Bear's Guarana Soda - The Most Dangerous Drink from Hokkaido, Japan!!

Raaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwrrrrrrr!!!!!!

This is one of those wacky Japanese products that seems to come out of nowhere and makes very little sense, yet is essentially awesome! We found it on the shelves of the supermarket section of a giant Japanese department store in Hong Kong called Sogo and were immediately attracted by the terrifying image of the bear on the cover. 

This wonderful creature is the famous Ezo Brown Bear of Hokkaido an iconic image for the people from this part of Japan. Presumably the promise is that if you drink this Guarana laced drink you will become as ferocious and active as the pictured bear. 

The drink comes in two variations, the brown bear version as shown above and a second clear version with a picture of a white bear on the front, clearly described as being "not polar bear, but Ezo Brown Bear of Winter". This is what it looks like: 

The back of the bottle is also filled with all kinds of interesting descriptions about bears and Hokkaido which essentially make no sense and on top of that the main ingredient for the drink according to the list on the back, seems to be a potato... 

With all this entertainment one almost forgets about the drink itself, but it is actually very decent. Sweet, but not too sweet it is most similar to a mild version of an old school root beer mixed with a touch of bubblegum flavour. The white version, which is sweeter than the brown is more like slight bubblegum flavour mixed with Sprite. 

Check out our video below for the full review: 

Check out all our reviews of bizarre Asian snacks, foods and drinks here: Crazy from Kong!
And you can check out my blog here: Spencer Douglass Blog

Kanikko Crab Snack - Eating Baby Crabs...

Well these were really a weird snack! This snack was bought for us by Emma Moosa and was essentially a bunch of tiny little deep fried crabs inside of some giant crab packaing. You can see what they looked like here: 

As you can see from the picture above, the crabs were presented in their entirety with their tiny legs, claws, shells and even eyes intact (presumably their tiny little brains too...). On top of that, these were not a variation of the ever popular "soft shell crabs" that are served in Japanese and some other Asian restaurants all year round, but rather appear to be regular hard shelled crabs just in small sized and fried to crispy. As a result they were still pretty tough and brittle, as Arne described "it was like eating teeth". The flavour was intensely fishy and they were pretty stinky to boot.

Overall this was very far from being a tasty snack and I think was a pretty gruesome experience for all involved. Check out our video review to see our full reactions and meet our special guest star Emma:  

Check out all our reviews of bizarre Asian snacks, foods and drinks here: Crazy from Kong!
And you can check out my blog here: Spencer Douglass Blog

Raspberry Cheesecake Kit Kat - A Sweet Delicious Treat!

Delicious!!! That's how I'd describe this wonderful Kit Kat creation from those ever inventive folks at Kit Kat Japan.

This is the second raspberry flavoured Kit Kat I've tried from Nestle Japan, the first one being the special Valentine's Kit Kat from 2010 which was a dark chocolate Kit Kat flavoured with both raspberry and passionfruit. However, where the flavour contrast they were going for that time of crisp fresh fruit contrasting with rich bitter dark chocolate was certainly respectable in concept, but in actuality a bit disappointing this one was absolutely excellent. Call me simplistic, but the combination of rich creamy and sweet milk chocolate with fresh and crisp raspberry was excellent and although I could not pick out any "cheese" flavour as such (they state that they use 1.7% real cheese in this product) it did have a certain creaminess to it.

As well as the fantastic flavour you can see from the photos above and below that the packaging is absolutely gorgeous. There's a little insignia on the front showing a crown and stating "Sweets Concept" - this refers to Nestlé's campaign to re-produce the flavours of more sophisticated sweets / cakes / desserts etc. in this case a raspberry cake filled with cream cheese as also shown on the packaging.

If you break the wafers in half and have a look inside, you will see that the raspberry flavoured cream is a rich pink colour and is sandwiched between layers of wafer biscuit. This sort of attention to detail that most people wouldn't even notice is just one more reason why I love Kit Kat Japan.

