Japanese Snacks

Ever since I discovered wasabi roasted green peas (oh my GOD do I love them, especially crushed & used as a coating for sauteed salmon, gah), I have had an obsession with Japanese snacks and candy.

My favorites:
-lychee gummies
-all kinds of Pocky (Men's Pocky has to be the silliest)
-the ubiquitous Botan Rice Candy
-Everyburger (little cookies that look like, yup, hamburgers)
-salty ume plum candy
-seaweed rice crackers (still can't do the whole dried fish in some of the mixtures)
-mochi
-...and so many more.

Any good ones I should seek out?

Have you tried the Jintan breath mints? They come in little packages, and they look like silver BBs. They are POTENT.

I'm also a fan of the "Black Black" flavor chewing gum.

Yummmmmmm......mochi.......
My favorite is the chili-spiked dried cuttlefish. Just peel and eat!

Jessica,

I live in Japan. I didn't know they exported so many snacks. Have you tried peasen. It's peanuts with senbe (the rice crackers). Little stick things. Flat, about 1 1/2 long. A student gave me a gummi sushi and I'm still looking for a pack to buy.

Marcia

Marcia----
You'd find it amazing some of the things we have here these days. For example, I belong to a membership store the size of Costco/Price Club called Marukai. There is a whole isle devoted to just tea-----2 aisles just of snacks------and a meat/fish department with everything from spiced cod roe to toro and kobe beef. The sashimi section along is as long as the meat aisle in most of the major supermarkets here. Daikon is currently .39 a pound there and they have all the different mushrooms, sprouts, pea shoots etc fresh. It can get a little confusing since most of the labels are in Japanese----but I'm learning. And the best part is-----on the weekends they sample! I'm gonna look for the gummi sushi there------I bet they'll have it!

Ed

http://www.jlist.com/ sells sushi-shaped gummy candies....

I was at the counter at my favorite Japanese market yesterday and they had this pack of 3 little boxes, about the size of Tic Tac boxes. They were filled with seasoned seaweed, spiked with sugar. They sold for $1.58 for the three boxes. Sugar and seaweed......hmmmmmmm.....

quote:

Originally posted by theminx

http://www.jlist.com/ sells sushi-shaped gummy candies....

Very cool website!

Daifuku(Kubota brand .. custard flavored)
Mochi (strawberry or green tea flavored)

mm Pocky is my favorite. Especially the strawberry kind,

I've no clue... But I'm sending this link to my buddy in Japan hoping for his input!

I have several friends who are J-List devotees and raved about Pocky. I found it at the Japanese tea garden in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Bought one box (just the regular chocolate kind), killed it in about sixty seconds, bought six more boxes. I was eating it on the plane home. Yum.

Oh, sorry--Pocky is a long thin cookie stick (to me it tastes like a Pepperidge Farm Milano cookie, not as crumbly) dipped in chocolate or strawberry frosting.

I too love Pocky. The Men's Pocky (a darker chocolate) is by far my favorite at the moment.

I live in Los Angeles, so it's easy to find most varieties at the local Japanese market. I'm also finding that they do great hard candies (in wonderful flavors like jasmine tea) and some really interesting flavor variations of the familiar KitKat bar.

I also like their gummies and caramels (especially the black sugar ones).

I just picked up some fruit Mochis for the Lunar New Year, they were fabulous.

I've ordered from J-List and have been very happy with the result, although you end up paying about as much in postage as you do for the product itself. If you're in a big city, find a Japanese (or sometimes Chinese or Korean) market and you can find some good stuff.