Cheetos Minions Banana チートス ミニオンズ バナナ味

My 4 year old has been going through a phase where he loves the minions. He saw the Minions movie and collected the toys from McDonalds. 

Everywhere we look here in Australia there is minions merchandise, so it's hard not to get caught up in the fever. 

So when I saw these Cheetos online, my interest was piqued enough to buy a pack. Cheetos usually come in cheese or other savory flavours. I wondered how banana would taste.

Opening the bag I could see light yellow Cheetos with brown specks. An aroma like a cinnamon candle wafted out. Then I read the top of the bag and it said it is "cinnamon scented banana flavour".

The Cheetos taste buttery at first and then sweet. Then there is a big hit of cinnamon and a very vague taste of banana. Even though this is 'banana flavour', the banana has really been overlooked. This should be called 'cinnamon donut' as it tastes more like that, and the smell reminds me of a car air freshener or a cheap scented candle.

My 4 year old was underwhelmed and told me he didn't want anymore after having only two Cheetos. I had three for this review, my husband had one piece and said he didn't like it. Now we have a mostly full bag going to waste...

A shame really, as it could have been really good. But I guess they better just stick to savory flavours and leave the sweets to a candy maker.

Too marks for trying though.... :)

Tirol Tsum Tsum Honey Lemon チロル はちみつレモンチョコ・ツムツム

If you're not familiar with the Japanese game Tsum Tsum made by the creators of the chat program LINE, then you should be because it's everywhere!

I was introduced to the game mid-2015 by some Asian friends who had been playing for ages, and I quickly became hooked. 

The characters are all from Disney and are very cute. It's simple to play, you just have to link up lines of the same character to erase them from the screen to earn coins within 60 seconds. If you add friends on LINE you can send each other hearts (lives), and try to beat their score.

It's only natural with the game being so popular that Tsum Tsum related products would soon follow, and now collaborations with Japanese snack makers. The first one of which I have seen is Tirol - one of my favourite snacks.

This bag is covered in popular Tsum Tsum characters and contains 7 individually wrapped chocolates. The wrapper is represented by different characters but the chocolate remains the same - Honey Lemon.

It is a very simple concept; a biscuit covered in flavoured white chocolate. The chocolate has a light yellow colour, and smells like a mixture of soap and honey. 

The biscuit is quite firm but crunchy and biting into it I immediately get a feeling of nostalgia. The honey lemon cough drops from my childhood, these are exactly the same flavour! I'm not sure whether that is a good thing though, it is chocolate after all. It's a weird combination. I can't quite get used to it. I do like the strong hit of honey though. 

I can see this is probably aimed at kids or to bring up a feeling of childishness, the flavour is something most people are familiar with. 

My 4 year old son loved them and had great fun choosing which character to eat next. Our bag had an uneven amount of characters, but the one Mickey Mouse was saved until last by my son because he's so special. 

I would recommend these simply because the concept is simple and fun for all :)