Showing posts with label Tirol. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tirol. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Tirol Minashigo Hutch Honey Toast and Yoghurt Honey チロルみなしごハッチ・ハニートーストとヨーグルトはちみつ

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Tirol is one of those snacks that I have only discovered in the past year but that I fell in love with instantly. It's a small bite-size chocolate that you can buy at supermarkets and convenience stores for around 20 yen (20 cents).

My husband grew up with these and so he was delighted that I discovered them as he is a long-time fan as well. These are cheap and good as a single time treat for kids. There is alot of sentimentality surrounding these snacks for kids in Japan.

The thing I love the most is my husband's reaction when I get a new flavour. When he was a kid they only had the coffee nougat, and the almond and now, just like Nestle Japan (with their many varieties of Kit Kats), Tirol are churning out new flavours all the time.

He was especially stoked when I pulled out this bag of Minashigo Hutch, a favourite cartoon of his from childhood. This cartoon or anime, was made in the 1970's and is the story of an orphan bee who is searching for his mother.

My husband said "if you watch that, you will cry alot". I guess it is something the same as Lassie, in that it pulls at the heartstrings.

This bag of Tirol has 8 pieces in it, and two flavours. Four each.


Honey Toast

This flavour makes my mouth water without even trying. I think of hot buttery toast with honey drizzled over it. In reality the light yellow chocolate on the outside has a buttery flavour. The inside is comprised of a biscuit matching in colour with a light glaze of honey flavoured liquid. This is not really quite what I had in mind. It's really sweet and the honey doesn't really have the depth of flavour that I like. The butter flavour is not exactly on the money and tastes abit strange, I can't put my finger on it.


Yoghurt Honey

I didn't know what to expect with this one. The white chocolate outside has a floral flavour, it reminds me of jasmine tea. The middle has a white jelly that tastes like yoghurt but it is much sweeter and has those floral notes too. The jelly is covered with a layer of honey liquid that escapes when you bite into the chocolate. The honey and floral notes are very overwhelming and once again, this one is very sweet. The yoghurt in this is very underwhelming and a disappointment.

Although these both deliver in regards to the theme of bees and honey, they fail to make the mark in regards to the flavours they are paired with. I feel as if they should have just made a honey flavour instead of getting elaborate and trying to create something that really should have been simple enough in theory but just didn't compute in the final product.

I think my husband will eat these regardless of the flavour, but unless he really loves them I won't buy them again.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Cheetos x Tirol Coffee Nougat チートすxチロルコーヒヌガー味コーンスナック

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This was released as the same time as the Kinako Cheetos x Tirol and is the same kind of thing except with a coffee nougat covering instead of kinako.

The thing that struck me when I opened the packet is it looks like someone did a doo-doo in the bag. Not only is it the right colour, but looks similar in shape too. Did I just gross you out? Do Japanese people not think of these things? Sorry.

Luckily they don't smell too bad, mostly a strong coffee scent. Once again the Cheetos are just plain, not cheese flavour and they are nice and crunchy.


The chocolate nougat coating is quite thin, so the Cheetos peeks through in certain places. I'm not really sure why it's called coffee nougat as there is no real nougat in essence. They probably just made a fancy name to up the interest, but really it is just coffee chocolate on a cheetos.

The coffee flavour is not strong enough, or the chocolate is not thick enough, so after the first bite the chocolate is gone and the plain pretzel is all you can taste. I'm abit disappointed about this one, the Kinako version was definitely much better.

This is not going to satisfy coffee lovers or nougat lovers. Better to buy the Kinako version.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Cheetos x Tirol Kinako Mochi Corn Snacks チートスxチロルきなこもちコーンスナック

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I am a big fan of Tirol chocolates and also a very big fan of Cheese snacks like Cheetos. I was still surprised though, to see the two had been combined into one snack!

Nevertheless, I am an adventurer. Well, not really, but I force myself to try new things for the sake of my readers...

What this is essentially is a twisty cheetos with kinako mochi chocolate covering. Now, on the packet it looks like quite a thick covering, so I thought it would be equal amounts of cheese to chocolate or even a bit more chocolate than cheese.

However, when I opened the bag I discovered this was not the case. It looks like the cheese stick has been rolled in chocolate and then hung from the washing line to drip dry - leaving a very thin layer of chocolate coating.

That is a bit disappointing.


And while I'm here I just have to mention that picture on the left-hand side of what is supposed to be mochi or a mochi man. It kinda looks abit "manly" to me, or is that just my dirty mind? We have kinako balls on the plate and we have long cheese sticks covered in chocolate.....makes me wonder if a man came up with this packaging idea? Hmph.

Anyway, moving on! Opening the bag up, a smell like an icecream truck tickles my nose. Icecream truck as in the cone and the vanilla soft serve. Don't ask me why, it just smells like that to me!


Most of the sticks are about 2cm long. As I said previously they have a very thin layer of light brown coloured chocolate that feels very waxy. From the outside they smell like vanilla and peanut. Biting in, there is not much flavour at first. I feel the crispy texture and hear the crunch crunch crunch as I chew, but that is all. Then, right at the end as I swallow there is a slightly toasted peanut flavour. It's very light, not too sweet, not too peanut-y, very middle-of-the-road.

