ZOMG, Candy!

These Meiji Pupurun Grape Gummis came in my generous free sample box from Tsunami.hk. They came in a conveniently resealable bag with a cute mascot and an intriguing rendering of the gummi’s cross-section.

Each gummi was the size of a gum drop but with a rounder domed shape. They had a stiff outer shell that was thickest at the top. The center was a softer gummi that was just shy of an oozy goo in texture.

They tasted sweet and juicy with a nice floral flavor that I thought was more strawberry than grape. The finish, however, had a noticeable grape taste that tasted quite genuine and was not at all medicinal.

While there was nothing revolutionary about the flavor of the gummis, I absolutely loved the texture. The solid flavor combined with their unique texture earned these an OM.

I got these Japanese peach gummis in my generous free sample box from Tsunami.hk. They’re solid proof that the Japanese are darn good at making gummis (along with creepy robots).

The gummis came in a resealable bag with a luscious white peach and a blue um… condom-like button promising 2600 mg of… something. The gummis themselves were an opaque mustard yellow and shaped like idealized Asian cartoon peaches.

I loved their soft, bouncy texture. It was a pleasure to feel them sproinging against my teeth. For me, that’s the ideal gummi texture.

They tasted sweet and floral, with a hint of citrus flavor. If I hadn’t known that they were supposed to be peach, I would have guessed that they were orange or fruit punch.

Either way, the flavor was refreshing and delicious. I liked that the sweetness wasn’t overpowering or artificial tasting. It was just sweet enough.

A great combination of flavor and texture earns these guys an OMG. My bag disappeared far too quickly.

Leave it to the Japanese to decide that Ginger Ale would make a good Kit Kat flavor. I’d read reviews of Ginger Ale Kit Kats on other sites, but it sounded so weird that I still really wanted to try one for myself. Lucky for me, there was one in my free sample box from Tsunami.hk.

The Kit Kat was a yellow-ish white chocolate. It smelled exactly like soda, though I thought the scent was more citrusy than gingery. I’d say more like Sprite or Fresca than ginger ale.

The bars’ outer white chocolate coating was super soft and melted in my fingers. It tasted of overly sweet white chocolate with a hint of citrus.

Most of the “ginger ale” flavor lay in the cream filling sandwiched between the crisp wafers. It tasted weirdly sour and effervescent. Every once in a while, there was a sharply piquant crystal of sour lime flavor.

I wasn’t a fan of the combination of white chocolate and citrus and effervescence. The whole thing had an awful finish that I found off-putting.

Flavor-wise, I thought it merits a –. But I am glad I got to try it. It’s definitely a taste experience!

I got a bunch of Japanese Kit Kats in my free sample box from Tsunami.hk. For some reason, Kit Kats in Japan have taken on a life on their own, with dozens of always available and seasonal/limited edition flavors, some of which are quite weird.

Today’s review is of the first of the lot: Royal Milk Tea (ginger ale, 2 kinds of matcha, and raspberry cheesecake were the other ones Tsunami.hk sent).

I liked this Kit Kat’s outer packaging, with its plaid background and depiction of the iconic Queen’s Guards. The box held two individually packaged pairs of fingers. Their packaging was blue with a single guard’s silhouette.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect for the flavor. Does the “royal” apply to the milk or to the tea? I guessed that it would be a tea-flavored take on a cafe latte/cafe au lait.

The fingers were white chocolate with the usual Kit Kat cookie wafers. They tasted of vanilla and fresh milk, with a strong creaminess at the finish.

There was a bit of fragrant floral-ness mixed in with all that lovely dairy-ness, which made me think that they were aiming for Earl Grey for the tea component.

I loved the complexity of the flavors, but it was a tad too sweet for my taste. An O.

I recently got a generous shipment of free samples from Tsunami.hk, a Hong Kong company that ships Japanese and Asian goods to the US. They’ve got an impressive and ever-changing selection of Japanese food and drink, including lots of candy!

I don’t read Japanese. Fortunately, Tsunami translated the product name for me: Kabaya Nameraka Pudding Chocolate.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get translations for all the text on the box, so I can only guess at what the chocolate cross section is labeling. I believe it’s something along the line of chocolate cap, custard pudding filling, and custard-flavored shell?

Each pudding chocolate was individually wrapped. The chocolates themselves are cutely flower shaped. They look like tiny flans.

They taste like flan too. They’re sweet, creamy, and custardy with a chocolate finish. There was no discernible visible difference between the center and the white chocolate outer shell, but its texture was different – a little lighter and mousse-like.

I found it tasty and cute and quite unique in both flavor and shape. An OM.

Just when I thought I’d exhausted the Qra Qra line (I previously reviewed lemon and milk), I found this bag of Strawberry Qra Qra in a newly discovered Rochester Asian grocery store. As a bonus, it was $0.89, a whole ten cents cheaper than at my previous Qra Qra source.

For some reason, the Qra Qra kangaroo gets to wear a crown on this bag. Qra qra kangaroo – try saying that quickly three times in a row!

The strawberry flavor on these chews is super genuine. Bright, sweet, tangy, and surprisingly tart – almost but not quite too tart.

I can really taste the concentrated strawberry juice from the ingredients list. You know how biting into a dried cherry yields a burst of chewy flavor? This is like biting into the dried cherry equivalent of a strawberry (forgive my ignorance if you can dry strawberries; I’ve only ever seen them freeze-dried). It yields a great punch of flavor.

