Morinaga’s Milk Caramel is a delicious classic dark caramel with a history dating back from the Meiji period. This company started more than a century ago and its special milk caramels were once a privilege on Showa Emperor’s birthday as an Imperial Gift for children to enjoy.
Each box contains 12 caramel pieces from an inner sliding tray. The semi-soft milk caramel has a special rich nutty butterscotch taste. Read the rest of this page »
Soft round gourmet fruit gummy made with kiwi fruit and juice and individually wrapped. Each soft delicious gummy has a very fruity sweet-sour kiwi flavor with a pleasant kiwi aroma.
Excerpt: “We have captured the flavor of real Kiwifruit which is grown mainly in New Zealand where the fruit got its name. Enjoy that fresh and juicy taste in Kasugai’s Kiwifruit Gummy.” Read the rest of this page »
Soft heart shaped gourmet fruit gummy made with orange juice and individually wrapped. Each soft delicious gummy has a very fruity sweet-sour orange marmalade flavor with a most pleasant orange preserve aroma.
While Kasugai gummies are all delicious, the orange gummy is my favorite because of its unique orange flavor. Its sweet-sour taste has good flavor depth and reminiscence of candied kumquat preserve. Read the rest of this page »
Soft round gourmet fruit gummy made with litchi juice and individually wrapped. Each soft delicious gummy has a very fruity cider flavor with a most pleasant ripe litchi aroma. Chewing these delicious gummy brings fond memories. Both the flavor and fragrance is close to the real thing.
This fruit was like heaven to me when I was a child. Breaking open the rough rusty looking outer skin of the Litchi nut is a heavenly fragrant pearly fleshed fruit with the taste of sweet nectar contained within a soft membrane. The flesh itself is too unique to describe well, but it is cool, smooth, silky buoyance and very juicy. They rarely taste that good anymore where I am. Read the rest of this page »
Leave it to Meiji to come up with yet another way for chocolate lover to binge on this dark elixir. Here’s a no fuss convenient dispenser of semi-sweet dark chocolate bit. Some has a star shape filling on the bottom end.
So why bother with this small baby when you can get the big baby, yes, it also come in 4.02 oz which just look like a huge version of its little sibling. Read the rest of this page »
True conneisseurs should at least try this one, just to see how good an instant noodle soup can be.
The fresh-packed noodle sealed in a clear pouch is as good as the Udon you’ll find at any Asian grocery. As prepared, the noodle soup looked really good with slices of fish cakes, tiny brown wheat vegetable dumpling, and green vegetable in a rich reddish brown broth, with a delicious rich sweet spicy soy sauce flavor.
It tasted like what you mght get at a typical resturant, it’s that good. About the only thing holding it back from a five star rating is the amount of toppings other than the noodles. Read the rest of this page »
The ever popular Meiji brand has done very creative marketing with its snacks and this pretentious little number that resembles nothing so much as a pack of chocolate cigars, from its packaging to the chocolate sticks themselves is a good example.
It’s a little crunchy not from any biscuit inside but from its fine sugary crystalline texture. The flavor tastes like bitter sweet chocolate at first and then melt into a rich buttery sweet cream sensation almost like eating dark chocolate cream cheese. Read the rest of this page »
Kasugai Matcha-ame (green tea powder) candy is full of rich soothing green tea flavor. It has sort of a nice honey green tea with toasted rice taste and not too sweet.
This hard candy feel like having a candy pop in the mouth, being a little thicker than usual. Green tea is considered to be a herbal health tonic in Asia. Read the rest of this page »
Meiji Chocolate Coffee Beat looks like chocolate coated coffee beans and are loaded with chocolate coffee flavor.
As you place one in your mouth, it feels like a smooth coffee bean but then the thin candy crush breaks away to reveal its thick sweet expresso potency. It’s almost like drinking a cup of coffee, the flavor is right on and just like coffee these little beats are addictive. Read the rest of this page »
Japanese style popcorn, they look like giant puffed oatmeal and tasted more like sweet rice puff than popcorn. While it does kind of tasted and looked like honey coated, there is no honey. The sweet flavor is very mild. These popcorns are the Japanese equivalent of health foods. Read the rest of this page »
“Hana no Kuchizuke, ” translated - fresh as a flower so you can kiss.
Kasugai Flower Kiss Candy is a very popular hard candy that has the taste of sweet condense milk embodying the fruity flavor of candied Japanese apricot-plum. ” …will tickle your fancy from the tip of your tongue to all the way down your throat.” The sweet and sour taste is an act of “the kiss of a blossom.” Read the rest of this page »
Kimchee (also Kimchi) is a popular Korean pickled hot & spicy cabbage relish. Serving crispy homemade Kimchee to impress your guests is a popular tradition to Korean, with every household using its own favorite recipe.
