I get my hands on Wasabi Kit Kat from Japan. Is it oishi or warui? Find out in this review.
Length – 2 min. 29 sec.
Natto picture in video courtesy of Rodzilla Reviews
Other Wasabi Kit Kat reviews:
Japanese Snack Reviews
ZOMG Candy
Foodette Reviews
Who doesn’t want things when they want them? For a culture that has found a way to hasten the delivery of materials in nearly every facet of life, we have yet to master the forever elusive and infinitely-adored Girl Scout Cookie. Unavailable anywhere but from the hands of the enterprising young scouts themselves, these cookies cannot be a more prized item. I’ve seen grown adults hoard these delicious treats like canned peaches in a 1962 bomb shelter.
One guy I knew could fill a tractor trailer with all the boxes of Tagalongs he’d stockpiled through the years. Another friend packed a large freezer in her garage with boxes upon boxes of Thin Mints, swearing that they tasted even better partially-thawed. All of this makes me believe that after the apocalypse, only two things will populate the earth: Cockroaches and frozen boxes of Samoas.
However, every year, the rest of us are forced to wait until Girl Scout Cookies go on sale. I know that when that much-anticipated order form starts making the rounds at the office, delicious and enticing visions of Thin Mints and my beloved Trefoils begin to dance through my head. But having a whole box of cookies (or more) to yourself is a spare-tire-inducing event. Good thing the Girl Scouts have teamed up with Nestlé to create Nestlé Crunch Limited Edition Girl Scouts candy bars. Now I can have the taste of authentic Girl Scout cookies in a bite-sized package TODAY. For a limited time.
Since Thin Mints are the most popular Girl Scout Cookie of all time, it makes sense to review the Nestlé Crunch Limited Edition Thin Mints Girl Scouts candy bar. True fans will not be disappointed. The Nestlé Crunch Thin Mints candy bar is a very nice amalgamation of everything we love about original Crunch bars and Thin Mints: “Dark chocolate cookie wafers and mint chocolate créme, topped with airy crispies.” You get two bars in a wrapper, so it’s double the pleasure, double the fun. The candy tastes like the real thing except for the “airy crispie” bits, but those add a nice texture.
If you think about it, these Nestlé Crunch Thin Mints candy bars are like an ultra-light, super-portable box of cookies! Way to go, Nestlé Crunch Limited Edition Thin Mints Girl Scouts candy bars! Yes, that’s an overly wordy title for something with a delightfully simple flavor. They’ve definitely got the “mint” part down with the tasty créme, but the “thin” part must have (thankfully) been lost in translation because these bars are pretty thick and coated in dense dark chocolate. You can’t go wrong with more dark chocolate.
Also, the layered cookie wafers create a more delicate crunch than the original Thin Mint cookies which is pretty awesome. We’re talking crispy — As crispy as your burnout neighbor in college who always wore socks with soccer sandals and kept showing up asking if you had any salsa.
Those of us who adore Thin Mints may agree that waiting for Thin Mints to come out once per year is a real trial, so the Nestlé Crunch Limited Edition Thin Mints Girl Scouts candy bars are a nice stop-gap. Impatient cookie hoarders rejoice!
(Nutrition Facts – 1 package – 200 calories, 100 fat calories, 11 grams of fat, 10 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 90 milligrams of sodium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 16 grams of sugar, 1 gram of protein, 0% Calcium, 4% Iron, 10% Vitamin C, and 0% Vitamin A.)
Item: Nestlé Crunch Limited Edition Thin Mints Girl Scouts Candy Bar
Purchased Price: $1.19
Size: 1.3 ounces (36.8 grams)
Purchased at: CVS
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Cookie hoarding. Dense dark chocolate coating. Airy crispies. Double your pleasure.
Cons: Having to wait 12 months for delicious Girl Scout Cookies. Socks with sandals. Spare tires. Only available for a limited time.
Somebody or something must have pissed off the person who created the packaging for Snickers 3X Chocolate. I imagine this individual must have found out that he is the victim of an adulterous relationship involving a baboon infected with Ebola, he lost his music library because the hard drive crashed and his DVR taped Housewives of Karadashianville instead of the latest Parks and Recreation all on the same day. How else to explain it?
