Lotte Strawberry Toppo: Toppo is another staple convenience store (kobini) snack in Japan. I read somewhere that they're like inverted Pocky sticks, but they're not so much inverted as redistributed: the snack consists of long straws with a neutral biscuit exterior filled with flavored hardened icing such as chocolate and strawberry. The strawberry flavor has a good balance of sweet and tart, reminding me of the Koala's March snacks but less sweet as there is a more balanced biscuit to icing ratio. Like many Jap... (read more) 3.0/5.0
japanese strawberry inegaya lotte toppo 3.0
Nissin シスコーン BIG strawberry shortcake corn flakes: Nissin BIG is a popular brand of frosted flake cereal, the equivalent of Tony the Tiger frosted flakes. In Japan, there are much fewer cereal options, always in bags rather than boxes, and less than a handful are aimed specifically towards kids -- in the grocery stores I've been to, the cereal takes up a small fraction of the aisle compared to an entire side that you'd normally find in the states. I've had the standard frosted flakes flavor before, which tastes exactly as you'd expect, but... (read more) 3.0/5.0
japanese nissin シスコーン big strawberry shortcake corn flakes 3.0 cereal nissinworld
Happy Pocket Zackey Strawberry Wafer: Purchased this box of square, individually-wrapped wafers from the 100¥ Lawson convenience store. It consists of two different layers: a thicker strawberry icing filling, with bits of freeze dried fruit, and a thinner chocolate layer. The dried fruit was refreshingly tart, the wafers crispy but otherwise fairly ordinary. I haven't seen it elsewhere than the 100¥ store, which makes me think it's probably on the low end of the junk food totem pole. 3.0/5.0
japanese lawson happypocket zackey strawberry wafer 3.0
Kubota Strawberry Milk Popsicle: This frozen treat is flavored with milk but has a consistency more like a fruit popsicle than ice cream (it doesn't have the smooth texture of ice cream when you bite into it, but has more water content than cream). Slices of strawberry are embedded in the ice cream so you get both the fruit and the bar in each bite. The strawberry was nice and tart, but I wasn't fully convinced about the milk bar, which had a fairly neutral flavor overall. Purchased from Queens Isetan. 3.0/5.0
popsicle queensisetan japanese icecream kubota strawberry milk 3.0
Kellogg's Hershey's Strawberry Chocobits: Strawberry milk was a guilty pleasure of mine growing up. We weren't allowed to buy chocolate or strawberry syrup at home, so I would covet Nesquik powder every time I visited a friend's house. I haven't seen this brand of Hershey's cereal outside of Japan, but it normally comes in a chocolate flavor featuring cereal nuggets with a cream filling. It definitely leans more towards the taste of cereal than say an Oreo cookie, but it's also certainly engineered for a kid's palette. The straw... (read more) 3.0/5.0
cereal japanese kelloggs hershey's strawberry chocobits 3.0
Uchi Cafe Strawberry milk with tapioca and pulp: Japanese convenience stores had a wide variety of coffee beverages to chose from; one surprising offering is their packaged tea and milk drinks containing tapioca, often available in the same refrigerated section as the coffee. They come with an expandable bubble tea straw and contain boba-like spheres more akin to popping boba than chewy fresh boba. The snap of the popping boba, though, was more satisfying than I expected. Kind of like a cross between kefir, with a slightly tangy / sour ... (read more) 3.0/5.0
lawson drinks japanese uchicafe strawberry milk tapioca pulp 3.0