One great thing about living in
Japan is that there is so much new food to try. For a start, there are the
traditional Japanese dishes that haven’t quite taken off overseas, such as takoyaki (octopus balls) and okonomiyaki (which are kind of like a thick,
savoury pancake). Then there are the numerous Japan-only snacks that can be
found in most 24-hour convenience stores
(which, incidentally, are placed on about every second street corner).
But even Western food that has infiltrated Japan still has a certain Japanese
spin on it. For example, bread can usually be found in only one style (white)
and one thickness (insane). Seriously, we’re talking about five slices of bread
to a loaf. Today I decided to go down to my local supermarket and look for some
intriguing products that are unique to Japan. Here’s what I found:
Uguisu bird balls: Despite
the off-putting name, a quick scan of the ingredients told me that these balls
contained no actual bird. I guess it’s just a cute name. The snacks turned to
be rice balls covered in caramel. They tasted not at all unlike caramel
popcorn, and were actually quite nice. This pleasant surprise gave me enough
confidence to try my next purchase…
Tokyo karinto (unknown
kanji): The picture on the outside of the packet led me to believe that I
had just bought a bag of week-old turds. (As I was opening the packaging, I
made a mental note to look up the number of the local hospital for future
reference.) Once I had one of these ‘snacks’ in my hand, I still wasn’t
convinced that I wasn’t about to bite into a stale piece of old shit.
Thankfully, this was not the case. These turds were in fact some kind of smoky,
sickly-sweet caramel rice log, with a hint of fish. Better than eating crap,
but only just.
 |
| These are the turds of Satan himself |
Nameraka double jam bread: Thankfully,
this delivered exactly what it promised: a bread roll with a shitload of jam in
it. “The deliciousness is doubled!” the packaging proclaimed in Japanese.
Personally, it was little jammy for my tastes – but thank god they have Single
Jam Bread for pussies like myself.
Fujiya LOOK A La Mode fruit chocolates: These
chocolates come filled with either pineapple, strawberry, caramel or banana
cream. The strawberry and caramel chocolates were palatable, but the other two
were way too sweet and tasted nothing like the fruit they were meant to
represent. But hey, I just chose this one for the name. (It was a tough call
between these and Oh! Chips).
Morimori Cooking Rose and
Mary apple pie: This product tasted pretty much as you’d expect (except
that it was an apple Danish, not an apple pie – but I could see that through
the transparent window anyway). What made this one interesting was the
packaging: bright pink, with pictures of two extremely camp-looking cartoon men
on it (named Rose and Mary, one can only assume). One is saying “Let my SWEET
have it!”, while the other adds “Now eat our LOVE.” It’s not often something is
both creepy and delicious, but Japan
delivers yet again.
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