Bizarre Japanese Candy Review: Kasugai Mango Gummies and Lotte Fruitio Gum

This past memorial weekend was filled with fun activities! One of our outings took place at Balboa Park during their annual Ethnic Food Fair. We sampled world cuisine as well as Japanese Candy. Well, of course, I purchased the candy at Mitsuwa Marketplace and brought it over to the park.  On this beautiful San Diego day, we taste-tested Kasugai mango gummies and Lotte Ume flavored Fruitio gum.

Kasugai Mango Gummies

Lotte Fruitio ume-flavored gum

We first tried the Kasugai mango gummies and they did not disappoint! I love mango flavors and this was definitely tasty! The gummies were soft in texture and had a natural mango flavor. As an added bonus, they even sparkled in the sun! I have no idea what they put in this product to make it so glittery! Maybe they're magical! ;-)

After our wonderful gummy experience, we moved on to try Lotte Fruitio ume-flavored gum. Now, on the package it states that this is a "hard candy" The gum had a candy shell, however it was certainly not a hard candy. The description on the package was a little deceptive. More than likely, this was due to poor translation. 

Once you remove the plastic wrapper, a silvery box is revealed! Very sleek and modern!

When you slide open the box, each piece of gum is individually wrapped in silver foil.  The Japanese love their packaging!

Finally, when you open each foil wrapper, out pops a pretty lavender colored piece of gum.

"Ume" in Japanese means, "plum".  These are plum-flavored chewing gum pieces. The flavor is a little odd for my taste. Shane, who tasted this as well, found this gum quite disgusting. I didn't find the gum quite so terrible, but it certainly didn't rank high on the bubblegum list.  The gum had a lavender flavor with strong hints of clove and cinnamon. The experience was like eating spicy perfume. 

Of the two candies, Kasugai mango gummies was the clear winner! We definitely recommend it!  If you want to check out our video review on Youtube, click on the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UywvIEMqjTc

Triple Strand Rainbow Sapphire Bracelet

I know, I know... It's taken me quite a long time to upload these images! :-( It is finally here! Those of you who don't know, I have been doing freelance jewelry work for DAGA Inc. for the past year and a half. This is one of the custom jewelry pieces I completed in April. I fabricated a triple-strand, 14kt yellow gold, sapphire bracelet.

I prong set sixty-six sapphires in every color of the rainbow. Yes, that is correct. I think I became a little cross-eyed and blind setting so many tiny 2.5mm princess cut sapphires.  I am pleased with the end result though!

I made a magnetic clasp with an additional safety closure. The magnets immediately attract to each other, making it possible to close the clasp without additional help from another person or a special device. 

I hope you enjoyed the images of the bracelet! I have plenty more images of freelance work that I have also been lagging on uploading online. Stay tuned! :-)

Chicken Drumstix Snacks

I, once again, found unusual snacks at Cost Plus World Market. This time, we have Kikiriki Drumstix Original chicken flavored snacks by Nongshim. I haven't reviewed many, if any Korean snacks, so this is definitely a first! What a "first" it is! I was immediately intrigued by this product because it was so bizarre!

Between the brightly colored packaging, the cute chicken, and odd concept, I was immediately tempted to purchase! When I pulled the snacks out of the package, they do look very much like fried, breaded chicken drumsticks.

They did not taste wonderful. In fact they tasted very much like cardboard. I couldn't detect even a hint of chicken flavor in the little corn snack. The drumsticks had a much more distinct onion flavor with a not so appetizing texture. Though the product was clearly fresh it, sadly, tasted quite stale. You know how stale food has that odd combination of crunchy and chewy textures? This product embodied this perfectly.

Would I give this product two thumbs down. I would. For taste, that is. But it certainly wins points in my book for being a bizarre, novelty product. I could certainly see myself giving this away as gag gifts to friends!
I do have to admit, I didn't have high expectations of having an amazing culinary experience with Kikiriki Drumstix Original. It wasn't exactly a let down. It was a fun experience for what it was!

If you want to watch my video review, check out the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq0u5WoV8QU

Brazilian and Colombian Candy Review

My apologies for the long delay in posting candy reviews! :-( My crazy schedule is finally winding down for the moment, so I have a bit of time to taste some new candy. This review was made possible by my sister who generously donated the candy from her travels to Bogota, the capital of Colombia. We are always interested in trying new and exotic candy, so this certainly fits the bill!

There are three candies we are trying today: Choco Coco, Muuu..., and Garoto. The first candy we tasted in the video was Muuu.. which was a bag of simple, milk chocolate bars.

You might think, "Oh this should be pretty decent. It's just a plain milk chocolate bar." Oh was I so wrong! The texture of the chocolate was very waxy. It didn't have a smooth consistency. In addition, Muuu... tasted like old candy that had been sitting in the cupboard for years. Sadly, this did not receive rave reviews, but we had many more candies to try in our South American candy adventure!

Next up, was Choco Coco which are chocolate/coconut lollipops. Sounded quite tasty to me, so I thought this surely must be a step up from the last candy we tried!

Sadly, we were wrong again! :-( The hard candy exterior was completely devoid of chocolate flavor. It tasted like pure sugar with no flavoring. The coconut interior definitely had a distinct coconut flavor, however, it was dry and grainy. Unfortunately, this was not a candy that we could safely recommend.

The last of the bunch to try was an assorted box of chocolate bonbons called Garoto. With all the many options to try in this assortment, there must be something decent!

We tried every piece of candy in this box. There was only one piece of candy that was worth mentioning: Seranata de Amore. This was the best of the bunch. This chocolate tasted very similar to Ferrero Rocher. It had a chocolate-coated wafer shell with a hazelnut mousse filling. The texture of the mousse had a heavier consistency with a slight smokey aftertaste. In comparison, Ferrero Rocher is superior, however Seranata de Amore is a decent chocolate bonbon on its own.

All the other candies in the box had a heavy, smokey aftertaste, waxy chocolate texture, and grainy centers. In short, they were all quite terrible, with of course, the exception of Seranata de Amore.

Our Colombian/Brazilian candy review is not the most positive. However, it is always a pleasure to try new candies from around the world! Also worth mentioning is that our American taste just might not be suited to this kind of candy. I am sure the people of Colombia and Brazil might think quite differently about the candy and take great pleasure in consuming it.

Take care everyone and we will have many more candy reviews posted soon! :-)  A link to the video review is below!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzPdMqk53Yg