Skoshbox July 2014

It feels like I just finished blogging about my last Skoshbox, but another has arrived! If you didn’t catch my post last time, Skoshbox is a subscription service of Japanese treats for you to try. If you want to see what I said last time, that post is here.

Just like last month, the box is delightfully packaged. The sleek minimalism of the cardboard and line drawings is very appealing to me. It also had a card inside listing off the products. One of the issues with this box that I didn’t have last month is that it didn’t describe the packaging for all of the products. Mom (who can read Japanese, although she is rusty) had to help me decipher some of the items.

Glico Cream Collon

Glico is the company that brings the now widely available Pocky to you, which is one of my favorites. These little guys were crunchy bites with a creamy custard-y filling. They tasted a lot like those wafer-y crackers that you see at the grocery store. These were the kind of thing you would stick in your child’s lunchbox. They weren’t delicious enough for me to seek them out, but they were not bad at all.

 Matcha Azuki Jelly

This one was a complete miss for me. I don’t particularly like matcha, or azuki (red bean), or jelly candies. It does taste like a matched combination of azuki and matcha, so if that’s something that you like, this is pretty good. If not, skip.

Bakuake Seafood Curry Senbei

I almost didn’t try this after the gag-fest that was the Octopus Ball Corn Puff Stick last month. But for the sake of the blog, of course I tried it. Timidly nibbling the edge, it didn’t taste too bad. Senbei is a rice cracker/cake thing, so this tastes exactly like it says it will. Seafood curry rice cracker.

Tirol Jersey Milk Choco

The card indicates that these come in five flavors (coffee, milk, almond, pancake, and biscuit) so I was not sure what I was going to be eating. The brown one is coffee, but to be honest I’m still not sure what the white one is. Neither of them tasted like much of anything. The coffee one had a really mild coffee aftertaste. The white one (I think its milk) was just totally tasteless.

Kit Kat Black

This is from the line of KitKat bars targeted at adults. It’s really delicious. It’s darker than the KitKat Dark that you can get at stores here and is great. I like my chocolate so dark it tastes like dirt. This does the trick.

Orion Custard Cake

When I opened this up, I was expecting Japan’s answer to the Twinkie. That’s kind of what this is. It’s a dense yellow cake with a whipped custard-flavored filling. It was pretty okay. Kind of like a Twinkie. I don’t really like snack cakes, but if you are going to eat them, this is as good as any.

Kyoho Grape Kanten Jelly

Again, jellies aren’t really my thing. I also found that this didn’t really taste like much. Not like grape, not like anything.

Matcha Chokoshi

This was green tea flavor mixed with white chocolate mixed with a rice krispie treat. It was pretty good. I would probably eat another one of these.

Marble Chocolate

This is pretty much Japan’s equivalent of the Smartie (or the M&M). Candy covered chocolate, with cute little animals on it. What more can you ask for?

Saikoro Caramel

These taste more burnt (do you know what I mean?) than the individual caramels that you can buy wrapped in plastic here. I didn’t like this better than the ones I can get here.

Bonus: Kewpie Mayonnaise

Japanese mayonnaise is different than the North American stuff. It’s looser…more like salad dressing. It tasted fine, but I was having trouble finding something that I thought it would taste good on. Probably not going to become a staple around here.

So that's this month's Skoshbox. Overall, still impressed. It's something fun to do over a couple of nights. It's also something out of the ordinary.

Do you get a food subscription box?