Wee Pocky

Product: Pocky Squeeze (mango flavor)
Origin: Japan

First looks

Nick:
I'm not really sure what makes this "squeeze"; just looks like shorter, slightly thicker Pocky. I tend to like nice chocolate flavors of Pocky, so I'm a little skeptical here; it does at least smell very mango-y, almost unpleasently so. Hmm. Let's see what Katie makes of these.

Katie:
I don't mind non-chocolate flavors of Pocky. I swear I've had banana but that could just be wishful thinking. The Japan pavilion at Epcot has a lot of Pocky flavors in the back (if you enter through the Hello Kitty/Anime section and work your way through. You can, of course, enter through the 'exit' in the snacks section but what weirdo would enter the exit. The Japan pavilion is one of my favorites--great food, good shopping, and the Taiko show is awesome). 

As Nick mentioned, these are very mango-scented. They're also quite orange but that's because mangoes are orange. Orange-yellow? I honestly don't know. I've always thought of them as orange but I've barely even seen the fruit...it's usually just mango juice or mango-flavored whatnot.

Post-bite thoughts

Nick:
One thing Katie forgot to mention - don't let the friendlier people in your group near the cosplayers in Japan or you might end up getting a far longer rundown of Gundam's Original Century timeline than you really need. As for this Pocky... uh, it's real bad. The taste is "mango" more than mango, and I'm afraid it really just tastes like bad, fake mango. Do not slam this taste in your face. I do like the shorter, thicker sticks with more flavoring on them, if only the flavoring was, you know, good. Also, Katie got mad when I pointed out that the mango pictures printed on the sleeve looks more like an exposed brain. Uh oh!

Katie:
I think our readers are in for a rare treat...a Ham-disagreement.  A dis-Ham-ment?  Someone come up with something cool sounding for when we disagree.

These are delicious! They may not be fully real mango-flavored, but then again a lot of things usually aren't (e.g. Strawberry Starbursts don't really taste exactly like strawberries). We all kind of agree to ignore the fact that Watermelon candy tastes nothing like real watermelon but it's somehow still reminiscent of it enough that we can pretend.

I'm going to eat all of these wee mango Pocky sticks now and spoil my lunch. That's how they get you!

More chocolate wafers!

Product: Lusette smak Mleczny
Origin: Slovakia

First looks

Nick:
Well, I'm afraid I don't really have much material here; Munchpak sent us a bunch of nice chocolate wafer cookies that I'm sure I'm going to enjoy, but they're not exactly a gold mine for comedic material. Pretty thin on the ol' chocolate wafer cookie jokes. I guess I'm just going to try and enjoy this; it looks like a nice chocolate wafer cookie and it smells like nice chocolate. Here's to another twenty years of reliable chocolate wafer cookie competence.

Katie:
I think this is our first food foray from Slovakia. It certainly smells delicious. And it's not too expired either!  We have a bit of a backlog so the chocolate wafers are only a few weeks out of date. Everyone keeps telling me that the dates don't really mean much on packaging, which I guess I'll concede but only if you all concede that if something is literally a year expired...it shouldn't go in your mouth.

Anyway. Looking forward to chocolate wafers!

Post-bite thoughts

Nick:
This from the lady who eats 200 year old apples and deviled eggs in Fallout. "YOU MISSED THE FOOD," she'll yell when we're really early level and using crappy pipe pistols and don't have any healing items yet. I'll leave out the part where we turn into a stealth sniper and have over 100 stimpacks because that doesn't help my point which I kind of forgot what it was anyway.
As for this wafer cookie, guess what? It's good; nice and milk chocolately. I ate my half real fast. Nice job, Slovakia. Ya nailed it. Shoot, I thought I had a closing joke, but it's escaped my mind. Well, if it comes to me, I can use it on one of the other 12 nice-looking chocolate sandwich wafer cookies we have.

Katie:
Yeah, you're not helping. "Oh man, why are we so weighed down?" He'll complain, completely neglecting to use any of the 20 pounds of Nuka-Colas in various flavors we have in our inventory. "Better start dumping our loot and not eat any healing items with weight costs even though we're missing 40% of our health!" It gets even worse in Skyrim where we can literally GROW OUR OWN INGREDIENTS FOR HEALTH POTIONS. Harrumph. Just saying 50% of my Skyrim job is alchemy and y'alls making me redundant.

