Sonton Potato Toast Curry Flavour ソントンポテトーストカレー味

Who doesn't love curry pan when they visit Japan? That's not always possible though, especially recently with lock downs and closed borders.

So when I saw this curry flavour spread for toast I knew I had to try it.

It's quite a small tub, having bought it online I expected it to be about double the size.

The paste itself looked more like Indian curry in colour than the Japanese curry I had expected.

And surprisingly it is made from potato! 

The name ポテトースト (poteto-suto) is a play on words with potato + toast. 

I mistakenly thought it was just a matter of spreading the curry on toasted bread, however the instructions say to spread the potato curry paste on the bread and bake in the oven. 

In doing this the bread becomes crusty and the potato curry spread is baked and rich.

It tastes very morish. The whole family liked it, and the tub of poteto-suto was gone in a few days. 

I'm not sure what it would cost in Japan but I paid $5.50 for this at Travel Japan Market Place which is a bit too expensive for the amount in the tub. 

So this would be a luxury purchase and not an essential part of my shopping however I do recommend this if you want to try something different on your toast! 

Meiji Curl Stick Indo Curry カール カレー味

My son, hubby and I just love curry senbei so when I saw this pack ofcurry flavored curl at Daiso for 100¥ ($1.00) I just had to grab them.

The lid opens by pulling the tab back, and it emitted a strong scent of curry spice. The sticks are long and yellow in colour, very crunchy to bite into and very tasty. 

The flavour is very authentic, it is not just a bland curry "flavoring", you can tell that individual spices have been used. 

As always with good snacks, this curry curl was devoured very quickly and I lamented not buying more.

I definitely recommend these to you if you see them in store.

Kameda Seika Curry Senbei 亀田製菓カレーせん

I've had such a big craving for senbei (a type of Japanese rice cracker) lately, but the only options in the Japanese supermarkets here seem to be either soy sauce or salt flavour. I'm not really into either of those flavours to be honest.

So I asked the help of a friend in Japan to send me some senbei over and she kindly obliged. She sent me a few different types, the bite size senbei that my son loves, these Curry Sen and some fancier Ebi Senbei which I hope to blog about soon.

These curry senbei are those which you might call "soft". They are big and round and when you bite into them they melt in the mouth. Hubby and I were really happy with these and ate the packet over two sittings but could have quite happily ate it in one if we wanted to be piggies!

So soft they broke up in transit.

The curry sen were coated back and front with lots of curry spice and on the packet it claims the flavour leans more towards Indian spices which I can attest to as at the end of each bite my tongue warmed up with the heat of the spices.

As you can probably tell we really loved these and were sad when our senbei love affair was over. I'd definitely recommend these if you want something a bit different from the usual rice cracker.

Each pack has 18 crackers and the company's website is here.

Nissin Cup Noodle Curry カップヌードル カレー

Picture borrowed from the Nissin website.

Cup Noodle is something I think of as "otaku food", it's the essential food of those kids that start off with an interest in Japan and then develop a full-blown obsession with it. It's sold alongside hentai manga, sailor uniforms and black black gum at Anime conventions.

Seriously though, it's my husband's favourite easy meal. It combines two elements of popular Japanese food into one small bowl - Curry and Noodles.

All you need is a means to heat water, and 3 minutes. It's as easy as boiling the water, pouring it into the cup, shutting the lid closed for 3 minutes and then the noodles are cooked and it's ready to eat.

I've seen Yasu consume copious amounts of Cup Noodle over the years and wondered what the attraction was. Seeing as I have a Japanese Snack blog I decided to review it because it does fit well into the snack category.

When I opened the lid on the cup noodle the smell of curry that wafted up was quite pleasant. It reminded me of House Vermont Curry. The taste was mild, rich and sweet with an undertaste of beef stock. There were small cubes of vegetables floating around in the sauce such as spring onion, carrots, potato, and corn. The noodles were flat and soft, and went well with the curry and vegetables.

I really enjoyed this and tasting it today made me totally change my mind about it. I thought it would be something I would never eat, but I could see this being a great snack for myself too.

I found it interesting to read the ingredients list on the pack which among other things mentions cheese and peanut butter! I'm not sure what they bring to the party or how much is contained within but it's certainly funny to see them listed.

I will definitely buy and eat this again soon!

The Cup Noodle website is quite interesting and has all the flavours listed as well as downloads and games.

Brand: Nissin Calories per cup: 404 Website: http://www.cupnoodle.jp/

Amanoya Kabuki Age Curry Flavour 天乃屋歌舞伎揚カレー味

I chose this little bag of senbei from my local Japanese supermarket because the pieces shown on the packet resemble Age Ichiban but smaller. It was only 50 cents for the bag which I thought was very reasonable! Sometimes Japanese products tend to be very expensive, even when they are small, so this was a nice surprise.

I've never come across the brand - Amanoya - before, but a quick search of google reveals that they do have a website, although I'm not familiar with any of the products. They don't have Kabuki Age listed on their site, so whether or not it was just a temporary line, I don't know.

The packet itself is pocket or palm sized. It's quite small. The senbei are also small, but there are quite a few in the pack.

The pack really smells like curry inside, this beautiful aroma wafted out when I opened it. The senbei are really crunchy and there is a lot of spices on the outside that bring the curry flavour to life in my mouth. It's not a super hot curry flavour, mild but also with sweet notes at the end. It does leave a hotness in my mouth afterwards. If you eat the whole pack at once the hotness builds up so it's that much hotter too.

The best thing about these is the crunch. They are just so satisfyingly crunchy. Yumm. I'm just sorry I didn't buy a few more packs!!

I definitely recommend these if you see them around - a great snack to fill a hole or to munch and walk. :)

Brand: Amanoya Calories per pack: 83 Website: http://www.e-amanoya.co.jp