Akai Bonshi Coconut Choco Sand Cookies: When I first came to Japan, I was surprised to always see the word "Sand" on cookie products but realized that "sand cookies" are a basic type of thin cookie somewhere between shortbread and sugar. This bag contained three varieties of sandwich cookies: pineapple, mango, and banana, which have different creme fillings. They're all pleasantly tropical and are equally sweet and rich, with a toasted coconut coating. Purchased at Queens Isetan grocery store in Tokyo. 3.5/5.0
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Nissin Annoimo Waguri sweet potato cookies: I grew up eating coconut sable biscuits from Asian grocery stores, the type that has scalloped edges and a glazed coating with flakes of sugar. I like them so much that i made the biscuit my avatar for Tasty Snacking. It turns out that in Japan, there are extended flavors of this basic coconut cookie. For autumn, they have a sweet potato flavor with decorative packaging featuring maple leaves and chestnuts. I was pretty amazed by how concentrated they were able to get the sweet potato flav... (read more) 3.5/5.0
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YBC Noir Cocoa Cookies: These are the Japanese equivalent of Oreo cookies, which I tend to have about once a year at the MIT Mystery Hunt competition. Since Mystery Hunt was completely remote this year, I wasn't able to partake in the normal consumption of college-dorm junk food normally shared in person to fuel late-night puzzling, but I still wanted to capture the spirit, which led me to purchase this snack. The YBC snack packs are ubiquitous and can be found at basically all convenience and grocery stores. Ov... (read more) 3.5/5.0
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Morinaga Marie Lemon Tea Cookies: Lemon tea is a common drink you can find in grocery stores in Japan, basically like iced tea in the US but generally less sweet. Marie is normally a very plain circular biscuit from Japanese food giant Morinaga (hockey puck shaped and the type you'd see labeled as "digestives") but this box contained lemon-tea flavored sandwich cookies that had a surprisingly solid herbal black tea flavor with a bit of sweet lemon acidity. The biscuits themselves are crumbly and much more like cookies than... (read more) 3.5/5.0
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Trader Joe's Lemon Baton Wafer Cookies: One of the better cookie options from TJ's, these Pirouline-like wafers are thinner and crispier, with a pale crispy coating and sweet, slightly floral lemon filling. Would purchase again (something I'd only say for about ~25% of the snacks I've tried from TJs). 3.5/5.0
recommended traderjoes lemon baton wafer cookies 3.5
Legally Addictive Surprise Party Cookies: Another item from my snack box was a set of "cookies made from crackers," which were biscuit-based crackers loaded with a kitchen sink of ingredients some may crave (half dipped in chocolate and covered in sprinkles, toffee coated on the other side). As someone who has always felt sprinkles are both frivolous and awful tasting, these sprinkles were fairly neutral – at the very least a largely tasteless (flavor-wise) version of a tasteless (aesthetically) decoration. The best part was the t... (read more) 3.5/5.0
recommended legallyaddictive surprise party cookies 3.5