Well there won't be any surprises when you watch our review as to whether we loved the product or not, but it was still a lot of fun eating it and as this is one of Joes's earliest reviews I hope you'll still check it out: 

Check out all our reviews of bizarre Asian snacks, foods and drinks here: Crazy from Kong!
And you can check out my blog here: Spencer Douglass Blog

Lays Magic Masala Chips - A Spicy New Sensation From India!

Who knew that Lays, one of the most famous brand of crisps from the US, have a totally different line of crisps for the Indian market? Well I was traveling over there a while ago and I came across a whole selection of flavours of Lays created specially for the Indian market. Of the various ones available "Magic Masala" seemed like the most interesting so I picked it up and brought it back to Hong Kong to be the first ever Indian product to be reviewed on Crazy from Kong!

For those of you who don't know Masala means a mix of spices (eg: Garam Masala in India) and you can see the exact mix of spices used for these crisps displayed on the packet: Chilies, Turmeric, Cloves and Ginger. Once we broke open the packet and tasted them, we found out that the crisps were really delicious, full of flavour and with a really prominent spice profile. Many times I've bought crisps in the past with exotic descriptions, but when I tried them I found that they were relatively bland and certainly didn't represent the tastes they claimed, but that was definitely not the case here. These crisps definitely tasted like spicy Masala treats and I could see why they are apparently very popular in India. What a pity they don't seem to sell them anywhere else.

The chips themselves were ridge cut, meaning that they are crunchier than regular chips. I would suggest that a really good way to eat them would be with a cool yoghurt based sauce like the traditional raita (often made with yoghurt, cucumber and mint) below:

It seems that there are a whole bunch of other specialty Lay's crisps and that there are different sets of special chip series created for each different Asian country! We're definitely going to be reviewing some of the special flavours created for China and hopefully will have the chance to review some more of the delicious Indian ones too. 

Check out our video review below and if anyone has any idea what the tagline on the crisp packet "be a little dilogical" means then please let us know! 

Check out all our reviews of bizarre Asian snacks, foods and drinks here: Crazy from Kong!
And you can check out my blog here: Spencer Douglass Blog

Green Tea Kit Kat Review!

Green Tea Kit Kat??? Yep, it's real! As, you may already know from some of our past videos and posts Kit Kat Japan releases a minimum of one specialty Kit Kat a month (sometimes up to 4 or 5). These range from delicious and straightforward flavours like Strawberry or Orange, to more creative ones like Melon, Passionfruit or Rum Raisin, right through to some really wacky ones such as Buttered Baked Potato and MOS Burger Kit Kat.

Green Tea is a major thing in Asia and you get green tea everything here (Green Tea Sprite, Green Tea Oreos, Green Tea Haagen-Dazs, Green Tea Caramels) so of course one of the first and most popular choices was Green Tea Kit Kat. In fact this one is available more or less year round and now there are actually a whole range of different types of Green Tea Kit Kat that are available at any given time. The particular one we are reviewing which I believe is the original is called Uji Matcha Kit Kat, where Uji is a resort town famous for the quality of it's green tea and Matcha is the Japanese fine powder Green Tea.

When creating these chocolate bars Nestle Japan are almost always very faithful to what they have declared on the packaging, so you can see from the image below that the bars are a bright green colour from the Matcha being mixed with white chocolate and in-between the wafers there is a darker green Matcha cream filling.

So the question is, does this flavour combination work of chocolate, wafers, cream filling and green tea work? First, I should mention that I'm not an enormous fan of green tea flavoured things and quite often find that I don't enjoy lots of green tea products which other people insist are amazing. With that in mind, I actually still found this very good! As is quite common for Kit Kat Japan, they did an excellent job of combining the flavours together, maintaining a strong green tea profile but still making the overall product delicious. 

You can see our full reactions to Green Tea Kit Kat in our review below: 

Also, as it says in the blog title, this was a very momentous episode for Crazy from Kong as it was the first ever episode to feature the now much beloved Joe Fiorello. At the time he rather alarmed fans with his slightly mafioso outlook and bizarre out of context statements, resulting in him being referred to in fan comments as "The Creeper".

