Chris

Chris has written 37 posts for Oyatsu Break!

Review: Kit Kat Big Little Adult White Chocolate

Posted by Chris January 28, 2013 Leave a Comment

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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.

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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.

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Review: Pepsi Salty Watermelon

Posted by Chris January 2, 2013 Leave a Comment

spacer 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.

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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: Kit Kat x Rilakkuma Hot Cake Kit Kat

Posted by Chris June 18, 2012 2 Comments

spacer 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.

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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 smells like popcorn… or maybe a popcorn jellybean? Heh. Despite this being a white chocolate Kit Kat, I’m not getting any of that tell-tale scent, just a really bright, sweet scent… sort of the platonic ideal of pancakes.

Taste: I know you go into these things thinking “Well it’s a pancake Kit Kat, of course it’s going to taste like Pancakes”, but having tried over 60 different sorts of candy for this blog, I can tell you that what it says on the box isn’t always what you get on your taste buds, dig? So when I say “this is like a stack of pancakes in a finger of Kit Kat,” please realize what an amazing accomplishment this is! :)

As suggested by the scent, this is one buttery Kit Kat, perhaps my first ever! The buttery flavour and scent (and even texture, I think) make it the predominant taste, which is a bit surprising as it would seemingly be pretty easy to drown this in syrup and call it a day—but the flavour is really something special, I think. Of course they don’t skimp on sweetness, the secondary flavour is the syrup (tastes more like table syrup rather than maple, sadly), but it’s not cloying or over-the-top. It’s just perfect, and if there’s any standard white chocolate Kit Kat in there, I can’t taste it.

About 5 minutes after, the aftertaste isn’t ideal, but if anything it’s just enticement to have a second… or third… bar.

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Verdict: Everything about this Kit Kat just straight up makes you smile; the overdesigned box, the bold character graphics, the surprising taste. All of it works together to create a chocolate that people would love to receive as a gift or as omiyage, would love to share, or even just to try. I’m so happy that, after near two months off of reviewing for the site (sorry!) I came back and got to try one of my favourite Kit Kats ever. If there’s one thing that’s not perfect about this, it’s that the Rilakkuma Hotcake Kit Kat is a limited edition, already off most store shelves in Japan, and many of you will never get to try just how awesome it is.

If you see it? Get it. If you can order it? Get on it. It’s one of the greatest members of the Japanese Kit Kat pantheon.

Okay, I’m definitely overselling it.

But still. Grab some.

Special Feature Review: Tsukuro! Obento! (Make it! Bento!)

Posted by Chris April 11, 2012 1 Comment

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Today we’re very fortunate to welcome our very first guest reviewer to Oyatsu Break, Jocelyne Allen! Jocelyne is a friend of mine and a translator, and she’s had the [mis]fortune to accompany me through dozens of convenience stores across Japan, looking for cool candy. She and her partner Todd encountered a pretty unique candy of their own, and they were nice enough to document their ‘create your own candy’ exeperience for the site! You can check out more of Jocelyne’s writing at brainvsbook.com.
- Chris, OyatsuBreak.com

Review: Tsukuro! Obento! (Make it! Bento!)
Review by Jocelyne Allen, with thanks to Todd  Ferguson

When partner-in-crime Todd and I spotted the bright orange and busy packaging of “Tsukuro! Obento!” in the snack aisle of the T&T Supermarket, more than one question jumped into my head, but I guess one of the first was, “Are there English instructions?” Thanks to my powerful bilingualism, I could immediately understand the name of this treat: Make it! Bento box! And even the tiny letters on the back detailing each step of making it were no mystery to me. But, I wondered, what about the non-Japanese speakers that were likely in the majority in this supermarket and indeed, in the city? How will they make their own bento?

The answer, I learned, is simple: They won’t. The only instructions for this questionable treat are those tiny letters on the back of the box, and these are half-covered by a sticker in English detailing the nutritional value of the contents of the box (hint: What is the nutritional content of 100% sugar?). So if you are considering a trip to T&T Supermarket to procure your very own sugar bento, be forewarned.

Fortunately, my aforementioned Japanese super powers meant that the lack of English was no barrier, and in a moment of ill-advised spontaneity, we paid the $3.99 sale price for the “Kracie Bento Soft Candy” and ran to the nearest kitchen, eager to create our own lunch made of fructose and variations of glucose.

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The bento features onigiri (rice ball), tamagoyaki (fried egg) broccoli (seriously), kara-age (deep-fried meat), napolitan (spaghetti dish), an octopus wiener, and panda onigiri. Opening the box, we discover that the plastic acting as the second wrapper (because in Japan, one wrapper is not enough) also doubles as the “box” for our bento. We briefly debate getting an actual bento box out since we are doubtful that we will be able to achieve optimal piling without the walls of the box to hold our creation up, but eventually agree that it would be a shame not to use the cheerful yellow drawing that we paid almost four dollars for.

