Two sites of note.

First of all Retro Comedy has a great list of disturbing candy adds from the past, and low and behold candy adds made the cut. Funny and a little dark.

Click here to check it out.

Secondly I’ve discovered this fun little site all about making crappy junk food into great looking fancy meals. Tonight I dine on flambé McNuggets.

More here.

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Old Time Candy Shop

I went to a Japanese old time candy shop and it was very different than one I might find in North America. The treats are more like a cross between cookies and fine art.

My friend Yuriko that recommended this place shared this strange little cookie with me.

It was made of egg yolk dough with a red jelly centre. It’s a challenge to get over North American boundaries of what you would expect in food, but once you do it can be very rewarding.

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Brent comes through on the expensive fruit.

Today Allison, Brent, Kaoru and myself decided to visit the really expensive fruit store in the Midtown Tokyo Mall. Brent had never seen really expensive fruit before and we were all delighted.
Brent however could not contain himself and decided that he should buy a banana (the cheapest thing available at the time) for about 3 or 4 dollars.
He quickly took his bag out of his bag.
Digging in that bag he was overjoyed…
To find that his banana was in yet another bag.
Feverishly Brent battled with his bag in anticipation of what might be the best banana experience ever.
Finally freed of it’s plastic and paper shackles the banana was ready.
To be released from it’s natural, but yet another package.
Brent took a bit and proclaimed that it was in fact a banana.
Kaoru also pointed out that it was in fact a banana.
Brent was nice enough to share his banana with us all.
All of us exclaiming that it was a banana.
In short it was a banana, it was a good banana, and maybe it was the best banana ever, but we weren’t too sure about that.

You can read more about expensive fruit and maybe buy me a pricey melon here.


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Death by Chocolate

It’s hard not to make fun of this tragedy. After all how many people have wished that they could die at the hands of chocolate.

Click here to read more.

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Kit Kat Misunderstanding

I saw this box of Kit Kat the other day at a train station and I was super happy.
I thought I found Sakura (or cherry blossom) flavoured Kit Kat. It inspired me to do a Kit Kat review for every day week soon.
I thought the box was really cool to, because Japan Post designed it so you could mail these fine treats to your friends with a cool message.
As it turns out however the treats are in fact not Sakura Kit Kat but just regular Kit Kats in fancy boxes. Well either way I think I’m going to do the Kit Kat every day plan anyways; maybe I’ll just be a day shorter than I thought though.


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Candy Fact 4

The creator of Lucky Charms cereal came up with idea by experimentation. The one that lead him there was he chopped up some Circus Peanuts and put them in his Cherrios.

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What is the Ultimate Japanese Treat (Jellies)

One of the things I keep finding in so many places is Jelly. Sometimes the Jelly is in a little cup and it’s fruit flavoured, sometimes it’s in a fancy bowl filled with real fruit, but there’s no doubt that Jellies are very popular here in Tokyo.

The most elaborate ones I tend to find are in department store basements. There they have these fine boxes of Jellies with fruit suspended in perfect condition. The other end of the spectrum is the bag of little Jellies you find in a grocery store for only a couple of hundred Yen.

At the department stores I’ve also seen Jelly cakes, or at least they look like Jelly cakes. They’re often green with a nut or something perched on the top. I’m not sure if it’s the same thing or not so I’m not sure if maybe this is the origin.

To be honest I’ve tasted a few of the cheaper Jellies in my day and they’re pretty good. I have yet to try an expensive one, or the green jelly cakes, mainly because I’m still investigating it to be sure I get the ultimate experience.

It’s such a widely sold product all over the place, but what’s the ultimate Japanese flavour of Jelly, and is this the Ultimate Japanese Treat. More research is needed.

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Hey it’s Chocolate Day

I’m not really sure what that means exactly. If it means that today is the day you should eat chocolate than just about every day is chocolate day for me. And if it means try some kind of new chocolate that’s pretty much at least once a week for me. So what ever it means get out and much on some awesome chocolate today!

Hey looking for a gift for that special someone on this fine holiday, why not give them a print of the photo above. Click here for more info.

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Pez Problem

I just heard that the makers of PEZ are suing the PEZ museum for copyright infringement. I’m not sure about the details but as a guy who works hard spreading the fine word of the candy gospel to sweet tooth’s all over the world I worry a little.

Click here to read more.

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Sweet and Sad

I went to a temple in Kamakura that has all of these little statues to represent children that have passed away.
Often they dress them up and I found this little statue with a Chupa Chups bib on him/her. It’s kind of cute and kind of sad all at the same time.

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I don’t know what to eat.

Working on a book all about candy in Japan is hard because there is just so much selection. Cookies, cakes, candy, salty snacks, fish things with their heads still on. It’s pretty overwhelming, but it’s really fun.
The choice of umbrellas in Japan may be the only thing to rival the snack selection.

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Razzle Berry

Today at Shabuya I saw what could be the fanciest custom ice cream sundae parlour in the history of fancy ice cream sundae parlours. Best of all not only was it fancy but it was tacky and it was themed.

The whole place was decorated to look like a stylish clothing store all the way down to the menu in the front. Instead of toppings they have Jewellery, and instead of flavours it’s the fitting room. That or maybe it’s a clothing store that sells stuff that looks like ice cream… Now I’m totally confused.

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