Snack: Japan - The Series
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PAGE 1 Snack: Japan - Pocky Chocolate and Meltyblend  
PAGE 2 Snack: Japan - Pocky Kurogoma, Every Burger, and Takeno kono Sato  

Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.

These words made immortal by Brillat-Savarin famed French lawyer and politician, and probably best known providing the lead-in quote for the extremely popular Iron Chef has never rung so true. His work in gastronomy, the study of culture and food, did wonders to help us understand the intricacies of gourmet.

While many American snacks seem pretty straightforward like pretzels or potato chips, and as versatile as they can be, some of us have grown bored of these flavors. How many different ways can you honestly spice a chip? It is on days like these where we know we can turn to another culture to provide us with some fatty goodness we all so richly deserve every once in a while. But who do we turn to and where do we go? The same place so many of us are turning for entertainment so come with me and let’s raid the Japanese grocer.

In my first, of a many part series, I will be delving into the world of Japanese snacks and helping you decide what’s worth getting and what’s worth forgetting. I will be grading the snacks on a variable point scale on the several key aspects I think contribute to making a good snack. 10 points for Flavor; how good the snack tastes. 5 points for Interaction; how well the multiply ingredients work together. 5 points for Honesty/Integrity; how well the product delivers the flavor and whether or not it tastes like what it promised. Last but not least 5 points for Aesthetic Qualities; How visually appealing the product is.

So with that let’s find out how well the other side eats.

Pocky: Chocolate
Chocolate Lightsabers of Peace

Flavor: 7
Interaction: 4
Honesty/Integrity: 4
Aesthetics: 3
Total Taste: 18

The old standby deserves to be first. When Japanese snacks are mentioned in casual conversation, it feels like an obligation to mention Pocky. While Pocky is definitely popular in Japan it doesn’t seem to be as widely carried in stores as you may think. You’ll have to believe me when I say this, but the phenomena, as mind-blowing as it may seem, shouldn’t really be a surprise.

Shops are small in Japan, and it seems like most stores would rather use their precious space on something they know either moves fast or is seasonal, so it leaves precious little room for the bright red box we’re all familiar with. During my snack runs while I was there, most shoppers gravitated towards the food aisle, with things like Onigiri, various Bento, and sandwiches on the shelf to be consumed.

Enough about that though, I’ll get back to the snack. It’s a light pretzel stick dipped in a yummy milk chocolate that delivers a fun crunch. There really isn’t much more to it, if you like biscuits and you like chocolate, you’d love this in the off chance you’ve never tried it. I’ve long compared it to being a Chocolate Lightsaber of Peace. Just imagine if Darth Vader had tried to threaten the rebels with a giant stick coated in creamy milk chocolate, forget about it! They would have given up just for a taste of the delicious snack.

By far the most affordable snack listed in this article, it averages roughly $1.25 a box here in New York City and provides tons of fun to eat. It’s clean, you get none of the chocolate on your fingers as long as you hold the cookie end of it, and you can port it easily around in your book bag since the box should protect it from breaking up.

Meltyblend: Royal Cacao
The Building Blocks... of DOOM

Flavor: 6
Interaction: 1
Honesty/Integrity: 3
Aesthetics: 2
Total Taste: 12

MeltyBlend, if you’ve ever seen one is one part Lego and one part chocolaty brick. While the chocolate definitely sways a little closer to a lesser sweet chocolate, but not quite the taste of dark chocolate, those of you who are fans of a sugar high that isn’t too sweet, you might have met your match.

These individually wrapped troublemakers are good for those of us who only want to pop a mini here and there without fully ruining our appetite. While the chocolate technically has no issues, the presentation left a bit to be desired. Besides looking like a wet sugar cube you happened to chuck into the woods, it just doesn’t melt in your mouth. It’s not really creamy, and isn’t really what I would call the chocolate of any bodies dreams.

Basically, if you want to really savor this, note that most of the creaminess is going to have to come from your own saliva melting the chocolate. Gross but true. Out of all the chocolates I have ever tasted, this ranks as one of the most expensive and least favorite. If you were to check out a Japanese treat, skip this unless you were dying to recreate those action figure commercials from the 90’s where they bust through a wall of plastic bricks.

PAGE 1 Snack: Japan - Pocky Chocolate and Meltyblend  
PAGE 2 Snack: Japan - Pocky Kurogoma, Every Burger, and Takeno kono Sato