This wrapper is more obnoxious than that Mad Money bald guy on CNBC that just screams at me for how stupid I am for not buying low and selling high. I admit it. I am stupid for not buying Apple stock!!! Are you happy? I know I’m a disappointment to my family. Yes, it’s called self-medication, I prefer it to self-flagellation!!
(Swallows some Johnnie Walker Double Black)
First, the package is a hideous blue with “Snickers 3X Chocolate” in a bold logo. Next to the words is “2 TO GO” in a red stripe that leads you to the words “Twist to close”. Before I can even open the damn thing, the package reminds me, or rather scolds “Save One for Later”. Eff you stupidhead, I’m gonna eat both.
In the rare times when I want a candy bar, I definitely do not want one that nags the piss out of me. Geeze, my ego can only take so much before I feel insecure and turn to a rerun of the “Facts of Life” for comfort.
Speaking of comfort, I walked into my usual convenience store. I was hoping to find those fabled 7-Eleven banh mi sandwiches a few of my friends have run into there. If Vietnamese sandwiches from a gas station sound disgusting, they probably are. Anyone who has scarfed down a Cuban breakfast grill sandwich from this place knows what hell they are bringing themselves to.
Looking in vain, I sadly went down the candy aisle toward the exit. Then a blue candy bar caught my attention. How can it not with all of its obnoxious writing? Snickers 3X Chocolate?! As humans we sure love numbers: twice as hard, five times likely, a guaranteed three times the increase, twenty five-hundred times the absorbing rate. Vague claims but, in a Pavlovian manner, we just nod and agree it is twice or five times the whatever.
Refreshingly the 3X does make sense here. It refers to the 3 times chocolate, so congratulations to all of you who have a chocolate fetish.
The bar is made of milk chocolate with chocolate caramel and chocolate flavored nougat. That’s a lot of damned chocolate! And of course there are the obligatory peanuts Snickers is known for. This Snickers aims to not only satisfy your hunger but to also satiate those who need to have as much freaking chocolate in their life as possible.
Upon opening the package, you get two dense and heavy chocolate bars that are each about two and a half inches long. They have the heft of one of those old cell phones with the flimsy retractable antenna. My wife dismissed it and continued drinking her cherry Slurpee spiked with Bacardi which makes for a quickie solution if you want a “cruise shippy” drink.
Lucky for us, the person who designed the ugly wrapper probably had little to do with the candy bar itself. The chocolate bar is indeed dense and tightly packed. I was amused when I sliced it in pieces as it resembled those educational diagrams demonstrating what is under our feet. You know the ones that look like a layer cake: first the grass, followed by the soil, then a billion old Atari 2600 cartridges buried during the video game glut, some bedrock, and finally the magma. I was concerned the bar would be tough to bite into it. However, the bar had a soft give which was nice.
I immediately tasted the roasted nuttiness from the peanuts which is the best thing to me about Snickers. The milk chocolate shell of the bar is not waxy like cheapo chocolate, rather it’s very milky and flavorful. Surprisingly, the chocolate caramel is rich but doesn’t overwhelm the peanuts. Then like the ending to most of Dolph Lundgren’s movies, I was left feeling a tiny bit disappointed. The fluffy chocolate nougat is too sweet for my liking and leaves a slight unpleasant aftertaste.
With that said, while it may sound like there is too much chocolate, Snickers 3X Chocolate works. Neither component takes over strongly even with the overly sweet nougat. You can still taste the caramel and peanuts. I like the bar enough to buy it again but if given a choice, between Snickers or its amped up chocolate cousin…I would go with the original because of the chocolate nougat.
I believe you should be able to find this at most convenience stores. It is definitely worth a try if you can get through the bitchy wrapper. If anything, you’re probably safer sticking with this than a cultural sandwich exchange from a gas station.
(Nutrition Facts – 1 bar – 210 calories, 9 grams of fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 75 milligrams of sodium, 24 grams of sugars, 1 gram of fiber, and 3 grams of protein.)
