Dec 28th 2015 | Break Me Off a Piece of That Kitto Katsu Bar
This month's shipment was a box containing three items. This shipment will likely arrive around the end of January or beginning of February. The contents featured chocolate pencils, senbei with an artful twist, and one of the most sought after treats from Japan.
Chocolate Pencils / Choco Enpitsu
Remember being a kid and chewing on your pencil? When your only choice of flavor was led? No? Uh. Me either. Anyway, how great would it have been if all our pencils were made of milk chocolate growing up. Probably pretty awful actually.
Everything would be brown. A lot messier too, that's for sure.
Now that we live in the future where chocolate pencils are a reality, we can eat our pencils without shame. The stickers included are a cute bonus and feature the well known Fujiyama mascot Peko-chan. I known she's supposed to be cute, but she just looks like someone hiding a secret to me.
WHAT DO YOU KNOW PEKO-CHAN!?
Senbei and Candy Drawing Kit
Senbei are Japanese rice crackers. They come in all kinds, but rarely are they considered a painters canvas. Guess what? You are that painter!
The jelly like candy inside the syringe is a sweet soda flavor that squirts out like paint. Unfortunately I am not much of an artist, but I did my best drawing a rabbit. Yes. It's awful. The senbei itself is crispy and very fragile so be careful pulling it out of the package.
Green Tea KitKats
KitKats are on a whole different level in Japan. In America you have milk chocolate, and maybe strawberry or white chocolate around the holidays. Maybe. Japan has Dark Chocolate, cheese cake, sweet potato, wasabi, and just under 200 other flavors to collect. They even have KitKats you can bake.
These green tea (matcha) KitKats are a staple of Japanese candy culture. They're very sweet with just a hint of sophisticated bitterness. Why are KitKats so popular in Japan? Because they sound like "Kitto Katsu" which translates to "You'll surely win." Something kids really want to hear during exams. Japan really loves puns.
One of the joys of living in Tokyo is that you never know what's right around the corner. I live in quiet neighborhood in Shinagawa, a business district in Tokyo. For a year I thought my only entertainment option was taking the train ride to places like Shibuya or Shinjuku, famous entertainment districts. Little did I know just two stops over is Yokohama Cosmo World. It features one of the largest Ferris wheels in the world, as well as a roller coaster that dives into a tunnel under the water. How cool is That?
And since we've been dealing with a lot of green tea lately, I thought I'd show you all the real thing. This is matcha from one of the oldest tea houses in Tokyo, located in Nippori. I always bring my friends here when they visit. This is nothing like the store bought green tea you're used to. Trust me.
It was just confirmed that we should be good to go including wasabi kitkats in the February 14th shipment (the one which would arrive mid-March)! They are specialty products, so in that shipment there won't be much besides that in the box, but I think it will be a worthy trade-off.