This entree is medium hot for most people other than Korean. It is served with regular ramen instead of the thicker Korean noodle, which requires a more intense soup sauce. Just as well, I am not always in the mood to be scorched. Read the rest of this page »
Chocolate cube is dusted with cocoa powder and has rich buttery semi-sweet dark chocolate flavor. It has an icy kind of taste to it, with a soft texture similar to a chocolate truffe. Read the rest of this page »
Nissin Quick & Easy Chow Mein - Chcken Flavored, microwaveable.
Chicken Chow Mein entree has a sweet dark soy type sauce. Using the modified cooking direction, it tasted quite good. The dried cabbage expanded quite a bit to give more substance to the noodles.
The plastic serving tray is microwaveable but the cover is not, however I find that it tasted much better if you covered it while cooking. I put the cover upside down so that the steam can escape. As prepared, the noodles came out the way I liked it, steaming moist and hot. Read the rest of this page »
Chocolate Poche is a bite size chocolate biscuit with delicious milk creme filling inside. The light crunchy chocolate biscuit has a rich dark chocolate taste, while the creme is light as in a Napoleon cream-filled pastry. I could barely keep a piece in my mouth!
These tiny cookies has a scorched looking brown biscuit shell that has a nice burnt chocolate flavor which crumple easily away to the sweet light cream inside with a rich aftertaste. Read the rest of this page »
This kimchi flavored entree is about medium spicy. The “oriental style noodle” on the lid refers to a starchier ramen noodle which is a bit more al dente. Interestingly, it is the first time I have seen freeze dried kimchi (see the picture below of the brown block in the before cooking part).
As prepared, you can hardly see anything beside noodles on top but the soup sauce came out rich and reddish. I poured out about an inch of soup before I started eating. It certainly had the taste of hot spicy kimchi. Could have added some vegetables to this one to give it a little more substance. Flavor is good. Read the rest of this page »
Soft heart shaped gourmet fruit gummy made with apple juice and individually wrapped. Each soft delicious gummy has a very fruity apple cider flavor with a most pleasant ripe apple aroma.
Excerpt: “Each drop of fresh apple juice, carefully pressed from the reddish apples, shining in colors of the cheeks of a snow-country child, is yours to enjoy in each soft and juicy Kasaugai Apple Gummy.” Read the rest of this page »
Soft heart shaped gourmet fruit gummy made with grape juice and individually wrapped. Each soft delicious gummy has a very fruity sour-sweet grape flavor with a most pleasant grape aroma.
Excerpt: “Enjoy the softness of gentle breeze that sweeps through the vineyard spread vast on the hill in each soft and juicy Kasugai Grape Gummy.” Read the rest of this page »
Morinaga is one of the famous companies in Japan, named after the company founding principal. While it has licensed manufacturing in other countries, most discerning folks still consider the ones from Japan as being the best. Hi-Chews are a stable in Japan.
This creamy sweet-tart yogurt chew from Japan is made with condensed yogurt. It chews like soft taffy candy and don’t lose its rich yogurt sweetness until it is almost gone. The yogurt flavor linger in your mouth to remind you that it was there. Read the rest of this page »
Morinaga is one of the famous companies in Japan, named after the company founding principal. While it has licensed manufacturing in other countries, most discerning folks still consider the ones from Japan as being the best. Hi-Chews are a stable in Japan.
This intensely fruity tropical fruit chew from Japan is made with passion fruit juice. It chews like soft taffy candy and don’t lose its rich fruity sweetness until it is almost gone. The passion fruit flavor linger in your mouth to remind you that it was there. Read the rest of this page »
Morinaga is one of the famous companies in Japan, named after the company founding principal. While it has licensed manufacturing in other countries, most discerning folks still consider the ones from Japan as being the best. Hi-Chews are a stable in Japan.
This intensely fruity tropical fruit chew from Japan is made with mango juice. I love mango and this is just delicious. It chews like soft taffy candy and don’t lose its rich fruity sweetness until it is almost gone. The mango flavor linger in your mouth to remind you that it was there. Read the rest of this page »
This entry was relatively expensive as it contain a special retort pouch with wet ingredients. In the foil pouch, there are several chucks of textured vegetable protein (maybe wheat protein but it is not specified), potato, carrot and onion in a coconut curry sauce.
