Tag: confectionery

Minamoto Kitchoan 源吉兆庵 – Japanese Confectionery Store

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Feel like I’m back to my old self. Shopping, eating out, and now kind of enjoying driving – not as stressed out as I was last year. Good riddance to 2018! 😎

Before Christmas, I went out with Miss Rock for our annual get-together. It’s actually been almost two years since we last met. This time, we kept it local and walked from Borough all the way to Tottenham Court Road via Strand, through part of Oxford Street, into Regents Street area, then Covent Garden, Waterloo and Elephant and Castle. I thought I was walking really slow, but Miss Rock said I was walking a little too fast. Really? That’s mega slow speed for me! LOL.
On our journey, we stopped by a Japanese confectionery store called Minamoto Kitchoan 源吉兆庵. It’s been opened for more than two years, and this is the first time I remembered to stop by.

We were looking at the prices for most of the products, and most are a tad expensive. Japanese imported things are expensive. It’s a shame, as I would have bought loads if they were at a reasonable price.

We took a while to decide what we wanted.

In the end I chose these. I like rice crackers and mochi, so I chose these.

If you know me, I like a good cheese flavoured rice cracker.

It has powdered cheese covering the whole of the cracker. It has a nice crunch to it, and it nicely softens into your mouth as you taste the last moments of the rice cracker as it disappears in your mouth. It makes you crave for more. There’s only 5 packets of 2 crackers, so save them to the last minute if you can!

I’ve not tasted tomato flavoured rice crackers before.

This actually tastes like red tomato pesto sauce with the herbs that they’ve added to give it an Italian-Japanese feel. It tastes like a pizza. ^_^ Yummy!!

This is a mamedaifuku – a large bean rice cake. Basically a large version of a bean-filled mochi.

I should have bit into it rather than try to pull it apart. Shame of me. Sweet red bean paste in the middle. I would say it’s not that special. It wasn’t too sweet, and I think I would just purchase normal small mochi next time.

I spent £13 in this store. Expensive right? Yes it is. (The Geek has expensive taste… I was born with it 😅).

Address: 448 Strand, London WC2R 0QU
Tel: 0203 490 4747

Website: https://www.kitchoan.co.uk/

Kit Kat Chunky – New York Cheesecake Flavour

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Back to the normal Kit Kat Chunky in the UK! 
I think the New York Cheesecake flavour has been out for a while, I just haven’t had the time to find it, sit down, take pictures and eat it… ^_^

Ah I love Kit Kat Chunkies!! I think this was probably the best move Nestlé had ever made for us chococlate and biscuit lovers.
I could really taste that New York Cheesecake flavour, which in a normal New York Cheesecake it would be filled with heavily creamed cheese and has a slightly saltier taste. This Kit Kat takes on that challenge, and adding the normal chocolate and wafer biscuit to support the flavour… I think it blends quite well together… 

Think I will need to buy a few of these! Wish Nestlé could sell these in packets of 4!! 😋

Japanese Kit Kat – Mainichi no Zeitaku (Luxury Days), Cranberry and Almond flavour

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Another interesting Japanese Kit Kat flavour, also bought from Japan directly via eBay for a better price without shipping fees… I was quite curious why this was called a Luxury Days sort of Kit Kat…

There are only six in this packet. Such a shame to only have very, very small pieces for this packet! Quite disappointed.

This is a very different compared to all the Japanese Kit Kat and the normal ones in the UK. It’s like a nougat from Belgium, France and Germany. Lots of almonds and cranberry pieces fill the top instead of having their traditional logo name stamped on top of the piece of chocolate. Here they have used dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate. It doesn’t have too much bitterness, so I would say less than <50% dark chocolate. It's not too sweet and probably good for my teeth!

The main disappointment is that it was only a single piece… and very expensive!

I can see why this was called a Luxury Days Kit Kat… Very extravagant!

Japanese Kit Kat – Momiji Manju Flavour

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Putting a hold on Christmas adverts for the moment – they’ll be back in the next week or two!

I’m now almost up-to-date with all my blog posts! THANK YOU for bearing with me this year. Exams and life events controlled me, therefore a lazy blogging geek exists. 😇

The next few posts will be on snack foods, and this post will be part 1 of two posts on some newish Japanese Kit Kats I’ve bought on eBay.
Saw these flavours in Japan Centre, but I find them awfully expensive – because of damned shipping fees I bet! Well it was actually a little cheaper on eBay (almost half the price with no shipping fee), so I did some eBay shopping from Japan. 😛 The best way to spend and save some money!

Box of 5 Japanese Kit Kats. Quite a big box for the small amounts of chocolate inside.

This was surprisingly in a slightly different Kit Kat compared normal Kit Kats. It has a cute Japanese maple leaf on one side. They’ve covered part of the gap where the Kit Kat pieces are normally split for it to easily to break apart. 😙 Really couldn’t wait to taste this!

I have no idea what the flavour of Momiji Manju is, but looking it up, it’s supposed to be a steamed bun made with buckwheat or wheat, eggs, sugar and honey, then filled with jam… Interesting… But very, very sweet. Even my back teeth were kind of noticing the extra sugar!