Later though fans became much more accepting of Joe's unpredictable, off the wall and slightly disjointed personality now commonly referring to him as "The Stoner Guy". I'm happy to say that The Stoner Guy has his own significant fanbase now and has added more than a touch of amusement and confusion to Crazy from Kong.

This episode was also the beginning of a long-running piece of feedback from fans with regards to Joe, which is that he eats Kit Kats incorrectly as you can see from the comments below:




To understand more about Joe and his unusual character and approach to life, I leave you with this memorable self-shot video of him performing a song he wrote:
Check out all our reviews of bizarre Asian snacks, foods and drinks here: Crazy from Kong!
And you can check out my blog here: Spencer Douglass Blog

Morinaga Strawberry Daifuku Hi-Chew Candy (森永ハイチュウ いちご大福) - A Very Japanese Crazy from Kong Review!

Ok, as you can probably guess from the title, this is a pretty complicated candy so I'm going to explain it out step by step.

Firstly if you haven't eaten Morinaga Hi-Chew Candies before, they are kind of like a cross between a traditional chewy candy and a piece of chewing gum, because they are so chewy you almost feel like you shouldn't swallow them.

This is a Hi-Chew Candy

The second element of this particular flavour is Strawberry Daifuku (イチゴ大福) a very popular confection in Japan. These are made by taking a strawberry smothering it with Adzuki bean paste (also known as "red bean paste) and then wrapping the whole thing with a mochi covering (a kind of chewy pastry like substance made from glutinous rice flour).

This is a Strawberry Daifuku

Daifuku actually means "great luck" and they come in a wide variety of flavours and colours and are often given as gifts in Japan for special occasions, when visiting someone's house or even as business gifts. The most traditional kind just contains Adzuki bean paste and nothing else.

This is the most traditional kind of Daifuku

Purple Sweet Potato Daifuku

So what is the result of all these complicated flavours coming together in a few small pieces of very chewy candy? It's decent, not outstanding, but decent. It's interesting trying to pick up all the different flavours, but in this particular case they are a bit too subtle to cause any serious excitement.

Now you may think that is the end of all the excitement around this review, but in fact you would be wrong because there is one very special thing about this episode of Crazy from Kong that I have not mentioned yet, which is that Arne forgot to turn on the microphone while we were recording it!!!

How did we deal with this rather huge disaster, I am sure you are wondering. Well, we came up with a really awesome and very unusual way to deal with this unexpected problem - to see what I mean you'll have to watch the video below: 

Check out all our reviews of bizarre Asian snacks, foods and drinks here: Crazy from Kong! 
And you can check out my blog here: Spencer Douglass Blog

Brain Juice - Drink This and Get Really Smart!!!

Lots of people dream of being just a little bit smarter, or having a better memory, or being able to ace their tests without studying and finally there dreams can come true! Just by purchasing an inexpensive drink they can become really smart!

Kirin Brain Juice is filled with DHA (the primary structural component of the brain) and lots of other exciting herbs with unpronounceable names that are guaranteed to make you at least an Einstein level genius after a few cans.

The attractively designed metal bottle shows a professor with a lightbulb for a brain, presumably indicating that he's just had a Eureka moment leading to the creation of this wonderful potion:

The rest of the bottle is covered in complicated mathematical equations, equipment from a chemistry lab (including a conical flask) and other difficult and complicated things that most sensible people know nothing about. 

So how was the experience? Well the drink itself was quite delicious and satisfying, with a sort of light root beer flavour, complimented by the herbally taste of the various intelligence creating essences that have been added. 

Did it work? Of course! I've been a genius ever since I drunk it! 

Don't believe me? Send me a difficult question and I'll answer it. 

To watch me getting instantly smarter as I drink it check out the video review below: 

Check out all our reviews of bizarre Asian snacks, foods and drinks here: Crazy from Kong! 
And you can check out my blog here: Spencer Douglass Blog