But back to the chocolate. Very tasty!  The wafers were very good, unlike a lot of the wafer cookies over here which tend to taste very cheap (albeit quite sugary and good). Definitely pick these up if you ever seen them. Good job, Slovakia!

PS from Nick: You have to save those Nuka-Colas for when you need AP!!! Also, does anyone have any of that Target Nuka-Cola that sold out in like five seconds we can review? Although I think it's just like Jones Soda Blue Blarzberry they slapped a Nuka-Cola label on. Kinda cheating on that one, guys. Does anywhere around here even still sell Jones Soda? I miss that cream soda that's like 100% sugar.

Finally, a drink to match the color of my hair

Pictured: Wilson's first blog
appearance...also some grape
juice

Product: Kirin soft drink/grape
Origin: Japan

First looks

Katie:
I'm very curious about this one. I remember white grape juice being somewhat of a staple of my childhood but I haven't had it since. Isn't it amazing how much of the food we ate daily or weekly as kids becomes something we never even consider consuming as adults? Is it because we can pick our own food now?

I still eat spaghetti-Os and Kraft Mac and Cheese. You can't deny me my Kraft m&c, dude.

Nick:
Gosh, I'm not sure my experience matches up with yours; I still eat tons of Kraft Mac and Cheese (any flavor but original and Spirals) along with Spahgetti-O's, and I can't really think of a childhood thing I don't have much of. Maybe Yoo-Hoo. Not sure I miss that very much. Anyway, as for this drink, it seems like, uh, grape juice; the ingredients are water, grape juice and sugar. Also, the label shows a bear either dancing with a kid, picking grapes with him, or preparing to eat him. Maybe all three of those in a row. Kid 'n grapes souffle or something.

Post-sip thoughts

Katie:
Yoo-Hoo! I always thought that was the best drink because I only had it maybe a few times at Disney as a kid (I got super hyper from sugar, still kinda do).

I thought the grape drink was good. Sweet without being cloying. It managed to taste pretty much like all fake grape stuff does except not over-sugared. I'm not sure I would want to drink the whole thing, but I could go for sharing this. If you don't like grapes, this isn't going to magically change your mind though. If you do like grapes, then...yay?

Nick:
Still "kinda" get hyper from sugar? I'd hate to see what really getting hyper from sugar is. I'm glad Katie went down memory lane because I don't really have much to say about this grape juice; it's good grape juice. I feel kind of silly importing this grape juice from Japan when it's good grape juice you can just go to the store and buy, except without the whimsical bear who may or may not be about to eat that kid on the label. I'd definitely drink more, but again, I can just go to Price Chopper or Market 32 or whatever they're calling themselves to get some more of this, and honestly, they have Kool-Aid in the same aisle, so I'd probably end up getting some of those cherry Kool-Aid Jammers where it tastes like all of the sugar in the universe is exploding in your mouth when you take a sip.

I liked Abba before they were cool

Product: mamma Mia coco wafer with dark chocolate
Origin: Poland

First looks

Nick:
Mamma Mia - here we go again! My, my, hope this GMO-free chocolate isn't gross! Poland hasn't let us down yet, but I'm very skepitimical of this - between the no-GMO (which has in the past meant no sugar and some kind of disgusting frankenchocolate), one of the first ingredients being "Cocoa Mass", and the suspicious coconut odor, I'm real leery of these. No sir, I don't trust this in the least.

Katie:
As Nick mentioned, our track record with Poland is pretty good. I'm going to be optimistic like in Winner Takes it All when she thinks he's going to get back with her (and hopefully not get crushed later when I realize that the chocolate is only here to shake my hand and wish me well).