An interesting buy, wouldn’t really get it again as this was far too sweet with the milk chocolate and all the other ingredients…

Kyoto Baked Chocolat

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I must’ve been having the worst days of my life on this day.
Just returned back to work from France, and already work was stressing me out, and now getting to Japanese class was incredibly difficult. There was a bike accident and basically Waterloo bridge was packed with buses and vehicles. Traffic jam and no announcements along the road!! Grrrrr.
When I got to class (about 15 minutes late and very peed off), I was hot and sweaty. 😦
But this sweet delicacy cheered me up. One of my classmates went to Kyoto for three weeks and bought snacks (see colleague, this is stuff she could have got me… not Kit Kat that I’ve already had :p).

It was like a soft cake surrounded by green matcha tea, I could hardly taste the chocolate. Was there any chocolate inside? I don’t know… Didn’t go for a second one but at least I got to try something different!

At the end of the lesson I walked over Waterloo Bridge that evening hoping that the buses would be running after that evening’s event… and they were! Phew.

End of horrible day!!

Japanese Kit Kat – Hokkaido Melon Flavour

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Ah, I love my classmates from my Japanese language class… whenever they go to Japan they always bring back something tasty!!
This time I’m trying out the Hokkaido Melon flavoured Kit Kat. ^_^ Something different! Yippee!!

Yep, it tastes like melon in that white chocolate. Sweet like all the other Kit Kats!! ^_^  I’m sure you don’t need me to describe it… because I’ve actually forgotten the exact taste of it. >.<""

A colleague of mine went to Japan recently, and she brought back these massive melon flavoured Pocky sticks which I’ve never seen before! I thought she had forgotten to buy me some snacks… (had to return a favour!)… But I didn’t have the guts to tell her I’ve already tried out the Sakura Matcha Kit Kat flavour. :p

Mentos Choco

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Short post today! And yep, it’s been a better week.
Hmmm, who doesn’t like a fruity Mento… BUT when I saw these in the supermarket I thought I must try them! (Sorry for the blurry pics)…

Mentos Choco seemed very interesting. Chocolate, white chocolate to be exact, inside a caramel surrounding…
It is actually awfully sweet but addictive because of the white chocolate oozing out when you’re chewing the caramel.

Haven’t seen these in the UK methinks so you’ll most likely need to pop over to France for these. ^_^

Fujiya Peko Candy 不二家 ペップキャンデー

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It’s my 3rd Year Blogging Anniversary!! 3 years of blogging, over 500 posts, lots of eating, many adventures (and hopefully more to come – as long as I work), meeting lots of new people and there were even times when I wanted to give up blogging. BUT I stuck to what I wanted to do for years and never gave up.
To celebrate I’m going to have MORE CANDY!! ^_^
You might be familiar with Peko Milk Candy (the chewy one) but probably not the lollipops. It’s the first time I’ve seen these.
Fujiya Peko Candy 

Back of the packet

 There’s 4 different flavours available (strawberry, grape, orange and peach) and they all taste quite fruity.

4 different flavoured lollipops

 There are different designs on each lolly

Strawberry flavour

Grape flavour

Orange flavour

Peach flavour
These are a good treat for work friends, family and your own friends… Kids will love these too. But don’t forget to brush your teeth as it is sugary as well as fruity. 😀

Nobel Cafe Jelly Milk Candy ノーベル カフェゼリーミルクキャンデー

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Ah! It’s Friday!! It’s Treat Day after a long week (well not that bad), just another week before I go on holiday again (almost finished packing ^_^) to somewhere warmer than London.
This next candy I remember buying from a shop in Shimbashi. Needed to buy some sort of coffee candy and not chocolate orientated. The ones I bought in Hong Kong were great, but I couldn’t find those in Japan. Too bad! 😦
Nobel Cafe Jelly Milk Candy

Back of packet
These are called Cafe Jelly Milk Candy from the company Nobel.
Individually wrapped candy
With these candy you have to bite and chew through the surrounding milk candy before you get to the coffee part which is in fact coffee jelly.
Milk candy surrounding
The coffee jelly doesn’t taste much of coffee unfortunately. Weak coffee. All I could taste is the very sweet milk candy. Ultra sweet. It’s like chewing through lots of sugar. Eeek. Time to brush my teeth!!!
Coffee Jelly… sorry had to bite it and spit it out ¬_¬”
Won’t be buying these again… just too sweet and not enough coffee… Too bad!

Asahi Mitsuya Cider Candy アサヒ 三ツ矢サイダーキャンディ

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Wow! Cider candy?! I’ve not seen this before. I love cider but have to be in the mood for it as it can be sweet, too sweet. These sweets refer to Asahi’s carbonated fruit drinks which are non-alcoholic and I guess resemble the taste of cider…
You would associate Asahi with their beer, but cider candy is totally different. I wouldn’t think a beer company would bring out a beer sweet would they? Nah, I don’t think so. (But you could never know!).
Asahi Mitsuya Cider Candy

Back of the packet

When you open the packet you think you might be smelling alcoholic cider! (I really did think that!). In this packet, there are 4 flavours: peach, cider, grape and honey lemon. 

honey lemon, peach, grape and cider

Each sweet has a fizziness to them just like if you’re drinking the soft drink but actually they are slowly melting in your mouth. (Just think of having non-sour fizzy cola bottle sweets in your mouth for a long time)…Each of them have a very fruity taste and I think my favourite one is the grape. 
Look like fruit drops

Don’t worry you won’t get drunk from them but remember to brush your teeth if you try to eat a lot of these! I’ve had 4, one after the other and it feels like my teeth are going to rot… ^_^