Cheese snacks are usually pretty rich I find, so this is very light compared to what I expected.

I tried eating them a different way, as in eating them 3 at a time. This brought out much more of the kinako flavour. It tasted less like peanut and more like toasted kinako.

I tried sucking the chocolate off the stick, and then I got alot of the sweetness from the chocolate, more than the kinako flavour. The stick, to my surprise is quite sweet, but I could not detect any cheese. It was then that I looked at the ingredients and discovered that there wasn't any cheese in these cheetos.

It's just a "raw" cheetos without the cheese flavouring, covered in kinako mochi chocolate. Where is the fun in that I ask you? Here I was looking forward to eating cheese and chocolate and there is no cheese!! Boo Hoo.

In any case, these were ok. I really was disappointed about there being no cheese, but I really like the kinako mochi chocolate on the outside. Pity it wasn't a cheetos shaped kinako mochi chocolate. Besides the crunch crunch there is no real bonus of having the cheetos in the mix.

You can now buy this at napaJapan, where I bought mine. I wouldn't eat them again, because I'm just not a fan of the texture, however the flavour is very good. If they changed it into a chocolate instead of on a cheetos, I would definitely buy it.

Yasu's Rating: These are good, I enjoyed them. I don't care there is no cheese, the flavour suits me fine. I am more interested in the texture and the crunchiness, combined with kinako, a traditional flavour of Japan.

*Yasu's Rating is a new addition to my post and is there to give a Japanese person's perspective on the snacks I review. Sometimes we may differ, and sometimes we will be the same. It may give perspective on why Japanese companies make the products they do.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Wacky Snack of The Week - Tirol Chocolate Cheetos

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Introducing a new section of my blog : Wacky Snack of The Week.

This weeks snack is Tirol x Cheetos Coffee Nougat.

Yes, that is right. Cheetos Coffee Nougat Flavour. Cheetos covered in coffee flavoured chocolate nougat. What a bizarre idea!


Image borrowed from Fritolay Japan

Fritolay describe this as melt-in-your-mouth coffee nougat Tirol poured over Cheesy Cheetos.

I have just ordered a bag from NapaJapan and look forward to trying it soon!! I've never thought of cheese and chocolate going together, but when I think about it, coffee is served with cheese, so why not chocolate and cheese?

Friday, October 23, 2009

Tirol Mochi-in Uji Matcha チロルもち入り宇治抹茶

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In Japan I was on the hunt for various Tirol flavours. Yasu is a big fan of Tirol, has been since childhood, and I wanted to find some interesting flavours for him. I managed to find the Salty Vanilla, and this one at Family Mart.

It's not just a plain matcha flavour though, it has 'mochi' or sweet rice, inside. I bought two of them at the time, and just uncovered them in a box of snacks I sent home from Japan.

Uji matcha is a famous blend of matcha powder from Kyoto. Accordingly the chocolate on the outside has that dark green colour and powdered tea smell. It is so rich in smell, it really smells like the powdered tea from tea ceremonies.


Biting into the chocolate, the powder gives the chocolate a very certain texture, which I love. The 'mochi', is more like a gummi, but it is sweet and kind of reminds me of red bean, or I could almost imagine it there. The chocolate is the absolute winner here, I just love the powdery tea texture, and the strong matcha flavour, with a slight bitterness at the end. It really is true to the real thing.

The bitterness of the tea matches well with the sweet inner mochi. It's a match made in heaven for matcha lovers.

I really wish I bought more than two of these!!

Monday, October 5, 2009

Tirol Tri-colour Dango チロル三色だんご

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I love Japanese dango, it's one of my favourite foods. So, you can imagine my delight when I came across this lovely bag of Tirol Tri-colour dango chocolates. What is Dango you ask? It's a kind of rice dumpling made from sweetened rice flour. Depending on the flavour it will have sauce, or flavour kneaded into the rice. They are typically served on skewers and the tri-colour dango consist of 3 flavours, Sakura (cherry blossom), Mitarashi (sweet soy sauce) and Uguisu (the name of a bird - Japanese Bush Warbler - named for the colour of the bird, which is usually green).

There are 3x3 flavours in this pack, it's small, but the imges on the outside, and the colours, make the packaging a prize in itself. I adore it, it's so very cute!



Sakura
Very light pink in colour and smells like cherry blossom flower. There is a chewy gummi in the middle, of the same flavour but stronger. It's kind of hard to bite into as the gummi is quite strong. I quite liked this because while tasting the flavour, I also got an aroma in my nose that reminded me of lots of little sakura petals floating on the wind.


Mitarashi
Off-white in colour, the chocolate tastes like Maple syrup. The inside is really tough to bite through, again gummi, and orange-brown in colour, exactly the colour of the sauce laid over mitarashi dango. This was very sweet from the white chocolate/maple combination on the outside, which didn't leave much room for the mitarashi to shine. Despite that, I liked the flavour.


Uguisu
Green in colour, looks more like green tea flavour from the outside. The chocolate on the outside smells like almond, the almost lime green gummi in the centre is easy to chew and overwhelmingly almond flavour. It reminds me of those German finger biscuits with the almond on top. This is really different from what I thought it would be, but in a good way.

