Seijo Ishii Green Curry Senbei Rice Crackers: This is a supermarket-branded rice cracker snack flavored like Thai green curry. The bag is not resealable, which I'm guessing means that it could be opened and eaten in a single sitting (with a group of people, though - even for me, it was about 4 servings). The crackers are Senbei Japanese rice crackers, shaped like miniature pancakes typically with a glazed coating, but the flavoring on this one was a powdered seasoning. It actually did taste remarkably like green curry, with a little ... (read more) 4.0/5.0
senbei japanese seijoishii green curry rice crackers 4.0
Gua Maral Sea Berry Lactis: Purchased this miniature bottle of juice from the Tsukuba train station at a shop dedicated to local products. From the illustration, I gather that it's sea-buckthorn juice, and it was super tart and a little milky, almost like a yogurt drink in consistency. I've had sea-buckthorn a few times, mostly at Nordic shops and restaurants, and it has a very unique sour flavor. I love it, but I can also see how it might not be to everyone's taste. Would want to have it with breakfast every day, per... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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Bec Cola Organic Cola with Maple Syrup: Bec is a Montreal-based soda company whose original product is the Bec Cola pictured here. It contains just a few recognizable ingredients: carbonated water, organic maple syrup, sugar, citric acid, and cola flavour. Typically, I find maple syrup-based drinks to be overly sweet, but this one is very judicious - it contains 27g of sugar, so it's sweet but not too sweet, and it tastes first of cola with just a finish of rich maple syrup flavor. Definitely recommend! 4.0/5.0
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Nico Sweet potato donut: There's a pocket-sized store close to the train station that sells freshly made donuts about the size of a Montreal bagel. They're a bit pricy relatively, compared to how inexpensive most things are in Japan, but a purple Japanese sweet potato donut caught my eye, and I purchased one at about $2.50. The texture of the donut was very unique, not crumbly like cake donuts, but also not oily at all like heavily fried donuts. Almost like a very light pound cake, but barely sweetened. In fact, th... (read more) 4.0/5.0
recommended tokyo japanese dessert nico sweet potato donut 4.0
The Laughing Cow Belcube Ham, Tomato, and Green Peppercorn Cheese: I used to get these Laughing Cow cheeses from supermarkets in Taiwan, but also very shortly in the US before they stopped selling them in the American market (in favor of those red-wax cheese wheels), so I was glad to see that they sell the cubes in Japan. This pack came with 15 cubes, 5 of 3 different flavors: ham, tomatoes a la provencale, and green peppercorns. Each cube is wrapped in foil and has a convenient system that peels off the central sides of the cube to make them easy to open... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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Sun Fruits Apple Juice: In the basement of the swanky Tokyo Midtown department store is a speciality fruit shop called Sun Fruits, the type of shop where sumo oranges (dekopan) are individually wrapped in a form-fitting web of styrofoam and boxes of pale white strawberries go for 8,000¥ ($73 USD). The one item I felt I could afford, and also I was most interested in trying, was a bottle of what I presumed to be a barely-pink fruit soda, which cost $3.50. It turns out that it was a bottle of apple juice, with frui... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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