HE'S BIG IN JAPAN - Kit Kat
By Kosuke Jeter
Here's a response to my Kit Kat post last month. This is from an American in Japan. With all these exciting flavours, I must start a "Japan fund" now. However, gel-filled, apple flavoured Kit Kat? You're a braver man than I, Mr. Jeter.
KitKat is huge in Japan. In Japanese "kitto" means surely, and "katsu" means win, so I guess students here think if they eat one before some test or competition they're "sure to win". Therefore, people buy the hell out of them and almost any flavour imaginable is available. I've had melon, caramel, orange and dark chocolate, apple, strawberry, green tea; and I've passed on white chocolate, cookies and cream, mango, chestnut, and sweet, red bean paste (and probably more). It should be noted that with a certain herbal medicine I'm sure I would've tackled them all, probably in one or two sittings. Also, the caramel doesn't contain real liquid caramel here, just the flavor of caramel somehow mixed into the chocolate. If the flavour is from real caramel or chemically produced I have no idea, but it's easily the best one I've had. Also, there are two super special (more expensive) KitKat flavours, green tea and apple, that do provide liquid filling kind of like a gel. The apple I mentioned having tried above was this kind. It was pretty good.
5 comments:
Ditto here in Hong Kong. There's even a sesame / lotus filling one.
On a semi-related topic, I just this very evening learned that HK McDonald's (whose restaurants don't serve milkshakes) has something new called a "Shake Shake" which is a bag of fries that they add seasoning to and then seal up so that the customer can shake the hell out of it. Presumably this act is enjoyable. Orgasmic, even, judging from the advertisements. I can't remember all of them but I do know that two of the seasoning choices are "Chargrilled" & "Seaweed".
Mmmm. A steam laden, soggy bag of seaweed fries!
I want to more about this "certain herbal medicine"
I got real excited until you described the faux caramel. Bogus.
The chestnut also sounds tasty - please report back. Though... I'm sure it will be the inferior Chinese Chestnut rather than the tasty but nearing extinction American Chestnut. Alas.
Yeah, I had some weird KitKat when I was living in Hong Kong too. Much to my disappointment... I was looking for Western style snack!
"Pocky" (= Mikado in France and other European countries) are also very popular I believe.
I love gary's description of the Hong Kong "Shake Shake" ad.
My two cents is that when in Tijuana, we enjoyed our Tostitos by stopping at a neighborhood snack shop and having the cashier cut the top off the bag and pour salsa over the chips first. Mmmm. Before, you had to just lick powdery chemical flavoring. This way you actually are licking off that yummy sauce.
Johnada -- Who knew your fascination with global variations on Halloween candies could spawn such an interesting look at the world.
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