My expections sure were high on this item, but after taking the first sip I knew it was a let down. Perhap I had followed the inadequate direction which made the curry soup too watery. It tasted fine as a mild spicy curry flavored soup, but not the rich spicy hot curry sauce that I was expecting from a country such as Thailand. If you ever had the spicy hot scented coconut curry sauce in a fine Thai resturant you will know what I mean. Read the rest of this page »
Yokan dessert is a traditional Japanese jelly based on “bean jam.” This green tea version is made with tebo (white) beans jam, agar and green tea powder. Green tea has many perceived medicinal values. The delicious sweet jelly has a rich velvety smooth texture and the wonderful soothing green tea flavor is very good, so its sweetness is mellowed out by the strength of the green tea flavor.
There are eight mini packages inside, each are 1.4 oz and 112 calories. A good way to eat it is to cut one end and squeeze it out from the other end, it will slip out easily. Read the rest of this page »
Neri Yokan dessert is a traditional Japanese jelly made with sweet azuki beans, also commonly called red beans. Sweet azuki paste is one of Asia most popular confectionery fillings and is commonly used in pastries.
The jelly has a rich velvety smooth texture and is quite sweet with the delicious flavor of sweet azuik bean.
There are eight mini packages inside, each are 1.4 oz and 112 calories. A good way to eat it is to cut one end and squeeze it out from the other end, it will slip out easily. Read the rest of this page »
It’s called Hachimitsu Ume candy in Japanese, meaning honey plum. Ume is an apricot-like fruit rather than what we consider to be plum.
The candy has a unique tantalizing honey plum liqueur flavor with just the right amount of tangy sweetness. I just love this candy, from its beautiful gift-like packaging to its fine ingredients. That plum liqueur flavor has one of my favorite tastes going back to childhood. Read the rest of this page »
To me, shrimp chips are the fried colorful round wavy kind that usually show up during festivals when I was growing up. They were one of my favorite treats. It is amazing to see it being made like popcorn in hot oil without the popping, from small hard thin dark chip to instant large colored chips. When freshly made, it can seizes on to your tongue for moisture, sort of like holding your tongue against cold metal in winter.
This baked snack are instead in the more convenient shape of french fry and taste as good as the traditional shrimp chips without the fancy colors. Read the rest of this page »
Pocky Chocolate Almond Crush is dipped in chocolate and covered with crushed almonds. These snack sticks are delightfully addicting.
Pocky is one of the oldest and most popular snacks in Japan. Read the rest of this page »
The crunchy biscuit sticks come in two kinds, sprinked with roast sesame or chocolate flavored. I counted about 16 biscuit sticks in one container. There a flavor cream bucket to one side of the opening on top for dipping the stick snack. The flavor creams spreads like cream cheese and tasted very rich but not over sweet.
They’re kind of hard to use when the weather is cold, I had tried once and the biscuit sticks kept breaking until I warmed up the dip in the microwave oven for several seconds. Read the rest of this page »
It’s the first time that I had this popular new snack and was not sure of what to expect. They are actual whole petite snow peas soaked in a light soy seafood flavor sauce and baked to a crisp.
It is softer than shredded wheat cereal and easily melts in your mouth to a smooth nutty vegetable paste kind of feel. Lightly flavored and don’t leave your mouth too dry afterward like potato chips. A good snack to eat with just water. Read the rest of this page »
The Shirakiku namesake is a quality label and is a bit more expensive. The products are first and foremost good foods and never outflavored, like a girl in strong perfume.
“Curry”, an Indian word for sauce, contains distinct blends of spices to create a genuine flavor. The sauce is spicy and aromatic but not hot. It achieves its depth of hotness when hot peppers are added to the dish, so the curry can be spicy and mild at the same time.
As prepared, the curry soup sauce had a mild to medium spicy vegetable curry flavor and fine aroma. I let it soaks in the hot curry sauce a few minutes for tastier noodles. The large flat Udon noodles taste smooth and soft. This one leaves its mark simply for its honest-to-goodness fare. Read the rest of this page »
This beef flavored ramen is well seasoned and agreeable. The flavor is not very beefy tasting but it passes. While the quality is ok, it is not an exciting taste to me when real beef is such a common fare. Read the rest of this page »
Miso is a very popular Japanese soup seasonings of which there are many kinds. This soup sauce has a mild sweet nutty smooth taste and the ramen seems a little softer. I prefer to add the soup base to taste after putting the noodle with some of the water in a bowl for a stronger flavor. Read the rest of this page »
Sapporo Ichiban Chowmein, instant fried noodle. Yakisoba means stir fried ramen, an influence from Chinese ramen shops in Japan around the last century.