Item: Snickers 3X Chocolate Bar
Price: $1.29
Size: 3.14 oz package (contains two heavy bars)
Purchased at: 7-Eleven that has thoughtful, if not tasty, international tinged sandwiches
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: The chocolate is very milky and smooth. Ron F’n Swanson. The peanuts bring the entire bar together. No flavor overwhelms each other and works together nicely. It still satisfies and if you love everything chocolate, you can happily die now. Atari 2600 graphics. The ending to Showdown in Little Tokyo.
Cons: The chocolate nougat is a little too sweet and it leaves a bleh aftertaste. Mad Money Jim Cramer. Packaging that treats me like an imbecile. Eating both bars is 18 grams of fat, 18 grams of fat! Blowing in cartridges to get them to work. The ending to I Come in Peace (“…and you go in pieces”).
I should phone in this review like M&M’s phoned in these candies. When I hear dark chocolate and mint in the same sentence, I am thinking angels blowing into trumpets. This is followed by the confetti dropping, balloons floating and marching bands doing their rendition of the Utah Saints’ Mortal Kombat theme song, which is always terrible.
I have a penchant for both flavors and when combined, it is pure ecstasy. Some people hold peanut butter and chocolate as the most perfect union since Morrissey and Marr. Me? It is mint and chocolate.
Even though they are not dark chocolate, I have been known to hoard boxes of creamy Andes. Those foil wrapped miniature packages neatly lined in a row like files, the only candies that satiate my craving and OCD. I know I’m getting ahead of myself so let me slow down and explain. Mars (the company, not the planet continually invading us for all sorts of insipid reasons) brings us Mint M&M’s made with Dark Chocolate. I’m guessing “made” for Mars must mean “let’s pretend”.
The Coconut M&M’s are decent but the pretzel ones made me want to feed them to my neighbor’s yappy dogs that bark non-stop (shut up damn you!!!). I buy the dark chocolate peanut ones when I find them because those are chocolate heroin. So hit or miss, I’m always going to try any variety M&M’s releases. However, I may amend my decision after eating these.
You know that feeling when you’re in class or a meeting, and voices start to melt into a
numbing drone? The only thing keeping you awake is your urge to pee so you continue to drink that warm bottle of water for survival. You realize the notes you are scribbling are in reality a bunch of geometric shapes or stick figures doing dances (maybe something worse). Your daydreams start to lull the brain to shut down and take a nap. Well that is what happened to my taste buds when I ate these things.
That is correct, they passed out. As if they stole a couple of tabs of Ambien, my own taste buds freaking signed off and fell asleep. I swear I saw the old color pattern and heard the long tone when stations used to go off the air at night.
Are they bad? Are they good? Like my wife’s reaction to Giorgio Moroder’s version of “Metropolis”, indifferent. The M&M’s are neither minty enough nor bitter for my liking. They taste like the normal ones a half hour after you brushed your teeth and Listerined your mouth.
Upon biting the familiar candy shell, you are left tasting chocolate with a very limp mint flavor. The chocolate is a tad buttery which is normal for M&M’s but I could not detect any of the dark chocolate. The weakness of the mint is an understatement. The weakness of the dark chocolate is worse as it hardly makes its presence. The aftertaste is a strange sweet mint pastiness that remains there like an unwelcome guest that won’t go home already.
It’s like rebound sex after a crushing breakup or eating “Chinese” at Panda Express. It fills the need but will ultimately leave you dissatisfied. There were no rewards, no emotion, no enjoyment and worse, my desire for those flavors were still screaming at me.
“What happened?” my stomach asked.
“Shit if I know.” I whispered quietly to myself. “My tongue flatlined yo.”
“Yo?”
“Shuddap stupid stomach.”
“You both shut up!” screamed my kidney.
Annoying, the M&M’s are shades of dark and light green as if to remind me they were supposed to be minty. These didn’t suck if you love the normal M&M’s but if you wanted that clean and roasted flavor, you will be disappointed. I’m not sure if disappointed really expressed what I am going for. I think betrayed is more like it.
