Marrons glaces

Lotte really seems to have a knack for these seasonal releases. Somehow it genuinely tastes close to real marrons glaces. It’s like chocolate with chestnut and brandy mixed in, and for the price it’s remarkably well made.

Mochi-gatsuo

Bonito sashimi with that springy, chewy flesh you only get at this time of year is called mochi-gatsuo. The taste goes without saying.. it’s been a while since I had bonito this fresh.. Living near a port is nice for exactly this sort of thing. I put sliced new-crop spring onion alongside it, and even just dipped in soy sauce it’s delicious..

A park

Shizuoka-grown Crown Melon

Shizuoka’s Crown melons are delicious and expensive, and it seems they pulled the essence out of one and put it into cheese. It tastes good. Good enough that I’m curious how they reproduced it this well.

Juicy-kun Hamburg

I spotted Juicy-kun Hamburg at FamilyMart. I had no idea it was this popular..

So I cooked one up.

Oh, but it really is good. This Juicy-kun Hamburg outfit apparently used to supply hamburg steaks to Sawayaka, the famous Shizuoka hamburg chain. Then, once Sawayaka started producing in its own factory, they rebranded the hamburg they had been making and put it out under their own name – so you can pretty much treat it as tasting almost the same as a Sawayaka hamburg. No wonder it’s good, then. It also looks like a decent thing to take along camping.

Butter no Itoko

Butter no Itoko is a milk-focused dessert shop up in the Nasu Highlands, and since it’s so popular that it’s hard to get hold of, I ordered online – and it arrived three weeks later.. I had no idea it would take that long. Their most popular item is a wafer sandwiching milk cream and caramel, and eating it, the rich milky aroma of the cream reins in the sweetness of the thick caramel nicely, for a well-balanced flavour. There’s a reason things get this popular.. That said, it is extremely sweet, so it’s best to go in expecting that..

It looks like this..

It got a little banged up sitting in the freezer, but it tasted fine.

Itoko no Rusk

The rusks are good too, but again, seriously sweet. They’re not a bad gift, except that they take so long and you can’t tell when they’ll turn up.. Just ordering casually whenever you feel like eating them yourself seems like the best approach.

Sweet potato chips made with Beni Tenshi

Calbee’s sweet potato chips are high quality. All they’ve done is slice sweet potato and bake it, yet it comes across very much like a dessert. Beni Tenshi, a premium sweet potato variety, was new to me – light, but with an aged sweetness, and I suspect that flavour comes from the potatoes being cured in storage once the season is over. My only complaint is that the bag is a bit small..

Calbee’s kabosu-flavour potato chips

Slightly tart, and I enjoyed them.

Donbei Saikyo (strongest) curry udon

A mild, dashi-forward, orthodox curry udon. For my palate it was a touch too mild – I think it would have been better with a bit more spice. The Awaji Island onion curry udon from before was just right on that front.

Kororo Sato Nishiki cherry gummies

The cherry flavour came through pretty strongly.

Strawberry & Raspberry

Like the marrons glaces, this is another Lotte seasonal chocolate, and the bright, tangy flavour was nice.

Rum Raisins

Rum Raisins is a notch below Rummy, the winter-only one.

Premium Ghana Chocolat Carre, Radiant Sicilian Lemon

As the weather warms up, all sorts of lemon-flavoured products come out. This one was solid too.

Lemon Squash

This was refreshing and good as well. Lemon really is a good thing.

Chocott’s grape tart

It was delicious. As you’d expect from a shop that’s good at tarts.

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