In all, I can't pick a favourite. They all have their good points, and I didn't really find any bad points beside the really chewy gummi in the middle, that for me, was a little bit too hard to bite through. The idea is very unique, and makes it fun to eat them in the order you would on a stick. Fun for kids and adults alike I say! :)

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Tirol Air-In Salty Vanilla チロル 塩バニラ

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After coming to Japan I have been browing the aisles of supermarkets to find new and different Tirol flavours. I have not had much luck so far, only finding the regular coffee flavour.

At Jusco a few days ago, I finally found this flavour for ¥20. I originally grabbed two of them but lost one on the way home, only to find it in a friends car two days later, it had melted in the heat and lost its shape.

The image on the packet is of a sparkling blue ocean with a small island in the background and a soft serve cone in the foreground. I am not sure why the soft serve is in the image, but after googling "soft serve salty vanilla" I found a few links to icecream with a salty topping in Hakata, so maybe thats a kind of regional specialty.

This chocolate is air-in which basically means its like an Aero, it is aerated, very soft, and less dense.

From the outside, the chocolate smells of vanilla and a saltiness like the beach (cue blue water on image). The chocolate is quite soft to bite into and feels really grainy. Its really white chocolate, with a hint of vanilla, and after all the chocolate has melted, a few grains of salt.

The air-in makes the middle soft, and like mousse, and as I eat more, the salt flavour builds up, to a kind of sour vinegar like when you get a mouthful of water at the beach, that unpleasant taste in your mouth.

I never really got used to the grains in this chocolate, and I don't like the salt flavour because it's too strong. I have satisfied my curiousity and I definitely wont buy this again.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Tirol Assorted

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I thought I better finish off reveiwing the bag of assorted Tirol chocolates I have so here goes.

White & Cookie Crunch
Smells very creamy and looks like it's filled to the brim with cookie. The white chocolate is sweet but not overly so as the cookie is the main flavour that shines through. Lots of crunch on this chocolate, really nice

Milk (with rare cream)

I expected it to be white chocolate to be honest, so was surprised when I opened it and there was milk chocolate. Biting into it I realised the milk is in the centre, as a creamy filling. The chocolate is a little bit bitter, like dark chocolate, but is offset by the creamy rare milk centre, which is like a paste. Quite nice, and the two flavours match each other perfectly.


BIS Milk Choc

This comes in two wrapper colours, pink, and blue. They are both the same chocolates inside however. The "BIS" is short for biscuit. The chocolate coating is slightly darker than regular milk chocolate and has that cocoa flavour. The biscuit inside is just a plain biscuit. There is more chocolate here than biscuit and right at the end, the last bite there is a sweet and bitter flavour from the chocolate. I'm not really a fan, maybe because it's just too plain.


Tirol Chocolate aka Coffee Nougat
Yasu told me that this one, and milk, were the only flavours available when he was a kid. Back when they sold them for 5 Yen each. I thought this would be just a chocolate square because the wrapper says "Chocolate" but I was wrong. It has a coffee toffee-like substance which according to the back of the pack is coffee nougat in the centre! It's quite nice, the coffee is the main flavour in this one.


Out of all of these I would have to say that the White Cookie & Crunch, and Milk were my favourites. I was not really a fan of the BIS. The coffee is ok, but I don't like it in toffee form.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Tirol Strawberry Shortcake

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This little chocolat permeated the whole bag of Tirol chocolates in the variety pack. There were more of these (x6) than any other flavour.

Even while I was typing this post, the chocolate that is sitting on the dining table can be smelled from 2 metres away. Now that's strong!

The packaging is cute and has a little clip art like image of a shortcake on the front. The chocolate itself is 2-toned. White chocolate on the top and strawberry chocolate below.

Biting into this chocolate reveals a biscuit centre. I'm a big fan of strawberry chocolate and I really like this. There is the creamy milky flavour of the white chocolate and the tart strawberry underneath. When eaten together they mix and create a really nice taste in my mouth, topped off with a crunch. The ending is a slightly sour strawberry flavour but it's not too sour and delivers a very nice finish.

I'm really glad there are 6 of these in the pack!!

Tirol Chocolate Almond

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I ordered a Variety Pack of assorted Tirol chocolates from J-list and the package arrived today. There are meant to be 27 chocolates in the pack, but I got 28. The spread of chocolates is not even either.

There are:
Chocolate Almond x 4
Strawberry Shortcake x 6
Nama Milk x 4
Chocolate x 5
Bis Milk Choco x 5
White & Cookie Crunch x 4

All of which I will review over the next few days.

The Chocolate Almond packaging is cute, and looks like an American flag and has a little almond guy poking his head over the side.

The smell that hit me when I opened the wrapper was of sweet sweet milk chocolate. I can smell the almond though, and when I bit into the chocolate I discovered a whole almond inside.

The chocolate has a good nutty flavour but is very very sweet with a dark chocolate flavour underneath. It ends on a slightly bitter note. This is quite a nice chocolate if you can get past the inital sweetness.