I had a friend bring back this box of strange candy from a recent trip to Japan. I can certainly understand why, it’s such an attractive box! When I read the name “Colo Galita” I was very confused. What the heck does the name mean? I am aware that a lot of English names in Japan don’t make sense (take MeltyKiss and Crunky for example), but this seems to just cross into the “bizarre” category for me. The candy’s name doesn’t give me any clues as to what it could be, so it just might as well be jibberish. Something tells me Colo Galita would be good friends with Bubu Lubu.
I opened the box and it was filled with the little candies - should I call them little “Colo Galitas”? The candies are hexagonal shaped with a cookie crust that is filled with chocolate. They look like cute little tarts! The image on the back of the box shows that inside the chocolate center sits a pocket of caramel. The packet itself smells of a nice bittersweet chocolate - robust, sweet, and chocolatey.
The taste is a disappointment - it’s just so bland! The cookie crust is very crunchy and doesn’t taste of anything. The chocolate is also flavorless and waxy. I wouldn’t have noticed the caramel at all if it wasn’t for the illustration on the box. You can’t really sense it at all and it’s so small that the texture of the caramel is overridden by the chocolate and crust. Biting the candy in half did prove there’s a caramel center in there, but again, it’s so small I’m surprised they bothered. Hardly seems worth all the work in manufacturing. It’s benign at best. Ah well, at least the box is cute.
Japanese, Lotte
Japaness always like to pick a weird name for foods. Even though my country is next to Japan, I have no ideas about this name.
June 20th, 2007 at 4:26 amMy first impression of the name is that it might be Splanish, not Engrish. If my somewhat-eroded Spanish serves me, “Coco Gallitas” would be a (slightly weirdly phrased) way of saying “little chocolate cookies.”
Maybe Japanese headline writers are diversifying…
June 20th, 2007 at 11:16 am“They look like cute little tarts!” I gotta tell ya, I was thinking more along the lines of dog food. Not that they taste bad (I wouldn’t know), but I’m not seeing the “cute little tarts” thing. Maybe it’s just me?
June 20th, 2007 at 12:37 pmI decided to do a little test. I opened just the image in the browser and asked my wife to come in with her eyes closed. I told her that when she opened her eyes to say the first word that came to mind. Sure enough, “dog food”!
June 20th, 2007 at 12:41 pmlooks similar
June 20th, 2007 at 9:55 pmTypical Japanese chocolate really. Very pretty packaging, but very disappointing products. I’ve noticed this with a lot of their stuff, see the Japanese Aeros and Morinaga’s Petit Cheesecake. Ugh…
June 21st, 2007 at 5:43 pmHey, those are like Pods from Australia! How I miss those things. Pods are just like these, except they come in different flavors of candy bars. Mars, Twix, Snickers, etc. Go for the Twix flavor is you’re ever there
Here’s a rough picture I found of them.
http://kismetkonnection.wordpress.com/2007/05/23/pods-are-edible-too/
June 28th, 2007 at 7:58 pmwow. yet another Japanese candy. Candyaddict.com is full of them. whoopie.
July 25th, 2007 at 8:23 pm