Ikinari Dango Kit Kat

What an interesting looking Kit Kat! It's themed after a Japanese dessert consisting of mochi filled with sweet potato and red bean. That sounds like a wonderful combination and I'd like to scarf some of those down right now, but at least I have the next best thing right here. It also features Kumamon on the package, what a cute bear! I bet he'd like some of this too.

True to the source material, this Kit Kat has a white exterior. It also smells very strongly of sweet potato, almost too strongly. I don't get any other flavor so it's a very "raw" smell, almost savory. I wonder if the red bean is lurking inside somewhere?

The taste definitely contains a few other things besides sweet potato. The most noticeable thing is the mochi part which just comes across as creamy and soft, without too much of any other flavor. Maybe it's because it's actually flavored like mochi, or maybe it's just some very light white chocolate. There is definitely some red bean in there too, though it's not extremely noticeable first, just comes across as a cushion of sweet earthiness. The sweet potato portion like the smell is quite raw tasting, so if you love sweet potato you'll love this. But if you're on the fence, it doesn't offer too much else besides that sweet potato sensation. Unlike a lot of other snacks, I do actually feel like this could use a bit of extra sweetness.

Rating: 6 - Aruff!

Chocolate Kinako Mochi DIY

Not any especially new territory here, as I've had mochi and kinako snacks before, but the combination of them with chocolate is something I don't think I've had. It seems like it would make a good combination, with the sweetness of chocolate and the umami of kinako, with a solid base in mochi, but we'll see how this translates into DIY form.

Unfortunately, the mochi seems to have come to me broken, oh no! I'm also surprised that it's hard, as similar DIY packs have opted for soft candy here, but from what I see I'll be pouring water on the mochi to soften it up. There are also two packs consisting of the chocolate and kinako, and a utensil as expected.

After pouring the water on the mochi, things made more sense as it softened up almost immediately, and the texture definitely seemed akin to mochi. There seems to be much more kinako than chocolate which is surprising, both smell as I'd expect them to.

Tirol Kinako and Matcha Mochi

Two more Tirols! Whether they're jaw-droppingly amazing or meh, these always seem to deliver some surprises, and with unique flavors such as these ones this should be no different. I'm especially looking forward to the matcha one, as that is one of my favorite flavors in Japanese desserts, and kinako I got a taste of in a previous Japan Crate and liked it well enough, but we'll see if it shines on its own here.

For those who did not remember or did not read the previous post kinako is a soybean flour, and this chocolate has kind of a soybean taste. It's a bit like miso, sweet, kinda like peanut butter but more savory and with some umami. The chocolate is not much interesting on the outside except for a nice light brown color.

Kracie Popin Cookin Taiyaki

These look like quite the varied batch of snacks to make! The star of it of course is the taiyaki, a fish shaped pastry kinda like a waffle, with the filling of your choice (in this case chocolate). From there other Japanese desserts seem to be included: strawberry daifuku, a cup of ramune, and mitarashi dango, which appears to be soy sauced glazed mochi. And it uses the microwave, which is different. Not sure if that's because the products are meant to be eaten hot or because the microwave cooks the various powder/water mixtures.