Framboise Kit Kat フランボワーズ味 キットカット

I was delighted when I received this box in a parcel from Jason @ napaJapan. It's been a long time since I've reviewed a Kit Kat here on Tasty Japan and I was beginning to yearn to try another one soon.

Framboise - a flavour I don't come upon very often, I didn't even know how to pronounce it. On the box it is spelled out as furanbowaazu. Wikipedia states the pronounciation as franbwaz, which is French for Raspberry. The picture on the box is of a cake with cream and raspberries.

I had the box open while I have been typing this and the smell is divine. It smells like a cake shop. If the kit kat tastes anything like it smells, then this will be a winner!

As usual there are 4 sticks, 2 packs of 2. The wrapping paper is pink with light pink circles and it looks very French. Very stylish.

The chocolate on the outside of the kit kat is milk chocolate, but it has a slight raspberry flavour. When I bit into the kit kat it had a very strong flavour in the middle, like yoghurt and cheese mixed together, it is very creamy. There is also a small sourness from the raspberry powder, but it combines together with the yoghurt to create a very nice dessert experience. The chocolate on the outside is so creamy and goes so well with the flavours inside. It's delicious.

I would recommend trying this Kit Kat, it's something just a little bit special. I have a feeling there will be more flavours that are from well known sweets as there is a little logo on the box that says "sweets concept". So keep your eye out for more desserts into kit kat's in the future.

Brand: Nestle Calories per box: 97 Website: http://www.breaktown.com/ Buy it now at napaJapan

Calpis Soft Candy Grape Flavour カルピス ソフトキャンディー ぶどう味

I think everyone is pretty familiar with Calpis - a yoghurt flavoured drink that sends all gaijin into fits of uncontrollable giggles when anyone actually says the word, which sounds like "cow piss" to foreign ears.

My friends and I always laughed when Yasu said it and he could never work out why - until I let him in on the joke, and even then he didn't think it was funny. I guess it's just gaijin humour.

Anyway, Calpis have the original yoghurt drink and they also have various takes on the original by mixing it with grape, apple, orange, and various other fruit flavours.

I've had the grape flavour Calpis drink and I quite liked it, so that is why I bought the soft candy in the same flavour. They also had another flavour which was apple & honey, but I thought it seemed too much like something you would have when you're sick with the flu.

The pack has 22.1 calories and 10 pieces inside. That works out to 2.21 calories per piece which is pretty good.

The soft candy resembles a high chew piece except it's a bit wider and flatter. It's a light taro purple on the outside and it has white on the outside. The outside of the pack has a picture and indicates that the purple outside is "budou" (grape), and the inside is plain flavour.

The outside of the candy is in between soft and hard. It's called soft candy, but it's not as soft as it could be. The grape flavour is really strong at first but then the "plain" Calpis flavour in the middle kicks in and starts to overtake the grape flavour. The yoghurt taste is overpowering and the grape ends up taking a backseat to the yoghurt.

I was slightly disappointed by this candy because I thought it was going to be like eating Grape Hubba Bubba, with that total grape experience. I don't mind the original Calpis flavour but why have something called Grape, if it's actually Yoghurt with a hint of grape? Rather confusing.

If you like yoghurt with your grapes then this won't disappoint you. If you are expecting loads of grape flavour then forget it.

Brand: Calpis Calories per pack: 22.1 Website: http://www.candypark.com

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

Itoen Teas’ Tea New York Style Herb Darjeeling 伊藤園ティーズティー ニューヨーク ハーブダージーリン

I was looking for a refreshing drink and this bottle caught my eye. It looks modern and well designed.

It was also on special for $2.99 so that persuaded me to give it a try.

I only noticed after purchasing it that it is made by Itoen, a company who's drinks I rarely like. They are well-known for their healthy drinks, mainly with fruit and vegetables.

At the top of the bottle near the brands logo it has "New York Style" written. I'm not sure what that actually means, the bottle or the contents.

