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!

Choc Goji Milk Chocolate Wolfberries

Hi everyone!

I came back from a trip to Singapore recently and I found something a little out of the ordinary while visiting a supermarket in Vivo city!

Chocolate coated Goji berries!

 It's advertised as one of those 'healthy snacks' you can have without the guilt or remorse of having a helping of chocolate and tastes good too. However I find goji berries and chocolate to be a rather odd combination, but I had to give them a try. There was a dark chocolate version available too at the same price.

It's fairly costly at about 4SGD a pack (that's about RM10 give or take) but it claims to give you tons of vitamin C and antioxidants so that counts for something right..?

I don't have images of the candies themselves (because I was dumb and forgot to take them), but they roughly look like chocolate coated sunflower seeds. The outer coating of chocolate is fairly thick and the goji berry inside is quite squishy and juicy.

Spire sez: I can't entirely say I liked them that much, because the goji berries had a rather strong flavour that was a bit sour and herbal-like. The chocolate didn't help mask it that much but I found them pleasant enough to eat maybe once in awhile. Not a taste for me but it's still a fairly exotic choice if you like health stuff. 

Spire's Ratings

Flavor: 3/5

Price: 3/5

DIY level: Nonexistant

Fun: Nonexistant

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!

Kabaya Saku Pan Choco Monaka Panda Wafer

Hi again!

Spire here, and this time we have something much simpler than our usual fare :)

The panda shaped snack is apparently pretty popular, to the point that it even has it's own DIY kit. The kit has since been pushed out of production but you can still find it in some speciality stores as part of it's last run.

I got this from Shojikiya for RM 3.90, making it one of the cheaper things you could buy there. The snack comes in two flavours, strawberry and chocolate. I decided to get the chocolate one because I have little faith in strawberry flavoured cream snacks ^^;

What I find rather amusing about this snack is that the back portion actually shows you how to eat it. So you can apparently either start eating it as is, or you can easily snap it in half to share with a friend (or save it for later) I suspect its just a Japanese thing to include helpful  instructions on everything :)

Opening up the package, I was hit by quite a strong whiff of chocolate. Then I was greeted by some very obviously heat damaged panda :(

At least it still vaguely looks like a panda.

The back looks happier than the front

Simply put, the snack can be roughly described as a wafer with cream filling in cream and chocolate flavours. The cream is firm and stays in place pretty well but is still fluffy to the touch. True to the instructions at the back, the wafter is quite crispy and snaps in half very easily too.

Now for a taste.

*crunch*

In terms of taste, the panda snack is very milky creamy with the darker bits having a mild chocolate flavour. It's not particularly strong tasting or sweet, and it's rather light and airy despite you actually sinking your teeth into a large dollop of cream filling. It's also not very sweet either so that's definitely a good thing.

Spire sez: Generally I didn't find it all that enjoyable because I'm not a fan of cream filling and the texture didn't entirely agree with me. Yes, it was tasty but it's not something I see myself trying again in the near future. But if you like tons of cream on your crackers you would probably find this much more enjoyable than I did.

Spire's Ratings

Flavor: 3/5

Price: 5/5

DIY level: Nonexistant

Fun: Nonexistant

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!