Snack: Japan - The Series
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PAGE 1 Snack: Japan - Tamagogani Meisaku  
PAGE 2 Snack: Japan - Sanko Yuki no Yado and Choco in Bar  
PAGE 3 Snack: Japan - Corn Potage and Kuma-Ku Collection  

In our last article we had only dipped our toes into the luscious ocean of Japanese snacks. We had covered the mainstay Japanese snack treat Pocky: Chocolate and uncovered what little dirt on the chocolaty little stick we could find. We took a bite of its bastard offspring in Pocky: Kurogoma much to our displeasure. We handled eating little chocolate burgers well, and topped it all off with the flavor blasted Takeno kono Sato.

But where do you we go today?

The immortal quote by Brillat-Savarin famed French lawyer and politician comes to mind again.

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

When you take a look at todays snack offerings, you just might be glad you won’t become any of these treasured treats. Today we will blur the line between the weird and the hip, the cookie and the chips. What would we ever do without our Japanese grocer? Well judging by the kinds of stuff they sell, it seems the more pressing question is “What would our Japanese grocer do without us?”

In my second article, with many more to come, I will be delving into the sordid 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 great 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 out of the way let’s find out how well the other side eats.

Tamagogani Meisaku (Roasted Crab Babies)
Death in a Bag

Flavor: 4
Interaction: 2
Honesty/Integrity: 5
Aesthetics: 0
Total Taste: 11

If you ever wanted to pretend you had crabs, here’s your chance, these roasted crab babies are the perfect size to lay around your pubic area for you to take a picture to send to mom as a Christmas card. These bite sized terrors are approximately the size of a United States quarter, are roasted a bright red, and topped off with sesame seeds.

Like adding sesame seeds to these ugly little shits would really make a difference.

The package is absolutely horrifying and staring at it for too long will make you imagine what would happen if the Nazi’s at Auschwitz decided to cover all the dead Jews in sesame seeds. Knowing that these little bastards would probably have been a lot more delicious had they been bigger and cooked doesn’t help either. The crabs, not the Jews.

Semitic jokes aside, these little guys pack one hell of a crunch, you have to break through the shell to get to the dried innards. Obviously they taste fishy, but they also taste sandy and having to chew the shells is a little bit like chewing on broken glass. All these terrible sensations happening in your mouth is like torture. The little crabby soul being sent to heaven the minute you free him from his death shell.

Honestly, eating these things is like having a Pokemon battle in your mouth. The crab claws were slicing my tongue apart as my teeth valiantly tried to fend off the attack. I yelled “Pikachu!” only to spit pieces of tiny crab legs all over my desk and keyboard, and that still didn’t help matters. No one could help me, not Pikachu, not my teeth, and definitely no Nazi’s. I don’t know why anyone would buy these.

PAGE 1 Snack: Japan - Tamagogani Meisaku  
PAGE 2 Snack: Japan - Sanko Yuki no Yado and Choco in Bar  
PAGE 3 Snack: Japan - Corn Potage and Kuma-Ku Collection