Posting a whole mix of things this time.

Hyoketsu, Fukuoka-grown Amaou

It’s a winter-only release, so you can’t drink it whenever you feel like it. But I think it might be the tastiest one in the whole series.

Mentaiko bread

I picked it up because it’s a collab with Yamaya, and it’s surprisingly good? Given the price the amount of mentaiko is on the small side, but the flavour is fine.

Usukawa tuna mayo buns

These were pretty tasty.

Tofu made specially for mapo tofu

All you need with this is a pack of mapo tofu sauce and you have mapo tofu in no time, and it really is delicious. Mapo tofu is supposed to be a bit wobbly and to soak up the sauce, and tofu that’s too firm just never gets you that. This one fits so well that it lifts the flavour of the whole dish.

Moranbong’s meat-loaded mapo tofu

Surprisingly, this one pack has a pretty complete set of ingredients (sansho aside…), so if you just add tofu made for mapo tofu you can put together a really well-rounded mapo tofu on the spot. Moranbong is

Ketchup for Napolitan

It has onion in it, so apparently you just toss the pasta with it and the Napolitan is done… I bought it because it looked easy to make, but I ended up giving it away as a gift and never got to taste it.

Black soybean snack

Perfectly fine, nothing more. It seems a bit thicker than senbei.

Ancient-rice senbei

This is a senbei I love. I like that puffed-rice-cracker feel to it.

Crown melon

It felt slightly overripe, and the taste is good, but this price, hmm… there are plenty of cheaper melons at about the same level.

Saewookkang, seaweed and salt flavour

With gim in it, there’s no way it could taste bad.

Kyorindo’s kaki no tane, new packaging

This one’s tasty too.

Custard Cake, Bacchus flavour

It was decent. Custard cakes seem better in Japan than in Korea, and the collabs are all good quality.

The Kin no fresh pasta with three kinds of mushroom

A new item from 7-Eleven, and it’s pretty good. I wish the Kin no series came out more often, but it doesn’t.

Choco Bakky Madagascar Vanilla

It’s an upgraded Choco Bakky, but I think I like the regular one better…

Sharimoni gummies

Gummies are so popular that I’ve been trying all sorts. This one was nice and chewy too. They aren’t for kids any more; grown-up gummies have completely taken over.

Meiji Almond

This one was good too…

Nadai Fuji Soba’s beni shoga ten soba

The quality is really high for a cup noodle, so I eat it mostly in winter.

Donbei’s beni shoga ten soba

This one was a huge letdown. The soba is what it is, but the beni shoga ten has hardly any beni shoga in it… why even bother putting this out?

Usukawa cheese curry bread

Great to have as a snack.

Premium Ghana Infiniment Vanille

I had high hopes since it’s a collab with Pierre Hermé, but it didn’t do much for me…

Pure Gummy Pure Ring Soda

This series is pretty tasty. It tastes a lot like cider and the texture is good too.

Karupasu

It looks a bit like salami, but it’s a cheap drinking snack made mostly from chicken. The spicy ones are seriously spicy… anyway, the value is great, so it’s handy whenever you want something light to go with a drink. Every supermarket sells it and it’s around 100 yen.

Iichiko Special highball

It’s a highball made with the premium bottling of the Japanese shochu Iichiko, and it was surprisingly good. Shochu highballs are tasty to begin with, after all.

Western pear sour

This one is so sweet you can’t taste the alcohol at all.

Mister Donut’s Godiva collab

I think it was probably a Valentine’s collab. For the price it seemed pretty good.

The liquor corner at Don Quijote

Still not amazingly cheap… but the prices do keep coming down.

Diablo canned wine

It was my first canned wine so I gave it a go, and it turned out to be a sweet wine… I’ll have to try again with a dry one.

Kata-age potato chips, yuzu kosho flavour

Just so-so.

Pocky Almond Crush

The taste is good, but it feels like the amount keeps shrinking.

Pure Gummy Premium peach flavour

This might be my discovery of the year – it genuinely tastes like a high-end dessert. Though I do end up eating so much of it that I get a bit tired of it.

Pumpernickel

Just ordinary.

The Premium Choco Bakky

It’s tasty, but plain is still the best, I reckon…

한국어로 읽기日本語で読む