Calbee Jagariko Salad Potato Sticks: These cylindrical potato sticks are a staple in convenient stores in Japan, typically packaged in small bucket-shaped containers for single serving snacking, but they are also available in multiple-servings pouches from supermarkets. The salad flavor incorporates flecks of orange and green, potentially to signal that carrots, celery, and other seemingly heathier things have been added, but the main taste is of fried potato and oil. They have a satisfying, substantial crunch yet hold their s... (read more) 3.5/5.0
recommended japanese coop calbee jagariko salad potato sticks 3.5
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
recommended japanese coop morinaga marie lemon tea 3.5 cookies
Calbee Fried Chicken Potato Chips: Thickly cut, ridged potato chips whose seasoning is reminiscent of fried batter and chicken bouillon with a deeply savory flavor. It tastes like when you lick your fingers after eating fried chicken, which is it say you get the sort of greasy flavor of fried foods with a hint of meat, rather than full on chicken flavor. 3.0/5.0
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Denroku Okay Pea Eel Peanut Snacks: Rice cracker balls that each contain a single roasted peanut, with a squid-flavored coating that's full of umami. Uses squid from Hokkaido. The balls are slightly smaller than puffed cheese balls but are just as snackable. Kind of like how some cereals feature only granola clusters rather than a mix of flakes and sliced nuts, these peanut rice snacks are typically the best part of rice cracker mixes, so I'm happy to have a bag of the most tasty bits. 3.5/5.0
recommended japanese coop ricecrackers denroku okay pea eel peanut snacks 3.5
Denroku Rice cracker mix: A standard but tasty mix of rice cracker snacks with small dried silver fish and peanut-encased crunchy rice balls. Sweet soy glaze coats many of the rice crackers, but the overall flavor leans savory. 3.0/5.0
japanese coop ricecrackers denroku rice cracker mix 3.0
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
recommended cookies japanese coop ybc noir cocoa 3.5