Bourbon Mochi Chocolate Berry Fromage もちもちショコラ・ベリーフロマージ ュ

The box of this Mochi Mochi Chocolate by Bourbon attracted me from the very beginning. Bright pink and with a fantastic image of cream cheese and berries covered in sauce on the front. It looks very inviting.

The box has two individually wrapped packs of 4 mochi balls each. They don't look as appetizing as the cover of the box I have to admit.

The mochi on the outside however was soft and smooth to bite into. The fromage inside was light in flavour with a slight taste of white chocolate and a strong hit of both blueberry sauce and what we thought tasted like alcohol. Upon checking the ingredients we found that these do in fact contain alcohol!

Surprising, as I've never seen fromage or mochi containing alcohol. Interesting to be sure, but the alcohol and blueberry overpowered the fromage so in this case I really feel it wasn't needed as an ingredient.

Overall, these were not as good as the box promised, they didn't look anywhere as good and the flavour was a miss. But the mochi and fromage inside was soft and smooth, and the blueberry sauce was very nice. If you like strong alcohol in snacks then give these a whirl!

Bourbon Mini Bit Uji Matcha ブルボン ミニビット 宇治抹茶

I'm a pretty big matcha fan, except when it comes to drinking the tea. Strange, but as a drink it's too bitter for me. I do like it combined with chocolate though. So,when I saw this bag of matcha Mini Bit in a parcel from a friend I was overjoyed!

A lot of the matcha used in chocolates in Japan is "Uji Matcha". Uji is district in the outskirts of Kyoto, famous for green tea and also because the final chapters of the famous novel "The Tale of Genji" were set there.

The bag looks like it holds quite a few chocolates but there are only 6 inside. Each chocolate is individually wrapped and is about an inch in diameter. The chocolate is dark in colour and has a "B" embossed on the top of diagonal lines. I guess the "B" is for "Bourbon", the company who make Mini Bit.

I could smell the matcha wafting out of the chocolate, in fact, the whole bag smelled divine when I stuck my nose in there. Biting into it was quite hard as the inside is jam-packed with matcha. I don't quite know how to describe it but it's like green tea powder moistened and filled inside the chocolate. It's not powdery, it's not gooey or crunchy, it's just nice and firm and flavourful. There is a huge hit of matcha that is oh so satisfying. It doesn't overpower the chocolate at all either, as that is quite rich and is just dark enough to complement the bitterness of the matcha.

This is a match(a) made in heaven!! If these were available in family size I would so get one...but its kind of good that I only have 6...well now 5, because then I can't eat them all at once. Portion control you see.... ;) If you like matcha, then I'm pretty sure you'll like these. But don't take my word for it, try them yourself!

Bourbon Elise Hokkaido Milk Cream Wafers ブルボンエリーゼ北海道ミルククリームウエハース

This week is all about Hokkaido. For some reason the products I've come upon in the last month all claim to be from Hokkaido or have Hokkaido milk or cream in them, so I decided it was time to have a themed week!

This first product was bought on impulse in a Japanese supermarket. Yasu and I were killing time waiting for the restaurant next door to open and we came across these on a shelf. Yasu immediately got excited because he always ate these when he lived at home and said they were the yummiest. So I bought a pack for him to have but I think it made him a little bit homesick.

This pack contains 10 wrapped packets containing 2 sticks each. The sticks themselves are the same kind of texture and colour as an icecream cone. They smell very creamy from the outside and the wafer texture is hard and crunchy. There is white chocolate cream in the centre made using Hokkaido milk, and it's a really pleasant flavour, not overly sweet like some white chocolate.

Yasu complained that there was less chocolate in the middle than there used to be, and it did feel a bit lacking I have to say, but apart from that these were absolutely delicious!! I love the creaminess of the white chocolate cream and the crunchy texture of the wafers, it all goes together wonderfully. Better still on a hot day, the cream inside melts and it's almost like eating an icecream.

I'd say these are mostly put out in people's homes when guests come over (I saw a lot of these types of wafers/biscuits for afternoon tea when I visited family in Hokkaido), and Bourbon in particular seems to be the afternoon tea snack of choice in the Tokachi area from personal experience.

Brand: Bourbon Calories per pack: 19 Website: http://www.bourbon.co.jp

Bourbon Milk Coffee Roll Cake ふわまき ミルクコーヒーケーキ

I have another Fuwamaki cake to try! Last time I reviewed the milk roll cake by the same company and Yasu and I both really loved it.

This one is the same deal, except it's milk coffee flavour. The outside is predominately light brown with white spots and it has two types of cream inside - coffee cream and milk cream.

The sponge cake is beautiful and soft like a cloud pillow, the same as last time. The brown coloured sponge tastes like chocolate and the white dots taste like milk. The coffee flavour comes from the coffee cream inside the roll cake.

This is so beautifully fresh - how do they do it? It could have been baked fresh this morning, that is how soft it is. The cream is so fluffy and light and full of flavour.

