I manage—by hook or by crook—to try many of the special, seasonal, limited snacks and beverages produced for the denizens of that nation. I’m very lucky to get to travel there, and luckier still that I’ve made some friends there that are willing to hook me up.

Which is a round-about way of saying: I was totally sad when Pepsi announced their newest limited edition flavour, Salty Watermelon. I’ve really loved some of their recent flavours like Mont Blanc and Strawberry Milk (“Pepsi Pink”), but there’s no way that the limited-edition summer product would be on store shelves by the time I visited Tokyo in November, 2012. Luckily, my friend Aki was nice enough to pick up a few bottles and hold onto them for me… for the better part of 3 months! It was a seriously nice thing of him to do, and I’m very grateful for it. I assume you are too, as you get to read what I have to say about this very unique beverage…! ;)

Packaging: Weighing in at 490ml, this bottle is a good shape and easy to grab, but unfortunately the shrink-wrapped label isn’t glued down which actually makes it a little slippery. The design is great though, emphasizing the summery nature of the beverage with a warm blue sky and fluffy clouds over a beach, and a warm watermelon glimmering in the sun. The English language on the package is great too, and the slogan “Refreshing taste of summer” absolutely made my day.

Cracking the bottle open while sitting in my Toronto apartment immediately brought me back to Japan. The bottles there basically ‘snap’ open as the pressurized interior allows in air—it’s unique to Japanese sodas! Not this one in particular, but I figured I’d mention it as one of the things I love about soda-pop in Japan.

Scent and Taste: It’s a very rich watermelon scent right away. It smells crisp and watery, like a real watermelon, with only a hint of sweetness. Usually watermelon flavoured candies are overwhelmingly sweet, and this was mellower and nice.

It’s highly carbonated on the tongue, and the first taste is actually watermelon! The sweetness is dialled back from what you might expect watermelon soda to taste like though—I  actually like melon-flavoured sodas from Japan, but they’re generally so sweet your teeth hurt, and this isn’t like that. It’s a pretty rich taste right away. No immediately saltiness, but maybe that’s what’s keeping the sweetness of a bottle of Pepsi at bay…!

There’s definitely a bit of a salty aftertaste, after about 10 seconds, which is fantastic and unusual. Salty drinks aren’t a regular part of my diet, so it was nice and surprising. It’s still got sweetness in the aftertaste, but it seems to finish a lot cleaner than the last couple of special Pepsis that I’ve tried, with no sourness or residue from sweeteners.

I had let the drink warm up a little bit to taste the full range of flavours, but upon tasting it I immediately wanted it to be ice cold and crisp! So three ice cubes in a tumbler later, and the drink is exactly as refreshing as I want it to be.

Verdict: An unqualified success. If I were in Japan when these were available I would’ve been drinking one a day… which is probably a terrible idea now that I think about it. Seriously though, if you can go to the convenience store and pick up a delicious, refreshing, crisp watermelon soda that you know will only be available for a limited time? Why wouldn’t you do it?

Review: Iwatsukaseika Ltd. Noukou Cheese Agesen (Cheese Crackers)

Hi there! I’m currently in Japan, and trying all kinds of different snacks and things. I hope you don’t mind this shortened review format while I blaze through some new snacks!

Iwatsukaseika Ltd. Noukou Cheese Agesen (Cheese Crackers)
Best before: 2013.02.07
Review: 2012.11.12

Packaging: Ironically, I picked up this up because of the packaging, despite the fact that there’s no English on it except for the words “Cheddar Cheese”, “Parmesan Cheese”, and “Camenbert Cheese”. That’s gotta be some pretty effective packaging, right there. :) The photography is big and clear, and communicates what these are all about. Crackers, or something like Japanese cheese straws, with lots of flavour. Since my beloved Cheeza crackers had become such a hit, the promise of a new, richly flavoured snack was welcome!

Scent and Taste: Opening the bag, I was happy with the low, pungent notes of cheese. Unfortunately, none of those were to be found in the product itself. In fact there is no cheese flavour to be found anywhere, in any bite of this. I tried it on its own, with alcohol, with coke, just to see if something would bring out a greater depth of flavour, and… nothing. These taste like fried crackers, and the texture and crunch are pleasant enough, but there’s no there there, if you know what I mean.

Verdict: Profoundly disappointing. I was just explaining to a friend that they aren’t bad exactly, they at least taste like food as opposed to some of the other things I’ve eaten on here. She said “if the nicest thing you can say is that they ‘taste like food’ then they’re better left uneaten.

She’s 100% right, of course.

I am mad at you, Iwatsukaseika, for promising me the big flavours of three cheeses and producing something that tastes like oily, run-of-the-mill cracker. I’m going back to Cheeza, and you will never see me again.

Review: Kit Kat x Rilakkuma Hot Cake Kit Kat

Review: Kit Kat x Rilakkuma Hot Cake Kit Kat
Purchased: May 2012
Best Before: October 2012
Review: June 2012
Manufactured by Nestle Japan

While Kit Kat collaborations are something that fans have come to expect, they’re still somewhat few and far between when you’re covering the brand with a dedicated blog and an eagle-eye… which made the announcement a few months back of these Rilakkuma Hot Cake flavoured Kit Kats downright amazing. Not just a rebranding of an existing flavour, like the Mos Burger white chocolate or the Japan Post dragon Kit Kats, this is an all-new flavour and one of my favourites at that…!

Over on my ‘regular’ blog, I covered a pancake-flavoured beverage a few years back that still gets all sorts of crazy hits, and (spoiler) it was delicious, and so my hopes going into this collaboration between an exciting flavour courtesy of a cutesy icon rapidly approaching Hello Kitty levels of popularity and my beloved chocolate wafers… well… they were high. Let’s put it that way: I had high expectations.

Packaging: I know, I know, once you’ve seen a hundred flavours of Kit Kat literally anything out of the ordinary will get your attention, but this really is some pretty elaborate packaging… and excellent at that!

This is a box of 12 individually-wrapped 2-finger bars, exactly like the standard gift-sets, except the box is just tricked-out, there’s no other way to describe it. It’s got 8 sides, for starters (most boxes have 6), with the left and right sides shaped like irregular hexagons…! The frontspiece features a special die-cut so that brand-icon Rilkkuma and brand-logo Kit Kat actually appear larger than the boxes they’re printed on. Within the box is a clear-plastic bag filled with Kit Kat fingers. This is wholly unique Kit Kat packaging, and I have to say I was excited when I saw it on the rack…!

The box art is pretty great too, with big graphics of the leads, a nice bright yellow to make the box pop, and different illustrated adornments on every face. The flavour is communicated through Japanese and English writing AND illustrations, everything I want! The overall design is very young and cute—it’s clearly intended for actual children or the cute-obsessed (mostly) ladies in their 30s, but it’s hard to see this packaging as anything other than stellar. It feels like a real gift in your hands, is beautifully decorated, and contains the promise of even more.

I might be overselling this a little…?

Scent: Wow. There’s a sweet syrup scent, but perhaps even more exciting? Butter! It’s so buttery it almost sm