Sapporo Melon Cream Soda メロンクリームソーダ

The first night I came to Japan, we went to KFC for dinner. Imagine my surprise when I ordered a set and was offered melon cream soda as a possible drink choice! I accepted, and it was really yum. Other options were Qoo, Pepsi, or Fanta.

I bought this bottle of Sapporo Melon Cream Soda at Jusco supermarket, it was the first time I had seen a bottle of melon soda in Japan not at a restaurant.

The colour of the soda is an amazing melon-green colour and the front of the bottle has a scoop of icecream on top of what is supposed to be melon soda. It's quite cute.

So this bottle has been in the fridge for the last week because I really haven't felt in the mood to drink it, with so many other drink options available. Cue today when I am packing to go to Hokkaido and remember that I have a soda in the fridge.

The first sip is a let-down and I know this is not going to be as good as the one I got in my meal set at KFC. The overall flavour is lime. It tastes like lime cordial or squash (those concentrates you mix with water), and kind of like the aftertaste of eating icecream. It is not overly sweet, but the aftertaste really makes me thirsty.

There is no melon taste at all to this drink, and a mild cream soda flavour. On closer inspection of the ingredients, melon is not listed at all, only grape extract, milk, flavouring and colouring.

I did the right thing in ignoring this drink, and should have kept on ignoring it! It is truly yuck and I wouldn't buy it again. I would love to know what brand of melon soda they sell at KFC, if anyone knows, please enlighten me.

Chocoball Cream Cheese チョコボールクリームチーズ

I found this box of Chocoball in Lawson, and I thought it was the salt flavour as the box looks almost the same, but on closer inspection I found it was Cream Cheese.

I have never been a big fan of cheese but I thought for my blog and because I have a history of reviewing Chocoball I would try it out.

Unfortunately as it was a really hot and humid day when I bought it, the little balls melted on the way home and stuck together. I don't think it affects the flavour though, just the shape.

This box also opens like a tunacan and can be resealed by tucking the tab back into the slit.

The chocolate on the outside is white chocolate and smells extremely sweet. It tastes like sweetened condensed milk, exactly like the Japanese version, with a little bit of saltiness.

The chocolate is actually softer than usual, and after sucking it off, I find that the biscuit in the middle is just a regular biscuit with no flavour. So where is the cream cheese flavour then?? Oh, am I mistaken, there is no cream cheese flavour, it is just made with cream cheese for the softer outside texture. Though the ingredients does list 'natural cheese' as 6th on the ingredient list, though does not say anything about cream cheese. So thoroughly confusing or misleading.

In any case, despite all that, it really is a very tasty treat and I am in love with the flavour. I will definitely be taking a few of these home to enjoy at a later date.

Full of Vegetables Kit Kat 充実野菜キットカット

This Kit Kat was released on the 24th of August and I only just saw it today in Ito Yokado for ¥105.

The Japanese characters 充実野菜 (or Juujitsu Yasai) means "full of vegetables", and has the same name of the same drink by Itoen.

The ingredient lists boasts apple, carrot, grape, lemon, celery, capsicum, asparagus, chinese cabbage, kale, parsley, cabbage, herbs, radish, and spinach. The back of the box states that the vegetable powder is in the cream between the wafers, and the apple and carrot flavour is in the chocolate coating.

The colour of the white chocolate is a bright orange colour that reminds me of McDonald's fake cheese. The smell of apple wafts up from the chocolate.

Biting into the Kit Kat finger, there is a sweet flavour of apple immediately, but it gives way to a weird chemical flavour that reminds me of something burnt. I can't really detect any carrot flavour in the chocolate, and there is no real sense of vegetables in the cream between the wafers.

I guess for some people this would be a relief, as the actual juice by Itoen is rather strong. For me however I am a little disappointed as I expected the taste the vegetable patch and all I can taste is the apple orchard. Apple is really the only flavour here besides a few chemical overtones.

I really think this would have been better with milk chocolate as the white chocolate is too sweet for a snack that is meant to showcase a health drink. Unless you liked previous versions of the apple kit kat then I wouldn't recommend buying this. It should be called 'full of apples' rather than vegetables.

Kobe Custard Melon Pan 神戸カスタードメロン

Supermarkets in Japan have a an aisle or two dedicated to pan (sweet buns). Usually half of them have been baked fresh, and the other half have been made by various companies and have a long shelf life, sealed in packaging to keep them fresh.

