I was saving this for later, Kat has forced my hand: it’s time for me to write about the junk food I’ve been eating over here. I’ve made it my mission to try a small amount of new snackage I’ve never experienced before each day. Not too much, because I don’t want to crash the plane from unexpected added weight on the return flight, but enough to give me something to look forward to in this dreary, terrible place that I have been forced to visit against my will.
Item 1: Kit-Kat Caramel Pudding
Japan has amazing Kit-Kat technology. This nation wins the Kit-Kat arms race, hands-down. America soundly rejects all but the standard Kit-Kat and the horrible “white chocolate” version, but Japan embraces the Kit-Kat family in all its myriad variants. While nothing will quite match the majesty of last year’s winter premium with its dark chocolate and black tea cream, I’m always willing to press forward.
Alas, Kit-Kat Caramel Pudding is entirely too sweet for its own good. I kinda taste the caramel, but mostly it’s like tiny sugar molecules are stabbing my tongue.
Item 2: Meiji chocolate potato sticks
This was a little more adventurous, and also far more regrettable. Chocolate and potato can be inexplicably good together, which is why all humans dip their Wendy’s fries in their Frosties, but you’d never know it to try this. The potato adds a weird sourness to the mix that makes the chocolate taste curdled. Horrifying! But perhaps an appropriate chaser for “A taste of the BREAD” teriyaki burger. Which is why I’ve sent it chasing the burger to the landfill.
Of course, the worst culinary offense I’ve yet seen was the chilled red win at the Italian place pictured below. I believe the correct term is “grotaceous.”
My favorite Kit-Kat while I was over there was the strawberry flavor. Christ, I could eat that stuff all day. The cherry (sakura?) flavor was pretty good too.
My favorite is cantaloupe! There’s a Japanese mega-supermarket in NJ that stocks the specialty seasonal Kitkats.
How chilled are we talking here? Like ice cold coke from the fridge, or slightly chilled? If slightly chilled (55-60 F) then that’s actually pretty proper! The whole room temperature for serving red wine thing you hear about is technically for wine cellar room temperature.
Or was the wine just right nasty?
We have cookie dough and honeycomb kitkats here.
My gawd I’d forgotten how much I loved dipping Wendy’s Fries into Frosties as a kid. I would’ve thought the ChocoTato mixture you had there coulda’ worked out… a shame.
My absolute favorites were Green Tea kit-kat (then again, I love green tea everything). But that dark chocolate and black tea sounds… divine.
Also goddamn now I want a frosty and fries.
Chocolate and potato is a magical combination, but those snacks are simply too frail and scrawny to do the taste justice. There’s a Hokkaido-based chocolatier called ROYCE that sells chocolate-covered potato chips. They are, without hyperbole, tastier than any previous chocolate-and-potato-based snack you have ever eaten. They sell them on the internet, but I don’t think they ship outside Japan. I could arrange a relay…
One of my favorite things about visiting Japan is the fact that you can get green tea- and/or green melon- flavored just about anything. Nothin’ like a giant soft-serve green tea ice cream in the park. Mmmmm.