Three on three with Phil and Karina

This is going to be another post featuring guest input from my friends. This time it is from my friends Karina and Phil, who were the ones who contributed to my Japanese Loot series of entries. The following products are Japanese, but we found them in a Korean supermarket. This supermarket had a large selection of candies, but the prices were a little bit more expensive than at a Japanese market. However, they did feature some things that I had not seen before, or things that have not returned to the shelves at Japanese markets. Anyway, the first item that we sampled was:

Blueberry Kit Kat. Meiji has a blueberry flavored chocolate bar, which is excellent as are there green tea and strawberry flavored bars. I figured that if Blueberry Kit Kat was anything similar to those, it would be worth the try.

A melted Blueberry Kit Kat. I'm going to assume that these were not the best stored candies because a majority, if not all the bars, were melted

We all agreed that this was a pretty mediocre candy. I expected a lot more, but there wasn't much flavor at all. The chocolate wasn't that good, there was a hint of blueberry, but overall it lacked flavor in general. I would recommend getting regular milk chocolate Kit Kat over this.

Blueberry Kit Kat: 6/10
Phil's input: 6 - 6.5/10
Karina's input: 6/10

The next item we tried was Mango Oreo bars. Mango and chocolate are not a combination I could have thought of. There are some fruits that pair well with chocolate, such as strawberries, but things like mangoes, oranges, or anything that you can't really imagine with chocolate never come to light, so I imagined this would be interesting

A Mango Oreo bar cut in half

The best way I can describe the way this tasted is that it's like a sub-par Chinese pineapple cake. Phil agreed with me on this and all three of us thought that this was a step down from the Blueberry Kit Kat. I expected more of a mango taste, but I suppose pineapple is the closest Oreo could get. It lacked even more flavor than the Blueberry Kit Kat and was extremely average

Mango Oreo Bar: 5/10
Phil's input: 5 - 5.5/10
Karina's input: 5/10

Lion Cola Candy was the last candy we tried and I figured that it was a safe bet. Cola candies are generally quite good when they have a fizz to them. The only time I could imagine a cola flavored candy being good without having some sort of fizz is with Haribo Cola Gummies

Lion Cola Candy from another angle

This was definitely the winner of the items we tried. It had lots of flavor, most importantly a lot of cola flavor, and it had a nice fizz to it. We've been screwed before with other hard cola candies that didn't have fizz and just weren't good at all, but this one was very good. The only thing that I could hold against it is that I think it wasn't stored properly either, so a lot of the pieces were sticky and stuck to each other, but that's more of a storage issue than a flavor issue. We're glad we tried this last, so that we could get the flavor of the previous two candies out of our mouths.

Lion Cola Candy: 8/10
Phil's input: 8 .5/10
Karina's input: 8/10

Kit Kat Bitter Almond

It had been a while since I last saw a new or interesting variety of Kit Kat at the Japanese markets I occasionally go by. This saddened me because I felt like I was Alexander and there were no (Kit Kat) lands left to conquer. However, about a week ago I was happy to find that there were still many varieties of Kit Kat that I had yet to sample.

I didn't know what this would taste like and I had no idea what TBC was. Typically, you don't see the word bitter associated with candy either. I assume the bottom left corner of the box states what percent dark chocolate it is, but who knows?

The packaging for the Kit Kat looks very nice and the Kit Kat is noticeably darker than other varieties of Kit Kat

How is this different from Dark Chocolate Kit Kat you ask? Well for one, this one was much less sweet, and slightly bitter as the box implies. It had fruity undertones nearing the end. I have to say that I rather enjoyed this product because it wasn't particularly sweet, but it still tasted like candy. I suppose this is somewhat of an adult candy as I can't see kids enjoying this that much. I liked it, but as with most foreign Kit Kat varieties, it cost more than other candy. The best substitution I'd say is to find wafer and eat them alongside and dark Lindt chocolate bar.

Kit Kat Bitter Almond: 7/10

Mixed Juice Kit Kat

Maple Kit Kats are a reasonable flavor. Green Tea Kit Kats seemed reasonable. However, there are some Kit Kat flavors that are available in other countries that really make me think. Ginger ale Kit Kats come to mind. I came across another flavor that really piqued my interest and made me ask, "Why?"

According to the English label, these are Mixed Juice Kit Kats. I don't know why someone would make this. Using the pictures, I assume that it's a strawberry-banana milk shake type of deal. However, as you can see on the upper right corner, there's a peach. This was truly a mystery.

An individually wrapped mini bar

The mystery unwrapped

What this Kit Kat tasted like, as I mentioned before, was a strawberry-banana shake. It was a nice blend of aromas as well, because if it smelled and tasted like Banana Kit Kats, I don't think that I would have liked them at all. Correction, I definitely wouldn't have liked them at all. However, things that are strawberry-banana flavored are generally solid. I suppose that's the best way to describe this bar, solid. I wonder what Peach Kit Kats would taste like, just in case Nestle was reading this.

Mix Juice Kit Kat - 4/5

Fanime Loot Part 2

Here are some other things I got at Fanime with some input from my friend Chris:

So I have no idea what this is. I do know that on the cover there is a bear serving ice cream while musical notes are playing. This looks like some sort of ice cream cone themed candy is about the best I can guess

There are two bags in there. I don't think either bag is any different. There are also numbers on the flap, I have no idea what those represent

Despite the different colors, they all taste the same

This candy was pretty good. The cones were made of chocolate and when you bite into the "ice cream" part there's a wafer or something in there. This candy certainly looks very attractive even though color means nothing. Chris' comment: "It's good, what is this a Kit Kat or something?" Funny he should say that, because...

Cone-Shaped Candy: 3.5/5

This is apparently milk tea Kit Kat. There are flowers all along the bottom and I have no idea why this is

Again, like all of the other foreign Kit Kat I've wrote about, the packaging is very attractive

I did not expect them to be white. In-between each wafer you can see what's supposed to be the coffee part

I'm not going to lie, I didn't enjoy this one very much. When I first bit into it, it was a bit too bitter for my liking. When it got sweet, it got too sweet. I couldn't find a happy medium with this candy. Chris' comment: "Blehhh..."

Milk Coffee Kit Kat: 2.5/5

And the last item for now is...

This has to be one of the most girly packaging I've ever seen; there's even a crown at the bottom left. I asked Chris if he knew what Framboise was, he said it was a raspberry flavored beer

This packaging kind of reminds me of Target's Choxie line of chocolates

The pinkish/red hue in-between each layer is the Framboise I suppose

I enjoyed this one the most out of the three items tasted for this entry. The raspberry flavor was very good and went well with the chocolate and wafer. I can look past all the girly packaging because this was a winner. Chris' comment: "Delicious"

Framboise Kit Kat: 4/5