I am a melon pan girl, and I also love custard, so I thought a combination of the two would be great. It also comes from Kobe from a company called Kobeya, who I had never heard of before. A glance at their website tells me they specialise mainly in bread, cake, and pan.

This pan was shaped like a regular melon pan, round and with the criss-cross design on top, though it had some kind of clear glaze on top that made it sticky to touch.

Breaking the pan open revealed a dry bread bun with a yellow custard cream in the middle. The custard had little black dots in it which turned out to be vanilla beans. The custard was really nice, very flavourful, I liked the presence of the vanilla beans for presentation and for flavour.

The pan itself was quite dry, reminded me of bread which is a few days old. A look on the ingredient list reveals no butter, only eggs and shortening and wheat in regards to the batter. I think this is why it was so dry, no good quality butter to give it that soft texture.

I also couldn't find any mention of melon on the ingredients list, and I couldn't taste any either. Quite a letdown in regards to that, as I thought this would be both melon and custard in taste. I guess they think that it's melon pan to look at and custard pan to eat? I don't know. Strikes me as false advertising really.

Despite the fact that the pan was packaged in a really nice way, and the package itself says it is a "long seller", it comes from Kobe, and the custard was really yum, I wouldn't buy this again because I wanted melon pan, and I don't like dry pan. I think next time I will go fresh, and I wouldn't recommend this at all.

Poifull Soft Chewing Candy

I bought this pack of Poifull Soft at Lawson on a pit-stop, driving along the coast of Nagoya. I had heard alot about Poifull but never actually tried it myself, and as I needed a quick pick-me-up, I decided on these.

What really decided it for me was the flavours in the box - red grape, white grape, peach yoghurt and yoghurt. I love all of those flavours so I thought this candy couldn't let me down.

The box weighs 44 grams and was ¥115. There seemed to be more yoghurt and white grape than the other two flavours.

Each pellet is a small rectangular rounded piece of chewing candy, this is where they differ from the regular style of jelly bean.

Yoghurt - Creamy white in colour, very much like Yakult or some other yoghurty drink, though it is quite tart.

White Grape - The outside of the candy tasted sour, the first notes are tart and sour, and becomes sweet at the end, really tastes like muscat.

Red Grape - A washed out maroon colour, sour on the outside, really sour and tart on the inside, only a little sweetness, mostly sour.

Peach Yoghurt - Baby pink in colour, this reminds me of the texture and taste of the skin of a peach, very real peach flavour, some tartness, but very well balanced with sweet.

Overall, my favourite was the peach yoghurt, followed by yoghurt. I am a grape flavour fan but I thought these were way too tart for my liking. I gave them to two other friends and they also agreed.

Tirol Air-In Salty Vanilla チロル 塩バニラ

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.

Kabaya Pudding Chocolates カバヤ なめらかプリンチョコ

Pudding or プリン is a very popular dessert in Japan and is usually what they refer to as Creme Caramel. I am quite a fan of it myself, so I didn't hesitate in grabbing this box of purin chocolates in Yamanaka recently for ¥118.

On the box it says that these are better eaten straight from the fridge, I can see why as I had them in the cupboard and they melted quite easily, even just being on the table.

They are small and round, about 2.5 cm in diameter. There are 8 individually wrapped chocolates in the box, which is so-so value, I guess these are more aimed at kids, who have smaller mouths and to them, 8 small pieces would seem a lot.

The top is milk chocolate but is a little bit darker than the average milk chocolate colour. The bottom is a yellow coloured white chocolate which smells like caramel.

Biting into the chocolate, the outside stays firm and the middle is a light yellow mousse with lots of caramel flavour. The milk chocolate has a distinct chocolate flavour and the yellow chocolate has a caramel and slight coconut oil flavour. Combined with the caramel mousse inside, they all blend in well together.

I can't really say this is an accurate pudding flavour. The body of a creme caramel is custard, and this chocolate lacked any custard flavour at all. It seemed to focus mainly on the caramel flavour, usually a small part of the actual pudding, but no less apparent.

I am sure kids would enjoy this for the flavour and appearance just as much. I would buy these again, as they were a lighthearted and fun way to enjoy chocolate, and a nice change from the usual flavours around.

