The best part of Gummy Choco is the packaging: a hard paper tube that doubles as a miniature weapon/rattle. I also love the baby bird images ping-ponging through the candy; it adds a certain zing.

Inside are white chocolate-covered gummies, as large as dimes. The box indicates three distinct flavors–muscat, orange, and strawberry–but they all had a vague citrus flavor to me. The chocolate shell is quite soft, and the taste very sweet and child-friendly. Which is to say it’s pleasant, but not remarkable.

For an old lady like me who has to count calories, though, if it’s not curl-your-toes delicious, forget it. While these were tasty, every time I’d pop some in my mouth, I’d think “Why am I eating this? I could be having a Kit Kat. Or salmon spread. Or bacon.” That said, I’ve never been crazy about citrus/chocolate pairings or white chocolate. If you do like those things, then Gummy Choco might be for you (for a different take, see the Candy Blog). Pick it up at your local Japanese market or online at VeryAsia*.

*Mine came from Borders, which no longer sells themexists. I have not shopped at VeryAsia personally.

Above: Marukin 5-Pack Honey Puffs.

You may be seduced, as I was, by these bunnies’ imploring eyes and coquettish posturing. The name “honey puffs” may conjure fond memories of certain breakfast cereals. And at least from a distance, these don’t look too bad, do they?

But be not fooled. Apply pressure with your molars, and those little balls turn into sugary dust. Which means, if you inhale as you chew, you’ll end up with sugar dust on your uvula & soft palate. Then it’s gag city.

Even if you don’t get dry-heave-inducing granules on your soft palate, though, honey puffs are bland–a little bit sweet and nothing else. Skip them, and save up for rice crackers, Yan-Yan or Hi-Chew.

For $2.69, I added a box of Glico’s Harumachi Ichigo (Strawberry Chocolate) to my latest Asian Food Grocer order. What I got was a tasty blend of white chocolate, crispy wheat bits, and dried strawberries.

There’s not much online about Harumachi Ichigo, so I don’t have a lot to offer aside from my own opinion & photos.  J-List says each treat is 25% real strawberry, and the box does list “dried strawberry” high on the ingredient list, though. The strawberry flavor is pleasant, too, and not overly artificial.

Isn’t it pretty? Each box has about 15 candies, each individually wrapped.

And, here are the candies themselves. They consist of dense white chocolate flecked with dried strawberry on top, followed a layer of crispy wheat cereal (think Rice Krispies), and then a pink layer of (I believe) tinted white chocolate, possibly with some artificial strawberry flavor.

Here’s a tighter close-up of the different textures. For me, that layer of crisp cereal makes Harumachi Ichigo work. While the white chocolate is firm & not overly sweet, and the strawberry flavor convincing, the cereal changes the candy’s mouthfeel, adding welcome heft & crunch, as well as a respite from the top layer’s creamy sweetness. Highly recommended.

Several months ago, Borders sold some Asian snacks as part of a limited promotion. They had two kinds of Pocky: chocolate, which was delicious and sold out quickly, and strawberry cream, which no one wanted. They also had two different brands of milk chocolate-filled biscuits, Hello Panda & Lotte Kancho:

Hello Panda is a Japanese brand produced by Meiji Seika. I bought the kind with choco cream filling; they also make other varieties like peanut butter or vanilla cream. The cookies are the size of quarters & come in round and panda-head shapes. I found them overly sweet, with too much vanilla in the chocolate, but then I’m a dark chocolate eater. If you want to try some for yourself, many online vendors sell boxes, including Amazon.

Lotte Kancho, on the other hand, is Korean & produced by the Lotte Group. I preferred this brand, because the cookie wasn’t sweet & the filling lacked the vanilla aftertaste. Amusingly, “Kancho” is the Japanese word for “enema” and also slang for a Japanese practical joke where the prankster places his index fingers together and then tries to forcefully insert them into the victim’s anus. Not the best name for a chocolate biscuit, methinks.