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Naturally, inside the plastic “box” wrapping, more packaging awaits. It’s starting to look like we are in over our heads, but in the end, the basic idea is quite simple. Take packet of processed sugar, empty into the appropriate part of the plastic tray, use the plastic triangle cup to measure in the right amount of water, stir awkwardly with an awkwardly tiny plastic fork (stirring with a fork you can barely hold in your hand is not the greatest idea) until it gets gross. And with each food item, the making gets progressively grosser.

We follow the instructions and start with the broccoli. The smell when the water hits the sugar powder is overwhelming. My entire kitchen smells like a bubble gum factory. Todd stirs diligently until things start to gel up. There is the question of whether or not this candy is vegetarian since we are of the vegetarian persuasion. Fortunately (?), it’s not gelling up with crushed horse hooves (aka gelatin), but agar, so we are safe.

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The egg and the octopus wiener are basically the same consistency as the broccoli, and the same overpowering sweet smell. But things change when we get to the onigiri. It has a texture. It rolls up into little, surprisingly rice-like balls. It also smells like a bubble gum factory. And instead of leaving it to set, like the other bento ingredients, we are instructed to shape it following the size guides on the side of our plastic bento “box”. I get to work on the panda, Todd takes care of the onigiri.

The nori (seaweed) stumps us for a moment. So far, everything we’ve done has required water, but this step just has us dumping black powder into parts of the mold. We question our understanding of the instructions, nervous about wrecking everything when we’ve come so far. We take the leap and forget about the water, press our rice balls into the black powder. The panda has eyes! The onigiri has a faint strip of nori! We spend a few moments back-patting.

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The kara-age, as Todd notes, looks and feels very much like its real world counterpart.

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We are both slightly disturbed at how well real food products can be mimicked with a mixture of sugar and water. Happily, the napolitan is very far away from its real world counterpart. Ostensibly spaghetti with tomato sauce, what we produce is a pile of red-orange goo. Todd remarks more than once that this would be the best thing ever if we were seven.

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After everything is set and gelled, we pile our lunch into our box. And realize two things. One is that the picture on the box is not made from the same stuff our lunch is made from. And the second is that we are going to have to eat this oozing mess. We try the onigiri, both panda and regular, first.

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The smell of cheap bubble gum is hard to get past, but we manage to bring fake rice treats close enough to our faces to take a bite. The texture is, oddly enough, like old bubble gum, crumbly and clumpy. The taste is chemically sweet, much too sweet. Even Todd, who enjoys nothing more than a supermarket birthday cake, grimaces at the sugar explosion.

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The kara-age is less cloying, but with a similar texture. And like the onigiri, we can’t get past one small bite. Next, Todd takes on the egg, reports that it’s slimy and not delicious in the least. I tackle the wiener, which is supposedly strawberry flavoured, but I taste nothing even vaguely resembling a strawberry. It is also slightly slimy, like melting Jello. Todd screws up his courage and eats the entire piece of broccoli. It too does not taste like the muscat grape promised on the box, a flavour we wouldn’t have recognized even if it was there, but fortunately, it tasted like the chemical sugar goodness of all the other lunch bits.

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Then it is time for the spaghetti. I pick up the tiny fork and pull a bite off the pile of goo in the corner of the bento box. The consistency is much less slimy than the wiener, but softer than the onigiri. It’s just thick enough not to be runny, and reminds me of a kind of chewing gum that I used to get when I was a kid, that started out as a semi-liquid and then firmed up in your mouth. (Does anyone know what this was called?) It’s probably the most palatable part of the bento, although it doesn’t taste anything like the grape flavour it is supposed to be.

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In the end, all we have to show for our efforts are sore bellies and a pile of garbage. And Todd’s mouth is kind of a funny colour from the broccoli.

Best of the Web: DannyChoo.com on Kaiten Sushi

Posted by Chris March 17, 2012 Leave a Comment

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The most famous Japanese culture blogger in the world? His name is Danny Choo, and his DannyChoo.com (see also: CultureJapan.jp) is a vast repository of info on both the everyday and hyper-geeky side of Japanese culture. An admitted otaku, his interests tend to run towards cute girl images and action figures, expensive cameras, and food.

This recent post on Japanese “Conveyor Belt” sushi, or Kaiten Sushi, is a great primer on kaiten sushi restaurants. It even includes a video, and some wonderful photos as seen above. You can find the post at www.dannychoo.com/post/en/26440/Conveyor+Belt+Sushi.html.

That whole site is a great repository of info and worth poking around, but can go straight from “0 to NSFW” in 1 click, so I’ll probably continue to link individual articles of note rather than the whole site. Enjoy!

- Christopher Butcher

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Best of the Web: Shibuya246 Combini Monday

Posted by Chris March 9, 2012 Leave a Comment

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New Feature! Best of the Web. Essentially, I’ll tell you about my favourite blogs, features, and individual posts on some of the many Japanese/Food blogs that I follow. These should go up more-or-less every weekend.

First up, I’d like to send you over to the photo blog website Shibuya246, to check out their “Combini Monday” posts at shibuya246.com/category/conbini/conbini-monday/.

Shibuya246 is

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