Calpis Sour Chuhai カルピス・サワー チュウハイ

Browsing Yamanaka Frante I found a whole aisle full of Chuhai. Chuhai is an alcoholic drink, usually made from vodka and juice or soda, the traditional type is made with shochu mixed with lemon, from which it gets the name chuhai - a mixture of shochu and highball.

A whole variety of flavours were packed into the shelves - peach, grapefruit, lemon, plum, pineapple, orange, grape, mango, apple, and the list goes on.

I chose one that interestingly had a soft drink mixed with it - Calpis - a kind of yoghurt flavoured uncarbonated drink. Because this Calpis has 5% Vodka mixed in, it is called Calpis Sour.

The can itself contains 350ml. On a further inspection of the ingredients I found that there is also filtered water, hence the image of the ice on the bottom of the can, I guess it is meant to be a similar feeling to "on the rocks".

When I opened the can I couldn't actually smell any alcohol, only the faintly sweet lemon-y smell of regular Calpis. The first taste is quite like regular calpis, smooth, sweet, lemony, with hints of yoghurt, but right at the end the strength of the alcohol kicks in, and I don't think it is sour, but it is quite strong and rather unpleasant.

The flavour emerges on the top of my mouth and the middle of my tongue, the real strength of the vodka and the lemon notes of the Calpis. I feel my cheeks going warm, and extending down my throat. This is strong for me, but I am not sure why. I usually drink mixed drinks, as in Vodka and juice, usually around 5%, so I can't really fathom why this rubs me the wrong way.

Maybe Japanese Vodka has a different taste to what I am used to. I definitely wouldn't buy this again, mostly because of the strong taste of alcohol at the end. It is not a drink that is mixed well, rather it is soft drink at the beginning and alcohol at the end. I also don't get any notion of the 'sour' mentioned in the name of the drink.

This wasn't even good as a novelty drink, though I am sure some people out there enjoy it. Sadly I am not one of them.

Natchan なっちゃん

I picked up this bottle of Natchan! at the same time as the Vitamin Water in my previous post.

It too, was only ¥98. The front of the bottle claims that there is Vitamin C and 20% juice. This is the original orange flavour and is a childhood favourite of Yasu's. I kind of feel guilty having it while he is not here!

The side of the bottle states that Florida Oranges were used for the juice contained in Natchan!

There are 39 kilocalories, and 16~60mg of Vitamin C.

I love the bottle for it's cuteness. The smell when I open the lid is kind of a very weak orange scent, but when I take a sip I get the taste of freshly squeezed oranges, some sweetness and kind of tart. The aftertaste is a slight watered down flavour, the majority of the taste of orange is when it is in my mouth. It is not overly sweet either, like some juice can be. I'm not so much a fan of the aftertaste, I've never liked watered down orange juice. I do like the taste of the drink though. It reminds me of sunday morning, drinking freshly squeezed juice with eggs on toast.

This is a great children's drink, and great to revisit as I haven't had it for over 5 years. I am not sure if the taste may have changed since then, but I like it the same as I did then.

If anything, if you don't like the taste, I am sure you will like the bottle, I give it 10 points for cuteness!

Suntory Vitamin Water ビタミンウオーター

I picked this up at Apita this evening for ¥98. It was on special, I am not sure how much it usually costs. I am currently in Japan for 2 months so I have lots of different snacks and beverages to hand, and I intend to make the most of it for my blog while I am here.

I was looking for Volvic actually, but because there wasn't any, I chose this vitamin water because I thought it would be similar to a flavoured water. I wasn't wrong.

On the website, it boasts that there is Vitamin C, B Complex, and Royal Jelly contained in this bottle of water. There is also Lemon juice (the second ingredient on the ingredient list) and it is a major player as far as taste goes.

At first taste it is like a lemon cheesecake taste, strong at first, but then subsides to more of a lemon juice flavour and then becomes weaker, like watered down juice. I like the flavour, and unlike other flavoured water, it doesn't make me feel thirsty.

I drank this at room temperature and it was very refreshing. I don't feel any different, even for all those vitamins it contains, but I really enjoyed the flavour and the taste. I guess if you drink this every day you may show some improvement, I am not really sure.

As a refreshing drink in the middle of a humid, sticky summer, this goes down a treat, and I will definitely be buying it again.

The bottle states this has 20 kilocalories, 200mg of Vitamin C, and 0.3mg of Vitamin b6.