This yakisoba style chowmein is served in a flavorful sweet sour dark sauce that taste somewhat like Worchestershire sauce mixed with a little balsamic vinegar. The tasty dried green laver (seaweed) sprinklings add an interesting flavor and textural balance. Read the rest of this page »
A hot spicy entree that tasted a bit like curry chicken & beef but in a clear broth. It was a very well seasoned and tasty soup sauce with good ramen type noodle.
There isn’t any chicken in it except egg, but could have fooled me as I ate, actually thought that there were pieces of chicken meat. These textured vegetable proteins were getting good at it, until I saw what looked like brown pieces of sausage. Even the funny shaped fishcake slices tasted like cured chicken meat. It must be the power of suggestion, as chicken is what I had in mind from the smell. The soup stock actually has a strong beefy flavor if you can ignore the chicken soup aroma. Read the rest of this page »
The Shin line, all share similar graphic but taste somewhat different. This one share similarity with Big Shin Cup, which has beef flavor.
As prepared, this entree has the right note for me. The ramen had a good springy bite and the soup sauce flavored very well. Its size was just right for a snack or small meal. One of the best of the Shins if you can get the imported (Korean) version. Read the rest of this page »
Nissin Quick & Easy Chow Mein - (Garlic) Shrimp Flavored, microwaveable.
Chow mein is a generic term for a chinese style dish of stir-fried noodles, of which there are many varieties. The garlic shrimp flavor is one of my favorite, it tasted like Italian garlic shrimp linguine.
The plastic serving tray is microwaveable but the cover is not, however I find that it tasted much better if you covered it while cooking. I put the cover upside down so that the steam can escape. As prepared, the noodles came out the way I liked it, steaming hot and al dente. It looks very appealing with a few tiny pink shrimps, red bell pepper and dark green parsley. The taste and aroma was almost irresistible to me, a very satisfying bargain of a meal. Read the rest of this page »
XO sauce popularity hits the Asian resturant scene first in Hong Kong’s pricier dinning estatblishment and was named after a popular brandy. It’s usually a combination of dried shrimp, dried scallops, garlic, and other seasonings. Its spicy flavor is used to enhance stir-fried meat, seafood, tofu and vegetable dishes.
The broth was creamy and very tasty, but a bit salty, so avoid it while enjoying the delicious noodles. It has a heavy garlicky shrimp-seafood soy sauce taste. There’s a lot of savory soup sediments, like slices of decorative fishcake, bits of colorful vegetables and other seasonings. Read the rest of this page »
This is a Chinese brand licensed by Nissin. Its domestic market prefers a Hong Kong style thin ramen noodle with a crunchier bite.
As prepared, the soup sauce had a milky consistency and tasted a bit like chicken soup with a bit of creamer and codfish broth mixed in. It was very well seasoned. There is a lot of soup solids with the noodle soup. Read the rest of this page »
This entree is similar to its big brother by the same name, however there are differences. Visually, it does not include the small fried bean curd cubes and seaweed pieces in the soup. You get pretty much the same experience enjoying the noodle soup overall, but the flavor is a bit amiss and never quite attains the superior taste of its big brother. Read the rest of this page »
This Korean favorite is a fiery red hot soup with a spicy scent that live up to its reputation. The noodle is thicker than ramen and round, similar to Udon but springier.
When ready, I carefully poured out about half the soup sauce before serving it in a bowl. Taking the first sip before eating, prepared me for what was to come. Slurping the sauce with the noodle in each bite, I was really enjoying it, as the hot spicy sensation took hold. The lively hot noodles were enjoyed with tasty chewy bits of shitake mushroom and other vegetables. It was a great finish, the spicy hot sensation was felt as far down as my stomach and I got a little sweaty too. Read the rest of this page »
The term Champong noodle refers to a popular recipe of Korean noodle in a rich spicy seafood broth containing mainly cabbage, and various sea foods like squids and shrimps. It presumably has its origin in Japan with influence from China. This entree is medium to high in spiciness.
In opening the dried soup solid packet, there was a nice aroma that was reminiscent of something familiar to me. My mom often use tiny dried salted shrimps in many of her recipe. This ingredient has a strong aroma and very savory flavor, being used more like a spice. In this case, the aroma came from the dried cuttlefish pieces. As prepared, the cuttlefish and shrimp powder gave the soup sauce its unique rich salty seafood flavor. The cuttlefish pieces remained chewy, which is normal. There was an effective display of colors and textures in the noodle soup from the various solid ingredients. This was surprisingly good. Read the rest of this page »
The cute raccoon like character on the package is the first I have ever seen on a Nong Shim noodle item. It is an Asian raccoon dog, also know as tanuki in Japan, and has supernatural powers in folklore. Presumably this recipe is famous in Korea as a spicy chewy noodle dish and a source of dietary calcium.
