I’m wagering today’s entry on the assumption you’ve eaten Japanese candy.
Maybe you ate a Pocky Stick during a cultural day. Maybe you sampled a Hi-Chew at a Japanese festival. Or maybe you tried a green tea Kit Kat at some point.
Well, unless you’ve had a Kinoko no Yama, you haven’t truly lived.
A “kinoko,” as you know from playing Super Mario Bros, is a mushroom (“yama” means mountain). The candy contains no actual mushroom; rather, it’s a crisp cookie with solid milk chocolate as the toadstool. They have the perfect chocolate to cookie ratio.
I ate a lot of Kinoko no Yama during my year abroad in Kyoto. I’ve found them on occasion in the US or on Amazon (heck, I may have even written about them on this blog. I’m 9 years in, so I sometimes have unintentional repeats).
Though the reason I’m reminded of them today is that a friend surprised me with a box yesterday. Chocolate is one of the few surprises I enjoy, so this was an absolutely delightful surprise.
What’s your favorite Japanese candy?
I always have a little box of pocky sticks in my desk, they keep the creativity flowing, or that is what I like to think.
Looks like those kinoko no yamas are very similar to pocky but with a better chocolate/cookie ratio as you said. I have to find them!
Nice! I really like Pocky too, but I prefer the extra chocolate on kinoko no yama. 🙂
Aha! I was in an international grocer not long ago bartering for a goat when I spied a box of pocky sticks. I recalled that you ate those, and I actually wondered where they ranked on your list of Japanese candy. Now I know that Kinoko no Yama ranks at the top! I enjoy any of the chocolate varieties, and I also recall that I’m not a particularly huge fan of seaweed candy.
Also, this may not be Japanese, but Ricky Bobby’s prune candy commercial comes to mind when thinking of Asian candy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXry-cXybG0
Trev: I hope you got at least 1 box of Pocky for that goat!
LOL prune candy…the least exciting candy. 🙂
OH, MY GOD! Those prune candies! I always have one or two after drinking a small bowl of very bitter Chinese herbal medicine when I was sick. So glad there’s no more of that after moving here.
These were awesome, along with Pocky sticks when I was a kid.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/8a/35/eb/8a35eb8eac855ab53664178343fe8ce1.jpg
I have a weird way to eat Pocky sticks. Eat off the chocolate first as I bite off that cookie part to get to the next part of chocolate. Always a little sad when I get to the no chocolate part of the stick.
Kinoko no Yama is really good. Hard to beat. I do like this milk candy from Japan. https://www.japanesehomestore.com/v/vspfiles/photos/Hokkaido%20Milk%20Candy-2T.jpg