Snack Review: Japanese Snack Three Course Meal Roundup
Maybe it was just that I couldn’t stand the idea of going out in the cold and rain again to go grocery shopping. But the box I got from our good friends at jlist.com looked like it contained all I needed for a balanced meal. I had a spicy main dish in these Tohato habanero flavored crackers, a vegetable in asparagus Pretz, and my starch and dessert all rolled up into one in Meiji Usuyaki rice crackers coated in white chocolate. What could be more efficient?
The Tohato crackers are very neat little rings with a reddish-orange color that warns of their heat, if you hadn’t already gotten the message from the evil grin on the drawing of the pepper on the front of the bag. My Japanese isn’t up to deciphering the ingredients, but I am guessing this is a wheat cracker. It kind of doesn’t matter, because whatever it is, it’s just a vehicle for the spice. They’re either baked, or fried really brilliantly, because they’re not the least bit greasy.
These are a really fun snack if you like hot food. They are hot enough to wake you up - good idea in this cold rainy weather, as it turns out - and the heat lingers but not so much that you can’t eat more of them.
I would have been happy if I had just eaten the rest of the habanero Tohato, but, balanced meal, right? Vegetables are an important part of a healthy diet. Well, to be serious, I was no more up to beating my head against the kanji on this label than on the Tohato package, but I doubt there’s enough asparagus in these to count toward your daily servings of produce. Does this mean that someone’s invented artificial asparagus flavor? It might, because these long, crispy, extremely thin cracker sticks really do have a bit of an asparagus taste to them.
I am not 100% sure that this is actually a good idea, I have to say. But then, asparagus is not my favorite vegetable, so for me, this is more a curiosity than something I expected to want to order boxes and boxes of. It does strike me that these might be great in a dipping situation, with something a bit creamy and cheesy. And as a cracker stick, this is a great little thing, and I definitely want to try other flavors. They are a nice texture with a perfect, not excessive amount of salt.
Of course, dessert is the best part of any meal, and this one was no exception. I wish I could be more articulate about this but: OMG. These are fantastic. I don’t usually like sweet-salty combinations - chocolate covered pretzels sound like a horror to me - but these blew my mind. The white chocolate coating is excellent, and white chocolate is so often terrible. It’s a perfect texture, creamy and melt-in-your-mouth so you get the full benefit of the delicate white chocolate taste. The combination with the mild, slightly salty, crisp rice cracker….
OK, my descriptive powers are defeated. All I can say is “OMG” again. I can’t compare it to anything else I can remember ever tasting. It is a good thing they are packaged, like many Japanese products, individually wrapped inside the box, because that was the only thing that stopped me from devouring the whole contents at once.
The J-list description mentions sharing these with friends - well, forget about it. You’re not getting any of mine, but I highly recommend that you buy your own.
4 Comments
Linda on March 20th, 2009
I was curious about that too. I will try to get someone to eat the rest of the bag and report back.
Jim on March 20th, 2009
Do you have the gene?
Linda on March 21st, 2009
I could do the test myself… I just don’t like asparagus enough to eat the whole package.
Jim on March 20th, 2009
Japanophile! I always wondered what the spawn of a hot pepper and a pumpkin would look like.
I’m curious to know if there’s enough asparagus in the asparagus cracker sticks to make your pee smell fragrant.