Post-bite thoughts

Nick:
Gimmie gimmie gimmie some more of this snack now, something something something, I forgot the wo-rds already! This is pretty good; it's a nice medium dark chocolate wafer cookie, so apparently it is indeed possible to make edible non-GMO chocolate, which only makes all the other non-GMO crap we've had even more inexcusable. The aftertaste is a bit odd, but I like this quite a bit; nice job, Poland. Nice job, Cocoa Mass. After eating this, uh, shoot, what's another Abba line? I'm feelin' like a number one! (Not like I have to take a tinkle)

Katie:
I never understood Super Trooper. Was she in love with a storm trooper? I'm going to say yes. She has a thing for Captain Phasma and not even death will stop their love.

Okay so we looked it up and it's apparently Super Trouper and it's a brand of spotlights. So...nevermind.

The chocolate was good. I'd say it's a share snack so find a buddy and split it over some hot cocoa on a really cold, snowy day as a reward for shoveling the driveway like good little doobers.

It's like a giant Pocky

Product: Big Crunch Pepero by Lotte
Origin: South Korea

First looks

Katie:
Picture a stick of Pocky. Now picture it hit with a giganto ray and you have the Pepero. I'm really, really looking forward to this. It smells delicious...like kind of vanilla-ish? Or like very subtle birthday cake?  As of this writing--and you shouldn't have your immersion broken by this revelation since we've said it before--my mouth is still on fire from the spicy potato sticks. Heal my mouth, giant chocolaty stick!

Nick:
This looks like a huge almond Pocky, and I love almond Pocky, so I have high hopes for this. The only thing I'm worried about is when you eat almond Pocky the little almond chunks embedded in the chocolate can hurt the roof of your mouth, and whatever's embedded in the chocolate here is huge, so I guess I'll have to eat this kind of carefully. You know, I guess you could also use these as a drumstick, if you don't mind them breaking immediately. Or maybe huge chopsticks? I guess the chocolate would melt and make a mess, though. Hmm.

Post-bite thoughts

Katie:
You could have extremely temporary fondue sticks? I mean you'd have to use them chopstick style but it might still be good.
Okay so...the giant stick. The knobby bits are cookies, I think. On the box, there are these oreo-looking cookies so I think they're smooshed up into the chocolate in a delicious manner. These are yummy! (fun fact--I typed rummy twice in trying to type yummy. Why's the rum gone??) I really hope these are imported here at one of the local Asian markets. This is right up there with Pocky and Melty Kiss for me.

Nick:
Pretty good! I do think it could stand to be a little sweeter, but that's my only quibble; the big central core the chocolate and cookie chunks are wrapped around is pretty thick, and it's not very sweet - I found myself eating just a little too much of this for me as it should only be there to deliver chocolate. A solid OKAY from me.

Potato sticks but like...from somewhere else

Product: Chillz potato sticks
Origin: Pakistan

First looks

Nick:
Well, I like potato sticks, so I'm hoping these will be good. I'm a little curious if these are going to be spicy or what; the ingredients suggest they are, but if there's any spice in the smell, it's quite subtle. The only way these could be bad is if they're too spicy, and I don't think that's too likely; I put my nose right on them and took a sniff and it just smells like mild curry, so I think these will be fine.

Katie:
I'm very hopeful for these potato sticks. The container is the perfect size for a snack so if I like these, maybe I'll get more for work. The smell is, like Nick said, a little bit of spice but nothing else. I'm looking for these to be potato sticks with a little spice to them and not an all-hands fire alarm in my mouth.

Post-bite thoughts

Nick:
Oh, god. They're too spicy. This is like eating a tomato that's on fire. Way too much for me by themselves. This might be nice if you had Smartfood or a nice smoky cheese to cut the spice with, but just eating them right out of the bag, I'm done after three little pinches. Ow.

Katie:
Now this is weird, normally Nick can handle more spice than me. I have a half dozen pinches before my mouth went aflame. If you are used to spice, these would be right up your alley.  If your tolerance is somewhere between baby and "maybe just one jalapeno", you might want to eat these slowly with some cheese or your spice-reduction food of choice.

Maybe some day, we'll have the spicy tolerance to handle these but it's not today. Still good though!

BOGO

Katie's Review
Product: Alpinella Czekolada Kokosawa
Origin: Poland

First looks

Since Nick doesn't like coconut and I don't like nuts, we're each reviewing something separate this time.

