Family Mart Melon Gelato Frappe: I was perusing the offering at the Japanese convenience store Family Mart and found a selection of frozen "drinks," or frappes. They have a bunch of different flavors, including strawberry, peach, and banana. I decided to try the Melon, which seems to be a special flavor in Japan (I recently had melon-flavored soda at Moss Burger for example). The drink comes frozen but has a conical lid that extends almost to the base of the cup, keeping the center hollow. Once you purchase the drink, yo... (read more) 2.5/5.0
drinks familymart japanese melon gelato frappe 2.5
Calbee Mentaiko cod roe potato crisps: These are Calbee branded potato crisps seemingly designed to compete directly with Pringles, as they come stacked in a similarly-shaped tube. The potato chips have a light seasoning on them but mostly taste of plain pringles, with a little bit of chili flavoring. Too plain to be interesting, although from the packaging, it looked to be a special Japanese flavor worth trying. 2.5/5.0
chips japanese calbee mentaiko cod roe potato crisps 2.5
Lotte Caramel Latte Koala Snacks: I had these Koala snacks all the time growing up in America, but the only flavors I could regularly access were chocolate, strawberry, and matcha. I was excited to find this flavor I hadn't seen before in the local 7-11 in Tokyo. This box contains koala-shaped-biscuits filled with a sort of icing / creme that's caramel latte flavored. Definitely a strong coffee and caramel flavor, but on the dessert-y side, like you're having an ice cream flavored like a caramel latte. I thought the flav... (read more) 2.5/5.0
japanese cute 711 lotte caramel latte koala snacks 2.5
Calbee Pizza Potato Chips: These are junk food potato chips I see commonly at convenience stores in Japan. (Calbee is kind of like the Japanese version of Frito-Lay.) Though the packaging shows pepperoni pizza, it doesn't have a meaty flavor to it and instead tastes oddly sweet, like too-sweet tomato sauce. The predominant flavor is sweet potato, but there's also a little bit of zingy cheddar flavor, but not much else that is reminiscent of pizza (for example, no oregano seasoning as far as I could tell). The chip... (read more) 2.5/5.0
chips potatochips japanese junkfood calbee pizza potato 2.5
Marusan Sweet Potato Soy Milk: Similar to Taiwan, there are a lot of flavored milk products on the grocery shelves. I decided to give a few a try. This one is a sweet potato-flavored soy milk that seems to only come in juice boxes, probably meant for kids. It does taste like sweet potato, but it's extremely sweet and as a result hard to finish even for a small juicebox. Imagine the pumpkin-flavored desserts you get in the US around Thanksgiving, but sweet-potato flavored. 2.5/5.0
juice japanese Daiei marusan sweet potato soy milk 2.5
Calbee Frugra fruit granola cereal: This is a Japanese cereal that contains dried strawberries, raisins, granola, almonds, and pumpkin seeds. The strawberries give it a pretty prominent sour flavor. Fairly standard as far as granola goes otherwise. 2.5/5.0
cereal japanese naniwaya calbee frugra fruit granola 2.5