As prepared, the reddish soup sauce was well flavored, and very spicy. The tasty flavors sort of masked the spiciness until it get to you later, leaving the mouth feelings a little singed. Overall, a very agreeable flavor and a big portion to boost. Read the rest of this page »
This particular noodle is an air dried ribbon type, which require extra cooking time. The entree supprising has virtually no fats.
As prepared, the clear light brown soup sauce was mildly flavored. With a mild flavored sauce, you have to slurp it while eating the noodle to get the taste. A little less cooking water would make a stronger flavor. The anchovy gave a little extra character to an otherwise light refreshing vegetable stock. After trying out so many of Nong Shim spicy ramen, this one was sort of a relief. Read the rest of this page »
Chajang sauce is a thick savory fried black bean sauce made from cultured soybean. Myun means noodles in Korean, it looks like spagetti and coincidentially the dish is called Chapagetti by its marketing folks. Noodles w/black bean sauce is popular in Korean like noodles w/spaggetti sauce here and taste delicious if properly seasoned.
There are also Chinese versions called “Zha Jiang Mian” and Japanese versions. The Koreans consider their versions more refined and the Japanese versions are less heavy on the soybean paste and are made with either ramen or Udon noodles.
This dish was mildly seasoned, but a dash of salt & pepper or a vinaigrette dressing really help. While it tastes agreeable to me, I would not recommend it to all, as it’s more a cultural favorite. Read the rest of this page »
While it shares almost the same name as it smaller cousin, Shin Cup, it’s not just in a bigger cup. It breaks the mode, as the noodle for one is the round ramen noodle and not the softer flat type. The Shiitake mushroom are really chunky in this one and it needs a bit more wait time to soften than 3 minutes.
As prepared, the soup has a fiery red color and nice spicy aroma. The soup sauce flavored the lively noodle very well, although I hardly noticed the beef flavor through all that spices. My mouth had that nice tingling sensation all over afterward. A real treat! Read the rest of this page »
Dosirac Shrimp Flavor, instant noodle soup w/vegetarian dumplings. This reminded me of the old ways of my mom, they were recipes that use just a small portion of briny ingredients to be served with rice. It’s an old world taste.
The shrimp flavor of this soup sauce is made from a fermented briny shrimp paste. You may find this flavor either exoteric or exotic, depending on how it leaves a first impression on you. The soup sauce flavored the noodle well with a salty, humble taste, though I had better shrimp pastes. Read the rest of this page »
This spicy hot entree is a refined version of its acclaimed cousin, Shin Ramyun, with thin ramen instead of the thicker Korean noodle.
As prepared, the light reddish soup sauce was deceiving calm until I took too quick of a tentative sip, which promptly got me coughing. The unexpected spiciness must have sent some down my wind pipe. The sharp peppery picante sauce numbed my palate somewhat as I continued eating. The beef flavor of the soup sauce was light and the toyish pinwheel slices of fish cake were a nice diversion to the plain noodles. Read the rest of this page »
Soba noodles are native Japanese noodles made of buckwheat flour (soba-ko) and wheat flour. It is a thin brownish noodle served with various toppings and condiments in hot or cold dishes to reflect the seasons. Soba is so ubiquitous that it can refer to noodles in general. The noodle is springy to the bite and feels silky soft eating.
The tempura burst with delicate sweet flavors and different textures depending on how long it is in the soup and it’ll get very soft if you wait too long. The dried shrimp pieces in the tempura were chewy, but tasted interesting regardless. With so much going on, you almost don’t remember about the other stuffs like the brown chunks of fried tofu (bean curd) and broad green pieces of seaweed. The only drawback about this one is that it has an oily aftertaste. Read the rest of this page »
Kitsune Udon is thick Japanese white noodles served with fried tofu. Enjoy while hot, this entree is superb. Bitting a mouthful, you get a succulent sweet burst of hot savory soup and the tender chewy Udon noodles. There are nuggets of scrambled egg too. This is a very satisfying big meal. Read the rest of this page »
The Hong Kong style noodle in this entree is a very thin air dried egg noodle that is a stable to the region, including what was formerly known as Canton. It is somewhat crunchier than other types of noodle. The early chinese arrivals to America were mostly from the region, which is why this noodle is often associated with Wonton soup.