Speaking of betrayal, my wife likes them but agrees the dark chocolate seems to be missing. She thinks the mint is at an even level but I want somewhere near the vicinity of Junior Mints. Additionally, she dated and married me, so what does my wife know about taste?
I’m not going to go as far to say these are awful because they are not. What they are is misleading. You are better off chewing a piece of spearmint gum for a minute or crunching a peppermint hard candy and then eating some regular M&M’s. That seems more trouble than necessary, which is the overwhelming message I got from eating these, “Why bother?”
(Nutrition Facts – 1 pack (1.50 ounce bag) – 210 calories, 10 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 20 milligrams of sodium, 29 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 26 grams of sugars, and 2 grams of protein.)
Other Mint Dark Chocolate M&M’s:
Candyblog
Item: Mint Dark Chocolate M&M’s
Price: $1.29
Size: 1.50 ounce bag
Purchased: A Non-Descript 7-Eleven
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: That candy shell is still fun to bite into. The chocolate is buttery and slightly rich. Satisfying your mental quirks and cravings in one quick stroke. Finally peeing and shouting “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” after holding it for so long. Mars Attacks!
Cons: The mint is weak. The dark chocolate is weaker. Having conversations with your own organs. White Hen Pantry was gobbled up by 7-Eleven, booooo to corporate synergy. Ghosts of Mars.
When I heard about Crispy M&M’s, I celebrated by eating a spoonful of Rice Krispies. So when I learned about Cinnamon M&M’s, I thought I’d celebrate in a similar fashion and eat a spoonful of cinnamon.
However, it turns out eating cinnamon powder is really hard to do. If only, I searched on YouTube using the words “cinnamon fail” before my celebratory cinnamon consuming, then I would’ve seen the dozens of failed cinnamon eating attempts that involved lots of coughing.
A bag of Cinnamon M&M’s contains candy with four different colored shells: red, dark red, dark brown, and darker brown. Although, at different angles, it kind of looks like there are only three. They also come in different sizes. Some are the same size of regular M&M’s, while others are just as big as Peanut M&M’s or a size in between.
The candy has a pleasant, but very faint, sweet cinnamon flavor and it goes well with the milk chocolate. You’ll probably get more cinnamon flavor if you were to open your mouth downwind from some poor man or woman who just failed at eating a spoonful of cinnamon. Unfortunately, for some strange reason, that very faint flavor pretty much disappears after eating four or five pieces, and it tastes as if you’re eating regular M&M’s.
I thought the disappearance of cinnamon flavor was weird so I decided to do some experiments, and I’ve come to the conclusion that not all the pieces of candy in a bag of Cinnamon M&M’s have cinnamon in them. (Oh wait, the ingredients list doesn’t list it as cinnamon, instead it’s listed as “Natural Flavor.”) I believe the small dark brown pieces taste like regular M&M’s, while the red and dark red pieces have cinnamon flavor.
I did eat several red pieces in a row and the cinnamon flavor didn’t fade, so perhaps the disappearance of the cinnamon flavor when I first ate them could be attributed to me not eating more red pieces. I’d find out for sure, but I’ve already gone through half of the bag while writing this review.
One last thing. It’s been several minutes since I ate my last Cinnamon M&M, but it left behind a slightly cinnamon-y, slightly weird taste in my mouth. I wish I had some cinnamon gum to get rid of it.
The seasonal Cinnamon M&M’s are a nice tangent from the usual flavors, but its subdued cinnamon flavor doesn’t make me want to start a Facebook campaign to get Mars Inc. to make it a regular year-round flavor.
(Nutrition Facts – 1.5 ounces – 210 calories, 80 calories from fat, 9 grams of fat, 5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 30 milligrams of sodium, 30 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 26 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.)
Item: Cinnamon M&M’s
Price: $2.99
Size: 9.9 ounces
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Pleasant cinnamon flavor. It’s another M&M’s flavor. Candy comes in a variety of sizes and colors. Crispy M&M’s.
Cons: Faint cinnamon flavor. Not all of the pieces seem to have cinnamon flavor. Where are Crispy M&M’s? Left a weird taste in my mouth. Trying to eat a spoonful of cinnamon.
