Yaokin Cream Rusk

 

Despite having a rusk snack in the past, I'm still not quite sure I've figured out what rusk is. It seems that it's a type of sweet crunchy toast, which sounds quite nice, and it's obviously one that translates well into packaged form, with crunchy things staying good for a long time. And who better to make it than Yaokin, who time and time again makes some nice packaged pastries? But nothing has ever topped their pudding marshmallows, mmm... maybe this one can do it.

Unfortunately, as sometimes happens with shipped foods, this one broke in the package. But no worries, doesn't make it any less tasty. As predicted, seems this takes the form of a very crunchy sweet toast, and it certainly has a nice buttery, creamy smell coming from it. Hopefully it's not too crunchy, I want it to have a bit of satisfying squish.

Putting the first bit in my mouth, I'm definitely getting good things from this. The creamy flavor seems to instantly melt and fill my mouth with its comforting essence, all while I crunch away the rest of it. It looks like this is due to a thin top player of soft cream, and although tiny that really does help glue this all together. It's quite simple yet works so well. If a packaged snack is this nice and comforting, I'd like to try the real thing! It does suffer mildly from being a bit too one note, being only cream, I would love to see this paired with another flavor. But what they've done here is very nice.

Rating: 8 - Rowf!

Yaokin Sweet Potato Yokan

While sweet potato may be out of season now, the its hearty flavor is always in season in my taste buds! It seems like no matter what form sweet potato takes it manages to keep its status as a comfort food. But can this tiny jelly snack bring the same kind of comfort? It's also worth noting that this takes the form of a traditional Japanese snack known as yokan, which is a thick jelly usually eaten in non-package form. But with this innovation of packaged yokan, it can be shipped to anywhere in the world!

This snack, as it turns out, is quite high maintenance. I couldn't get the package open, even with my ever-developing teeth, so I had to resort to scissors for this. And as it's a jelly, getting this thing to slide all the way out of the package can be an ordeal. It does stay together unlike some of the other jellies, but it's quite sticky. It does have that perfectly nutty sweet potato flavor though, that brings back all those nice fall memories.

As it turns out, this tastes... exactly like a sweet potato. There's a little more bite here than most jellies, and as it turns out, a little bite with some squishiness gives you the exact texture of a sweet potato. The flavor is spot on too, so much so that I'm a little suspicious this is just packaged sweet potato. But that isn't a bad thing if so, it's a little hit of fall comfort for anyone who needs it on the go. Doesn't that sound like a nice idea?

Rating: 7 - Aroof!

Yaokin Apple Roll

While Japanese candy has introduced me to a lot of unique flavors in types of food, some of them can definitely be a little derivative. Take this one for instance, which seems to be the Japanese version of a fruit roll-up. Not that I'm complaining of course, as those can be plenty yummy with their soft-thin texture and vibrant flavor. Also this one is entirely apple, so it'll be interesting to see which route they take with the apple flavor, as there are a myriad of natural and artificial apple flavors out there.

At first glance, this seems to be much closer to Fruit by the Foot. It also is bright green just like the packaging and the strange looking apple character on the front. It could be color association but the smell seems similar to a green apple Jolly Rancher, so that's what I'm expecting, and 3-ish feet of that sounds quite fine to me!

The gummy is a bit tougher than I've expected and requires a bit of force to get off of the paper, but I guess that's how Fruit by the Foot is too, better than being a mess of gummy and paper in the packaging. The apple flavor is a bit more natural than the green apple flavor actually, which means it's not as much as an in-your-face flavor as a Jolly Rancher, but more subdued and refreshing. It's quite a welcome change. I do wish though that this had just a bit more flavor. As I go through the rest of the roll I'm always left a bit unsatisfied and wanting more, and that itch is never scratched even when it's gone. The roll also sticks to my teeth a bit more than I'd like it to. I like to keep these clean for hunts!

Rating: 6 - Aruff!

Yaokin 7 Stick

The name of this product stumped me for way longer than it should have. Why was it 7? 7 ingredients? Nah, literally seven sticks! I'm not sure why this is the basis for naming something, but hopefully there's something more to this treat than having seven of them. Maybe it'll give me 7 reasons to eat it? I'll try to come up with them.

Already opening the bag I see two reasons to eat this: first of all the smell. I was expecting to be overwhelmed but now I have much higher expectations with this great aroma wafting out of the wafer sticks! It smells almost like freshly baked sugar cookies, and there's the cream filling wafting through, mmm... Another reason is the shape. I'm not sure what it is but I really like the round sticks with the square edges. Lots of variety when I sink my teeth into them!

Unfortunately the taste and filling isn't quite as vibrant as advertised. The wafer doesn't have quite enough flavor for my liking. It's somewhat of a typical taste to a wafer sandwich cookie, the wafer having a pleasant sugary buttery flavor but ultimately really light and unsatisfying.I keep eating more hoping for more satisfaction but... nothing. And the cream is barely there as shown in the picture. I get a glimmer of the cream, but that too ultimately is disappointing because there's only a smidge of it. Why do you tease me so??? So ultimately the 7 reasons aren't really there, because while this seems like a good snack in theory, it's too light on flavor and substance to really work. Disappointing, because it had all the components to be 7 shades of aroo.

Rating: 3 - Rrr

Yaokin Strawberry Daifuku Marshmallow

Another marshmallow! With the two highest rated things on this blog so far being marshmallows, you know I'm already salivating for this one. This is strawberry flavored, which doesn't appeal to my puppy senses as much as pudding or churro but I'm sure Yaokin is cooking up something great with this one too. This treat comes courtesy of market-tokyo, who actually gave this as a bonus with my order of their pudding marshmallows. Imagine my surprise! So here we go, another marshmallow to review.

Yaokin Butter Cream Roll Cake

Yaokin! Good to have you back. This Japanese brand has already shown me the wonders of pudding and marshmallows, so I have high hopes for this treat. This is the first Japanese pastry-type snack I've had, and I love me some pastries. Trust me, it took a huge amount of self control to not pounce on the matcha cake rolls at my Japanese market. This particular one though is butter cream flavor, and it looks like it has a wonderful yellow filling. Which suggests lemon, but I guess not. Yellow butter can be a thing.

Yaokin Pudding Marshmallow

For once I'm going to cut the fancy introduction and just say these things are incredible. So incredible that this was actually the first thing I ate when I first got the November Japan Crate a month ago, and it was so good that I immediately ordered two of these giant bags of them. This is a real gem, in fact my tail is already going a mile a minute at the chance to try these again. In fact I think my instincts are taking ove---AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!