The sugar shell on the outside has a bit of a grain to it that crumbles in the mouth. Most of the flavor is concentrated in the chewy center. Like the previous Qra Qra, the chew is long lasting.

Conceptually, it’s similar to a strawberry Starburst, but it’s executed to the nth degree. More chew, more flavor, more deliciousness. The lemon is still my favorite Qra Qra because I love citrus fruit candies, but I’d buy a bag of strawberry to go with my lemon anytime. An OM.

Back when I reviewed the Qra Qra Lemon, I pointed out the weirdness of the name. The Qra Qra Milk sees the Lemon’s unpronounceable Qras and raises it an inexplicable flavor. What exactly is a milk flavor, any way?

Milk flavored candy is actually a common find in Asian markets (I’ve reviewed a hard milk candy in the past), and I usually find them quite enjoyable. But chewing on milk? I dunno…

The Qra Qra did not taste like vanilla. Instead, it tasted of cooked milk, like the skin that forms when you heat up milk, with maybe a bit of coconut milk to it as well. It was almost savory and had a hint of salt in the finish.

The flavor reminded me of a buttered popcorn Jelly Belly but less buttery. The scent of it as it’s being chewed (and the lingering Qra Qra breath that one is left with) is spot-on buttered popcorn Jelly Belly.

While the Qra Qra milk was still quite chewy (chewchew chewchew), it wasn’t as long lasting as the lemon. Despite its chew-time advantage, the Qra Qra Milk did not disappear nearly as quick as its lemon counterpart did. I was torn between giving them an O or a — and ultimately settled on an O. While they’re not bad, they’re also not really good, but they are intriguing, so a bonus letter point there.

More from my stash of Korean candy, courtesy of Nana and Justin (past hits included Crunky Nude Balls). Nana phonetically translated the title to be “Ti Dui” but doesn’t know what the words actually mean. She also informs me that somewhere on there is a character for flavor, I think under the fruit pictures on the bottom seam.

Thank goodness for pictures. I guessed that these would be like peanut M&Ms, only with lemon, apple, and orange flavored shells, and I guessed right!

Unlike peanut M&Ms, the peanuts in the Ti Dui tasted unroasted and young (is that the right word for it? They felt like they needed more time to develop their flavors). I did catch one in the package that had some depth and tasted nicely roasty, though I now wonder if it was an anomaly, and I actually just ate a half rancid nut or something.

They come in four colors and flavors. All have a crunchy candy shell (slightly thicker and thus crunchier than M&M shells) around a layer of generic milk chocolate encasing a peanut. I appreciated the earthy color scheme, especially the lovely shade of green.

Yellow is lemon. It starts off with a light sweetness, which then becomes a bit tart before the chalky chocolate and peanut flavor come through. The shell alone tastes vaguely sweet but not fruity. For all of these, the fruit flavor is melded into the chocolate, I think.

Orange is orange. It tastes like just plain chocolate up until the finish, which is mellow and round with floral orange notes.

Green is apple. It has an immediate Fuji apple sweetness that reminds of apple Jell-o. It’s too weird for me. As past experience has shown, I do not appreciate the combination of apple and chocolate.

And finally, brown is just chocolate, meaning that it tastes like meh chocolate around a meh peanut for an all around meh-ness.

I give these an O. I’m not sure how much I appreciate the fruit and candy shell and chocolate combination, but I did manage to finish the package over the course of a few weeks, popping a few at a time. I really only found the apple one repelling, and I even ate those eventually. Then again, I did mostly finish them because I’d left the package at my desk, thus keeping them always in sight and in mind. Had I kept them elsewhere, I would’ve forgotten about them, probably.

Lotte’s Crunky Nude Balls were the most hilariously named of the Korean candies that Nana and Justin sent me. Here’s Nana’s description: “Bought just for the name…Crunky is a Korean Nestle Crunch rice chocolate; here the puffed rice is on the outside.” Like the Pepero, it’s “nude”, meaning inside out.

They came packaged in a plastic barrel with a flip-top, which was quite fun. Each ball was about the size of a grape and covered in tiny rice crisps. When I say covered, I do mean covered. There’s very little chocolate that showed through on the surface area of the ball.

The rice crisps were nuttier than I expected. I wonder if they were brown rice crisps?  They tasted almost like cornflakes or sesame seeds. The rice crisps were also found within each ball.

The chocolate was thick with dusky hints of malt. The texture paired well with the airy puffs of rice. The sesame/cornflake notes were a different taste experience. I’m not sure exactly how much I appreciated the flavor pairing, but the texture and delivery of the chocolate treats was quite fun.

I give these an OM. I bet they’d be even better with cookie bits or more normal-tasting rice puffs.

More candy goodness from Korea! Nana translated the name of these red gummy grapes into “my gummy,” which I’m guessing is the brand.

The gummies inside were soft and gooey, with barely any bite to the texture. Each gummi was shaped like a bunch of grapes, prettily purple with just a tinge of pink when the light shines through it.

The gummies were lightly sweet with a floral flavor that was quite genuinely that of red table grapes. There was a big 50% on the package. Despite my complete lack of ability to read Korean, I’m going out on a limb and guessing that they’re made of 50% real fruit or fruit juice, as they certainly taste like they are.

These were far better than most grape flavored gummies that are available in the states, as it tasted like the actual fruit. An OM.