Crispy Mint M&Ms

Hi again!

Since it's now Summertime lets talk about another summer treat I got from Japan when I last visited. 

Mint treats are quite a hit during the summer time, with lots of different candies and treats featuring mint and their other cooling derivative flavours. I can't entirely remember the price but it's somewhere between 100-200 yen.

Of course you can find these year around in some countries, but I've yet to find this combination around here and that makes me sad. Because I love any and all things mint. But I have been seeing more M&M flavours pop up around these parts so maybe we will actually get some mint flavoured ones eventually ;)

The M&Ms themselves look like your bog standard crispy M&Ms, significantly larger than the regular chocolate ones and comes in shades of white, dark and light green. These unfortunately cracked because we're experiencing a heat wave and my candy took a bit of damage =\

They're nice and crunchy (but not like a malteaser, those are much tougher) but with a strong cool mint flavour from the moment it hits your tongue. The crisp is very slightly salty, the middle of it is green.

The chocolate however is not unlike what you get in a regular M&M, though they taste less sweet. The cooling effect is restricted to mainly the shell alone so it doesn't permeate the entire candy.

Spire sez: It's a cool candy (pun intended) which I wouldn't mind getting again (imagine it as an ice cream topping!) but I've yet to see it a 2^nd time.

Spire's Ratings

Flavor: 4/5

Price: 4/5

DIY level: Nonexistant

Fun: Damn that's tasty!

Malteasers "MaltEaster" bunny

Hello everybody!
This time we've got a little treat in line with the Easter season (yeah I know it's technically over but who cares, excuses to eat chocolate bunnies!) so here we have Malteaser's MaltEaster bunny. It's to my understanding that everytime a major holiday pops up the bigger brands that produce stuff like Jelly Belly and Snickers tend to have seasonal treats, but this is the first time I've seen Malteasers in on the action.

This set me back RM 4.90 from Cold Storage. Not too bad all things considered.

The packaging is kinda cute, with cute butterflies and the occasional heart on their iconic Malteaser's red. Flip it over for a cute 'Easter egg' ;)

It looks like what's on the cover and that's never a bad thing.

It's basically a large bunny shaped chocolate candy with crunchy Malteaser bits mixed in a rather creamy center. The chocolate itself was quite creamy and well, generally tasted like a huge Malteaser. It had a rather nice crunch to it, but not nearly as crunchy as I would have expected it to be.

Spire sez: I loved it, but sadly Easter is over and it's been pulled from the shelves :( it's certainly one of those seasonal treats I would have seconds of if I did come across it. Maybe I'll have better luck next year!

Spire's Ratings

Flavor: 5/5

Price: 4/5

DIY level: Nonexistant

Fun:  Yum!

Meiji 'Feel Mint' Kinoko no Yama Mushroom Cookie

Hello again!

As Summer draws near (for those of you who have seasons, I have horrible amounts of sun all year around :P) lets take a look at some cooling goodies as the temperature goes up.

Kinoko no Yama is a sort of cookie (I don't know what to call it, it's quite literally half chocolate candy and half biscuit D:)  with a chocolate mushroom 'cap' and comes in a variety of flavours with the most popular ones being chocolate, strawberry creme and banana. 

They've also got a DIY kit to make your own mushroom treats but I couldn't locate one before heading off from Tokyo. The box has an inverse design where it can be displayed in either horizontally or vertically depending on which face of the box is showing.

This is a special 'Feel Mint' edition of the candy for the Summer season, where you will find a lot of mint themed candies and chocolates on the shelves in Japan. I think it was somewhere around 200 yen at Lawsons. Not too expensive :)

I've heard reports of the chocolate melting together into a congealed mess when the temperature gets too hot but luckily it didn't happen to me despite hauling it all the way back in my luggage. Once opened you'll find maybe twenty-odd little cookies inside the bag.

The cookies themselves are pretty adorable, looking like little stylized bell mushrooms.

On to the tasting!

The mint was delicious, not overpowering but creamy too, pretty much the same way the Feel Mint chocolate candies taste like and the chocolate stems further complimented the taste. They taste fantastic when chilled too, and would look absolutely adorable adorning the top of an ice cream sundae.

Spire sez: Overall I really enjoyed them! I wish there were more cookies in the box. I'm definitely trying out more flavours when I can get my hands on them! :D

Spire's Ratings

Flavor: 4/5

Price: 5/5

DIY level: Nonexistant

Fun: Damn that's tasty!

Snickers Pumpkin Halloween Candy

Oh look, two updates in the same month! Amazing!

This one was also on the backburner for quite a bit of time, being halloween candy and all. I picked this up for about RM 4.99 at Cold Storage during Halloween season last year (and that's when I ate it too, this isn't a few month old candy bar!)

In terms of size it's a little bit smaller than your average Snickers bar but it's thicker. It looked pretty promising because well, I'm more a fan of chocolate than I am of sweet candies and gummies so I decided to just gloss over those last year. That and I have to watch my health a little more so I get to be picky ;)

I was surprised by the level of detail on the chocolate. I'm quite used to seeing candies that look nothing like what's advertised on the wrapper; especially seasonal ones seem to suffer from that the most. Taste wise, its your regular old Snickers bar minus the wrinkles and the nuts. The chocolate tasted a little creamier than usual but it could just be my imagination.

Spire sez: If you like Snickers, you're getting the exact same thing here but in a slightly different package. It's also a fair bit more expensive but you're paying Halloween Candy prices so it's somewhat justified. I quite liked the fact that they didn't incorporate nuts in this iteration, and that the fillings were caramelly smooth. I hope they bring it back this year.

Spire's Ratings

Flavor: 4/5

Price: 4/5

DIY level: Nonexistant

Fun:  2/5