I'm reviewing some coconut chocolate from Poland. The chocolate is segmented into squares, a familiar sight for Americans as Hershey's is similarly segmented into rectangles. A sniff reveals an entirely chocolate smell with none of coconut's usual tones present. There is no "goop" inside so no worries about taking a bite and suddenly needing a napkin when goo oozes out. I need to prepare for goo. No surprise goo for me.

I think Poland has been pretty solid so far so this should be good.

Post-bite thoughts

I'd say this is a decent chocolate. The coconut is not overly sweet, but then again I'm used to having it on cake. There are pieces of coconut mixed into the chocolate so there will be some texture to your bite. If that's not your thing, you'll want to skip this. However, if you like chocolate and you like coconut, this just might be the Polish chocolate for you!  I would warn you to have a little plate or something to keep it on while you're eating...it's very melty! I actually had little chocolate flecks on my arm (somehow).

Nick's Review
Product: Sante Garlic Almonds
Origin: California

First looks

Well, putting garlic powder and salt on almonds seems pretty idiot-proof, but all the other almond product we've had on here has been weird or bad; these aren't Vegan, or still with the inedible shell on, so a pretty basic level of competency should suffice to make this the best almond product I've ever tasted. On the other hand, they smell kinda musty, and the last ingredient is tapioca syrup, which has been in some real, real bad stuff. Oh, and good news, everyone - these almonds with salt on them are gluten and peanut free! Finally!

(Katie breaking in here: these are the loudest nuts ever. Don't eat them during movies or all the dialog will be "Ah-ha so the killer was *giant intrusive nut crunching noises*)

Post-bite thoughts

The garlic is strong with these! I wasn't prepared for how garlic these are; I'm used to, like, almonds that have been dipped in soy sauce where there's a very thin outer layer of flavor and then tasteless almond underneath; these have a thick coating which stays in your mouth the whole time you're eating the almond (which is good), and taste extremely powerfully of garlic (also good, I think?). I actually think the only way I'd eat these is keeping a bag for if I get a garlic flavoring; the garlic taste is very powerful, and I can't see myself just plopping down on the couch and destroying my mouth with these that often. If you do get a craving, though, this is the easiest way to ingest garlic - no need to cook up a real clove (and don't get me started on peeling!!!!!!), but man oh man, a little dab will do you with these.

Mango juice?

Product: Mango Nectar
Origin: Israel

First looks

Nick:
Well, I thought this was going to be soda, but there's no carbonation; is this just, like, mango juice in a can? I'm not complaining - it smells like really nice mango juice - I guess I wasn't expecting just straight up, uh, "Mango Nectar" in here. Maybe that's not a bad thing; carbonated mango juice sounds a little weird now that I'm thinking about it.

Katie:
Aside from some slight differences in the pop-top shape, this looks just like a can of soda. The mango smell is really pleasant, making me look forward to trying some. The ingredients are translated into three language so if you ever need a can-shaped Rosetta stone for the 21st century, this might be it.

that sounded cooler in my head.

Post-sip thoughts

Nick:
WOW, that is strong tasting. This is indeed mango juice, and it's very powerful. Might be a little too mango for me, and I like mango quite a bit. I think I would get this again - pretty sure I'd eventually get used to the mega-mango taste - but having just half a can, it's bit much for me. Katie, you got the can over there, how mango is this in the ingredients? Is the ingredient list just "MANGO!!!!"? Ah, it's "Water" (exotic!), then "Mango puree 25%" from concentrate. I'd hate to see what this is like at 100%. What does the scouter say about its mango level?!

Katie:
It's over 9000! (atoms of mango). This was delicious! I thought the mango level was fine, but YMMV. I highly recommend this.  The juice consistency was spot on--not too thin but not too thick either. If you like mango at all, you'll really like this. Definitely try it if you see some!

Passive-Aggressive Packaging

Product: Bon chance bread crisps
Origin: Lithuania

First looks

Nick:
I hope there's a bon chance these are good! If you're wondering about the title, this is our first ever pagaminta lletuvjoe product, which I think it means product of Lithuania, and it has one of those stickers on the back that has to be slapped on when it's imported into America, and it says "Best before:       look at the package". Like, fuck you, that's how you want to start our relationship, passive-aggressively telling me to just look at the package, man? The front also suggest you eat these with salad, soup, and drinks, but honestly if I'm eating all that I can probably take or leave sour cream and onion bread, uh, crisps.

