These Morinaga Choco Balls were amongst the wide assortment of Japanese candies given to me by my friend Michael. It took me a while to find the name of these. The Morinaga logo is fairly clear in the top left corner (they make the pretty ubiquitous Hi-Chew candies), but the Choco Ball 40th Kyorochan seal is harder to notice. I wish I knew what Kyorochan means – maybe Choco Balls are celebrating a 40th anniversary? If so, then I’m not surprised that they’ve been around for so long. One taste of these Choco Balls had me addicted.
The Choco Balls are basically a crunchy chocolate cookie inside a shiny white chocolate coating – think Whoppers, but with different flavors. Usually I don’t enjoy white chocolate, as I find it way too sickeningly sweet, but here, it’s delicious. Like many Asian chocolates, the white chocolate shell has a creamy, fresh milk essence that’s refreshing. Maybe that’s why that toucan-looking thing on the box has a dairy cow print body.
The balls are perfectly-sized for popping, making it easy to get addicted.They’re smaller than Whoppers but bigger than M&Ms, and wonderfully, uniformly spherical. The clever packaging has a built-in spout near the top, and I found myself constantly reopening it to pour more Choco Balls into my hand so I could pop them in my mouth. I wish they came in a bigger box, as mine was all too soon emptied. An OMG for sure.
Varsha