Japonaise Bakery Green Tea Cake: Located on Beacon Street in Brookline, this small bakery has an assortment of pastries as well as packaged Japanese snacks. Their green tea cake is multi-layered, with green tea creme and a layer of gelatin on top. While the matcha flavor was not bad, the cake was a bit dry, and the gelatin was largely for texture (it didn't have much flavor). It looked better than it tasted. 3.0/5.0
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Tower Ginger Beer: Soda with poorly designed packaging tends to be very authentic - they're created by small distributors who don't have a marketing/branding team. Tower, a Boston-based soda company that's apparently been around since 1914, falls into this category. Upon further research, I found that Tower was actually founded in Somerville. The ginger beer soda is very strong, with a sharp spicy flavor, but the aftertaste was a bit strange and musty. Somehow, though, this adds to its authenticity. Purch... (read more) 3.0/5.0
soda drinks broadwaymarketplace boston somerville tower ginger beer 3.0
Lotus Foods Shoyu Arare Rice Crackers: Purchased from Whole Foods, this is the second flavor of rice crackers I've tried from the Lotus Foods brand. The product is made with whole grain brown and black rice "sourced from small family farms" (very Whole-Foods-marketing friendly). The rice crackers themselves are more hearty than most and have a distinct soy flavor. Nonetheless, I do prefer the Thai-flavored crackers I previously purchased, and I also prefer rice crackers with a more diverse set of textures and flavors. 3.0/5.0
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365 Honey Flakes & Oak Clusters Cereal: A slightly elevated version of Honey Bunches of Oats, sadly with less clusters but with a more complex honey flavor. Corn flakes retain crunchy texture in milk. A solid breakfast option. 3.0/5.0
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Trader Joe's This Mango Walks into a Bar Cereal Bar: Adding to their seasonal mango-flavored snacks, Trader Joe's introduced the fruit to their line of cereal bars. While on the sweet side, the mango flavor is concentrated and slightly tart. A decent snack that holds you up for an hour or so. 3.0/5.0
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Trader Joe's Mango O's cereal: Trader Joe's recently refreshed some of its usual product lines with seasonal mango-flavored versions. One example is their O's cereals, which otherwise comes in plain and honey renditions. This version has mango puree added to the oat O's as well as freeze dried cubes of mango. Overall, it's more tart than sweet and does have a distinct mango flavor. It's not something I would want to eat all the time, but it's not bad. 3.0/5.0
traderjoes mango o's cereal 3.0