Riska Umai Wa Cheese リスカうまい輪 チーズ味

 Photo courtesy of Riska as by the time
I got around to photographing Yasu had already opened the packet!

Here's a similar product to something I reviewed earlier, except this one is called Umai Wa, instead of Umai Bo. The difference is that Umai Bo is a long tube snack, whereas this one is made into separate rings. Umai Bo seems to be made by Yaokin, while Umai Wa is made by Riska. It's odd how seemingly the same product with the same characters are made by two different companies. Or maybe they are the same but different branches...maybe someone can enlighten me?

This is a large size 75 gram bag full of cheesy flavoured rings. The cheese has a very strong flavour and the rings smell very sweet, unlike Western snacks where if cheese is featured it's usually more savoury than sweet.

The rings are not uniform in size or shape, but they have a very thick coating of cheese powder on the outside. They are really light though and when biting into one there is a loud satisfying crunch. The cheese flavour is quite nice but it's sweet at the end, so that if you eat the bag in one sitting you end up needing a drink straight after as the flavour build up is so strong.

Yasu really loves these, both Umai Bo and Umai Wa so this is the main reason I bought them. This cheesy snack gets the thumbs up from him. They are a pretty "el cheapo" snack but the flavour isn't lacking so it gets my thumbs up too. I found it to be enjoyable and the pack size means it's great to share.

By the way, don't you think the character on the bag resembles Doraemon?

Riska Character

Doraemon

Brand: Riska Calories per bag: 1849 Website: http://www.riska.co.jp/catalog/page1/item10.html

Umai Vegetable Salad

This is my first foray into the world of savoury Japanese snacks. I have been wanting to branch out more but for some reason I always end up buying sweet snacks, I guess it comes down to my very sweet tooth.

My sister-in-law bought a few of these as part of a bag of goodies she gave us, so I am forcing myself to somewhat gingerly try this flavour - Vegetable Salad.

Now, in Japanese, "umai" means something is very good, so when a food manufacturer uses it of course they are big-noting their products to mean very tasty.

The manufacturer Yaokin, has a very simple website, and they have a product catalogue you can download.

The snack in question is a long puffy savoury tube, abit like a cheezel but longer. Like one mega cheezel, I guess. The name of the flavour - vegetable salad - is a bit confusing to me really. It's either a vegetable, or a salad, unless it's a salad of vegetables...I guess?

Anyway, taking the tube out of the wrapper, it appears to be a long, orange tube of puffiness with green specks all over it. It's quite oily (the oil leaked onto the paper below), and it smells like my husband's dirty socks. No, really. It's quite gross.

Biting down into the tube, it has the same texture as a cheezel, puffy, but easy to bite through. There is some spice in there. It's not too hot, just enough to give flavour. There is alot of flavour sprinkled on the outside, it comes off on my hands.

I can taste some garlic, corn, and tomato. A look at the wrapper reveals potatoes, corn, garlic, cabbage, paprika, parsley. Paprika would have been used to give it the colour, and parsley the green specks.

In all, it's not bad, but it's not umai either. I can't say that I'm really a fan. Though these seem to be geared more towards the younger set, and at 10 or 15 yen each you can't really expect much more than that.

You can check out other reviews of Umai at Japanese Snack Reviews.