What can I say but that this is divine? Seriously. Go buy one! or two... or maybe three!

Brand: Bourbon Calories per pack: 180 Website: http://www.bourbon.co.jp

Bourbon Milk Roll Cake ふわまき ミルクケーキ

I'm a big fan of roll-cake. Especially the roll-cake from Japan. It tends to be very soft and moist, with a light fluffy cream in the middle.

This roll-cake from Bourbon is no exception. When I was a kid, when my mum made sandwiches for me she used to cut off all the crusts, and then I used to pound it down so it was really flat. This roll-cake reminds me of that because it has a similar texture to flattened white bread that has just been baked. It is perfect.

The cream inside is combined from two types of cream. It doesn't say exactly which types of cream on the packet, but it does say it has butter, full cream milk, raw cream, and cream powder. The cream has been whipped and is light and fluffy - hence the "fuwa" part of "fuwamaki" on the pack. "Fuwa" meaning fluffy and "maki" meaning roll, literally "fluffy roll".

The roll cake has the scent of vanilla and it looks like a cow. Not in shape, but in colour - it has the pattern of a dairy cow on the outside - white with dark brown spots. The brown parts have a slightly bitter cocoa flavour. The cake is soft to eat and the fluffiness of the cream goes with it perfectly. The cream tastes very milky, so in all it's a party of vanilla and cream in my mouth.

I shared this with Yasu and we both really enjoyed it, but it was over too soon! Wish I had more of these... I definitely recommend trying it!

Brand: Bourbon Calories per pack: 179 Website: http://www.bourbon.co.jp

Choco Dutsumi Chocolate 新食感チョコレートちょこづつみ

These were the look of souvenirs brought back from Japan this time around. I decided on food as I had already been there before and brought home the obligatory fans and trinkets, which I know most people like to get but never actually use. Food, and certainly chocolate flavoured food, is always going to go down well, even if it looks strange.

The box lends itself to souvenirs too because it has a traditional Japanese pattern on one half of the box with pretty Japanese writing.

Choco Dutsumi looks traditional while still having flavours we can recognize. It's actually soft balls of mochi (sweet rice) with chocolate ganache in the centre.

There are two separately wrapped packets of four balls each inside the packet. It's easy enough to slide one out and open it, and the flavour is such that one small packet is more than enough for one person.



The mochi is dark brown and has cocoa powder inside. It's soft on the outside and has a similar texture to a peach, hence the 新食感 on the label (new texture). There is a big ball of chocolate ganache on the inside, which has alot more flavour than the outside and is thick and creamy.

You can bite it in half or put the whole ball in your mouth and chew. It really doesn't matter. Either way you get to experience the soft chewy rice and the thick creamy ganache.


These have cocoa butter, cocoa powder and raw cream in them and you can tell because the quality is really good. I bought these at Don.Kihote for 168 yen per box, about $1.70. Not bad value considering they are shareable.

These don't come with picks for eating, I just used a toothpick, though I'm sure most of my Aussie friends would have picked them up with their fingers, it just means it's a bit sticky.

I would definitely buy these again and may even bring them back as souvenirs again if I can find a different flavour.

Alfort Chocolate Biscuit

These were given to my husband and I as part of a gift pack. I had seen them before but they are the kind of thing I would usually pass over in the supermarket, in favour of a chocolate bar or actual biscuit. I'm not sure when you are supposed to eat these. I would say it is as a small snack in between meals because of the biscuit content, or with a hot drink.

I'm not so much of a chocolate-and-biscuit-together fan, besides the odd Wagon Wheel. These strike me as odd in that the biscuit is on the other side of the chocolate, but it not covered by the chocolate. This is a whole new idea to me, I've certainly never encountered that kind of idea in Australia.

Inside the box is a gold foil package, which opens up to reveal a tray of 2 x 3 cm rectangular milk chocolates with an image of a ship imprinted on it. The website doesn't give any clue about what the ship means so I am guessing it's only an image.

It does say however, that the biscuit is made from whole wheat flour, basically a digestive, and fragrant milk chocolate, and is a perfect combination of the two.

The milk chocolate smells sweet, but tastes alot darker than it appears. It has those bitter notes that dark chocolate has, and if I hadn't read the package I would say this was dark chocolate. The biscuit is slightly sweet and very much the same as an average wheat biscuit. Both singularly not very exciting.

When eaten together, the flavour seems to take on an almost malty quality. Underneath the bitter chocolate is the humble sweetness and grainy goodness of the biscuit, a good match as far as I'm concerned. I really like the texture of the two combined, the bitterness of the chocolate is matched by the sweetness of the biscuit.

I didn't think these would be a winner, but I was wrong. These are a surprisingly great little mini snack for on the go. Abit more filling than the average Japanese chocolate bar too.

Alfort is something I could definitely see myself eating again in the future, if I come across them.