Katie:
I scared my cat just now with my high-pitched laughing (on an unrelated matter, not that Nick isn't funny! He's funny a lot...even sometimes on purpose ha ha!). Anyway, Greggy was scared by my laughing and tried to leave but then I stopped laughing and he stayed here. Cool story, right bro?
Okay so bread crisps. Crisps are English potato chips? Or are they french fries? One of the two. Basically, even though they invented the language, the English use all the wrong words for things and use way too many Us. You do win at having accents. Every accent on that whole island is awesome and cool. Everything sounds much smarter when a British says it.
Wow, that's a powerful onion smell. I think I'm going to like these.

Post-bite thoughts

Nick:
I think Katie forgot about Cockney accents; not everyone sounds like the classy people on Dowtown Abbey. Also, the British lost the Revolutionary war because Americans would march into battle holding giant U's that the British wasted on words that don't need a U like "Armor", and when the British shot their guns the Americans would catch them in one end of the U and it would do a U-turn and come out the other side and hit the British soldier, so they lost the war even though they possessed bullet-proof toffee technology that they could have made into invincible if very sticky body armor. You wankers.
As for this snack, it's pretty good! I'm not sure it really gains much from being a bread chip, which mostly just makes it very, very slightly more chewy; it's still nice and tasty like a potato chip. The flavoring is quite good, too - I'm not sure I really get much sour cream, but there's a very nice ranchy oniony flavor. Nice job, Lithuania! Send us another nice snack, maybe the review for that one won't end up being about British accents and toffee body armor and scared cats. I mean, no promises.

Katie:
Oh yeah, those guys. They might not sound like they drink books for breakfast and eat Critique of Pure Reason for tea, but they do sound like they have a tough, well-earned street wisdom.
I'm glad you brought up the U defense. I think its origins lay in the U bows used by the English in the Battle of Agincourt.  Of course, when they founded the colonies, many the Us from that time were shipped over to be used as doorways but it wasn't until the mid-18th century that the colonists rediscovered their more martial purpose. If England hadn't been so wasteful with her remaining U supply by stuffing them into words, the history of the United States would be a lot different!

This cola killed the cat

Product: Fentiman's Curiosity Cola

Origin: Canada

First looks

Katie:
Oh geez. Why are we trying more stuff from these people?
I have to say, I do like the old timey label on the bottle. I can picture this on a shelf right alongside various hair, youth, and vitality tonics from the Flim Flam brothers (the most reputable ponies in all of Equestria).

What's not to trust?

I try to be optimistic as possible but I'm not feeling very positive tonight. What do you think, Nick?

Nick:
Oh gosh. I don't have a good feeling about this. The first ingredient is carbonated water, which, OK, fair start; the second ingredient is fermented ginger root extract and that's where I'm like no, stop, no, no, stop. I like a nice ginger ale, but ginger cola sounds kind of disgusting. I mean, maybe it'll be good. Katie, you drink this first. I'm scared.

Post-sip thoughts

Katie:
The bottle makes this charming cartoony "glug glug" noise when you drink from it for the first sip or two. This is...odd. It's not as horrendous as the other stuff but I'm not sure I like it either. It's...okay. I think if I had an upset stomach this might be good in a pinch though I prefer Gosling's Ginger Beer if I'm going to have a real ginger soda. Try it if you want a completely strange taste in your mouth that's hard to describe. Maybe it would go good with some kind of alcohol drink? Get a mixologist in here.

Nick:
More weird than bad; you guys can print that on the label ("Fentiman's: More Weird than Bad!"). It does indeed have a strong ginger taste, and I think I'm missing the sweetness from Seagram's ginger ale or the Gosling's ginger beer that Katie likes; the kola isn't really sweet enough for me, and it's just too bitter to really enjoy. Unlike the disgusting Fentiman's lemonade, this isn't terrible, it's just not for me; if you love ginger and want ginger-flavored cola, this might be for you, you weird person, you.