The flavour of the tea is Herb Darjeeling. I'm not a fan of herbs but since herbs and tea resemble the same kind of leafy greens I thought they would probably go well together. The bottle also mentions that Lemongrass is an ingredient, it is unsweetened and there are no calories.

A look on the back of the bottle also confirms this.

The first smell when I opened the lid was very medicinal. I could really smell herbs. However when I took a sip, I couldn't really taste any herbs, but more a flavour of straight black tea.

I'm not a tea conoisseur, I'm really only familiar with a few styles, and I've never had Darjeeling before, but it doesn't taste like it has a definite flavour more than other tea.

There is definitely no sugar in here, there is no sweetness at all. The tea reminds me very much of Straight Tea by Kirin, the same kind of tea flavour persists. There is a bitter component when swallowing the tea and I attributed this to the herbs until I looked on the back of the bottle and found the only herb ingredient is lemongrass. The only other ingredient is "black tea" but it doesn't say it's Darjeeling in particular, so I am not sure if they are just calling it Darjeeling or it actually is.

I'm very familiar with the taste of lemongrass and there is absolutely no taste of that in this tea, so I'm pretty sure they used a minute amount if only so they could put it on the label.

Weird.

I'm not sure if New Yorkers drink tea this way - I searched the internet and couldn't find any evidence of a particular recipe or way that they drink it, so I will leave that up to my readers to inform me, if they know.

So in all, it's like drinking straight black tea with a bitterness, and no sweetness. It turned out to be pretty bland. It doesn't refresh me, but it doesn't make me thirsty either. It's just very plain.

It=t was a disappointment to be sure. There was no noticeable lemongrass flavour as per the bottle, and the bottle and it's "herb" statement was a little bit misleading anyway. I do like the bottle - it's pretty funky, but that's the only part of this drink that is.

I guess I'll just mark this down as yet another Itoen drink I don't like.

Brand: Itoen Calories per bottle: 0 Website: http://www.itoen.co.jp

Meiji Kaiten Zushiya-san Gummy 回転ずしやさん グミ

Kaiten Zushi is basically conveyor belt sushi. As in, sushi on small round plates go around on a conveyor belt in front of diners who pick up whichever plate they want to try.

This gummy is based on that concept, but instead of tasting like fish and rice, the flavours are apple, melon, and strawberry.

There are 7 pieces of "shari" (rice) and 7 various pieces of ingredient that goes on top of the rice. In this case the rice is apple flavour, 4 of the ingredients are strawberry flavour, and the other 3 are melon flavour.

When you open the packet, there is a sealed section containing the gummy. You peel the plastic off, somewhat like plastic cheese, and the rubbery little pieces of gummy sushi come with it, so you have a kind of clear plate with "sushi" on it.

There is also another component to this gummy. When you place the ingredients on the rice, it combines both flavours and turns into a new one.

Apple + Strawberry = Peach
Apple + Melon = Banana

Each piece is quite small, 2cm x 1cm. The rice base is a very weak apple, and quite chewy. The melon is more like gummy in that it is a transparent orange. It has a strong flavour of melon and is enjoyable. The strawberry is also a transparent red colour, but this one tastes like watered down strawberry concentrate with more water than concentrate.

Combined together, the melon and apple tasted like banana while still maintaining the original flavours. However, the strawberry and apple really didn't taste much like peach until I had swallowed it.

Yasu and I ate this together, and while we found it interesting and quite fun at first, the flavours just didn't do it for us. We felt the flavour was too weak, and the base was too rubbery.

We don't want to eat it again but it was fun and quite unique for a one-time snack. The packet has a lot of cute graphics and there is a quiz on the back. The website also has a lot of fun interactive games and downloads to keep kids entertained online.

Brand: Meiji Calories per pack: 71 Website: http://okashi-land.jp Buy it now at napaJapan